«Ближайший конфидент»: неформальные связи в бюрократической среде в России XVIII в.

Cahiers d'histoire russe, est-européenne, caucasienne et centrasiatique (ex. Cahiers du Monde Russe). 2019. Т. 60/1. № Janvier-mars. С. 37–72.

Babkova G. O.

The article focuses on the informal political networks and ways of how they operated in the Russian bureaucracy in the first half of the 18th century. A career of Avraam Sverchkov, a chief-secretary in the Senate in in the era from Peter I to Elizabeth, and his relations with top functionaries let trace how senior imperial bureaucrats were building their networks by involving mid-level officials in patron-client relationships. This was in the interest of the both parts: by getting access to skills, information etc. of their confidents, bureaucrats of high echelon got additional administrative support and became more effective. Meanwhile, mid-rank officials benefitted by improving their social positions, especially those who, like Sverchkov, was from law-class. Because of constant lack of qualified stuff such kind of patronage relationships had significant impact on all the levels of the administration. Hence, down of an informal network resulted not only in damaging the career of low- or mid-rank officials; potentially it could negatively affect all the imperial administrative system.    

Keywords: history of Russian Empire, История России XVIII в., History of Russia in the eighteenth century, Имперская история России, российская бюрократия, Early Modern Russian history

Publication based on the results of: The Perception of Social Phenomena and its Change in Early Modern Russia and Europe (2018)