Living Autocracy: Problems of the Personal Power of the Monarch and the Regulation of the State Service in the Reign of Alexander III

The article examines attempts to transform the institute of the tsar's personal power (the Commission for the Acceptance of Petitions) and the foundations of civil service during the reign of Alexander III. It is stressed that these measures were connected with ideological searches among conservatives, who considered the personal power of the monarch as the main guarantee of ensuring social stability. Faced with the fact that the prerogatives of the tsar were largely limited by the influence of the bureaucracy and the departmental system of management, conservatives proposed measures aimed to change the current situation. The most part of the planned transformations were not implemented. This indicated both of the strength of the bureaucracy's resistance to measures aimed at limiting its influence, and of the fact that most conservative projects did not correspond to the socio-political realities of the end of nineteenth century.