The Senate under Paul I and the issue of fiscal status of petty szlachta in the Russian western provinces at the turn of the 19th century

After the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 the Russian empire faced a problem of determining the social status of petty Polish nobles (szlachta) in imperial hierarchy. At the turn of the 19^th century the Senate was the governmental body that had to resolve this issue. In April of 1800 Paul I approved the proposal of the Senate’s 3^d department to confirm lesser szlachta’s fiscal immunity and other privileges enjoyed by her under Rzecz Pospolita. Yet, in the same year the Senate’s 1^st department when deliberating on a separate case of szlachta’s tax status in Novorossiysk province, passed two resolutions that contradicted the legal norm adopted in April. This paper focuses on the analysis of circumstances under which the Senate’s departments came to different decisions on the same problem. Their resolutions reflected two approaches to the policy of petty szlachta’s inclusion in the imperial nobility. The resolution of the 3^d department, supported by Paul I, envisaged a co-optation of szlachta as a social group through legislative confirmation of its privileged status in the empire. The approach of the 1^st department emphasized the necessity of szlachta’s integration into imperial nobility on the individual basis (by submitting proofs of noble origin compliant to the Russian laws). As a result the imperial government gave preference to the second model of inclusion.