The Mobilisation of Land by The Peasants' Land Bank in 1906–1911: The Spatial Dimension

The present study aims to analyze how the Stolypin agrarian reform influenced the spatial and quantitative aspects of the Peasants' Land Bank’s property mobilization process in 1906-1911. The Peasants' Land Bank was governmentally established in the Russian Empire in 1882 with the main goal of facilitating the land purchasing procedure for all the categories of the Russian peasantry. The first two periods of the Bank’s functioning (1883-1895, 1896-1905) are marked by the prevalence of the Bank’s activity as an intermediary link (exclusively on granting of loans) in the procedure of land purchasing by the Russian peasantry. The third period, which is basically considered in this study, indicated the transformation of the Bank’s role to a significant independent figure in the process of land mobilization and to a powerful land management institution as a result of the governmental agrarian initiatives in the framework of the Stoplypin reform. While analyzing large amounts of quantitative information presented in the Bank's reports, the author of the research aims to assess how the Bank gathered its land fund and then assisted in the dissimilation of the sole proprietorship among the Russian peasantry in various guberniyas and regions of the Empire. It should lead to a deeper understanding of the Bank's activity in 1906-1911 and of the Stolypin reform itself.