“We Have Indicated”: On the Form of Personal Decrees of Peter II

The article examines the structural features and lexical and phraseological composition of royal personal decrees created during the short reign of the young Peter II, the grandson of the first Russian emperor Peter the Great. Against the background of historical data indicatingthat Peter II was primarily a nominal tsar and did not take an active part in governing the state, it seems paradoxical that it was during his reign (1727–1730) that a steady and consistent standardization of the formulary of tsar’s decree was observed. At the same time, it is obvious that any strict standard, a repetitive set of stable clichés, a formulaic speech structure contributes to the impersonality of an official text and creates conditions that make the manifestation of the authoritative subject optional. Thus, the textual presence of the “imperial I” is effaced, which, for example, would have been impossible in the era of Peter I. Therefore, in comparison with the decrees of Peter I, which are distinguished by structural diversity, lexical richness, and numerous instances of first-person narrative, the directive texts, which were written on behalf of his grandson, had a very “faceless” and formalized appearance. Such nature of the decrees—drafted in the absence of the minor emperor by experienced chancellery officials—may indeed reflect his actual non-involvement in state governance. The article provides the stable opening formulas of the 1727–1730 decrees (“We have indicated”; “His Majesty has indicated”), examples of repeating endings of decree texts, largely depending on their topic and addressee. The article examines a number of frequent combinations that make up the phraseology of official speech of the first third of the 18th century, which was formed precisely at this time as stylistically marked.