Abstract: The article attempts to resolve the contradiction between the dating of M.N. Muravyov's message to I.P. Turgenev and the official naming of the addressee: "His Excellency". The date adopted since the first publication of the message (1774) and the date clarified in the twentieth century (1780s) do not coincide with the address for the rank of general. This contradiction can be resolved by studying the text of the message, using the methods of contextual, discursive and semantic analysis. Since the genre of Muravyov's epistle can be defined not only as a "friendly", but also as a "comforting message", the examples given in it should reflect the specific circumstances of the addressee's life. These examples, in exact accordance with the genre, are taken from ancient history and literature. These are the "elder" described by Horace, the consul of Ancient Rome Aemilius Paulus and the Spartan commander Pedaret. The research method is a semantic analysis of the text of Muravyov's poem, combined with a comparative analysis of the semantics of the poem and the semantics of literary and historical sources on which the author relied when writing his work. The result of the study is the understanding that the three examples given by the author indicate a number of difficult circumstances in the life of I.P. Turgenev, which occurred in the second half of 1803. At that time, the old comrades worked closely together in the restructuring of the management of Moscow University: Turgenev, as the director of the university, who was completing his activities, and Muravyov, as the incoming trustee of the university. This collaboration created an emotional background for the final part of the message dedicated to Moscow University and those people who led it in the years when M.N. Muravyov and I.P. Turgenev studied there. In this regard, the most likely dating of this poem is the second half of 1803 or the very beginning of 1804.

Abstract: The subject of the article is managerial thinking, which manifests itself in the activities of the Commission for the Codification of the Laws of the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century. The activity of systematization of Russian legislation was perceived as one of the most important management tasks throughout the XVIII century. But the results of this activity were negligible. This task passed into the XIX century, along with the understanding that without a serious study of the theoretical basis of work on the codification of law, this task cannot be solved. The activities of the commission of Prince P. V. Lopukhin became the first attempt to theoretically study all the problems of codification. The result of the commission's work was the report "On the transformation of the Law Drafting Commission", which served as the main source for this article. The basic method of the work carried out is a systematic analysis of the text of the article, the purpose of which is to identify and describe the methods of analytical work of the Prince Lopukhin commission used in the preparation of the commission's Report. The result of the analysis is the identification, as the basic method of the Commission's work, of a method of retrospective analysis of the activities of previous codification commissions, starting from the time of Peter I and ending with the beginning of the reign of Emperor Alexander I. The retrospective analysis applied by the commission was based on the study of the normative documents of the Russian Empire and the documentation of previous commissions in order to establish the composition and principles of the organization of the work of these commissions, the goals of their work and the results achieved. In the Report submitted by the commission, the principles of historicism and consistency were strictly observed, which allowed the authors to identify the stages of codification work, point out their features and evaluate them. The retrospective analysis carried out by the commission made it possible to draw significant conclusions on which the work on codification of Russian laws in the subsequent period will have to be based. The analysis of the report of the Prince Lopukhin commission has not been carried out before, which determines the novelty of this study. His conclusions can be applied in the study of managerial thought and public administration activities in Russia.

Abstract: The concept of "freedom" is one of the pillars for identifying ideas about the social ideal and one of the guidelines in attempts at social construction of the modern era. The object of this study is the political thought of Russia in the 18th century. The subject of the research is the formation and evolution of the concept of “freedom” in the socio-political texts of Russian authors of the 18th century. The purpose of this article was to identify the specifics of the concept of "freedom", presented in the texts of statesmen and politicians of the 18th century, in relation to the texts created in the pre-Petrine tradition and the texts of the European Enlightenment. The basic research method is the textual analysis of the works of Russian political authors of the 18th century, in its various versions: semantic (including hermeneutics), genetic, comparative. The main conclusion is that the reception of the concept of "freedom" from the texts of the European Enlightenment and the formation, on this basis, of the political concept of "freedom", began in the second third of the 18th century, as evidenced by the texts of V.N. Tatishcheva. This reception ended in the 1780s in the form of three basic interpretations of the concept of "freedom" – liberal (texts by N.I. Panin and his associates), conservative (texts by M.M. Shcherbatov) and democratic (texts by A.N. Radishchev).

Abstract: S.E. Desnitsky's views on public administration occupy a special place in the history of managerial thought in Russia of the XVIII century. This place is determined by the fact that, unlike all those who wrote on management topics in that era, he was not an official. He was an observer and an expert, which gave him the opportunity to system analyze and develop a set of proposals for improving governance in Russia. The subject of the article is the set of views of S.E. Desnitsky, designated here as the "management concept". The purpose of the study is to identify the basic elements of this concept. The reference method is a combination of systematic and semantic analysis of Desnitsky's texts, in comparison with the texts of figures of the European Enlightenment. The main conclusion of the article is the complex of semantic blocks identified by the author, the combination of which makes up Desnitsky's management concept. The author comes to the conclusion that Desnitsky saw the purpose of management in introducing organizational principles into "natural" relations and, first of all, into property relations. Desnitsky supplemented the universal principle of the "common good" with the principles of the welfare of the state and estate management. To solve management problems, he proposed to follow two organizational principles: separation of powers and multi-level management. For each of the "authorities" allocated to him, he defined tasks peculiar only to her and the tools necessary for their solution. The preservation of the unity of governance in the state, according to Desnitsky, is achieved by highlighting the law as the main instrument of governance.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the development of theoretical representations on the mechanism of public administration in Russia of the XVIII century. The goal is to determine in the texts of draft reforms prepared by Count P. I. Shuvalov the provisions on the objectives and principles of public administration, as well as to analyze his views on the process of reforming state and social institutions. In the texts of P. I. Shuvalov examines such elements of public administration theory as the administrative objectives, its subject matter, instruments, and administrative decision-making process. It allowed establishing correlation between the two concepts: “the good of the state” and “the common good”, as the goals pursued by public administration. The formulated by Shuvalov principles of public administration fully corresponded to the principles advanced by the philosophers of the European Enlightenment. The conducted analysis decision-making mechanism reveals a universal algorithm, which implies several stages of development of the reforms: a) outlining the problem that needs to be solved using the instruments of public administration ; b) determining the causes of this problem; c) proposing solution to the problem, d) discussing the proposed solution, indicating the instruments that need to be implemented by the state.

Abstract: “Dedication” by P. P. Shafirov is one of the few texts of the early XVIII century that reflects goal-setting of public administration through the concept of “value”. The object of this article is the establishment of Russian administrative thought in the early XVII century. The subject of this article is the process of development of the concept of “value” as fundamental in substantiation of the goal of public administration. The author attempts to reveal the content of this concept in the text of “Dedication” in juxtaposition to the texts of Western European philosophers of the XVII century who rely on the concepts of “value” and “common good”, and to the similar in tasks texts of Russian authors – P. P. Shafirov and his contemporaries. The main conclusion consists in determination of fundamental difference between the Russian and the European concept of “value”. It implies that in Russia, the concept of “value” is primarily attributed to the state, while in Europe the basic concept was the “common good”. Shafirov deemed it possible to interpret the “state value” not only as creation of the conditions for expansion superiority and strength of the state, but also as the “value to its nationals”. It opened the door for transformation of “state value” into the “common”. Such transformation was not complete, which resulted in parallel existence of the two concepts: “value of state” and “common value”