“Zealous Servants” of the State: About Officials and Their Awards in the XIX – early XX centuries (based on the Materials of the Yenisei Province)

This article tested the historical facts about awarded officials in Siberia in the XIX -early XX centuries.Formulary lists from the funds of the State Archive of the Krasnoyarsk Territory made it possible to create an electronic archive in the Microsoft Excel program about 373 civil servants who worked in provincial and county government bodies in the Yenisei province from 1887 to 1917.There were officials from grades XV to XIV according to the Table of Ranks (287 people) and clerical servants who did not have ranks (86 people).Mathematical and statistical methods made it possible to establish the exact number of civil servants awarded the insignia of the Russian Empire.The Orders of St. Stanislaus III degree had 103 people, II degree -40 people, St. Anna III degree -71 people, St. Anna II degree -12 people, St. Vladimir IV degree -15 people, St. Vladimir III degree -4 people, foreign orders -2 people, military medals -45 people, jubilee and for achievements with medals -151 people, jubilee and achievement medals -151 people, other crosses and badges -4 people, badges of immaculate service -2 people.The techniques of the prosopographic approach allowed us to recreate the image of officials who have been awarded various government awards.We examined the biographies of average and special employees who differed from the general array of bureaucracy.We concluded that in the Yenisei province, a number of factors influenced the receipt of insignia: social origin, level of education, territory, place, conditions for the beginning and stages of public service.Thus, the most complete sets of orders in the "correct" gradualism (according to the statutes of the orders) were 40-50-year-old officials transferred to Siberia from the central and western provinces of the Russian Empire, of noble origin, who served for more than 20 years in the field of civil service, as well as those who participated in battles and battles or had experience helping troops during military operations in which the Russian Empire participated in those years.