peasant self-government

The article under scrutiny herein undertakes a thorough analysis of the election documents of 1704 for the Pezhemskaya volost, which have been preserved in the Archives of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These materials serve to supplement extant information regarding Pezhma for a previously documented period, and have been incorporated into the scholarly discourse for some time. The analysis demonstrates that the peasants of the Pezhemskaya volost were compelled to hold elections in 1704 to fulfil certain obligations to the state on at least 17 occasions. Nevertheless, the notion of a total elective principle that became entrenched in the lives of northern peasants during the 17th century is not without its limitations. In the event of a clear and demonstrable connection between the world and state power through the elected, the internal life of the volost, which did not concern the collection of taxes or other duties to the authorities and was outside the electoral traditions, remained largely in the shadows.