Реформы в системе управления органами внутренних дел Российской империи первой четверти ХIХ века: к вопросу о причинной обусловленности и рецепции зарубежного опыта

Abstract

Introduction. The period of the first quarter of the 19th century became the era of large-scale reforms in the system of internal affairs in the Russian Empire. These reforms were caused by the acute need to adapt the state mechanism of autocratic absolutist Russia to the large-scale territorial and social changes in Europe caused by the 1789−1794 Great French Revolution. In this regard, identifying the causality of these transformations and the reception of foreign experience in internal affairs bodies management of the Russian Empire will help to clarify the specificity of state reforms in Russia and understand the fundamental issues in implementation of administrative reforms. Aims. To identify the causes and conditions that influenced the process of administrative reforms in the system of internal affairs of the Russian Empire in the first quarter of the 19th century. Methods. Historical, historical-comparative, historical-systemic, historicaldiachronic methods. Results. Russian pre-revolutionary, Soviet and contemporary foreign scientific literature, as well as memoirs of contemporaries, on the implementation of a largescale reform of the law-enforcement bodies in the Russian Empire in the first quarter of the 19th century have been reviewed and analysed; conclusions on the importance of the English and French experience in this process have been made. Conclusion. As a result of a comprehensive study of scientific literature and historical sources, the authors concluded that the reforms in the system of internal affairs of the Russian Empire in the first quarter of the 19th century were based not on political and legal ideas of French education, as many believe, but on the experience of the functioning of the British ministries and the Ministry of Police of France during the first empire.