Russian Empire

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Revision as of 22:47, 9 April 2008

Российская империя Rossiyskaya Imperiya Russian Empire
Flag	Great State Emblem
Motto "Съ нами Богъ!" (Russian) "God is with us!"
Anthem God Save the Tsar!
Capital Largest city	Saint Petersburg 59°56′0″N, 30°20′0″E Moscow
Official languages	Russian
Demonym	Russian
Government  - Emperor  - Minister President  - Legislature	Absolute monarchy Peter IV Aleksandr Drozdovsky State Duma
Official religion	Russian Orthodox Church
Establishment  - Accession of Peter I  - Empire proclaimed  - Abolition of feudalism  - Constitution	May 7, 1682 NS, April 27, 1682 OS October 22, 1721 NS, October 11, 1721 OS March 3, 1861 NS, February 19, 1861 OS April 23, 1906
Area  - Total  - Water (%)	22,623,132 km² 8,734,762 sq mi 0.86
Population  - July 2007 est.  - Density	290,373,111 12.84 /km² 33.24 /sq mi
GDP (PPP)  - Total  - Per capita	2007 estimate $16.298 trillion $48,384
GDP (nominal)  - Total  - Per capita	2007 estimate $16.298 trillion $48,384
Gini	37.6 (medium)
HDI	0.947 (high)
Currency	Ruble (RUB)
Time zone - Summer (DST)	(UTC +2 to +12) (UTC +3 to +13)
Internet TLD	.ru
Calling code	+7

Government and administration

Map of the Russian Empire.

Russia was described in the Almanach de Gotha for 1910 as "a constitutional monarchy under an autocratic tsar." This obvious contradiction in terms well illustrates the difficulty of defining in a single formula the system, essentially transitional and meanwhile sui generis, established in the Russian Empire since October 1905. Before this date the fundamental laws of Russia described the power of the emperor as "autocratic and unlimited." The imperial style is still "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias"; but in the fundamental laws as remodeled between the October Manifesto and the opening of the first Imperial Duma on 27 April 1906, while the name and principle of autocracy was jealously preserved, the word "unlimited" vanished. Not that the regime in Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary; but the "unlimited autocracy" had given place to a "self-limited autocracy," whether permanently so limited, or only at the discretion of the autocrat, remaining a subject of heated controversy between conflicting parties in the state. Provisionally, then, the Russian governmental system may perhaps be best defined as "a limited monarchy under an autocratic emperor."

The emperor

Peter IV, the current Russian Emperor.

Peter the Great changed his title from Tsar in 1721, when he was declared Emperor of all Russia. While subsequent rulers kept this title, the ruler of Russia is commonly known as Tsar or Tsaritsa in other countries.

The power of emperor before the October Manifesto was limited by two liabilities: the emperor and his consort must belong to the Russian Orthodox Church and to obey the laws of succession, established by Paul I. On 17 October 1905, the situation changed, the emperor voluntarily limited his legislative power by decreeing that no measure was to become law without the consent of the Imperial Duma, a freely elected national assembly. In addition to mentioned moral liabilities appeared new juridical, amplified with the Organic Law of 28 April 1906.

Imperial Council

By the law of the 20 February 1906, the Council of the Empire was associated with the Duma as a legislative Upper House; and from this time the legislative power has been exercised normally by the emperor only in concert with the two chambers.

The Council of the Empire, or Imperial Council, as reconstituted for this purpose, consists of 196 members, of whom 98 are nominated by the emperor, while 98 are elective. The ministers, also nominated, are ex officio members. Of the elected members, 3 are returned by the "black" clergy (the monks), 3 by the "white" clergy (seculars), 18 by the corporations of nobles, 6 by the academy of sciences and the universities, 6 by the chambers of commerce, 6 by the industrial councils, 34 by the governments having zemstvos, 16 by those having no zemstvos, and 6 by Poland. As a legislative body the powers of the Council are coordinate with those of the Duma; in practice, however, it has seldom if ever initiated legislation.

The Duma and electoral system

The Duma of the Empire or Imperial Duma (Gosudarstvennaya Duma), which forms the Lower House of the Russian parliament, consists of 442 members, elected by an exceedingly complicated process. The membership is manipulated as to secure an overwhelming majority of the wealthy (especially the landed classes) and also for the representatives of the Russian peoples at the expense of the subject nations. Each province of the empire, except Central Asia, returns a certain number of members; added to these are those returned by several large cities. The members of the Duma are chosen by electoral colleges and these, in turn, are elected in assemblies of the three classes: landed proprietors, citizens, and peasants. In these assemblies the wealthiest proprietors sit in person whilst the lesser proprietors are represented by delegates. The urban population is divided into two categories according to taxable wealth, and elects delegates directly to the college of the Governorates. The peasants are represented by delegates selected by the regional subdivisions called volosts. Workmen are treated in special manner with every industrial concern employing fifty hands or over electing one or more delegates to the electoral college.

