Finansy imperii: Den´gi i vlast´ v politike Rossii na natsional´nykh okrainakh, 1801–1917 [The Empire's Finances: Money and Power in Russian Policy in the National Borderlands, 1801– 1917] (review)

Ekaterina Pravilova's work on the financial structures of the Russian empire has already given rise to detailed studies of Finland, Poland, and the Caucasus, along with more general discussions of the financial relationship between center and periphery in the empire.¹ She has now drawn these pieces together to present a coherent and comprehensive account of the relationship between Russian financial and political power. Pravilova begins her book with an analysis of the financial structures of other empires, seeking to place the Russian experience in a broader context. The British imperial experience witnessed a gradual disengagement of London from the financial affairs of Britain's colonies, while the French applied the same decentralization of budgetary matters to both colonies and their metropolitan départements. The Austro-Hungarian case was rather different: the 1867 settlement gave both parts of the empire a degree of financial autonomy, but it also reserved a series of economic matters to imperial jurisdiction. Pravilova identifies the Irish case as especially interesting: even though Ireland was fully incorporated into the United Kingdom in 1801 through the Act of Union, political unity did not bring immediate financial integration, and only the prospect of Irish bankruptcy brought about full unity in 1817. She suggests that the Russian experience shows many similarities with other empires but identifies one aspect unique to the Russian case: the "asymmetry" between the economic and political conditions of many parts of the Russian empire.

Pravilova argues that the first steps toward the establishment of a territorial financial system for the empire were taken early in the 18th century. Peter the Great's local government reform of 1708 divided Russia into provinces, and these were to be the basis of financial and tax administration, with provincial authorities responsible for tax collection and for transmitting revenue to the central government. Catherine II introduced a greater degree of centralization into the budgetary process by concentrating budget management in a single Senate department, and her reform of local government further aided the process by setting up proper systems of local financial administration. The establishment of ministerial government in 1802 centralized budgetary matters in the Ministry of Finance, but the expansion of the empire meant that peripheral regions began to acquire their own budgets, independent of the St. Petersburg ministries, from the middle of the 19th century. Problems of communication, the failure of local revenues to match expenditure, and the need to take account of local traditions of financial management all helped contribute to this trend.

The bulk of Pravilova's book is taken up with studies of the financial position of Poland, Finland, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Pravilova shows clearly how Polish financial autonomy was linked to the political fate of Poland. After the partitions of Poland in the 1790s, the empire's new domains were not properly integrated into its economic structure. As Pravilova notes, "the political question about the ownership of territory could be decided by the stroke of a pen, but centuries of economic life, trading links, and the course of industrial development could not be changed overnight" (42). The settlement of 1815 recognized this position and granted the Poles budgetary autonomy, their own currency and exchequer, and responsibility for their own national debt. The Polish Sejm was given the formal right to approve the budget, subject only to final confirmation from the emperor, but St. Petersburg continued to retain de facto control of the budgetary process through a clause that allowed the emperor to fix the "preliminary budget" without any participation by the Sejm. After the Polish rebellion of 1830, the relationship between the empire and its Polish domains changed significantly. Poland began gradually to lose its financial autonomy: in 1832...