The Evolution of Pre-Revolutionary Russian Constitutionalism

The paper examines genesis and evolution of pre-revolutionary constitutionalism in Russia. The subject of research is the origins and theory of constitutionalism and the political and legal embodiment of the practices of the Russian constitutional movement of the period of 19th — early 20th centuries. Pre-revolutionary constitutionalism arose during the reign of Alexander I and theoretically developed throughout the 19th century and achieved its goal at the beginning of the 20th century. The adoption in 1906 of the Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire became the political and legal result of the development of Russian constitutionalism. As a result of the adoption of the Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire, the legal restriction of absolutism by the legislative State Duma and the State Council would occur. To conduct a historical and legal analysis of the theory and practices of domestic constitutionalism, pre-revolutionary sources and regulatory legal acts were used during the study. The analyzed historical documents became an expression of the constitutional ideas of the 19th — early 20th centuries. The paper concludes about the influence of the historical process and the features of Russian statehood on the formation and development of constitutionalism. The main reasons that caused the limitation of absolute monarchy in Russia were the defeat in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the era of the «great reforms» of Alexander II, the populist movement of the 1870s — early 1880s, and the first Russian revolution of 1905–1907. The 1st and 2nd Convocations of the State Duma were the greatest manifestation of constitutionalism in the Russian Empire. However, as a result of the «Third June Coup» of 1907, the momentum of the progressive movement towards the rule of law was lost, which became one of the reasons for the bourgeois-democratic February Revolution of 1917.