Subject At the turn of the 20th century there was a difficult situation in the agrarian economic sector of the Russian Empire. Liberation of serfs and providing them with land did not solve the problem of shortage of land. The peasantry tried to solve this problem by means of purchasing and leasing. In these conditions, the government established the State Peasants' Land Bank, which played a leading role in the land ownership mobilization. The main goal of the State was to support the development of small private landownership. To implement this task, the Bank issued loans to peasants and bought lands at its own expense for their sale to peasants. There is a sufficient number of scientific works in the Russian historiography; however, only recently the scientists have started to actively develop the regional component. Objectives So far, there has not been any complex research of the Peasants' Land Bank's activity in the Tver province. I tried to consider the role of the Bank in the Tver province. Methods In the process of the research, I used reports of the Bank, statistical data and archival documents, which served as a basis of analytical materials about land property at the turn of the centuries, purchase and sale of land by owner categories, dynamics of prices for land and role of the Peasants' Land Bank in this process. Results I came to the following conclusions: the process of land purchase by peasants was common, but the majority of lands were bought in districts specializing in flax or wood growing. Prices depended on the district specialization and a form of landownership. Some households and communities were most active buyers during that period. The Bank provided them with preferential terms of purchase, which corresponded to the purposes of the agrarian reform, i.e. to increase the number of sound land owners. Conclusions and Relevance The research results may be useful for historians, economists and the experts interested in the problems of economic history of Russia and issues of agricultural loans.
Keywords: Peasants' Land Bank, agrarian reforms, mortgage, lending, loans, estate land property
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