Cabinet of Anna Ioannovna as a typical institution of absolutism

Abstract

The article is an attempt to consider the analogues of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Empress Anna Ioannovna (17301740) among the higher bodies of state administration in the XVIXVIII centuries. The relevance of this issue is due to the fact that historians, when searching for analogues of the Cabinet, rarely go beyond the limits of the Russian state. On the basis of the analysis of higher state institutions of some European countries in XVIXVIII centuries the author determined that such institutions secret councils had characteristic features. It is revealed that such state institutions were characterized by a narrow composition, uncertainty of competence, beginnings of specialization in the sphere of management. The article suggests that the emergence of secret councils reflected the growth of absolute power of the monarch. It is analyzed that the origins of such institutions are in the early Middle Ages, when the monarch had deliberative councils, the high role in which was played by the aristocracy. In the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, these institutions were transformed the aristocracy was gradually replaced by specially trained officials under the control of the monarch. On the basis of the involved materials it is investigated that in different states the situation developed in a heterogeneous way. The author suggests that, unlike the Supreme Privy Council, usually referred to by historians as the prototype of the Cabinet, the supreme body of power under Anna Ioannovna did not seek to fully replace the monarch, but was a convenient tool in his hands. The author concludes that on a number of features the Cabinet of Anna Ioannovna can be defined as a typical institution within the classical absolutist model of the state.