PHJ № 2 (50) 2026 — A. V. Ashikhmin. THE ADMINISTRATIVE-TERRITORIAL STRUCTURE OF PRE-REFORM RUSSIA: THE EVOLUTION OF HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONCEPTS
Administrative and territorial changes have been a subject of considerable interest in historical literature for over 150 years. Indeed, they constituted an integral part of state reforms during the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries. Concurrenting with the evolution of historical conceptions concerning these transformations (notably the reforms initiated by Peter the Great and Catherine the Great), methodological frameworks employed for the study of the territorial configuration of the empire have undergone significant refinement. During the historical transformation of these issues, several significant models can be identified. They include the transition from historical and statistical methods in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to positivist studies in the Imperial period, followed by a period of neglect of the topic in Soviet historiography. This was followed by a revival of interest and the return to historical and geographical studies. The recent post-Soviet interest in this area has resulted in the emergence of both new positivist works of high quality and works that challenge recent historiographic approaches, such as “new imperial history”, modernization theory and regionalism. The historical understanding of the role of administrative-territorial divisions in state reform in the Russian Empire represents a promising area for research, supported not only by recent publications but also by the presence of specialised institutions both in the capital and in major cities across the country.