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Who introduced colleges. Colleges of the Russian Empire. Creation of the army and navy

(continuation)

Under the jurisdiction of the Senate stood a series of central institutions known as colleges; they were established in 1718 and finally formed in 1720. The colleges replaced the old orders. With the establishment of the Senate, which gradually assimilated the functions of the most important orders, these latter (for example, the Discharge) were replaced by the "tables" of the Senate; small orders turned into an office and offices of various names and retained their previous organization. Approximately from 1711, Peter I decided to arrange a central administration according to Western European models. Quite consciously, he wanted to transfer the Swedish collegial structure to Rus'. The collegiate system was also recommended to him by the theoretician Leibniz. People were sent abroad to study bureaucratic forms and clerical practices; experienced clerks were sent from abroad to organize new institutions with their help. But Peter the Great did not give these foreigners a senior position in the collegiums, and they did not rise above the vice-presidents; Russian people were appointed presidents of the collegiums.

Since 1719, the colleges began their activities, and each for itself drew up a charter that determined its department and office work (these charters learned the name of the regulations). All colleges were established twelve: 1) Foreign Affairs College, 2) Military College, 3) Admiralty (Marine) College, 4) Staff College (expenditure department), 5) Chamber College (income department), 6) Justice College (judicial), 7) Revision Board (financial control), 8) Commerce Board (trade), 9) Manufactory Board (industry), 10) Berg Board (mining), 11) Patronage Board (industry), 12) Chief Magistrate (city government). The last three colleges were formed later than the others. The newly founded institutions, however, did not replace all the old orders. Orders continued to exist either under the name of offices, or under the former name of orders (Medical office, Siberian order).

The building of the Twelve Colleges in St. Petersburg. Unknown artist of the third quarter of the 18th century. Based on an engraving by E. G. Vnukov from a drawing by M. I. Makhaev

The colleges were subordinate to the Senate, which sent them its decrees; in turn, local governments were below the collegiums and obeyed them. But, on the one hand, not all colleges were equally subordinate to the Senate (military and naval were more independent than others); on the other hand, not all colleges were related to regional governments. Above the provincial authorities, as a direct highest authority, stood only the Chambers and Justice Colleges and the Chief Magistrate. Thus, both central and local governments did not represent a strict and harmonious hierarchy.

Each collegium, like the order of the 17th century, consisted of a presence and an office. The presence consisted of the President, Vice President, Councilors, Assessors and 2 Secretaries, who were the Chiefs of the Chancellery. In total, there were no more than 13 people in attendance, and matters were decided by a majority vote.

Peering into the differences between the colleges and the old orders, we see that the system of colleges greatly simplified the previous confusion of departments, but did not destroy the confusion of personal and collegiate principles that underlay the former central administration. Just as in orders, in their collegiate form, the personal beginning was expressed by the activity of the imperious chairman, so in collegiums influential presidents and prosecutors assigned to the collegiums for general control violated the collegial system with their personal influence and in fact sometimes replaced collegial activity with an individual one.

Addition

Boards under Peter I (according to the lectures of V. O. Klyuchevsky)

The Senate, as the supreme guardian of justice and the state economy, disposed of unsatisfactory subordinate bodies from the very beginning of its activity. That was in the center a bunch of old and new, Moscow and St. Petersburg, orders, offices, offices, commissions with confused departments and uncertain relationships, sometimes with random origins, and in the regions - 8 governors, who sometimes did not obey the tsar himself, not only the Senate . The Senate consisted of the Reprisal Chamber, inherited from the ministerial council, as its judiciary department, and the Accounts Near Office.

Among the main duties of the Senate was "it is possible to collect money" and consider government spending in order to cancel unnecessary ones, but meanwhile no money bills were sent to him from anywhere, and for a number of years he could not draw up a statement of how much was in the whole state in the parish, in expenditure, in balance and in milking. This lack of accountability in the midst of the war and the financial crisis should have convinced Peter I of the need for a complete restructuring of the central government. He himself was too little prepared for this branch of public affairs, did not have enough ideas or observations, and, as before, in finding new sources of income, he used the ingenuity of home-grown profiteers, so now he turned to foreign models and experts for help in managing the device.

