Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2016 number

The article is devoted to studying the interaction between civil and military authorities while they were addressing problems concerning provision of the Russian troops’ material needs in the 18th-century Siberia. This was clearly a key aspect of securing the Russian empire’s borders east of the Urals. Its study can help to estimate precisely the efficiency of local authorities’ operations and their specific relations with the Siberian corps’ command. The author focuses on one of the episodes in the history of the Siberian governor D.I. Chicherin’s activities in that field. The article is based on archival sources: two books from the Senate fond in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and one file from the fond of the General Auditor expedition of the Collegium of War in the Russian State Military History Archive (Moscow). Several conclusions have been drawn from the study of archival materials. First, objective difficulties, due to the remoteness of the region and home stations of the military units, certainly, hampered purchase and delivery of food supplies. However, Chicherin’s excessive efforts led to enormous expenditures of the state treasury’s funds and unnecessary accumulation of provision for many years into the future. Second, overlapping functions and indistinct differentiation of powers between the military command and civil authorities had obviously facilitated many abuses. The losses resulting from such abuses often were irretrievable for the state treasury. On the other hand, the Russian empire’s supreme power paid much attention to the questions of state defense and maintenance of army’s fighting efficiency throughout the XVIII century. Therefore, the civil and military powers managed to ensure adequate performance of the army supply system even under such conditions, in this far outlying region of the Russian empire, at the cost of great financial expenses.