Mikhail Speransky
State Secretary of the Russian Empire | |
---|---|
In office January 13, 1810 – March 29, 1812 | |
Monarch | Alexander I |
Preceded by | office created |
Succeeded by | Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov |
Count Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky (
Personal life
Speransky was born on 12 January 1772 in Cherkutino, Vladimir Province (now Vladimir Oblast), Russia.
Speransky was the son of Mikhail Tretyakov,[3][unreliable source?] a village priest.[4] He studied at the religious seminaries in Vladimir and St Petersburg, where he acquired the surname of Speransky, from the Latin verb "to hope" (sperare).[3] Later, in the ecclesiastical seminary in St. Petersburg, he became a professor of mathematics and physics. His skills led him to become the secretary to Prince Kurakin and a competent imperial official.[5]
Details of his marriage are sketchy, but he is believed to have married Elizabeth Jane Stephens, an Englishwoman and the daughter of
In January 1839, he was awarded the title of Count. His granddaughter, Mariya,[9] was permitted by special Imperial decree to carry the title into her marriage in the princely Cantacuzène family; the title was combined with that of the Cantacuzène. Mariya was, in turn, the grandmother of famed Russian general Prince Mikhail Cantacuzène.
Speransky died in St. Petersburg on 23 February 1839. He is buried at the Tikhvinskoe (Tikhvin) Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery; his tombstone was designed by Alexander Brullov.
Reforms
In 1808, Emperor Alexander I took Speransky to the
From this plan, the
Downfall under Alexander I
From 1809 to 1812, Speransky was all-powerful in Russia. He replaced the earlier members of the unofficial committee and practically became the sole minister. All concerns were discussed and decided upon by Speransky and the emperor. Even the once all-powerful war-minister
The Emperor Alexander was also an
In 1810, Speransky was still in high favor and was the confidant of the emperor in the secret diplomacy which preceded the breach of Russia with Napoleon. He is depicted at this period in
On the eve of the struggle with Napoleon, Alexander made Speransky his scape-goat. Alexander appeased Old Russian sentiment, the strongest supporters of the autocratic Tsar against revolutionary France. Speransky's indiscretions gave the final impulse to his downfall. He was surrounded by spies who reported none too accurately the minister's somewhat sharp criticisms of the emperor's acts. Speransky presumed to advise Alexander not to take the chief command in the coming campaign.[10]
A number of people in the entourage of the emperor were motivated to involve Speransky on a charge of treason, including the
From 1810 to 1812, Speransky was the Chancellor of the
Later career under Nicholas I
Through the intercession of Count Alexei Arakcheyev, Speransky was appointed governor of Penza in 1816 and governor-general of Siberia in 1819. In 1821, he was returned to St Petersburg and made a member of the State Council under Alexander I of Russia.
After the Decembrist Revolt of 1825 at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I of Russia, Speransky sat on the special court of investigation and passed the sentences.
In 1826, Speransky was appointed by Nicholas I to head the Second Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery, a committee formed to codify Russian law. Under his leadership, the committee produced a publication of the complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire, containing 35,993 enactments. This codification called the "Full Collection of Laws" (Polnoye Sobraniye Zakonov) was presented to Nicholas I, and formed the basis for the "Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire" (Svod Zakonov Rossiskoy Imperii), the positive law valid for the Russian Empire. Speransky's liberal ideas were subsequently scrutinized and elaborated by Konstantin Kavelin and Boris Chicherin.
For his efforts in codifying Russian law, Speransky was awarded the
Sources on Speransky's thought
The main sources for studying the activities of Speransky are materials and documents that belonged to him. These are acts, decrees, regulations and other official documents drawn up by him, as well as drafts, preparatory materials, letters to the emperor, family, friends. For example, correspondence with a daughter and friends helps to determine how the views of the reformer were formed, how he perceived the events, the conditions of his activities. Official correspondence reveals Speransky’s attitude to state issues. Some of these documents were published- in Leningrad in 1962 was published the catalog of documents of the fund M.M. Speransky. Most of the sources were published in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, Collections of the Russian Historical Society, magazines, thematic publications, and in appendices to works M.A. Korfa, etc.[11]
References
- ^ 12 January [O.S. 1 January] 1772 – 23 February [O.S. 11 February] 1839
- ^ GRE
- ^ a b c "Count Mikhail Speransky". Rusartnet.com. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
- ^ a b "Mikhail Mikhaylovich, Count Speransky | Russian statesman | Britannica". Britannica.com. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911, p. 643.
- ^ "The Heirs of Europe: CANTACUZÈNE-SPERANSKY". Heirsofeurope.blogspot.com. 30 April 2010.
- ^ "The city history". Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 15 March 2021. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Workspace not found". Secure.pbworks.com. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911, p. 644.
- ^ Сперанский Михаил Михайлович Новый фриланс 24 (in Russian). Retrieved May 31, 2020
Sources
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Speranski, Count Mikhail Mikhailovich". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 643–644. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- "СПЕРАНСКИЙ МИХАИЛ МИХАЙЛОВИЧ • Great Russian Encyclopedia – Electronic version". old.bigenc.ru. 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
Further reading
- Jenkins, Michael, "Mikhail Speransky," History Today (June 1970), Vol. 20 Issue 6, p404-409, online.
- Lukovskaya, Dzhenevra, et al. "The Role of Mikhail Speransky in the Financial System Reform." Journal of Advanced Research in Law and Economics 7.6 (20) (2016): 1442-1449.
- Raeff, Marc (1957). Michael Speransky: statesman of imperial Russia, 1772–1839. The Hague: Nijhoff.