Historiography of the imperial period. The beginning of theoretical work on
the role and importance of supervision and control in the field of labour usage is
associated with the adoption of the first factory acts in the Russian Empire, which
included the vast majority of Ukrainian lands. Among the first papers in which the
labour issue was studied, one should highlight the paper of Ukrainian scientist-
economist M. Tugan-Baranovsky "The Russian Factory in Past and Present. Historical
and Economic Research" [2], in which the factory law of the post-reform Russian
Empire was analyzed. One of the characteristic features of most scientific papers in the
pre-revolutionary period is that they were of a historical and legal nature. At that time,
the noted Ukrainian historian and lawyer M. Slabchenko drew attention to this, noting:
"history was mixed with the law to such level that it was sometimes difficult to decide
where the first ends and the second begins. In the writings of historians, there were
places whereby the author could be considered a pure lawyer, and the papers of lawyers
was sometimes forced to suspect that their authors were pure historians" [3, p. 23].
Scientific investigations about the organizational and legal bases of the factory
inspection ‒ established in the Russian Empire supervisory body over observance of
factory legislation ‒ were directly handled by factory inspectors, among them
I. Yanzhul, O. Bykov, O. Mikulin, V. Lytvynov-Falinskyi, S. Hvozdiev, I. Ozerov and
others. Particular attention deserves the paper of an engineer-mechanic, a real state
adviser O. Mikulin "Factory Inspection in Russia" [4]. Occupying at different times at
first position of the senior factory inspector of the Odessa province, and in the future −
district inspector of the Kyiv factory district, O. Mikulin, taking into account his own
experience of service, analyzed the stages of development of factory legislation and
defined the peculiarities of the establishment of the factory inspection institution in
comparison with the relevant experience of the West- European countries.
V. Lytvynov-Falinskyi, being not only a factory inspector but also a high-ranking
government official who was directly involved in the development of labour
legislation, in his book "Factory Law and Factory Inspection" focused on the
organization of factory supervision, defined the functions of the factory inspection,
differentiated powers police and inspection, seeing the latter not only a supervisory
authority, but also a public mediator in resolving issues between workers and
entrepreneurs [5].
Using the comparative and legal method of research, O. Bykov prepared an
interesting lecture course on the development of factory legislation in the Russian
Empire and Western European countries, in which he emphasized the social purpose
of factory legislation as legislation on labour protection [6, p. 3]. By the way, the
Ministry of Labour of the Government of the Ukrainian People's Republic in the exile,
bing in 1921 in the Polish town Tarniv, and "... wanting to find out the field of labour
legislation in Ukraine and extend its activities in this direction" [7], appealed to the
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