Balakhninsky Uyezd was an administrative-territorial unit within the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of the Russian Empire and the RSFSR, existing with interruptions from the sixteenth century[1] until 1921. The uyezd town was Balakhna.[2] According to historian P. V. Chechenkov, the earliest reliable mentions of Balakhna date to the first third of the sixteenth century, and the Balakhninsky (Balakhonskiy) Uyezd took shape in the 1540s: a sotennaya gramota (census charter) for the Uzolskaya volost from the cadastral books of 1558/59 already explicitly places it within Balakhninsky Uyezd.[1]
Position in the Governorate's administrative divisions
In the second half of the eighteenth century, under the new administrative division, the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate comprised eleven uyezds, and Balakhninsky was among them, alongside the Arzamassky, Ardatovsky, Vasilsky, Gorbatovsky, Knyagininsk, and others.
Historical references
Among those born in the uyezd was Yemilyan Bashkirov, a peasant from the village of Kopnino, who founded one of the largest family flour-milling firms in the Volga Region. The uyezd also appears in documents relating to the events of 1 May 1902 in Sormovo: a report from the ispravnik (district police chief) of Balakhninsky Uyezd to the prosecutor of the Nizhny Novgorod District Court described the course of a workers' demonstration that later became the basis for Maxim Gorky's novel Mother.
Abolition
The uyezd was abolished in 1921. The territory corresponding to the former uyezd subsequently became the Balakhninsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Region.[2]
References
The Balakhninsky Uyezd had long been renowned for salt-making: the craft reached its peak in the 17th century, when Balakhna counted some 33 salt pipes, 25,000 brine buckets, and 86 salt-boiling houses, and the industry itself survived until 1753.[3]
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the uyezd's characteristic cottage industries included nail forging, the manufacture of sleigh bells and hand bells, wool-beating, bast-fiber processing, and the weaving of fishing nets; local production was oriented toward serving the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka and selling goods there. A substantial part of what is now the Moskovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod had, from the second half of the 18th century, formed part of the Gordeyevskaya volost of the Balakhninsky Uyezd; the selo of Varya and the villages of Burnakovka, Gornushkino, Knyazhikha, and Ratmanikha were all located here. The Leninsky District of Nizhny Novgorod arose on the site of the selo of Molitovka in the same Gordeyevskaya volost of the Balakhninsky Uyezd; the Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya (Karpovskaya) Church, built in 1817, was likewise a rural parish church of Karpovka in the Balakhninsky Uyezd.[4][3][3]
As early as 1689, a charter was sent from the Palace Judicial Chancellery to Balakhna, addressed to Voivode Ivan Grigoryevich Ozerov, ordering the release from prison of peasants of the Zauzolskaya volost of the Balakhninsky Uyezd who had been detained at the market while selling bread and livestock.[5]
Sources
- opentextnn.ru — Chechenkov P.V. The Formation of the Balakhninsky Uyezd in the 16th Century. (archive)
- Wikipedia (ru) — Balakhninsky Uyezd (archive)
- biblmr.r52.ru — The Balakhninsky Uyezd had long been renowned for salt-making: the craft reached its peak in the 17th century and survived until 1753. By the 17th century in Balakhna (archive)
- gttp.ru — The Leninsky District of Nizhny Novgorod arose on the site of the selo of Molitovka in the same Gordeyevskaya volost of the Balakhninsky Uyezd; the Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya (Karpovskaya) Church, 1817
- opentextnn.ru — In 1689, a charter was sent from the Palace Judicial Chancellery to Balakhna, addressed to Voivode Ivan Grigoryevich Ozerov, ordering the release from prison of peasants of the Zau (archive)