Volosts

Subject / Topography/Administrative - territorial division
VOLOSTS, adm. and territorial units of Russia. In Old Russia , the term V. had several meanings (land of a principality, semi-independent apanage, or rural area belonging to a town.) In the Muscovite State of the 14th – 16th centuries, V. were rural adm. units (part of a uyezd) governed by a volostel (pogost was a similar territorial unit in Novgorod lands.) In the 17th century, after the final serfdom of landowners’ peasants, V. were only retained by state peasants. When volost boards were instituted in the late 18th century, V. became adm. and territorial units again. In 1837 V. became self-government bodies of state peasants (a volost meeting and a volost board were instituted, subordinated to the Chamber of State Assets.) After the reform of 19 February 1861, V. became lower judicial and adm. units of peasant self-government formed from several rural communities within one uyezd (landowners’ lands were not included in V.) V. were to be inhabited by 300 to 2000 male “souls”, with the distance from the V. center to a settlement not exceeding 12 versts (in practice there were many deviations.) V. were governed by the volost board and the volost mayor (who was elected by the meeting and approved by the zemstvo president.) There was a volost court that dealt with civil and some criminal cases in the peasant community. After the February Revolution of 1917 V. became unit “for all estates”, and volost zemstvos were instituted (abolished in 1918 with the institution of rural soviets.) In the Soviet period, V. were headed by the volost assembly of Soviets and the volost executive committee. They were abolished by the adm. reform of 1927-30, and a territorial division system consisting of village soviets (selsovets), districts, okrugs, and oblasts was instituted. Later, selsovets were agglomerated, their area growing close to that of former volosts. In 1994, selsovets were renamed V. The Law “On the Administrative and Territorial Structure of Leningrad Oblast” of 26 March 1996 regards V. as municipal institution “including several settlements united by a common territory, for joint exercise of local self-government by resolution of residents of these settlements.” In 2005, first-level municipal institutions (rural settlements) were instituted within the V. borders. Chistyakov, Anton Yuryevich
Historical Toponyms/Novgorod Land
Игнатьев В. И. Советская волость и стоящие перед ней задачи, Л., 1924
Горский А.А. Русь в конце X - начале XII века: территориально-политическая структура («земли» и «волости») // Отечественная история. М., 1992. N 4, С.154-161
Административно-территориальное деление Ленинградской области / Сост. В.Г.Кожевников. СПб., 2002., С.154-161