To the content of the concept of “internal affairs bodies” in a historical context

Introduction. The term “internal affairs” has become so widespread in our everyday life (including scientific) that it seems as if it has always existed.It may seem that it pretends to be some basic theoretical concept. The author of this article attempts to clarify this situation, to find out when and under what circumstances the concepts of “internal affairs”, “bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs”, “institutions of internal affairs”, “internal affairs bodies” entered the record and scientific turnover. This task seems to us to be urgent and highly relevant. Methods. The research was based on dialectics, acting as a general methodology of scientific cognition. General scientific, special and private-scientific methods were used. The study of relevant historical documents with the use of analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction was carried out. The obtained results were processed using the interpretative method. The comparison of functions and subdivisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in different historical periods was carried out. The principle of historicism allowed us to study the dynamics of formation and development of the terms “internal affairs”, “internal affairs bodies”. Results and their discussion. It is revealed that the very concepts of “internal affairs”, “internal affairs bodies” and other derivatives of them appeared only at the end of the XVIII century. In the “Mysterious Constitution” N. I. Panin outlined a new system of central bodies of branch state administration. One of the eight directions of “state government” he singled out “Spiritual law and morals of citizens, which is called internal politics”. Eight ministries were createdin September 1802. Seven of them were “specialised”, profile ones: the Military and Army, Naval, Justice, Commerce, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Public Education. The leadership of the other spheres of activity of society and the state was entrusted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Ministry of Internal Affairs took an exclusive position in the part of the management of places: governors, local selfgovernment bodies were subordinated to it. The concept of “internal affairs” was not precisely defined for a very long time. This continued until the beginning of the twentieth century and in the post-revolutionary years. Numerous reorganisations of the Ministry did not allow forming a definition of the terms in issue. Conclusion. As a result of the research, the authors conclude that the concept of «internal affairs bodies» cannot claim universal application to different historical periods. There are no unified criteria for attributing the functions performed by certain links of the state apparatus to «internal affairs».