Social Life of Russian Officialdom in the beginning of XX century

The purpose of this paper is to explore the forms of social life of the bureaucracy in the Russian Empire of the 20th century by considering the formation of the identity of this socio-professional group of public servants and identifying the characteristics of self-perception of representatives of the bureaucracy within the public debate in the magazines «Kruzhok», «Sputnik Chinovnika» and «Vestnik Chinovnika». Besides, the objectives of this research include considering the public image of the civil servants according to these magazines. These goals are realized through the studying of editorial activity of Alexei Ivanovich Miretsky who published magazines «Kruzhok» and «Sputnik Chinovnika». The theoretical part of the study can be described as social history, the subject of which is the formation of a specific corporate structure of the Russian bureaucracy in the early 20th century, and the object - public debate in press. Thanks to the magazine, the most humble and the most conservative element of social forces, bureaucracy, gained the right to vote and the opportunity to prove their worth as an independent social movement. The discourse of the magazine «Sputnik Chinovnika» was aimed at the union of civil servants in a group, whose members were united by a common professional affiliation, economic and cultural interests. This consolidation had to be created by organizing various societies that focused on solving problems of public servants and their association beyond the service space. Thus, the combination of press and voluntary associations created a new order of society, belonging to which was based on participation in voluntary organizations with charter and values supported by their members, as well as on the involvement of a broader public - its readers, who were united by a printed text.