ABSTRACT
On 14 December 1766, Catherine II of Russia issued a manifesto summoning the various free orders of the Russian empire to send deputies to a Legislative Commission which was to bring order into the chaos of Russian laws by producing a new code. To assist the Commission in its work, the Empress wrote her Great Instruction (Velikiy Nakaz). The nature of this document has frequently been misunderstood. It is not a series of laws. It is not a constitution for Russia. It is a series of propositions culled from what seemed to Catherine the best and most modern political theorists of her time, integrated into a fairly coherent whole, and setting out the basic principles of a well-ordered government and society.
