The paper focuses on the issues of state responsibilities, entailing financial commitments, in the cultural sector as they are enshrined in legislations of the subjects of the Russian Federation.
It is based on the study of the legal frameworks of 85 regions of the Russian Federation, including an analysis of open access documents published by 1 February, 2016, using data from the reference legal system Consultant Plus (regional legislation) and the official web-sites of local governments of the Russian Federation.
The paper identifies and examines statutory duties of the Russian Federation subjects in the cultural sector: general responsibilities, responsibilities for the sub-sectors (museums, libraries, cultural and leisure activities, performing arts, cinema, cultural heritage), responsibilities in supporting artists and creative activities, as well as financial and material aspects of regional cultural legislation.
The analysis reveals common problems in the current regional legislation that has serious gaps in the set of the statutory duties. The paper identifies specific approaches to solve them in some regions of the Russian Federation, including those which have no analogues at the federal level. The development of these approaches can be used to improve federal and regional legislation in the cultural sector.