selsoviet

A selsoviet (; , ; ) is the shortened name for Selsky soviet, i.e., rural council (; ; ). It has three closely related meanings:
*The administration (''soviet'') of a certain rural area.
*The territorial subdivision administered by such a council.
*The building of the selsoviet administration.

Selsoviets were the lowest level of administrative division in rural areas in the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they were preserved as a third tier of administrative-territorial division throughout Ukraine, Belarus, and many of the federal subjects of Russia.

A selsoviet is a rural administrative division of a raion (district) that includes one or several smaller rural localities and is in a subordination to its respective raion administration.

The name refers to the local rural self-administration, the rural soviet (council), a part of the Soviet system of administration. The head of a selsoviet is called chairman, who had to be appointed by higher administration.

Soviet Union

A December 24, 1917 decree of Sovnarkom initiated the reform of the administrative division inherited from the Russian Empire by which all local power must belong to soviets of the corresponding level of hierarchy. The reform was finalized in 1924.

For a considerable period of Soviet history, passports of rural residents were stored in selsoviet offices, and people could not move outside their area of residence without the permission of selsoviet.

Belarus

Rural councils of Belarus are subordinated to districts of Belarus. If a rural council includes agrotowns, then one of them is the administrative center of the rural council, with some exceptions.

The system was introduced in 1924, when the whole Soviet Union replaced its administrative division inherited from the Russian Empire.РАЙОНИРОВАНИЕ. АДМИНИСТРАТИВНО-ТЕРРИТОРИАЛЬНОЕ ДЕЛЕНИЕ СТРАНЫ.
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Russia

Division into selsoviets as administrative-territorial units remained after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in many of the federal subjects of Russia.

In modern Russia, a selsoviet is a type of an administrative division of a district in a federal subject of Russia, which is equal in status to a town of district significance or an urban-type settlement of district significance, but is organized around a rural locality (as opposed to a town or an urban-type settlement). In some federal subjects, selsoviets were replaced with municipal rural settlements, which, in turn, were granted status of administrative-territorial units.

Prior to the adoption of the 1993 Constitution of Russia, this type of administrative division had a uniform definition on the whole territory of the Russian SFSR. After the adoption of the 1993 Constitution, the administrative-territorial structure of the federal subjects is no longer identified as the responsibility of the federal government or as the joint responsibility of the federal government and the federal subjects."Энциклопедический словарь конституционного права". Статья "Административно-территориальное устройство". Сост. А. А. Избранов. — Мн.: Изд. В.М. Суров, 2001. This state of the matters is traditionally interpreted by the governments of the federal subjects as a sign that the matters of the administrative-territorial divisions are the sole responsibility of the federal subjects themselves. As a result, the modern administrative-territorial structures of the federal subjects vary significantly from one federal subject to another; that includes the manner in which the selsoviets are organized and the choice of a term to refer to such entities.

As of 2013, the following types of such entities are recognized:
*Inhabited locality (): in Krasnoyarsk Krai (together with selsoviets)
*Rural administration (): in the Republic of Kalmykia and in Tula Oblast (together with rural okrugs, rural territories, and volosts)
*Rural administrative okrug (): in Bryansk Oblast
*Rural okrug (): in the Mari El Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, and the Sakha Republic; in Krasnodar Krai (together with stanitsa okrugs); in Belgorod, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Omsk, Ryazan, Tula (together with rural administrations, rural territories, and volosts), Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, and Yaroslavl Oblasts
*Rural settlement (): in the Altai and the Chuvash Republics; in Amur, Moscow, Rostov, Smolensk, Tver, and Voronezh Oblasts
*Rural territory (): in Kemerovo Oblast and Tula Oblast (together with rural administrations, rural okrugs, and volosts)
*Rural-type settlement administrative territory (): in the Komi Republic (together with selo administrative territories)
*Selo administrative territory (): in the Komi Republic (together with rural-type settlement administrative territories)
*Selsoviet (): in the Republics of Bashkortostan, Buryatia (together with somons), Dagestan, Khakassia (together with settlement councils), Mordovia, and the Udmurt Republic; in Altai (together with settlement administrations), Krasnoyarsk (together with inhabited localities), and Stavropol Krais; in Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Kursk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg (together with settlement councils), Oryol, Penza, Tambov, Volgograd, and Vologda Oblasts; in Nenets Autonomous Okrug (together with settlements)
*Settlement (): in Kostroma and Novgorod Oblasts
*Settlement (): in Nenets Autonomous Okrug (together with selsoviets)
*Settlement administration (): in Altai Krai (together with selsoviets)
*Settlement council (): in the Republic of Khakassia (together with selsoviets) and in Orenburg Oblast (together with selsoviets)
*Settlement municipal formation (): in Leningrad Oblast
*Somon (): in the Republic of Buryatia (together with selsoviets)
*Sumon (): in the Republic of Tuva
*Stanitsa okrug (): in Krasnodar Krai (together with rural okrugs)
*Territorial okrug (): in Murmansk Oblast
*Volost (): in Pskov Oblast and Tula Oblast (together with rural administrations, rural okrugs, and rural territories)

Ukraine

Selsoviets (, ''silrada'') were replaced with ''hromadas'' by the administrative reform of 2020.

See also

* Municipal council
* Rural councils of Belarus

References

{{Slavic terms for country subdivisions
Types of administrative division
Political divisions of Russia
Russian-language designations of territorial entities
Soviets of the Soviet Union