26 Troitskii’s source critical analysis of the Table of Ranks revealed that the men who drafted it made use of Danish and Swedish models, in particular. According to him, these models were used in view of the great similarities in social, economic, and political developments in Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. Troitskii did not, however, indicate the nature of these purported similarities. As had Man’kov, Troitskii argued that Sweden occupied a position between the very backward Russia and the more developed bourgeois states such as England and the Netherlands. Not only that, but the Swedish monarchy was strong. “This,” stated Troitskii, “attracted Peter Ts attention to the experience of his closest neighbor, which had managed to achieve great success in the strengthening of the state.” In addition, Troitskii claimed that Russian legislative documents were also used in preparation of the Table of Ranks. Among other things, the Table followed the principles of the General Regulation concerning the civil service. But Troitskii did not link up the Table of Ranks with the administrative reform to a sufficient degree; the General Regulation must also be analyzed if one is to understand the background of the Table of Ranks more completely.^*' In an essay published posthumously in Voprosy istorii, Troitskii returned to the question of Swedish influence on the Petrine reforms."- He did not present anything really new in this essay, which was largely a compilation of excerpts from his doctoral dissertation. Troitskii stated that the Petrine government arranged for the collection of an extensive amount of detailed information concerning the administrative systems of several European countries, but that the Russians studied Sweden’s central and local administrative organization most carefully. This he explained by saying that Sweden was closer to Russia in socioeconomic terms than were the other Western European countries, that Sweden had a strong royal government, and that the Swedish collegial system was widely considered to be exemplary."^ These, of course, are the same explanations he had put forth in his dissertation, but he did state more emphatically that the Russians had not copied Swedish administrative law directly, especially when it came to the content of the instructions drawn up for the colleges. Here, according to Troitskii, it is possible to state that “in all of these cases there was not any blind copying of the Swedish models.” Instead, an instruction such as that drawn up for the krigs-kollegiia was based primarily on Russian experiences in the Great Ibid., 59. Ibid., 67. See p. 119. S. M. Troitskii, “Ob ispol’zovanii opyta Shvetsii pri provedenii administrativnykh reformov Rossii v pervoi chetvertii XVIII veka,” Voprosy istorii, no. 2 (1977), 67—75. Ibid., 70—71.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=