Abstract: The Socio-Economic Crisis in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate and its Role in the Loss of Legitimacy of the New Democratic Government during the Period of February-October 1917 (Based on the Materials of the Press of Nizhny Novgorod)The subject of this study is the particular features of the social and economic crisis in the Nizhny Novgorod governorate between February and October 1917, as well as its influence on the level of confidence and the legitimacy of the new democratic power among the governorate's population. On the whole, the revolutionary euphoria that prevailed in the governorate and the spontaneously formed popular consensus provided a huge opportunity for the new government to become truly legitimate. The aim of this article is to establish: why in October the population of Nizhny Novgorod turned their backs on the new democratic government, which was enthusiastically welcomed only eight months previously. The study is based on the main methodological principles of historical science: historicism, objectivity and the social approach to historical phenomena. In addition, concrete historical methods were used: logical, comparative-historical, and problem-chronological. As the principal source for the study of this topic, for the first time in scientific literature, the materials of local periodicals were used. Their analysis allowed the author to more accurately assess the socio-economic and political situation in the named governorate between February and October 1917, the mood of the population, to identify the main factors behind the failure of the economic and, above all, food policy of the authorities of Nizhny Novgorod. The authors come to the conclusion that local authorities during March-October 1917, having become hostage to the inability of the Provisional Government to solve the two main issues for peasants - land and food -, and unable to cope with the socio-economic problems nor with the public chaos and anarchy in the governorate, lost the support and trust of the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod.

Abstract: A significant feature of the development of Russia into a modern state is its democratic parliamentary traditions, which in 2016 have crossed the 110-year milestone. The aim of this article is to study the experience and lessons of the election campaign of the political parties in Nizhny Novgorod during the elections to the First State Duma. The article presents a brief description of the leading political parties of the Nizhny Novgorod governorate and reveals the difficulties they faced during this election campaign, including: the necessity of conducting a propaganda campaign under the conditions of the Russian Revolution and the limited freedom of opposition parties. Additionally, all parties simultaneously had to address the issues of party formation and to organise election campaigns. During the course of the election campaign in Nizhny Novgorod, the parties used traditional forms and methods of election technologies – newspaper articles, brochures, proclamations, leaflets, meetings with voters –, as well as unconventional methods – from the use of administrative resources to manipulating ballots. A particular means of participating in the election struggle was demonstrated by the Nizhny Novgorod electorate through protest behaviour. In Nizhny Novgorod the Constitutional-Democratic Party won a landslide victory. A certain role in this victory was due to the agitators’ active participation, the party's more attractive program for the majority of the population, its variety of forms in working with the electorate, and the absence in the party elections of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Social-Democratic parties. But the more momentous contribution to the outcome of the election campaign was due to the presence in Russia of a huge body of protest electorate, which expressed its negative attitude towards the Russian government's policy by voting for the most oppositional party.