He made inquiries about the organization of central institutions abroad: in Sweden, Germany and other countries, he found collegiums; foreigners submitted notes to him on the introduction of collegiums, and he decided to adopt this form of Russian government. Already in 1712, an attempt was made to arrange a "collegium" for trading with the help of foreigners, because, as Peter I wrote, "their trades are incomparably better than ours." He instructed his foreign agents to collect regulations on foreign collegiums and books on jurisprudence, especially to invite foreign businessmen to serve in Russian collegiums, and without people, "it will be impossible to do one book, because all the circumstations are never written." For a long time and with great trouble, learned lawyers and experienced officials, secretaries and scribes, especially from the Slavs, were recruited in Germany and the Czech Republic, who could arrange business in Russian institutions; even captured Swedes who managed to learn Russian were invited to serve.

Having become acquainted with the Swedish colleges, which were then considered exemplary in Europe, Peter I in 1715 decided to take them as a model when organizing his central institutions. There is nothing unexpected or capricious to be seen in this decision. Neither in the Moscow state past, nor in the businessmen around Peter, nor in his own political thinking, did he find any material for building an original system of state institutions. He looked at these institutions with the eyes of a shipbuilder: why invent some special Russian frigate when Dutch and English ships sail perfectly on the White and Baltic Seas. A lot of home-made Russian ships have already rotted in Pereyaslavl. But this time, too, things went in the usual course of all the reforms of Peter I: fast decision followed by slow execution. Peter sent the Holstein chamberlist Fick he had hired to Sweden for the closest study of the colleges there and invited the Silesian baron von Luberas, an expert on Swedish institutions, to his service. Both brought him hundreds of regulations and statements from the Swedish colleges and their own projects on their introduction in Russia, and the second hired one and a half hunters in Germany, the Czech Republic and Silesia to serve in Russian colleges. Both of them, especially Fick, took an active part in the formation of these colleges. Finally, by 1718, they drew up a plan for a collegiate structure, established the official composition of each college, appointed presidents and vice-presidents, and all the colleges were ordered to compose regulations on the basis of the Swedish charter, and the clauses of the Swedish charter, inconvenient "or dissimilar to the situation of this state , replace with new ones according to your reasoning".

In 1718, the presidents were to organize their colleges in order to begin their work from 1719; but delays and reschedules followed, and the colleges did not come into effect from 1719, and others from 1720. Initially, 9 colleges were established, which the decree on December 12, 1718 lists in this order and with the following names: 1) foreign affairs, 2) Camor, department of state revenues, 3) Justice, 4) revision, "account of all government receipts and expenditures", i.e. the financial control agency, 5) Military(Collegium), department of the ground military forces, 6) Admiralteyskaya, department of maritime forces, 7) Commerce, Department of Commerce, 8) Berg And manufactories, Department of Mining and Factory Industries, and 9) State offices, Department of Public Expenditure. From this list, first of all, it is clear what state interests, as priority ones, demanded, according to the then concepts, enhanced implementation in management: out of nine collegiums, five were in charge of the state and national economy, finance and industry. The boards introduced two principles into management that distinguished them from the old orders: a more systematic and concentrated division of departments and an advisory order of doing business.

