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Abstract. The article is devoted to the analysis of semantic changes that occurred with the concept of “autocracy” in the governmental and bureaucratic environment during the period of the constitutional reform of 1905–1906. Before the beginning of the revolution in 1905 the “autocracy” indicated in the legislation the unlimited power of the emperor. After the adoption of the Main State Laws on April 23, 1906, they retained the mention of this concept, although the legislative powers of the monarch were limited by the State Duma. Based on a number of principles proposed within the framework of the history of concepts, the author examines the interpretation of this concept by officials who participated in the development and discussion of constitutional reform in order to understand what was behind this decision. Based on the transcripts and minutes of government meetings at which the change in the institutional design of the political system was discussed, the author shows that the dignitaries did not have a single view on the meaning of “autocracy”, moreover, their interpretations contradicted each other and actively evolved at that time. Special attention is paid to the periodical press, in which the position of both individual bureaucrats and the government as a whole was conveyed to society. The author concludes that the decision of the authors of the constitutional reform to preserve “autocracy” as a concept describing the updated state system of the Russian Empire solved the problem of reassembling the myth legitimizing the ruling dynasty, which was disputed by revolutionary forces in the political conditions of 1905–1906. This semantic innovation was made by referring to the neo-Slavonic interpretation of this concept.
Keywords: autocracy, constitutional reform, bureaucracy, Slavophilism, Witte, Nicholas II, the history of concepts, the revolution of 1905−1907.