Issue ? 53. November 2015

Revolutionary Events of February, 1917 in Oryol and the Governors' Tactic

Ph.D., Associate Professor, Oryol branch, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Oryol, Russian Federation.
E-mail: STL1612@yandex.ru

The article examines the personality of the count P.V. Gendrikov and his activities as a governor of the Oryol province during the February revolution in Russia. On this example the author explores the role of a governor in the provincial history, the interactions between the center and the periphery of the country, including the problem of loyalty of the province to the tsar’s government and the question of the governors’ tactic during the revolutionary period.

The author characterizes the governor’s power, which was extended in the years of the World War I, traces the history of the governors rotation in the Oryol and Kursk provinces during the war, and highlights the main steps in the carrier of P.V. Gendrikov which led him to the governor’s post on the eve of the revolution.

Reconstruction of the February revolution events in the Oryol province was based on Gendrikov’s memories, which were compared with the data from other sources.

The author comes to the conclusion that province and its authorities played a passive role in the revolutionary events of February, 1917. There are no examples of the governor taking any actions to protect the existing regime without the sanction of the supreme power. This situation demonstrates the drawbacks of the strong centralization of government in the Russian Empire.

Keywords

Russian province, Oryol region, elite, governor, February revolution, personality in the history.