question: what kind of self-government was needed. The political course of the central
government changed depending on the popularity of the above theories.
The conditions, under which the settlement of the south of Ukraine took place, the
distance of the region from the State, vast spaces, which made it difficult for the
government to hold the control of local population’s activity, at the first glance, were
favorable for development of a self-governmental system in favor of the civil theory,
in other words, as an alternative to state authority. In real life, it did not happen, because
in the course of moving to the south the State played an active part and the troops and
towns were recognized exactly in connection with the State’s interests.
The existence of structures with such self-government, which reflected
corporative interests of different groups of the population, could not be explained
through either civil or state theory of self-government, as in such case it would lack an
element of opposition to the State, from the other side, municipalities were not state
authorities in the ordinary sense of the word. Moreover, it could be afforded that the
existence of self-governmental bodies reflected interests of the State, as it made
possible to discharge the state’s budget onto town’s expenditures for the purpose of
their better self-provision. Thus, self-governmental structures, which existed in towns,
did not oppose, but strengthened the Statue’s position. Municipalities were to provide
the State’s interests, not independently, but under the control of the gubernator’s
administration.
Taking into consideration the abovementioned conditions no theoretical
construction can satisfy the researcher who studies municipal self-government in the
south of Ukraine. The proposed approach is called «regional-individual» theory of self-
government.
Thus, the aim of the present work is to apply the regional-individual theory to
studying the southern Ukraine in 1785–1917.
The essence of the regional-individual theory of self-government. The
abovementioned theory comes from the concept that the Russian empire is regarded
not as an integral construct, but as an «empire of regions» that had their proper historic
peculiarities and identities. The diversity of regions brought about peculiarities of
communication («modus vivendi») with neighbor regions and the state. The research
by L. Gorizontov [3] is dedicated, in particular, to the interaction of regions within the
tree different empires: Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman.
In his work the researcher specifies the Russian empire as continental and states
that it was an empire of regions which communicated with each other in a special way:
the western regions had an influence on the eastern and vice versa. If an empire
influenced another one, frontier zones were formed. The abovementioned concept of
an empire of regions acquired completeness according to which imperial identity
became dominant over regional.
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