Of the nine colleges, only two coincided in terms of business with the old orders: the Collegium of Foreign Affairs with the Ambassadorial Order and the Revision College with the Accounts; the rest of the collegiums represented departments of the new composition. In this composition, the territorial element inherent in the old orders disappeared, most of which were in charge of exclusively or mainly known affairs only in part of the state, in one or several counties. The provincial reform abolished many such orders; in the collegiate reform, the last of them also disappeared. Each board in the branch of government assigned to it extended its action to the entire space of the state. In general, all the old orders that were still living out their lives were either absorbed by the colleges or subordinated to them: for example, 7 orders were included in the Justice Collegium. So the departmental division in the center was simplified and rounded; but there were still a number of new offices and offices, which were either subordinate to the collegiums or constituted special main departments: for example, next to the Military Collegium, there were the offices of the Main Provisional and Artillery and the Main Commissariat, which was in charge of recruiting and equipping the army.

This means that the collegiate reform did not introduce into the departmental routine the simplification and rounding that the painting of colleges promises. And Peter I could not cope with the hereditary habit of administrative side walls, stands and basements, which the old Moscow state builders liked to introduce into their management, imitating private housing construction. However, in the interest of a systematic and even distribution of cases, the original plan of the collegiums was also changed during execution. The Local Order, subordinated to the College of Justice, due to the burden of its affairs, separated into an independent Patronage College, the constituent parts of the Berg and Manufactory Colleges were divided into two special colleges, and the Auditing College, as a control body, merged with the Senate, the highest control, and its separation , according to the frank admission of the decree, "without considering what was done then" as a matter of thoughtlessness. This means that by the end of the reign there were ten colleges.

Another difference between collegiums and orders was the deliberative order of doing business. This order was not alien to the old prikaz administration: according to the Code, judges or heads of prikaz had to decide cases together with comrades and senior clerks. But the command collegiality was not precisely regulated and died out under the pressure of strong bosses. Peter, who carried out this order in the ministerial council, in the district and provincial administration, and then in the Senate, wanted to firmly establish it in all central institutions. Absolute power needs advice to take the place of law; "All the best dispensation happens through advice," says the Military Charter of Peter I; it is easier for one person to hide iniquity than for many comrades: let someone betray it. The presence of the board was made up of 11 members, the president, vice president, 4 advisers and 4 assessors, to which one more adviser or assessor from foreigners was added; of the two secretaries of the collegiate office, one was also appointed from foreigners. Cases were decided by a majority of the votes of the presence, and for the report to the presence they were distributed among advisers and assessors, of which each was in charge of the corresponding part of the office, forming at its head a special branch or department of the collegium. The introduction of foreigners into the collegiums was intended to put experienced leaders next to the Russian newcomers. For the same purpose, Peter I usually appointed a foreigner to the Russian president as vice president. So, in the Military Collegium under President Prince Menshikov, the vice-president is General Veide, in the Chamber Collegium, the president is Prince D. M. Golitsyn, the vice-president is the Revel landrat Baron Nirot; only at the head of the Mining Collegium do we meet two foreigners, the learned artilleryman Bruce and the aforementioned Luberas. The decree of 1717 established the procedure for the appointed presidents to "compose their colleges", to make their presence: for the places of advisers and assessors, they themselves selected two or three candidates, only not from their relatives and "their own creatures"; according to these candidate lists, the meeting of all collegiums ran for positions to be filled.

So, I repeat, the collegiate division differed from the clerical one: 1) by the departmental distribution of cases, 2) by the scope of institutions, and 3) by the order of business.

Under Peter I, the need to gather the entire administration of the country and its economy into certain large groups, strictly limited one from the other by the nature of affairs, was even more pronounced. But Peter, like the Moscow government, found it difficult to do this quickly and correctly. The war interfered with its unexpected turns, when behind the quick and unexpected change of events there was neither time nor opportunity to concentrate, think over the reform plan, and carry it out steadily and consistently. But the war did not wait and imperiously demanded people and money. All the conscious activity of Peter at that time had as its starting point the interests of military affairs. First, this was a game of soldiers, then more serious studies of the new organization of the army and the new military science. From Kozhukhov's maneuvers, Peter had to "go to play under the Azov", and there the Great Northern War did not slow down, which gave Peter work for life. Peter, with his new army and a fleet unfamiliar to Moscow time, with new methods and methods of warfare, had, especially at first, to get money through old institutions, and since the latter did not meet their new task, they were subjected to breaking, alteration and destruction , or revived under new names, then disappeared altogether.

