Saratov Provincial Statistical Committee

The article is devoted to the historical and local history activities of the Saratov Provincial Statistical Committee in the 1870s and 1880s. The main directions of this work, its achievements and failures are analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that the committee’s achievements, personnel and collections formed the basis for further systematic study of the region.

The issue of the Saratov Volga region settlement by the peasantry was covered in the first works on local history. The beginning of its special study was associated with the need to clarify the reasons for the tense social situation that had developed in the region by the middle of the 19th century. A. N. Minh’s monograph was the first attempt at a purposeful search and consolidation of evidence on peasant colonization. It opens a series of papers devoted to this problem and published by members of the Saratov Scientific Archive Commission.