The Service Records of Heads of Departments and Members of the State Council: The Problem of Source Reliability

Abstract

This study focuses on service records, a mass source of government records management in the Russian Empire between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. The service record was a document containing basic biographical information about the official (surname, first name, patronymic, age, social origin, religion, education. Also, the document reflected whether the official had real estate, their marital status, children, stages of service, awards, penalties, etc.). For government agencies, service records were the main source of information and a means of controlling officials, and for officials themselves – certificates attesting to their abilities, experience, and impeccable reputation. The analysis of historiography on the issue demonstrates, on the one hand, that service records are a source that is in high demand by researchers. At the same time, the uncritical approach to these documents still prevails in historical studies. The valuable information they contain is used without comparison with data from other sources, without identifying and analysing materials that clarify the bureaucratic process of creating service records. As a result, experts do not have satisfactorily reasoned ideas about the completeness and reliability of this type of source. The article attempts to answer these questions by referring to personal service documentation of heads of departments (ministers and chief executives) and members of the State Council (about 600 persons in total). The author considers the legislation on service records and points out problems that arose in providing reliable information for them. The information of various sections of the service records is compared with data from other sources – metric books, personal decrees, supreme orders on the civil department, personal files of officials, and published lists of officials. The author concludes that the information from different sections of the service records is not equally reliable, and that the completeness and accuracy of the source in the state records management of the Russian Empire varied depending on the order of data collection and control over the process by the government.