For new needs, not only new people in the state are put forward at the head of old institutions (the steward Romodanovsky, the steward Apraksin, the guard captain Menshikov), but the old institutions themselves are changing in a new way. In 1701, foreign and Reiter orders were combined into one order of military affairs; the streltsy order, as a result of the destruction of the streltsy, is renamed the order of the Zemstvo Affairs and begins to be in charge of the country's police, which was only one of the duties of the streltsy order. For new cases, new orders appear - naval, artillery, mining, provisions, almshouses.

In addition to orders, government offices of a smaller volume and significance are organized - various offices: uniform, bath, Izhora, which, like the Kazan order, was in charge of the affairs of Ingermanland conquered from the Swedes. In creating all these institutions, Peter acted in the old way. Busy with the war, he tried to satisfy every need put forward by the events and demands of the war, immediately, creating for this a new department, which sometimes brought confusion into the work of the old ones. In this fussy replacement of some institutions with others, the old orders lost their former status and acquired new features, the range of issues of individual orders changed, the methods of the order economy themselves changed towards greater subordination of judges to the central institution, their greater accountability and regulation of the very activity of the order: from the order of the sovereign to issue N-th case to such and such a person, orders are becoming more and more state institutions, each with its own specific range of cases, which are entrusted not to a person, but to an executor of the will of the sovereign, who is obliged to act not “as God makes him understand”, but according to the rules and regulations established monarch. But all this was only planned and was a dream. In fact, an even greater confusion prevailed than in the Muscovite state. But all this shuffling of orders and their departments pointed to one thing - the need for reforms in this area of the state system. Having firmly decided to introduce “decent” and “regular” administration in his state, Peter turned for samples to the same place from where he took samples for his army and navy, that is, to the West. Back in 1698, while in England, he thought a lot about the reorganization of government throughout the country according to a foreign model, and at the same time he talked with knowledgeable people.

A certain Francis Lee, at the personal request of the king, compiled and submitted to him “proposals for the correct organization of His government”, in which it was planned to create seven “committees and colleges”. In the manifesto of 1702 about summoning foreigners to Russia, Peter announces his decision to establish a “decent collegium or assembly of a secret military duma” with a collegiate composition that would include the president, advisers, secretaries and other clerical ranks. Knowing everything related to the military service of foreigners, the secret military college was supposed to provide foreigners with a court "according to the laws of God, jure civili romano and other customs populorum moraliorum."

In 1711, the “mining officer” Johann Friedrich Blieger submitted a project to Peter, in which, for the proper development of mining, it was proposed to “define a collegium, which consists of persons skilled in this art, to whom the full management of this business is to be believed.” At the beginning of 1712, Peter was again interested in the proposal of an unknown German officer to initiate a “commercial collegium and revision commission”. - dissatisfied lies were perpetrated; to give them a smart husband as a presit and several assessors from their natural subjects ”; revision-board on the project revision order, “which in the whole state for the whole year all incomes and expenses over all orders could be calculated in detail, because because there is not always an account in incomes and expenses, there is a lot of chance for theft, and it is necessary in such cases to be a noble and very faithful president, and in what it is necessary to look for in the same order ”... On February 12, 1712, according to the proposal, Peter issued a decree“ to initiate a collegium for the trading business of correction, in order to bring it to a better state. (All excerpts from the documents are taken from the book by S. Knyazkov)

According to the decree, “foreign residents of Narva were taken to Moscow” two people and one Derp merchant, several noble Moscow merchants and six suburban residents were added to them, and all of them were instructed to develop rules for the work of the board of commerce. This commission worked for about two years, drew up rules for the collegiums and began to revise the customs charter. However, this ends all information about the work of this commission. Thus, little by little, the nature and the very name of the institutions that would replace the orders were designated. Since 1715, there has already been a successful end to the Northern War, and Peter intently begins to take an interest in the affairs of internal improvement. On March 23, 1715, the tsar is considering another proposal to reorganize the system of the state apparatus. The author of the project has so far proposed to introduce seven collegiums, seven departments in Russia, in which all state administration would be concentrated. This author pointed out, as an example, to Sweden, where there was already such a state structure, which was considered the best in Europe.

