County towns merchants’ agricultural enterprise of Tambov Governorate in the 19th century

We center on the issue of studying merchant land ownership and land use in Tambov Governorate in the 19th century. The relevance of this study is due to the need to fill the source and historiographical gap in the study of the Russian version of social and economic business activities in the agricultural sector in the pre-reform period. The results are promising for solving the problems facing the agriculture of our region at the present stage. Currently, one of the priorities of social and economic development of the Tambov Region is to increase the competitiveness of the domestic agro-industrial complex, the qualitative development of rural areas. The scientific novelty is associated with the consideration of merchant farms through the analysis of innovative forms formation of rationalism and entrepreneurship in agriculture at the micro level. Consideration of the merchant activities conditions allows to fully disclose previously unknown aspects of social modernization, to characterize the specifics of the entrepreneurial functions implementation in the agricultural sector, to assess the dynamics of new forms of economy development in our region in the pre-reform period. The activities of entrepreneurs in the agricultural business, their role in the process of agricultural society modernization in Russia is still undisclosed in concrete historical manifestations. Issues of the private-owned merchant farms development in Tambov Governorate has not yet been the subject of serious scientific analysis.

merchant, business, commercial agriculture, land tenure, land use, land rent