Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/1303

 CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT 1181

1700, scion of a younger branch of the princely family of Oldenburg. The union of his daughter Anne with Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp formed part of the great reform projects of Peter I., intended to bring Russia into closer contact with the AVestern States of Europe. Peter I. was succeeded by his second wife, Catherine, the daughter of a Livonian peasant, and she by Peter II., the grandson of Peter, with whom the male line of the Romanofs terminated, in the year 1730. The reign of the next three sovereigns of Russia, Anne, Ivan VI., and Elizabeth, of the female line of Romanof, formed a transition period, which came to an end with the accession of Peter III., of the house of Holstein-Gottorp. All the subsequent emperors, without exception, connected themselves by marriage with German families. The wife and successor of Peter III., Catherine II., daughter of the Prince of Anhalt Zerbst, general in the Prussian army, left the crown to her only son, Paul, who became the father of two emperors, Alexander I. and Nicholas, and the grandfather of a third, Alexander II. All these sovereigns married German princesses, creating intimate family alliances, among others, with the reigning houses of Wiirttemberg, Baden, and Prussia,

The Em})eror is in possession of the revenue from the Crown domains, con- sisting of more than a million of square miles of cultivated land and forests, besides gold and other mines in Siberia, and producing a vast revenue, the actual amount of which is, however, unknown, as no reference to the subject is made in the budgets or finance accounts, the Crown domains being con- sidered the private property of the imperial family.

The following have been the Tsars and Emperors of Russia, from the time of election of Michael Romanof. Tsar Peter I. was the first ruler who adopted, in the year 1721, the title of Emperor.

House of Romanof —Male Liiic. \ Ivan VI. . . . 1740

Michael .... 1613 Elizabeth,. . 1741

Alexis .... 1645

Fcodor .... 1676

Ivan and Peter I. . 1682

Peter 1 1689

Catherine I. .. . 1725

Peter II. ... 1727

HoiL^c of Romanof HoUtcin.

Peter III. . . . 1762

Catherine II. . . . 1762

Paul .... 1796

Alexander I. .. . 1801

Nicholas I. .. . 1825

Alexander II. . . 1855

House of Romanof — temale Line. Alexander III. . . 1881

Anne .... 1730 Nicholas II. . .' . 1894

Constitution and Government.

The Government of Russia is a constitutional hereditary monarchy but, in fact, the whole legislative, executive, and judicial power is united in the Emperor, whose will alone is law, and the monarch continues to bear the title of Autocrat. On August 6 (19), 1905, however, an elective State Council (Gosudarstvennaya Duma) was created, and on October 17 (30), a law was promulgated granting to the population the firm foundations of public liberty, based on the principles of the real inviolability of the person, and of freedom of conscience, speech, assembly, and association, and establishing as an unalterable rule that no law shall come into eftect without the approval of the Duma, and that to the elected of the people shall be guaranteed the possibility of a real participation in the control of Uic legality of the acts of such authorities as arc api)ointed by the Emperor.