The Presidential Library’s new collection to spotlight the Governing Senate

310 years ago, on March 5 (February 22, old style), 1711, the highest body of state power and legislation, subordinate to the emperor, the Governing Senate, was established in St. Petersburg by the decree of Peter the Great. 

Marking the anniversary of the Senate, the Presidential Library has prepared a new collection "The Senate in the History of Russian Statehood", consisting of several sections and including materials about the history of the Senate, for example, the study of the historian Fyodor Zhordania The Holy Synod under Peter the Great in its relation to the Governing Senate (1882), the monograph of Professor Curie Ibragimov Peter the Great and the Governing Senate (2012) and others, as well as numerous documents related to the activities of this institution.

The tsar’s decree, cited in the book of the historian Peter Ivanov The Senate under Peter the Great (1859), had the character of a provisional establishment. It received his final education in 1718. At the end of this last year, Peter drew the first charter on the position of the Senate...As a result of these legalizations, the Senate received the significance of the highest permanent state place in Russia".

The publication The Governing Senate: A Brief Historical Sketch and Biographies of Senators (1912), says that "the new institution had nothing in common with foreign institutions of the same name and was exclusively applied to the peculiar conditions of Russian state life of that period".

The Presidential Library also provides the work of the historian and lawyer Konstantin Trotsin History of Judicial Institutions in Russia (1851), which is an overview of the judicial power and judicial activity in Russia starting from antiquity to the mid-19th century.

This is what this edition says about the history of the Governing Senate.

“After the accession of Empress Catherine I to the throne and the establishment of the Supreme Privy Council in 1726, the Senate lost its significance as the highest governmental and judicial seat in Russia. <...>...The very name of its Governing Senate has been replaced by the name of Highest one...<...>

Empress Anna Ioannovna, upon her accession to the throne, restored the Senate in the form in which it was under Emperor Peter the Great, commanding it to continue to be called the Governing Senate. ... A decree was issued on its division into Departments, of which each would be engaged in a special kind of business ... <...>

... Empress Elizabeth, having ascended the All-Russian throne, restored the supreme government of the state as it was under her parent, Emperor Peter the Great; thus...the highest consideration and decision of the cases were given to the Governing Senate based on the provisions of Peter I and Catherine.

<...> Emperor Alexander...ordered the senators to compose a draft of the proper structure of the Senate, showing all its rights and obligations..."

The approved draft stated that “1) the Senate is the supreme place of the Empire ... 2) the power of the Senate is limited solely by the power of the Imperial Majesty, but he has no other supreme power over himself, 3) a single person of the Imperial Majesty presides over the Senate and 4) the decrees of the Senate are executed all, as the Imperial Majesty's own ... <...>

Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich issued final institutions defining the composition of the Senate and the administration of affairs in it".

The fundamental work of Professor Alexander Filippov The History of the Governing Senate for 200 Years, 1711-1911 in 5 volumes (1911) tells, in particular, about where the Senate was located and what buildings it occupied throughout its existence.

The Senate was dissolved by Decree on the Court No. 1 after the October Revolution on November 22 (December 5) 1917. From 1925 to 2005, the Central State Historical Archives were located in the buildings of the Senate and Synod based on the archives of the Senate and Synod.

During the Great Patriotic War, the building suffered from being hit by eight shells, the interiors were damaged - only the painting and stucco molding were preserved. The restoration of the building lasted from 1944 to 1952. In 2006, after the archive moved to a new building on Zanevsky Prospekt, the Office of the President of Russia launched a complex of restoration work in the building of the Senate and Synod. Since 2008, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has been transferred to the Senate building and since 2009 the Presidential Library has been located in the Synod building.