According to the project, seven colleges were planned: the College of Justice, the Chancellery of Foreign Affairs, the Admiralty College, the Criggs College, the College of Chambers, the Staff College, and the College of Commerce. Management was proposed to be divided among individual senators. Peter decided to make this project the basis of the undertaken reform of the state apparatus. But he didn't stop there. Considering this reform, as well as many other transformations of Peter, one cannot but touch upon the question of the degree to which he borrowed Western European experience. Some historians believe that Peter only adapted, adapting, the Swedish system to Russian conditions, while others proceed from the originality of the transformations. There is no doubt that borrowing its tried and tested experience from Europe significantly contributed to the strengthening of Russia's statehood.

And in general, Peter's appeal to the experience of Western countries is characteristic of all his reform activities. But why, after all, it is Sweden, and not other countries? According to the historian Yevgeny Anisimov, this is due not so much to some similarities between the two countries in socio-economic conditions, but to the personal predilections of Peter I: putting high regard for the Swedish military and state organization, Peter sought to surpass Sweden, both on the battlefield and in civilian life . Swedish state system was built on the principles of cameralism - the doctrine of bureaucratic management, krigs - from it. The words der Krieg - war, the equivalent of the Ministry of Defense, which became widespread in Europe in the 16th-17th centuries. Cameralism contained a number of features that were very attractive to Peter.

First, it is a functional principle of management, which provided for the creation of institutions that specialized in any one field of activity. Secondly, this is the organization of the institution on the basis of collegiality, a clear regulation of the duties of officials, specialization of clerical work, the establishment of uniform states and salaries. In early April 1715, Peter orders the Russian resident under the Danish king, Prince Dolgorukov, to get printed or written charters of the Danish colleges, “for we heard,” Peter wrote, “that the Swedes took from them.”

In December 1716, Peter hired the Holstein Fick, who in the city of Eckenfeld was in charge of legal, economic and police affairs and was famous for his knowledge of civil and state law. Peter sent Fick to Sweden to study the structure of the administrative apparatus on the spot. Then in December, Peter ordered the Russian resident in Vienna, Veselovsky, to invite Austrian royal servants who knew Russian to the Russian civil service, and buy books by the publisher Simon from Leipzig on jurisprudence and hire Prague teachers to translate these books. Knowledgeable officials from the German-speaking countries were also invited, Peter did not skimp on promises of remuneration. The following years, 1716 and 1717, Peter spent abroad. And in Russia there was a preparatory rough work to prepare the reform. And Peter himself did not rest abroad: he worked in the Danish colleges in Copenhagen and, looking through cases, wrote off the rules of office work. In January 1717, Fick came to Peter in Copenhagen with a report. Peter sent him to Bruce to understand the main terms and systematize them.

