Glotova, S. A. Documentation of Administrative Activity in Russia during the 18th Century

Abstract: The article describes the process of implementation of administrative activity by public control and administrative authorities of the 18th century based on archives kept by the funds of the Russian Record Offi ce of Ancient Acts. Taking into account the collegial form of administrative decision-making process in the 18th century, special attention is paid at the procedure of transformation of the collegial will into a concrete administrative order. This procedure involved documents recording the process of making the collegial decision as well as order documents bringing these decisions to executors. The former included protocols and journals and the latter included orders. The article gives examples of these documents and describes the procedure of their publication. The author also marks out another important tendency in documentation of administrative activity during that period which involved brining orders by supreme authorities to lower layers through a number of orders of the Senate and collegiums repeating the contents of initiative documents. It is currently a traditional function of state authorities which refl ects the process of administrative activity ‘in pursuance’. The article shows that this procedure was fi rst formed in the 18th century.

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