A Meeting Chaired by Nicholas II on the Revision of the Fundamental State Laws: Formation and Composition (March–April 1906)

For the first time in scientific historiography, with the involvement of previously unknown archival documents that are stored in the GARF and RGIA, the process of preparing a Meeting chaired by Nicholas II on the revision of Fundamental Laws (April 1906) is considered.The course of the Meeting and its results were greatly influenced by the circumstances of the formation of the Meeting and its composition.The author analyzes the bureaucratic practices inherent in the process of preparing the Meeting.The initiation of the Meeting and the appointment of its members are being studied, which Nicholas II and the S.Y.Witte, were directly involved in.Special attention is paid to the implementation of the function of control over the preparation of the Meeting, which was the competence not only of the tsar and the Prime Minister, but also of P.A. Kharitonov, who was in charge of the office work of the Meeting.The mechanisms of both information support for the activities of the Meeting and business communication between its members and Kharitonov are being investigated.The article considers the political differentiation that manifested itself among the members of the Meeting already at the stage of its preparation, including due to the ideological heterogeneity of the materials that were provided to the monarch and royal dignitaries.It is concluded that the formation and composition of the Meeting testifies to the high level of political culture of the bureaucratic elite of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the XX century.