Peter sent an order to Russia to hire those captured Swedish officers who were familiar with the collegiate service in their homeland, with the condition of paying them funds for the rise and the first equipment. In Hamburg, the Russian resident Betticher introduced to Peter a certain Albrecht Furen, who gave the tsar “Reflections on Economy Russian state". However, in a conversation with Furen, Peter found out that the original author of the manuscript was Baron Anania Christian Pott von Luberas. During the acquaintance with Luberas, it turned out that Luberassyn served as a colonel in the Russian army, and his regiment was stationed near Revel. Colonel Luberas was ordered to report to Peter in Hamburg. Peter offered his son to persuade his father to go to the service of the Russian sovereign. But the elder Lyuberas was cautious and asked that a draft of the conditions be sent to him by mail, under which he could transfer to the Russian service. Negotiations with Luberas dragged on. At this time, Peter met with Fick, and the project of creating colleges was almost ready. Peter had already lost interest in the proposal of Luberas, and therefore it was not the sovereign himself who negotiated with him, but his close associate Shafirov. Through Shafirov, Lyuberas received an order to draw up an outline of the structure of collegiums in the regular state economy. Luberas completed the task in two days. Peter carefully read his work and appointed Luberas as a real privy councillor. The first task of Luberas was to search for and hire foreigners fit for service in the colleges. In Hamburg, Lübeck, Berlin, Hesse, Saxony, the Czech Republic, Selesia, Luberas recruited about 150 such people. During his travels, he continued to develop plans for the organization of colleges, composed a general plan of action for all colleges and regulations for each, rules for opening their activities and clerical routine.

During a trip to St. Petersburg in November, Luberas fell ill and for this reason could not personally meet with the tsar. He handed over his works to him through Yaguzhinsky. The plans of Luberas were taken into account in the organization of colleges, especially in the organization of berg and manufactory colleges. Fick, in turn, collected several hundred different regulations and statements. All this material was worked out by Fick and Bruce with the active participation of Shafirov and Yaguzhinsky. In October 1717, the sovereign himself returned from abroad. On the basis of all the collected material, a register and the staff of all colleges were compiled and approved by Peter on December 12 (25), 1717. On December 15 (29), the presidents of the collegiums and some vice-presidents were appointed by decree:

1st Collegium of Foreign Affairs (Chancellor Golovkin)
2. Military Collegium (Field Marshal Menshikov)
3. Admiralty Board (Admiral Apraksin)
4. Justice College (Andrey Matveev)
5. Board of Chambers (Prince D. Golitsyn)
6. staff-offices-board (Musin-Pushkin)
7. Revision Board (Prince Y. Dolgoruky)
8. College of commerce (P. Tolstoy)
9. berg-and manufactory-collegium (J. Bruce)

Russians: president, vice-president (Russian or foreigner), 4 collegiate advisers, 4 collegiate assessors, 1 secretary, 1 notary, 1 actuary, 1 registrar, 1 translator, submission of three articles.

Foreigners: 1 adviser or assessor, 1 secretary. At the same time, a decree was given to the presidents of the colleges to choose advisers and assessors not from their relatives and friends, but to nominate 2-3 candidates for each place, and put them up for discussion by all the colleges. A group of collegiums of the military and foreign affairs departments immediately stands out: military, admiralty and foreign affairs. They occupied a privileged position in the system of state institutions due to the great importance that Peter attached to the army, navy, diplomacy, and also to the role that their presidents, Peter's first associates, played in governance. Of all the collegiums, the group of financial collegiums stands out in particular. The main fiscal board was the board of chambers, which was in charge of all the inflow of money and budgetary planning of cash receipts. Expenditures for the needs of the state were carried out through the staff office-board, which played the role of the central cash desk, and control and supervision over the work of financial bodies was prescribed by an independent revision board.

The College of Justice replaced several court orders at once, took away judicial functions from many non-legal orders. But numerous social and professional groups of the population fell out of its competence: townspeople, merchants, industrialists, working people went under the jurisdiction of commerce and berg-manufactory colleges, the Chief Magistrate, the military and admiralty colleges were engaged in the military, the synod was clergy.

The Senate and its functions

At the next stage, the king organized the Senate as the main body of government in the country.

Political reforms of Peter I

It happened in 1711. The Senate became one of the key bodies in governing the country, with the broadest powers, which were as follows:

Legislative activity
Administrative activity
Judicial functions in the country

Creation of boards

secret office

Regional reform

Moscow
Smolensk
Kyiv
Azov
Kazanskaya
Arkhangelsk
Simbirskaya

Each province was governed by a governor. He was personally appointed by the king. The entire administrative, judicial and military power was concentrated in the hands of the governor. Since the provinces were quite large in size, they were divided into counties. The counties were later renamed provinces.

