The composition of the Cabinet of Ministers in 1731-1733: personal activities of members
The article analyzes the problem of the composition of the Imperial Cabinet of Ministers in the aspect of the current personal activities of its members at the stage of initial consideration and resolution of incoming cases, which is insufficiently covered in Russian historical science. The chronological scope of the article is limited to November 1731-1733. At this stage of its history, the Cabinet was still being formed as a state authority, overcoming the boundaries of the personal chancellery of Empress Anna Ivanovna. The integrity of the designated period is also given by the state of cabinet office work. In particular, the logs of its meetings at that time were more informative than later. The author proposed the following method of studying the official activity of individual ministers: identifying in the "protocol notes" and outgoing documentation of the collegial institution their independent administrative activities on the days when they were in the "presence" separately from each other. In the office documentation for the years mentioned, such information was reflected, firs t of all, by the ministers A. I. Osterman and A. M. Cherkassky. In the course of the work, the main types of their cab inet activities were compared, among which were: bringing reports to the empress, receiving reports from officials, discussing cases together with invited dignitaries, expressing special orders. As a result of the study, preliminary conclusions were formulated about the nature of their daily service in the "presence", as well as about the specifics of their subjective impact on the functioning of the Cabinet during the specified period. The presented data correct some well-established historiographical theses on the issues under study, primarily concerning the activity of Minister A. M. Cherkassky.