30 Swedish influence, namely concerning the origin of the regular army, the collegial reform, and the establishment of the provincial administration. Following Otto Hintze’s thesis that “alle Staatsverfassung ist urspriinglich Krlegsverfassung, Heeresverfassung,” von Puttkamer argued that the Russian military reforms constituted the point of departure and the primary goal for all of the subsequent reforms. A reform of the military system was “eine Folge praktischen Bedurfnisses fiir eine Staat, der slch seine Stellung unter den europäischen Grossmächten erst erobern musste."’ According to von Puttkamer, however, there is no justification for the claim that the Swedish military organization served as the model for the regular army in Russia. While it is possible to establish that Swedish models were used in some respects, such as in the Military Articles of 1716 or the attempts to introduce the Swedish military allotment system {indelningsverket), the idea of a regular army supported by state revenues was common to the age and not something specifically Swedish. The situation is different when it comes to the collegial reform, where it is explicitly stated in the sources that the Russians devoted especially careful study to the Swedish administration. However, von Puttkamer emphasized that: sicher ist aber nur die Nachahmung des äusseren Aufbaus dieses Kollegiensystems. Die Behauptung, dass dariiber hinaus auch die 1720 bis ins alle Einzelheiten geregelte Geschäftsordnung der Kollegien (the so-called General Regulation) wesentlich auf schwedischem Vorbild beruht habe, muss sehr vorsichtig aufgenommen werden. In 1718, the Russian tsar had indeed ordered that the colleges were to be set up according to Swedish models, but even the Swedish collegial organlzation must be traced back to the Franco-Burgundian administrative tradition, for which reason von Puttkamer felt it was rather dubious to refer to the legal forms imported to Russia as Swedish ones. Instead, she felt that the Russian reforms should ultimately be seen as an adoption of institutions generally prevalent in continental Europe.Nonetheless, von Puttkamer stated that it is likely that the Swedish collegial system served as the immediate model for the Russians, since the clearly systematic nature of the Swedish administration is said to have appealed to the tsar. As for the reform of the Russian provincial administration, there are repeated references to the Swedish local administrative system in the Russian source materials. According to von Puttkamer, however, it is more difficult to determine the importance of the Swedish organizational forms i.so 132 Ibid., 374. Ibid., 378. Ibid., 379. '=>2 Ibid., 380.
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