Church reform

A. Update state structure. bureaucracy. Supreme authorities

What are the facts about the need

economic reforms in Russia at the beginning of the 18th century?

2. What new features has acquired economic sphere during the reign of Peter the Great?

3. Is there a connection between economic and social changes in the country (for example, the reforms of Peter the Great)?

Question 26. State and administrative reforms of Peter I

ANSWER PLAN:

A. Renovation of the state structure. bureaucracy. The highest authorities.

B. Establishment of colleges. Local authorities.

C. Church reform.

D. The order of service. Table of ranks.

D. Military reforms.

1. Under Peter I, a new state apparatus was created. The reform of the authorities was largely dictated by the war, since the old state machine could not cope with the increasingly complex tasks and new functions. In the implementation of the new state structure, Peter relied on the works of European scientists on the theory of the state, and also borrowed something from the practice of European states, in particular Sweden.

2. The king believed that he knew what the happiness of the state consisted in, and that his will was the law. He wrote in one of his decrees: “Our people are like children for the sake of ignorance, who will never take up the alphabet, when they are not unhappy with the master, who at first seem annoyed, but when they learn, then they thank ...” Therefore, Peter began the fulfillment of his will by updating the administrative apparatus.

3. First of all, Peter I stopped consulting with the Boyar Duma, and in 1701 he created a "council of ministers" of 8 proxies. The last mention of the Boyar Duma dates back to 1704. A certain mode of operation was established in the council, each minister had special powers, reports appear, minutes of meetings, i.e., bureaucratization of management takes place. In 1711, Peter I established the Governing Senate, which replaced the Boyar Duma. It was the supreme governing body of the country, consisting of nine people appointed by the king. The Senate disposed of judicial, financial, military, foreign, commercial affairs, but all legislative power belonged to the king.

Question 20. State reforms of Peter 1.

Decisions by senators were taken collectively. Fiscal positions were introduced in the center and locally, who revealed facts of violation of decrees, bribery and reported this to the Senate and the tsar. But in 1722, the tsar organized control over the Senate itself: the prosecutor general and his assistants oversaw the work of the Senate.

2. In 1707-1711. changed the system of local government. Russia was divided into 8 provinces headed by governors. They had enormous power: they were in charge of tax collection, justice, recruitment. The provinces were divided, in turn, into 50 provinces headed by a governor, and the provinces into counties (districts). City magistrates collected taxes from the population and judged the townspeople. Urban population divided into "regular" (haves) and "irregular" (have-nots).

3. Tsar Peter I played the main role in the system of government. For example, the military oath spoke of the obligation to serve the tsar, and not Russia. Peter was the highest legislative and judicial authority. A personal royal office was created - the Cabinet, which prepared cases for reports to Peter. The adoption by Peter I in 1721 of the title emperor was an expression and confirmation of the absolutism that had established itself in Russia.

Reforms of Peter 1

The wise man avoids all extremes.

The reforms of Peter 1 are his main and key activities, which were aimed at changing not only the political, but also the social life of Russian society. According to Peter Alekseevich, Russia lagged far behind the Western countries in its development. This confidence of the king was further strengthened after he conducted a great embassy. Trying to transform the country, Peter 1 changed almost all aspects of the life of the Russian state, which took shape over the centuries.

What was the reform of the central government

The reform of the central government was one of the first transformations of Peter. It should be noted that this reformation continued for a long time, since it was based on the need to completely restructure the work of the Russian authorities.

The reforms of Peter 1 in the field of central administration began in 1699. At the initial stage, this change affected only the Boyar Duma, which was renamed the Near Chancellery. With this step, the Russian tsar removed the boyars from power, allowed him to concentrate power in a more pliable and loyal office. This was an important step that required priority implementation, since it allowed the centralization of the country's administration.