The History of Titulature in the Russian State: From Naming the Status of an Official to Determining the Legal Regime of His Powers

The article examines the legal aspects of the titulature development in the Russian state in its historical, public-value and socio-cultural contexts in order to establish the main patterns of changes in the normative content of the title in the process of state and law development. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set: to identify the main elements (legal and historical-cultural) of the titulature; to identify the stages of development of the titulature associated with the natural process of formation of the state and law; to establish the historical and legal relationship between the sacred concepts and the legal categories reflexing the content of the titulature. Research methods: historical-legal, system-functional, cultural, formal-legal, etc. There are several historically and legally determined stages in the titulature development that follow each other: from the sacralized formulations and numerous named predicates of the position of the head of state to the legal institutionalization of the titulature, its normative consolidation and subsequent positive formalization. It is revealed that the latter is characterized by the conciseness of the title of the position and at the same time by a thorough, legally detailed consolidation of the functions and powers arising from the legal status of the official, as well as the ways and forms of their implementation. These results indicate the transformation of the titulature institution from the numerous naming of the title holder to the meaningful consolidation of the legal regime for the implementation of its status, which corresponds to the principle of proportionality in the use of legal instruments and mechanisms that ensure the proportionality of the legal impact on public relations regulated by the norms of law.