At the beginning of the XVIII century. oratory held a special position in the public life of the country. There was little printed literature: the publishing business was in an extremely primitive state. The first newspaper, St. Petersburg Vedomosti, had just appeared and appeared extremely irregularly; the number of real readers was extremely small. The large-scale reforms of Peter were unpopular among contemporaries, so the official authorities needed to promote them among the population of the Russian Empire. It was the speakers who were supposed to convince people of the need for changes in the life of the state and society. In this regard, the works of oratory come to the fore, which can conditionally be divided into two types:
– secular speeches;
– church sermons.
Church sermons were timed to coincide with a major religious holiday or on the occasion of the interpretation of some biblical quote, and therefore were of an emotional nature. Secular speeches were also made not just like that, but on some important event. Secular speeches were based on the so-called panegyric style, involving the praise of the sovereign, his power prerogatives, reforms, etc. [Cm. more details: 4]
The speeches of Feofan Prokopovich are written in a panegyric style. F. Prokopovich is an associate of Peter I, the ideologist of Peter’s reforms, an orator who managed to subordinate religious preaching to the broadcasting and propaganda of Peter’s large-scale reforms. Therefore, the “Word for the burial of Peter the Great” was created in an emotionally laudatory tone.
Peter I carried out large-scale reforms in Russia, touching on every element of the state, economic and social life of the country. The absolute monarchy that took shape demanded reliance on a strong army and a developed bureaucratic apparatus, so Peter’s main attention was drawn to the modernization of the military and state spheres. An absolutist state has a number of specific features, such as the concentration of all power in the hands of one person. Naturally, to accomplish this task, Peter I needed to unify governance in the country or create a regular state. Peter’s model of a regular state was based on the conviction that the state can function effectively only on the basis of well-thought-out laws, as well as with the help of a system of state bureaucracy that is under the control of the law and independent of the arbitrariness of officials. Therefore, Peter I sought to regulate all aspects of life with the help of a written law, to which he attached exceptional importance in the management of public affairs, as well as total control in the implementation of this law.
Peter was regarded as a state institution as a military institution; he attached the importance of military regulations to the laws. Note that the basis of the legislation that determined the work of state institutions under Peter was the Military Charter, adopted in 1716. All officials had to take the oath of office in the government, as did the military. According to Peter I, only military discipline is able to foster respect for order, hard work and consciousness. Under him, the cult of state institutions was created, the implementation of laws passed through a long system of bureaucratic institutions. Thus, the state acquired a police and bureaucratic character.
One of the most important reforms of Peter I was the transformation of the command system. Two stages of reforming the command system can be distinguished. The first stage of the reform of the command system was begun by Peter I in 1699, when from 1699 to 1701. a number of orders were combined, “which either merged completely, or connected under the leadership of one person with the preservation of the apparatus of each order separately. ... Reform of 1718-1720. abolished most of the orders and introduced collegiums”, a single register (list) of colleges was introduced.
Unlike orders, the collegial system provided for a systematic division of the administration into a certain number of departments, which in itself created a higher level of centralization and, of course, systematization.
On December 12, 1718, the register of collegia was adopted, in which the functions and competencies of the colleges were determined. However, already at the beginning of the reform of the state system, it became clear that the Swedish system did not take into account the national characteristics of the Russian state. And therefore there was a need for the appearance of additional colleges that have no analogues in the Swedish system.
In total, by the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century. There were 13 colleges, which became central state institutions formed according to the functional principle. Unlike orders that acted on the basis of custom and precedent, the boards should be guided by clear legal norms and job descriptions.
The most general legislative act in this area was the General Regulation adopted on February 28, 1720 and consisting of 56 chapters: 1 chapter contained the oath of employees, 2-27 chapters – the general working procedure of the board, 28-40, 44-49 chapters – showed work Chancellery of the college regulated the duties of employees, and 41-43 chapters – the work of offices, 55-56 chapters were warning in nature, which determined the measure and types of punishments of employees for official crimes. The “General Regulations” was a charter of the activities of state colleges, chancelleries and offices and determined the composition of their members, competence, functions, and operating procedures.
Another difference of the boards from the orders was that the boards were characterized by a joint discussion of cases, as well as a uniform organizational structure. The functions of the Colleges were clear and strictly regulated. The colleges obeyed the king and the Senate; the colleges were subordinate to local authorities.
According to the “General Rules”, each board consisted of a presence (general meeting of members) and an office. The president of the college was appointed by the king and administered. The vice president and members were appointed by the Senate and approved by the king.
The “General Rules” also established the exact schedule of the Board meetings: on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Thursday, presidents sat in the Senate. The main form of activity of the collegiums was meetings of its general presence. At first, state and then private affairs were considered. The members of the collegiums submitted their opinions in turn, starting with the junior ranks, and not repeating (affairs were decided by the majority).
