Kauno gubernijos miestų savivalda 1876-1915 metais ; Municipal self-government in Kaunas governorate in 1876–1915

Abstract

The main problem of this study is the opportunities of municipality (in other words self-government) expression in the authoritarian state. The objective is to ascertain whether and how the communities of Kaunas governorate towns used the imperial municipal institute to express, implement and defend their interests. The dissertation analyzes existing historiography and the legal status of towns' municipality, the personal, social and national (as much as possible) composition of the voters and the municipality members. The dissertation investigates the municipal initiatives in the fields of education, culture and communal services and seeks to figure out whether initiatives undertaken by towns' communities were implemented with the help of self-government. The author examines the financial resources of the municipality, the development of these resources and possibilities to use them for realization of the town communities' initiatives. The nature of conflicts between municipalities and the government is analyzed there and it is investigated whether the manifestations of citizenship and nationality were noticed in self-government. It is concluded that the municipality had the legal autonomy which the imperial authorities had to respect and this fact made it possible to defend the interests of the self-government and towns' communities. A very small part of the town population was able to participate in the municipality, but it is worth to emphasize that in the context of that period these people were educated, civic and authoritative community members. In the beginning of the 20th century Poles and Lithuanians dominated among the people engaged in municipality. The part of municipal budgets grew and some of them used additional funds to implement the communities' initiatives. There emerged the realized initiatives of self-government in the areas of education, culture, and communal economy and some of them were initiated by the towns' communities. There were few civil society manifestations in the municipality, most of which were the protection of the rights of non-dominant ethnic groups. There was also noticed the solidarity of the Polish national group representatives and the expression of their nationality. This is the specifics of Kaunas governorate (and likely the north-western region) municipality in the context of the Russian Empire.