3rd ed., reprint. and additional m. Higher school. 1983. 352 p. The textbook of Professor N. P. Eroshkin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of History of State Institutions and Public Organizations of the USSR of the Moscow Historical and Archival Institute , is the third, significantly updated edition of his very valuable work (ed. 1st-1960). The book pays the greatest attention to the state institutions of the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries: five chapters are devoted to this period; three chapters fall on the 18th century; two reveal the history of the state apparatus during the formation of the Russian centralized state and the development of autocracy in the 17th century. Such a structure is appropriate. However, the most ancient period is relatively pale and too succinctly described (the chapter on the state system of the Old Russian state and Russian principalities in the IX-XV centuries). This period is the least studied in the literature, although it largely determined the features of the state development of our country in the following centuries, because it was in the military and political vicissitudes of the XII-XV centuries that the foundations of the type of state institutions that later turned out to be quite viable were formed. An important role in the textbook is played by the introductory part, which contains a statement of the problem of the history of the state and state institutions. In comparison with the previous edition, the author gave clearer formulations of such concepts as "state institution", "state apparatus", etc., and highlighted the main directions of studying their history (internal organization, functions and relationships), which allows us to assess the place of each institution in the system of the state apparatus (pp. 8-9). Clarity in the formulation of a complex question, clarity in the definition of the subject and objectives of the course are characteristic of the entire textbook. The ... Читать далее