An archeology of daily political life: an afterword to the 2018 monograph

The article examines some approaches to everyday political life which the author uses for analyzing the scenarios of Russia's political history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Methodological and source study principles are defined to facilitate the author's research task. The analysis of issues of daily political life brings the author to specific conclusions. The article emphasizes 126 the peculiarities of the political system in Russia during the period of 1905- 1917: the role of representative institutions, lobbyist groups, the periodical press, and the interaction mechanisms between the legislative and executive powers. The author turns his attention to the political processes in 1881-1905 benefiting from his experience of working with archival materials related to the State Duma. He arrives at the conclusion that the power in Russia before 1905 should not be limited to autocracy alone. In fact, it means the specific political system where an emperor is an extremely important element, but not the only one. Moreover, evolution and an increasingly sophisticated lawmaking process will minimize the tsar's functions.