THE EMPEROR’S “CONSTITUTION” 1905-1906 (historical context, content, reasons of failure)
Within a historical context is being undertaken the research on the ideological content and reasons of the failure of the Emperor’s “Constitution”: The Imperial Manifesto of 17 October 1905 and The Fundamental State Laws of the Russian Empire as amended on 23 April 1906. The research implies a situational analysis of the message of these legal acts. It is based on interrelated historical and legal, sociological and legal, legalistic scientific approaches. The ideological content of the legal acts of a constitutional nature, actually the first ones in the modern Russian history, is unfolding and analyzing considering: interests, motives and purposes of Imperial power, personality of Nicholas II. The analysis of the content of the Emperor’s “Constitution” - The Fundamental State Laws claiming to be the rules of supreme legal force - is taking into account the characteristics of the society in which the filling ideas being formed. The author believes the octroyed “constitution” expressed balance between the old and new state order; the balance that couldn’t be crossed not to destroy the basis of the Empire. Considering this reasonable statement the objective grounds are highlighted; grounds which didn’t allow the October Manifesto and Fundamental State Laws to imbue the archaic government with a new constitutional legitimacy essential for bourgeois reform and prevention of overall revolutionary anarchy.