Mikhail Speransky
Encyclopedia
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
. He was a close advisor to Tsar Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
and later to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
, he is sometimes called the father of Russian liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
.
Early life and reforms
Speransky was the son of a village priest and spent his early days at the ecclesiastical seminarySeminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
in St Petersburg, where he rose to be professor of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. His brilliant intellectual qualities attracted the attention of the government, and he became secretary to Prince Kurakin
Alexander Kurakin
Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin, sometimes spelled Kourakine was a Russian statesman and diplomat, a member of the State Council , ranked Actual Privy Counsellor 1st Class ....
. He soon became known as the most competent of the imperial officials.
The most important phase of his career opened in 1808, when the emperor Alexander I took him with him to the Congress of Erfurt
Congress of Erfurt
The Congress of Erfurt was the meeting between Emperor Napoleon I of France and Tsar Alexander I of Russia from 27 September to 14 October 1808 intended to reaffirm the alliance concluded the previous year with the Treaty of Tilsit which followed the end of the War of the Fourth...
and put him into direct communication with Napoleon, who described him as the only clear head in Russia and at the insistence of Alexander had many conversations with him on the question of Russian administrative reform. Speransky's projects of reform
Government reform of Alexander I
The early Russian system of government instituted by Peter the Great, which consisted of various state committees, each named Collegium with subordinate departments named Prikaz, was largely outdated by the 19th century...
envisaged a constitutional system based on a series of duma
Duma
A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...
s, the cantonal assembly (volost) electing the duma of the district, the dumas of the districts electing that of the province or government, and these electing the Duma of the empire. As mediating power between the autocrat and the Duma there was to be a nominated council of state
State Council of Imperial Russia
The State Council was the supreme state advisory body to the Tsar in Imperial Russia.-18th century:Early Tsars' Councils were small and dealt primarily with the external politics....
.
This plan, worked out by Speransky in 1809, was for the most part stillborn, only the council of the empire
State Council of Imperial Russia
The State Council was the supreme state advisory body to the Tsar in Imperial Russia.-18th century:Early Tsars' Councils were small and dealt primarily with the external politics....
coming into existence in January 1810; but it nonetheless dominated the constitutional history of Russia in the 19th century and the early years of the 20th. The Duma of the empire created in 1905 bears the name suggested by Speransky, and the institution of local self-government (the zemstvo
Zemstvo
Zemstvo was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of the zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were put into effect in 1864...
) in 1864 was one of the reforms proposed by him. Speransky's labors also bore fruit in the constitutions granted by Alexander to Finland
Grand Duchy of Finland
The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed 1809–1917 as part of the Russian Empire and was ruled by the Russian czar as Grand Prince.- History :...
and Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
.
Downfall under Alexander I
From 1809 to 1812 Speransky was all-powerful in Russia, so far as any minister of a sovereign so suspicious and so unstable as Alexander could be so described. He replaced the earlier favorites, members of the unofficial committee, in the tsar's confidence, becoming practically sole minister, all questions being laid by him alone before the emperor and usually settled at once by the two between them. Even the once all-powerful war-minister Count Arakcheyev was thrust into the background. Speransky used his immense influence for no personal ends. He was an idealist, but in this very fact lay the seeds of his failure.Alexander was also an idealist, but his ideals were apt to centre in himself; his dislike and distrust of talents that overshadowed his own were disarmed for a while by the singular charm of Speransky's personality, but sooner or later he was bound to discover that he himself was regarded as but the most potent instrument for the attainment of that ideal end, a regenerated Russia, which was his minister's sole preoccupation. In 1810 and the first half of 1811 Speransky was still in high favor, and was the confidant of the emperor in that secret diplomacy which preceded the breach of Russia with Napoleon.
He had, however, committed one serious mistake. An ardent freemason himself, he conceived in 1809 the idea of reorganizing the order in Russia, with the special object of using it to educate and elevate the Orthodox
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
clergy. The emperor agreed to the first steps being taken, namely the suppression of the existing lodges; but he was naturally suspicious of secret societies, even when ostensibly admitted to their secrets, and Speransky's abortive plan only resulted in adding the clergy to the number of his enemies.
