The History of the Search for the Author of the “Count Vorontzov Opinion” in the Context of the Perception of the British Constitutional Experience in Russia in the First Half of the 19th Century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of case materials from the funds of the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GA RF) about the long-term, during 1827—1849, and persistent search by gendarmes on the orders of Nicholas I, the author of one of the drafts of the liberal “constitution”. Such actions could not be generated only by the adherence of the emperor to reactionary politics. It is possible that the principal course towards the eradication of the spirit of “English liberty” from the consciousness of the Russian nobility is explained by their desire to use another component of the British experience of state and constitutional building — the priority of evolutionary rather than revolutionary development. Nicholas I was not going to succumb to anyone's pressure, both inside the country and outside. He planned first to create a nation from among the representatives of those social groups that, from his point of view, were important for strengthening the foundations of power, then to grant the nation laws, possibly fundamental ones, and only then, on this basis, to build relationships with law-abiding subjects. The twenty-year search for the author of the criminal “constitution” is proof of this.