The decoration of the colleges was much richer compared to the situation of orders. The presence of the colleges gathered in a room specially designated for this, cleaned with carpets and good furniture. In the middle of the room stood a table covered with scarlet cloth and decorated with a mirror. Around the table were members of the board. They sat at the seniority of their ranks. In the same room, a secretary and a notary sat at a separate table. None of the outsiders were allowed to enter the room without a report during the meetings. The petitioner was supposed to state his request while standing; a chair was served only in exceptional cases to people of high rank.
The presence of the collegiums met every day except holidays and Sundays. The meetings began in the summer at 6 a.m., in the winter at 8 a.m. and lasted about 5-6 hours. When a question concerned several colleges, a joint presence of interested colleges was assigned.
At the head of the office of each college was a secretary or chief secretary. They were in charge of all the written documents of the college, they composed all the important papers themselves, less important documents were entrusted to other members of the office. The secretary had to personally accept all petitions submitted. In addition to the secretary, the notary, actuary, translator, registrar, interpreters, copyists, clerk were in the office of the college. There were also couriers, watchmen, wahmists and soldiers.
The notary public was responsible for keeping a protocol on all matters decided by the collegiums. Every day, he made notes on a special sheet about cases that were reported in the presence and decisions made by the presence. Each month, these sheets corresponded blank and bound in a special binding. The notary also kept a list of outstanding cases, and the secretary noted in the list of which employee what case was under consideration. This list was lying on the table during the presence in front of the president, so that he knew how many unresolved in his department.
So, by royal decrees of March 2 and 5, 1711, fiscals operating under the Senate were established in Russia. The seriousness of the tsar’s intentions was evidenced by the appointment in April 1711 of the head of the department, clerk Jacob Bylinsky, known for his “searches” for major state crimes carried out in the Preobrazhensky order. He immediately appealed to the Senate with a request to clarify his authority in ten paragraphs (August 10, 1711). However, the chief fiscal did not receive significant clarifications. Soon F.Yu. Romodanovsky requested that his clerk be returned to the Preobrazhensky order and the tsar had to return again to the question of appointing the chief fiscal. On May 29, 1711, he ordered that the status of chief fiscal be increased by ordering him to be selected from the “courtiers of a good man” as chief fiscal. On August 22, 1711, Peter I concluded a kind of agreement (“detachment”) with Count N.M. Zotov that he should take over this state fiscal business”. But this appointment for some reason did not take place.
In October 1712, the position of chief fiscal was taken by the steward M.V. Zhelyabuzhsky. At this time, with the filing of the Moscow provincial fiscal, A.Ya. Nesterov, an investigation of the “contract scam” began, in which “persons” from the Tsar’s closest circle were involved, including A.D. Menshikov. The revitalization of the fiscals has caused widespread discontent.
In turn, Peter I tried to strengthen the rule of law by adopting new regulations. Also, the lack of reliability of fiscalism led to the emergence in 1715 of the Senate as a general auditor or overseer of decrees. Apparently, already at this stage of the reform, Peter I realized that secret surveillance was not applicable to the highest state officials in Russia. The main business of the auditor is “so that everything is fulfilled”. On November 27, 1715, he appointed to the newly created position the general auditor of the foreman V. N. Zotova. Finally, on January 12, 1722, control functions were assigned to a specially appointed prosecutor general. It should be noted that the reforming king was forced to constantly expand the special system of organized distrust and denunciation created by him, supplementing the existing control bodies with new ones.
Peter wanted to create a powerful state, organized like a clock, an uninterruptedly working mechanism. The main advantages of such a state are its predictability and effectiveness, which is ensured by a clear distribution of functions and powers between employees of the apparatus. For an official, service is his professional activity, which is determined by the following factors:
– personal freedom of the official and submission only to official duty;
– strict service hierarchy;
– availability of specialization;
– the presence of a constant cash salary.
Peter built his new state on the basis of the principles of cameralism. Literally, the concept of “cameralism” means the science of managing uniform management methods. “When determining the content of the cameralist doctrine, it would be right to consider it, following Werner Lachmann, as a set of practically oriented administrative and economic knowledge on the conduct of the state economy”. Cameralism was supposed to arrange state administration according to a functional principle, that is, each institution had to be in charge of its own special sphere of government. The central link was financial institutions, which were clearly divided into bodies involved in fundraising, bodies that concentrated these funds and allocated them to expenses, and, finally, bodies that maintained independent financial accounting and financial control. In all institutions, the uniform principles of the form of various kinds of documents, the approved rules for the “movement of papers”, their accounting and turnover in the bowels of the office were in effect. Thus, as a principle of administrative management, cameralism included the following new approaches in the activities of state institutions:
– management functionality of institutions;
– specialization of institutions;
– regulation of the functions of officials;
– unification of staff and salaries of officials.
However, to achieve the above objectives, Peter I needed to control the implementation of his own ideas at each stage of the transformation. In this regard, another goal of Peter’s reforms comes to the forefront – the creation of a “police state”.
According to archpriest G. Florovsky, “Police State” is not only and not so much external as internal reality. Not so much a system as a lifestyle. Not only political theory, but also a religious attitude. “Policeism” is the intention to build and “regularly compose” the whole life of the country and people, the whole life of each individual inhabitant, for the sake of his own and “common good” or “common good”.
