The 1723 Instruction from Vasily Tatishchev to Factory Commissioner Fyodor Neklyudov about Documenting His Activity and Improving the Operations of the Office

• Main Authors: Maxim Vladimirovich Porunov, Alevtina Mikhailovna Safronova
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Ural Federal University Press 2017-03-01
• Series: Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки
• Subjects: В. Н. Татищев; Урал; казенные заводы; заводской комиссар; наказ; делопроизводство; канцелярия; организация работы с документами; документирование деятельности.
• Online Access: https://journals.urfu.ru/index.php/Izvestia2/article/view/2305

The article analyses the rules of Instruction to Factory Commissioner Fyodor Neklyudov from the point of view of documenting his work and the work of the office under him for the first time in domestic historiography. The Instruction was designed by V. N. Tatishchev immediately after he was exculpated following the complaint of N. Demidov, and was granted access to decision-making in the mining management in October, 1723. It is the most important and voluminous regulatory document developed by Tatishchev during the first period of his stay in the Urals between 1720 and 1723. The provisions of Instruction were an important step in the development of the standards of General Regulations (1720) in relation to the factory records management, and laid the foundations of its organization in the local government and in the enterprises themselves. A comparison of this document with the Instruction to the Factory Commissioner T. Burtsev of 1721 and other Tatishchev’s regulatory acts, involving similar issues, allows the authors to draw conclusions about the appearance in 1723 of new types of record books registering incoming, outgoing and internal documents, the introduction of norms for drawing up documents, as well as of their systematization, and reinforcement of document preservation. The instructions formulated requirements for drawing up registers (inventories) of documents on a case, described the types of documents the factory Commissioner and his office were supposed to exchange with higher institutions and officials, as well as subordinate ones, and those of the same level.