The Presidential Library website presents the history of the Governing Senate

March 5, 2016 marks the 305th anniversary of the establishment of the Governing Senate by Peter I. The Presidential Library collection contains works of the late 19th - early 20th century on the history of Senate, including a reference book of 1898, "Governing Senate" compiled by M. A. Zeil, "Senate Archives" containing decrees and protocols of the Governing Senate, and other.

In the early 18th century the Boyar Duma ceased to play a significant role in decision-making. Remaining, however, an "advisory" body it still was not completely subordinated to Peter. The Senate, established as a temporary commission, which used to be the Duma during frequent and long military campaigns of Peter, became as a result a completely controlled "sovereign's eye" in the capital. February 22, 1711, leaving for the Turkish campaign, Peter issued a decree saying, "During my absences I assign the Senate to be the governing body." The Senate included persons close to the populous membership of the Boyar Duma, but not very close to the emperor: Count Musin-Pushkin, Streshnev, Plemyannikov, Prince Golitsyn, Prince Dolgoruky, Prince Volkonsky, Samarin, Opuhtin-Mel'nitsky and Shchukin. Taking up their duties, senators swore an oath composed by Peter I himself, according to P. Ivanov’s "The Senate under Peter the Great" issued in 1859. The same book provides some details of the oath rite.

Peter entrusted the Senate with court and expenses supervision, multiplication of income, trade and account of goods, etc. The emperor also emphasized the power of the Senate and responsibility to it: everyone was obliged to obey it as the sovereign and be punished capitally in case of disobedience. The decree prevented any attempts of criticizing the Senate until Peter’s return. As to the military actions, they did not concern the Senate. However, from a temporary committee it turned into a permanent supreme institution in 1718 (the year of announcement of the first charter of the Senate), "similar to a temporary headquarters on the Neva, which became the capital of the empire, or to a sergeant of the Preobrazhensky Regiment Alexander Menshikov, who became the Duke of Izhora," said V. O. Klyuchevsky in his “Course of Russian History" available in the Presidential Library collection.  

This kind of transformation of the Senate was due to the fact that at the same time there was created a state of unusual structure: the only movable center, which united the provinces without any stable center-capital, was the emperor. Naturally, going away with some military or diplomatic mission, Peter deprived the country of the central internal control, depriving himself of representatives of sovereign authority locally. Boyar Duma could not play such a role. There was a need for a new state council with permanent staff, focused on particular matters; the council was supposed to be "so plenipotentiary that all would be afraid of it and so responsible that it would fear something itself too. Alter ego of the tsar in the eyes of the people, feeling constantly his quos ego, that was the original idea of the Senate," wrote Klyuchevsky in his "Course of Russian History."

The first important task of the Senate in 1711 was the supervision of the entire governing. To fulfill the task, a body of active control was immediately set up: "Informers were the eyes and ears of the Senate," says A. P. Golitsyn in his "The first century of the Senate" published in 1910. Decree of March 5, 1711 ordered to select the chief informer, a reliable man, who would secretly keep an eye on everything and report to the emperor of the unjust trial. Every city had to have one or two informers. According to Klyuchevsky, there were at least 500 of them for 340 cities. Peter immediately gave them "a law on immunity."

In 1714 Peter the Great issued a decree, which charged the informers with prosecutor's duty to search for "the people’s cases, which have no petitioner."

Realizing the severity of the informer’s rank, Peter took the informers under his protection to strengthen the public morals. Generally announced decrees against robbery encouraged everyone, "from the first persons to even farmers" to report to the tsar about those breaking the law in a particular time, from October to March. For his "service" the informer received movable and immovable property of the offender and even his rank; the one who had not reported was executed or punished.

Government reforms of Peter the Great, as well as his other reforms, contributed to the state progress. One way or another, the institution of the Senate played an important role on the political stage of Russian Empire.

The Senate was dissolved by the Decree on courts N 1 after the October Revolution, November 22 (December 5), 1917. From 1925 to 2005, the buildings of former Senate and Synod housed the Central State Historical Archive based on the archives of the Senate and Synod.

During the Great Patriotic War the building suffered from eight shells, the interiors were damaged, only painting and stucco survived. Restoration of the building lasted from 1944 to 1952. In 2006, when the archive moved to a new building on Zanevsky Prospect, the Department of Affairs of the President of Russia began a complex of restoration work in the building of Senate and Synod. Since 2008, the Senate building has been occupied by the Constitutional Court. The building of the Synod housed the Presidential Library in 2009.