Everyday life of people in the first half of the 18th century It was furnished with emergency regulation. In the cities it was forbidden to wear beards, Russian dress, it was determined how many horses should be kept and harnessed to the crew in accordance with the rank, what jewelry should be worn on holidays, etc. Also set the time for sleep, work and rest. Work, in turn, was also regulated.
Extremely brought regulation of the life and activities of the population was entrusted to the police, whose functions included issues in the resolution of which the autocratic government used coercion. Since the beginning of the XVIII century. regular police units began to appear. In 1702, the self-government bodies were abolished. Their functions went to
Feofan Prokopovich read the “Word” on the occasion of the burial of Peter I. As the historian of the second half of the 19th century notes. p. Morozov, F. Prokopovich delivered two speeches – March 1 – the first, i.e. on the day of Peter’s burial, and the second – on the day of Peter and Paul [3, p. 318].
The “Word to the Burial of Peter the Great” addressed to the Russian people was supposed to excite and convince the people of the terrible loss – the loss of the great sovereign – the reformer Peter I. Therefore, the “Word” is formally a monologue, but it seems that the author is conducting a dialogue with the people, guided by how people perceive it. “The word on the burial of Peter the Great” Feofan Prokopovich delivered an hour, although in fact the speech, subsequently written on paper, turned out to be much shorter. The fact is that after the first line uttered by the speaker, the people cried for a quarter of an hour: “This scream and sob went to those standing outside the church, and it seemed that the walls and ramparts of the fortress were roaring ...” [2, p. 238].
The “word” is written in three parts, which can be arbitrarily designated as follows:
– Crying for Peter the Great;
– Praise to Peter’s reforms;
– An appeal to Catherine I Alekseevna – the widow of Peter I.
The speech of F. Prokopovich begins with general rhetorical questions and is addressed to the people: “What is this? What have we lived up to, about the Russians? What do we see? What are we doing?” [3, p. 126] We see how the author addresses the people through the use of the personal pronoun “ we ”, which helps to establish contact between the speaker and the audience. Further speech is even more emotional: “We buried Peter the Great! Is it a dream? Not a sleepy providence for us? Oh, how true sorrow! Oh, how our misfortune is known!” [5, p. 126]
Further in the second part of the speech F. Prokopovich praises the acts of Peter the Great. The ritor compares Peter with Samson, which testifies to the mighty Peter’s strength: “He found in you a weak force and made stone in his name” [5, p. 126]. F. Prokopovich likens Peter Yafetu, which symbolizes the construction of the fleet in Russia by the omnipresent Peter, Moses – and Peter is compared with the great lawmaker, Solomon, which symbolizes “wisdom is a lot of evil” [5, p. 127], as well as David and Konstantin – Peter is considered the organizer of the church (“his business is the synodal government”) [5, p. 127]. In every word, one can hear the pain and the significance of this loss for Russia: “The culprit of the countless well-being of our joys, who raised Russia from the dead ...” [5, p. 126]. However, the rhetorician believes that a great future awaits the Russian Empire: “What he made his Russia, this will be” [5, p. 128]. F. Prokopovich, as it were, consoles the people, that although there is no longer a great sovereign with us, his work will continue, to live in the future, above all, in the hands of his successor, the wife of Ekaterina Alekseevna.
In the third part of the speech, Prokopovich already addresses Catherine I both with words of consolation, and with the hope of her continuing Peter’s affairs. It is important that already in this speech F. Prokopovich mentions Catherine as the empress, calling her “our gracious and autocratic sovereign, great heroine, and monarchine, and all-Russian mother” [5, p. 129].
On the whole, F. Prokopovich laid the historical foundations for the study of the activities of Peter the Great by descendants. In “The Word on the Burial of Peter the Great”, F. Prokopovich does not share praise and criticism, i.e. the eulogy of Peter and the blasphemy against his enemies sound like a single, cohesive text. For a long time, the “Word” was a model for studying the personality and activities of Peter the Great. However, in the XIX century. the study of the “Word” by F. Prokopovich as a textbook source was violated by the literature historian P.O. Morozov, who, for his work “Feofan Prokopovich as a writer”, received a master’s degree. In his work, the author noted that the “Word on the burial of Peter the Great” by F. Prokopovich does not represent any scientific interest, primarily because it is small in volume and does not contain anything but pathos about Peter, and therefore “represents a work of art, cabinet, strictly measured, written in accordance with all the rules of school rhetoric” [3, p. 318].
In our opinion, F. Prokopovich’s “Word on the Burial of Peter the Great” is certainly not without excessive pathos. All speech is permeated and filled with deep sorrow over Russia’s loss of Peter. As the ideologist of the Petrine reforms, Prokopovich calls on the people to continue Peter’s work in the interests of Russia: “I have made good my beloved – loved and will be, made my enemies terrible and will not cease to be” [5, p. 128].
Disputes about the reforms of Peter continue to this day, the meaning of the “Words on the burial of Peter the Great” by F. Prokopovich consists in stating the need to comprehend the significance of the Petrine era for the fate of Russia.