A conservative public sphere: Imperial Russian fire departments, 1850--1914

This dissertation examines the development of civil society in urban provincial Russia in a time of reform, change and crisis. Through an analysis of a fundamental urban service, the municipally-controlled and volunteer fire departments, it provides a basis for understanding the particular development of civic consciousness in an authoritarian state. Combining material from a number of provincial archives with published sources, the dissertation demonstrates the extent to which public interest could simultaneously oppose and support the interests of the state; urban residents had a distinct relationship with different layers of state authority, opposing one layer while cooperating with another. Although the analysis covers provincial fire departments in general, it places particular focus on the city of Kazan', where control of the fire department became one of the most contentious issues in the city's history. A detailed analysis of local debates between the different layers of local authority provides a rare glimpse into the attitudes of the people who ran provincial Russia. By emphasizing the interaction between elected municipal officials and appointed state bureaucrats, the dissertation offers an alternative to the many studies in which the development of a civic consciousness implies opposition to the state.; My study demonstrates that even volunteer fire departments, the volunteer organization par excellence, could be used to promote the development of a conservative public sphere. To demonstrate this, the dissertation investigates the variety of motives urban residents had for joining volunteer fire departments. The volunteer fire departments allowed their members an opportunity to participate in a highly militaristic and nationalistic organization that promoted rather than opposed statist values. The dissertation focuses on how these nationalist associations influenced the development of a public sphere during the social and political crises that characterized the last decades of the autocratic regime.