Преобразования центрального морского управления в 1827 г.: некоторые новые аспекты истории реформы

Abstract

The problem of reforms of the state administrative apparatus in the second half of the 1820s is studied on the example of the introduction of the ministerial system in the fleet. In Russian historiography, the transformation of the structure of the maritime administration was viewed as having occurred in their plans and projects from the Committee for the Formation of the Fleet, a special institution created by Emperor Nicholas I to solve the most critical problems of the mari-time department on December 31, 1825. However, the appointment in 1826 of General-Adjutant Prince A.S. Menshikov, who previously had no relation to the fleet in the service, “to help” the Minister of the Sea, Vice Admiral A.V. Moller nevertheless forces him to raise the question of the actual course of transformations and possible explanations for such a decision by the emperor. The purpose of the research is to study the work of Prince Menshikov on the project of the Naval Ministry. Its achievement is impossible without referring to the documents of his personal archival fund (Russian State Archive of the Fleet, f. 19), which have never been introduced into the re-search field before. At the same time, the archival collections of the funds of maritime institutions do not reflect the course of transformations that took place in the central maritime administration in 1825–1827. The conclusion is made about the actual leadership of Prince Menshikov in the re-form of naval administration. In this phenomenon, features characteristic of the bureaucratizing state apparatus of the era of Nicholas I appeared: the appointment of a representative of the mili-tary generals, as well as retinue adjutant generals to resolve the most serious issues that were under the personal control of the monarch.