In the college itself the voting for the Duma is by secret ballot and a simple majority carries the day. Since the majority consists of conservative elements (the landowners and urban delegates), the progressives habe little chance of representation at all save for the curious provision that one member at least in each government is to be chosen from each of the five classes represented in the college.

Council of Ministers

By the law of 18 October 1905, to assist the emperor in the supreme administration a Council of Ministers (Sovyet Ministrov) was created, under a minister president, the first appearance of a prime minister in Russia. This council consists of all the ministers and of the heads of the principal administrations. The ministries were as follows:

• of the Imperial Court, to which the administration of the apanages, the chapter of the imperial orders, the imperial palaces and theatres, and the Academy of Fine Arts are subordinated;
• Foreign Affairs;
• War and Marine;
• Finance;
• Commerce and Industry (created in 1905);
• Interior (including police, health, censorship and press, posts and telegraphs, foreign religions, statistics);
• Agriculture;
• Ways and Communications;
• Justice;
• National Enlightenment.

Current ministers

As of April 2008, the members of the Council of Ministers are:

Minister President: Aleksandr Drozdovsky

Minister of the Imperial Court: Alexei Pokrovsky

Minister of Foreign Affairs: Andrey Viskovatyi

Minister of War and Marine: Ivane Cholokashvili

Minister of Finance: Leonid Khodorkovsky

Minister of Commerce and Industry: Mikhail Tretyakov

Minister of Interior: Sergey Krasheninnikov

Minister of Agriculture: Pyotr Kuchin

Minister of Ways and Communications: Aleksandr Kokovstov

Minister of Justice: Nikita Dmitriev

Minister of National Enlightenment: Count Fyodor Golitsyn

Most Holy Synod

The Senate and Synod headquarters on Senate Square in St. Petersburg.

to be added

Local administration

Alongside the local organs of the central government in Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions:

• the peasant assemblies in the mir and the volost;
• the zemstvos in the 34 Governorates of Russia;
• the municipal dumas.

Municipal dumas

The Moscow City Duma.

Since 1870 the municipalities in European Russia have had institutions like those of the zemstvos. All owners of houses, and tax-paying merchants, artisans and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. Under Alexander III, however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos. In 1894 municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in Caucasia.

Baltic provinces

The formerly Swedish controlled Baltic provinces (Courland, Livonia and Estonia) were incorporated into the Russian Empire after the defeat of Sweden in the Great Northern War. Under the Treaty of Nystad of 1721, the Baltic German nobility retained considerable powers of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. After 167 years of German language administration and education, laws were promulgated in 1888 and 1889 where the rights of the police and manorial justice were transferred from Baltic German control to officials of the central government. Since about the same time a process of rigorous Russification was being carried out in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools and in the university of Dorpat, the name of which was altered to Yuriev. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.

Religions

The state religion of the Russian Empire is Russian Orthodox Christianity. Its head is the Emperor, but although he makes and annuls all appointments, he does not determine questions of dogma or church teaching. The principal ecclesiastical authority is the Holy Synod, the head of which, the Procurator, is one of the council of ministers and exercises very wide powers in ecclesiastical matters. Following the landmark reforms of 1922, Russians enjoy a great degree of religious freedom, and the state and church have since then worked actively to combat anti-Semitism and promote interreligious tolerance. According to returns published in 2005, based on the Russian Empire Census of 2002, adherents of the different religious communities in the whole of the Russian empire number approximately as follows, though the heading Orthodox includes a very great many Raskolniks or Dissenters.

The ecclesiastical heads of the national Russian Orthodox Church consist of three metropolitans (St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev), fourteen archbishops and fifty bishops, all drawn from the ranks of the monastic (celibate) clergy. The parochial clergy have to be married when appointed, but if left widowers are not allowed to marry again; this rule continues to apply today.

Society

Subjects of the Russian Empire are segregated into sosloviyes, or social estates (classes) such as nobility (dvoryanstvo), clergy, merchants, cossacks, and peasants. Native people of the Caucasus, non-ethnic Russian areas such as Tartarstan, Bashkirstan, Siberia, and Central Asia are officially registered as a category called inorodtsy (non-Slavic, literally: "people of another origin").

A mass of the people, 81.6%, belong to the peasant order, the others are: nobility, 1.3%; clergy, 0.9%; the burghers and merchants, 9.3%; and military, 6.1%.