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.
