Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire
government ministry in imperial Russia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire (Russian: Министе́рство иностранных дел Российской империи) was a ministry of the Russian Empire responsible for its relations with foreign states from 1802 to 1917.
The Ministry was established by a decree of the Emperor Alexander I of Russia on 8 September 1802 by Manifesto "On the establishment of ministries." With the formation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the preceding Collegium of Foreign Affairs was not disbanded and continued to exist until April 1832 as a child agency of the Ministry. According to the decree "On the formation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs" from 1832, the Ministry included; the council, the Asian Department, the Department of External Relations, the Department of Internal Affairs and the Department of Economic and Accounting Affairs, as well as three main archives: two in Saint Petersburg and one in Moscow.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs became one of the ministries of the Council of Ministers from 1905 until its dissolution on 2 March 1917 after the February Revolution. However, remnants served as the foreign ministry of the short-lived Russian Provisional Government until October. Its role was eventually replaced by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union in 1923.
The Ministry was known by the metonym "the Chorister's Bridge," based on its location next to that bridge in Saint Petersburg.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3251811. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1802, 1917, 1832 and 1905.
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