State Power and the Procedure for Creating Public Organizations in Russia in the Second Half of the 19th Century

The article reveals the evolution of legal regulation of the procedure for creating public organizations in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. It is established that the main criterion for the legality of public organizations in Russia was the presence of a charter approved by the state authority. Legislative regulation of the creation of private initiative societies was reduced to determining the list of state authorities authorized to approve the charters of new societies. Through the publication of a wide range of secondary legislation, the state authority established the requirements for the content of statutory norms and determined the procedure for their approval. The author found that in the second half of the 19th century there was a decentralization of the mechanism for creating private initiative societies and simplification of the administrative licensing procedure.