Annual reports of governorsgeneral and governors of the late 19th-early 20th centuries: once again to the question about reliability of the source
The article analyzes the informational signiﬁcance and reliability of the information presented in the reports of the governors-General and governors of the late 19<sup>th</sup>-early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries on the example of the Steppe Region, Tomsk and Tobolsk provinces. The methodological basis of the study is the principle of consistency and problem-chronological methods, which allow us to consider the analyzed sources from a critical point of view as a logical result of the functioning of regional authorities in a particular period. The article discusses the features of the report forms of 1870 and 1897, which determined the diversity of the collected statistical material. Attention is drawn to the differences in the content of the reports and their appendices submitted in different years, which was directly related to the current programs for their compilation. The author notes that representatives of the central government repeatedly raised the issue of the reliability of the reports, but despite numerous circulars to the governors, the problem was not solved.