An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term oblast is often translated into English language as 'region' or 'province'.
Etymology
The term
oblast is
Loanword from
Russian language область (), where it is inherited from Old East Slavic, in turn borrowed from
Church Slavonic область
oblastĭ 'power, empire', formed from the prefix oб- (cognate with
Classical Latin ob 'towards, against' and
Ancient Greek ἐπί/ἔπι
epi 'in power, in charge') and the stem власть
vlastǐ 'power, rule'.
In Old East Slavic, it was used alongside оболость
obolostǐ—the equivalent of об- 'against' and волость 'territory, state, power' (cognate with English 'wield'; see
volost).
History
Russian Empire
In the
Russian Empire oblasts were considered to be administrative units and were included as parts of Governorates General or
. The majority of then-existing oblasts were on the periphery of the country (e.g.
Kars Oblast or Transcaspian Oblast) or covered the areas where
Cossacks lived.
Soviet Union
In the
Soviet Union, oblasts were one of the types of administrative divisions of the union republics. As any administrative units of this level, oblasts were composed of districts (
) and cities/towns directly under oblasts' jurisdiction. Some oblasts also included autonomous entities called
. Because of the Soviet Union electrification program under the
GOELRO plan,
Ivan Alexandrov, as director of the Regionalisation Committee of
Gosplan, divided the Soviet Union into thirteen European and eight Asiatic oblasts, using rational economic planning rather than "the vestiges of lost sovereign rights".
[ Ekonomicheskoe raionirovanie Rossii, Gosplan, Moscow 1921]
The names of oblasts did not usually correspond to the names of the respective historical regions, as they were created as purely administrative units. With a few exceptions, Soviet oblasts were named after their administrative centers.
Yugoslavia
In 1922, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was divided into 33 administrative divisions also called oblasts. In 1929, oblasts were replaced with larger administrative units known as banovinas.
During the Yugoslav Wars, several Serb Autonomous Oblasts were formed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. These oblasts were later merged into the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Republika Srpska.
Word "oblast" is also prominent and widely used in Serbian language. It does not have only territorial meaning. It is also regularly used to denote parts of science, literature, or production, and so on (for example " oblast nauke" means "field of science"). So, it means something like "part of whole".
Modern oblasts
Bulgaria
Since 1999, Bulgaria has been divided into 28 oblasts, usually translated as "provinces". Before, the country was divided into just nine units, also called oblasts.
Post-Soviet states
|
|
Oblast in the Russian version of a 1995 law. |
| Belarusian and Russian are both state languages |
Kazakh is the sole official language. Russian is officially used alongside it in state organizations and local self-government bodies according to the Constitution |
| Kyrgyz and Russian are both official languages |
| According to the Constitution of Russia, oblasts are considered to be subjects of the Federation, which is a higher status than that of administrative units they had within the Russian SFSR before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The federal subject status gives the oblasts some degree of autonomy and gives them representation in the Federation Council |
| |
| |
| In Ukraine, an oblast ( ; in English language called a province or region) refers to one of the country's 24 primary administrative units. Since Ukraine is a unitary state, the provinces (or regions) do not have much legal scope of competence other than that which is established in the Ukrainian Constitution and by law. Articles 140–146 of of the constitution deal directly with local authorities and their competency.
Oblasts are further subdivided into raions (), ranging in number from 3 to 10 per entity |
| |
Viloyat and
welaýat are derived from the
Turkish language term
vilayet, itself derived from the
Arabic term
wilayah (ولاية).
See also
-
Autonomous oblast
-
Guberniya, an administrative unit, comparable to an oblast, of the Russian Empire, early Russian SFSR, and the Soviet Union
-
Raion, district or sub-division of an oblast
-
Krai
-
Okrug
-
Political divisions of Russia
-
Chránená krajinná oblasť Horná Orava (the Horná Orava Protected Landscape Area) in Slovakia
Notes
External links
