ПЕРВЫЕ УРОКИ ОСТЗЕЕ: РЕЦЕПЦИЯ АДМИНИСТРАТИВНЫХ ПРАКТИК ПРИБАЛТИЙСКИХ ПРОВИНЦИЙ ПРИ ПЕТРЕ ВЕЛИКОМ

Abstract

The article explores the transfer of foreign borrowings into the Russian public administration system in the 1700s — first half of 1710s. The author argues that the transformations of the state apparatus before 1713 were not of qualitative nature, they resulted from the evolutionary development of the traditional Russian management model, stimulated by the need to provide resources for the warring and reforming army. All innovations in administration were limited to borrowing a foreign administrative vocabulary, the meaning of which was determined by Tsar Peter and his entourage’s desire to be “recognizable” in a Western cultural environment. As the Baltic provinces of Sweden were conquered, the Russian elite received, along with the territories, a highly developed and extensive system of local government, created by a German-dominated minority. It became Peter’s first practical example of a “well-ordered state” and suggested the necessity of reforming the country’s local crown government through the “transplantation” of Baltic institutions. The Landrat reform of 1713–1715 embodied this idea. Its failure, which showed the impossibility of mechanical reception of foreign administrative institutions, did not dissuade the Russian monarch in the correctness of the chosen course, but taught a number of lessons in the field of state building. It was after the unsuccessful Landrat reform that Peter set about preparing a large-scale reform of the state apparatus based on a systematic study of Western experience and the creation of mechanisms for adapting it to Russian reality.