Land Use of Rural Clergy in Rural Parishes of Siberian Dioceses in the second half of the XIX – early XX centuries

The article studies the problem of providing rural clergy with land plots in the Yenisei, Omsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk dioceses in the second half of the XIX -early XX centuries.The main sources of land allocation to rural volosts in the XIX century are revealed.Rural clergy could receive land plots from the Siberian administration, Cossack section, by the verdicts of village societies, and church lands could be allocated in preparation of resettlement plots.The land plots transferred to the churches became the property of the church.However, by the beginning of the 20th century, a large part of parishes did not receive land plots.Such landless parishes could sometimes receive land by voluntary decision of the parishioners, but in this situation the land was give to the parishioners only for use, sometimes for a certain period of time, and could not firmly provide income for the village clergy.The land reform in Siberia at the turn of the 19-20th centuries had a signification impact on the land use in rural clergy.In the course of this reform landless churches received land plots, and churches with small land plots received additional land additions.As a result, by the beginning of World War I, 90 % of rural parishes in the Yenisei, Omsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk dioceses had land plots.Even through the land reform in Siberia was not completed before the February Revolution of 1917, by 1913-1915 the proportion of landless parishes was only slightly above 4 %.At the same time, almost 2/3 of the parishes were provided with land according to the maximum norm of 99 dessiatinas or even more.