Abstract:
A complex process of reforming local self-government bodies on decentralization principles is taking place in today’s circumstances of building the Ukrainian
State. It will eventually provide real development of the regions; the finances will not
be redistributed between the center and periphery, but will be stored in communities for
their economic development, education and healthcare purposes. Ukrainian regions had
similar experience of decentralization in the past. The present article is dedicated to interpreting the results of it on the terrains of the south-Ukrainian region during the end
of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. The author studies the causes, the
development and the decline of decentralization policy as well as the attitude to it from
the part of the local elite. The attempt has also been made to answer the question: why
the decentralization policy failed in the Russian Empire and what values decentralization
policy should be based on.
