Definition of "zemstvo" []

• An elective council responsible for the local administration of a provincial district in czarist Russia. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "At the same time Stolypin, with cooperation of the Duma, continued his reform activities: social insurance, zemstvo reform, education, police reorganization, land banks, encouragement of emigration to Siberia."
• "But the Napoleonic Code remained operative in the kingdom, and the zemstvo reforms in Russia were not instituted in the kingdom for fear that they would be used for nationalist purposes."
• "This group consisted largely of intellectuals, members of the liberal professions, and zemstvo workers."