Ministry of Agriculture

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MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, one of the Russian Empire's central public institutions. The ministry was instituted on 26 December 1837, according to P.D. Kiselev's reforms for the administration of state peasants. Gradually, the ministry's authority was applied to all Russian peasants. The ministry was also in charge of quarrying and mining natural resources, and of migration within the country. The ministry was called the Ministry of Public Estates in 1837-94; in 1894-1905, it adopted the name Ministry of Agriculture and Public Estates; and finally, in 1905-15, it was known as Chief Administration of Land Management and Agriculture. By 1917, it was comprised of the Ministerial Council, the Agricultural Council, the Scientific Committee, and a number of Departments, including the Agricultural Department, the Department of Public Land Property, the Forestry Department, and the Migration Management Department. In St. Petersburg, the ministry's main establishment was at at 1-2 Mariinskaya Square (present-day 4 and 13 St. Isaac's Square; 1844-53, architect N.E. Efimov). After October 1917, the People's Commissariat for Agriculture was established on the basis of Ministry of Agriculture.

References: Сельскохозяйственное ведомство за 75 лет его деятельности (1837-1912 гг.). Пг., 1914; Высшие и центральные государственные учреждения России, 1801-1917 гг. СПб., 2002. Т. 3.

D. N. Shilov. Efimov Nikolay Efimovich
Kiselev Pavel Dmitrievich
St.Isaac's Square/Saint Petersburg, city, house 13
St.Isaac's Square/Saint Petersburg, city, house 4
Сельскохозяйственное ведомство за 75 лет его деятельности (1837-1912 гг.). Пг., 1914