On the eve of the struggle with Napoleon, Alexander, conscious of his unpopularity, conceived the idea of making Speransky his scape-goat, and so conciliating that Old Russian sentiment which would be the strongest support of the autocratic tsar against revolutionary France. Speransky's own indiscretions gave the final impulse. He was surrounded with spies who reported, none too accurately, the ministers somewhat sharp criticisms of the emperor's acts; he had even had the supreme presumption to advise Alexander not to take the chief command in the coming campaign.
A number of persons in the entourage of the emperor, including the grand duchess Catherine
Catherine Pavlovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia was the fourth daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia and Princess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. She became the Queen of Württemberg upon her marriage to her first cousin Crown Prince William who eventually became King William I of Württemberg in...
, Fessler
Ignaz Aurelius Fessler
Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, aka Feßler was a Hungarian ecclesiastic, politician, historian and freemason.-Biography:Fessler was born in the village of Zurndorf in the county of Moson. In 1773, he joined the order of Capuchin friars, and in 1779 was ordained priest...
, Karamzin
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin
Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin was a Russian writer, poet, historian, and critic. He is best remembered for his History of the Russian State, a 12-volume national history.- Early life :...
, Rostopchin and the Finnish, originally Swedish general Count Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt
Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt
Count Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt was a Finnish and Swedish courtier and diplomat. In Finland, he is considered one of the great Finnish statesmen. Born in Tarvasjoki, Finland, he was the great grandson of Charles XII of Sweden's general, Carl Gustaf Armfeldt...
, the Minister State Secretary of the Grand Duchy of Finland in St Petersbourg, intrigued to involve him in a charge of treason. Alexander did not credit the charge, but he made Speransky responsible for the unpopularity incurred by himself in consequence of the hated reforms and the still more hated French policy, and on the 17/29 March 1812 dismissed him from office.
1810-1812 Speransky was Chancellor of the Imperial Alexander University in Turku, Finland. Even this office was then given to Armfelt.
Later career under Nicholas I
Reinstated in the public service in 1816, he was appointed governor-general of SiberiaSiberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, for which he drew up a new scheme of government, and in 1821 entered the council of state.
In 1826, Speranski was appointed by Nicholas I to the head of the Second Section of the Imperial Chancellery
His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery
His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery or H.I.M. Own Chancery began as personal chancery of Pavel I and grew into a kind of regent's office, run by Count Arakcheyev from 1815 and until the death of Alexander I of Russia....
, a committee formed to codify Russian law. Under his able leadership the committee's work was fruitful, with the 1833 publication of the complete collection of the laws of the Russian Empire, which contained 35,993 enactments. This codification, called the 'Full Collection of Laws' (Polnoje Sobranije Zakonov), was presented to Nicholas I
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
and formed the basis for the 'Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire' (Svod Zakonov Rossiskoj Imperii), the positive law valid for the Russian Empire. Speransky's liberal ideas were subsequently scrutinised and elaborated by Konstantin Kavelin
Konstantin Kavelin
Konstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin was a Russian historian, jurist, and sociologist, sometimes called the chief architect of early Russian liberalism.Born in Saint Petersburg into an old noble family, Kavelin graduated from the legal department of the Moscow University...
and Boris Chicherin
Boris Chicherin
Boris Nikolayevich Chicherin was a Russian jurist and political philosopher, who worked out a theory that Russia needed a strong, authoritative government to persevere with liberal reforms...
.
Title of Count
His title of Count was awarded to him in 1839, with his daughter being permitted by special Imperial decree to carry the title into her marriage in the family of Prince Mikhail CantacuzènePrince Mikhail Cantacuzène
Mikhail Mikhailovich Cantacuzène, Prince Cantacuzène, Count Speransky was an Imperial Russia minister Chief of Staff to Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia...
.
Death
Speransky died in St. Petersburg on February 23, 1839.He is buried at the Tikhvinskoe Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery; his gravestone is a granite sarcophagus with a bronze cross.Trivia
Speransky is a character in TolstoyTolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
's novel War and Peace
War and Peace
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...
. He can be found in the second book, third part.
External links
Primary sources
- Raeff, Marc. Michael Speransky : statesman of imperial Russia, 1772-1839 (1957). The Hague: Nijhoff
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