19th-Century Tax Apportionment for Kalmyk Population Revisited: A Case Study of the Southern Part of Baga Dorbet Ulus, 1882

Introduction. The article analyzes tax apportionment for Kalmyk population in the 19th century through examining aimak-level (Kalm. ‘locality, settlement’) data. Goals. The study mainly aims at identification of categories of taxes adopted at the aimak level, determination of the tax apportionment mechanism, analysis of average amounts of taxes across different aimaks. Materials. The analyzed documents include  reports of 1882 on taxes from southern aimaks of Baga Dorbet (Russ. Maloderbetovsky) Ulus housed by the National Archive of the Kalmykia (Coll. И-15). Results. Apportionment, i.e. a financial method which assumes distribution of the total amount of a certain type of income for a set of taxable objects, was officially adopted by Kalmyks in the second half of the 19th century. The materials show the form in which it was used by the Kalmyks on the eve of the obligatory relationships’ cancellation, i.e. in the 1880s. Kalmyk commoners paid both official and non-official taxes — in terms of the Regulations introduced by the Imperial Court for the Kalmyk People’s Directorate. The non-official ones included ‘dark’ and household fees, as well as a ‘public needs’ fee, which, in our view, went to ulus-level budgets. The period under study witnessed the application of the apportionment principle (guideline) to the entire amount of taxes. Aimak meetings decided which families would not pay taxes to further divide the entire amount into two parts: the first one was apportioned for a certain number of heads of cattle, while the other was paid by each truly dutiable family at a rate set by the meeting. There was a rather tangible difference between aimaks in the average values of taxes per family. This indicator depended mainly on the share of tax-exempt families and the specific value of ‘unofficial’ taxes in the aimak.

1. Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire. Coll. Two. Vol. XXII. Part 1. St. Petersburg: Second Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery, 1848. 950 p. (In Russ.)

2. National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia.

3. Batyrov V. V. Structure of Kalmyk society, taxes and feudal duties. In: Maksimov K. N., Ochirova N. G. (eds.) History of Kalmykia: From Earliest Times to the Present Days. In 3 vol. Vol. 1. Elista: Gerel, 2009. Pp. 572–582. (In Russ.)

4. Batyrov V. V. Taxes and feudal duties of Kalmyk commoners, late 18th – 19th centuries. In: Bulletin of the Institute. Vol. 17. Elista: Kalmyk Humanities Research Institute (RAS), 2002. Pp. 143–149. (In Russ.)

5. Burchinova L. S. Feudal duties of Kalmyk peasants during the establishment of capitalism in Russia, 1860s – 1890s. In: Socioeconomic and Political Conditions Faced by the Peasantry in the Pre-October Era. Elista: Kalmyk Research Institute of History, Philology and Economics, 1989. Pp. 90–113. (In Russ.)

6. Burchinova L. S., Gilyashaeva M. N. Obligatory relations in Kalmyk nomad territories on the eve of Reform of 1892. Bulletin of the Kalmyk Institute for Humanities of the RAS. 2013. No. 1. Pp. 11–16. (In Russ.)

7. Deev S. Yu. The shaping of a tax system among Kalmyks, 19th century. In: Kalmyks in Multiethnic Russia. The Four-Centuries-Long Experience. Elista: Kalmyk State University, 2008. Pp. 274–290. (In Russ.)

8. Istomina N. A. Apportionment as a means of financial planning in governorates of the Russian Empire. Finance & Credit. 2012. No. 34. Pp. 74–79. (In Russ.)

9. Komandzhaev A. N. Kalmykia, Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries: Economy and Social Relations in a Historical Perspective. Elista: Dzhangar, 1999. 262 p. (In Russ.)

10. Komandzhaev A. N., Goryaev M. S. Reformation of the tax system of the Kalmyk Steppe in the late 19th century. Theory and Practice of Social Development. 2013. No. 7. Pp. 127–131. (In Russ.)

11. Lidzhieva I. V. (comp.) Kalmyk Steppe, 19th – Early 20th Centuries: History of Local Self-Government. Collected Documents and Materials. Elista: Kalmyk Scientific Center (RAS), 2017. 240 p. (In Russ.)

12. Lidzhieva I. V. Financial and economic activity of the institutions of local government in the Kalmyk Steppe in XIX century. Bulletin of the Kalmyk Institute for Humanities of the RAS. 2015. No. 1. Pp. 16–21. (In Russ.)

13. Lidzhieva I. V. Kalmyk Local Self-Government, 19th – Early 20th Centuries: A Historical Ethnographic Aspect. Elista: Kalmyk Scientific Center (RAS), 2016. 336 p. (In Russ.)

14. Matsakova N. P., Amaeva D. V., Okonova L. V. The role of bureaucracy in socio-economic development and management of Kalmykia in 19th century. The Caspian Region: Politics, Economics, Culture. 2018. No. 4. Pp. 69–75. (In Russ.)

15. Okonova L. V. Duties of the Kalmyk people as a source to study the socio-demographic situation in the Kalmyk Steppes of Astrakhan Province. Scientific Journal of Kuban State Agrarian University. 2016. No. 123. Pp. 1629–1638. (In Russ.)