Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev
Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev | |
---|---|
St Petersburg | |
Died | 3 July 1908 | (aged 76)
Occupation(s) | Diplomat, statesman, politician, legislator |
Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev (historical spelling: Nicolai Ignatieff;
Early life and military career
Nikolay Ignatyev was born in
Diplomatic career
Ignatyev's diplomatic career began at the Congress of Paris in 1856, after the Crimean War, where he participated in the negotiations regarding the demarcation of the Russo-Ottoman frontier on the lower Danube. He was then appointed as military attaché at the Russian Embassy in London. This assignment was a short one. According to the memoirs "Fifty Years of Service" written by his nephew Alexei Alexeyevich Count Ignatiev, Nikolay Ignatyev "inadvertently" pocketed a newly developed cartridge while inspecting the ordnance works of the British Army. In order to avoid diplomatic embarrassment he returned to Russia.
Two years later he was sent with a small escort on a dangerous mission to the Central Asian states of Khiva and Bukhara. The khan of Khiva laid a plan for detaining him as a hostage, but he eluded the danger and returned safely, after concluding a treaty of friendship with the emir of Bukhara.
Ignatyev's next diplomatic exploit was in the
The Balkans
Ignatyev's success was supposed to prove his capacity for dealing with "
As the war which he had done so much to bring about did not eventually secure for Russia advantages commensurate with the sacrifices involved, he fell into disfavour with
Although Count Ignatyev remained widely popular in Bulgaria and was even considered by some for the Bulgarian throne, the throne was eventually granted to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, his personal enemy.
Later life
In the meantime Count Ignatyev served as
Nikolai Ignatiev, installed as Minister of the Interior in May 1881, decided on a policy of firm repression, although it was made difficult by the unforeseeable character of the outbreaks and his limited forces. Nevertheless, he ordered his men to fire upon rioters. In the towns of Borisov and Nezhin this resulted in fatalities. In Kiev, 1400 arrests were made. Many in the government felt this was still inadequate. The police chief of Kiev wrote apologetically to the Tsar that the local military tribunals had been too lenient with the rioters; Alexander III wrote in the margin: “This is inexcusable!”[5]
He retired from office in June 1882. Explanations include that he was suspected of dishonesty or
Honours
- Graf Ignatiev Street, a busy trade street in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is named after Nikolay Ignatiev.
- The elite Count Ignatiev Primary School, one of the oldest in Sofia, carries his name.
- The Bulgarian villages of Graf Ignatievo in Plovdiv Province and Ignatievo in Varna Province are named in his honour.
- Mount Ignatiev on Graham Land in Antarcticais also named after him.
Personal life
Count Nikolay Ignatiev was married to Yekaterina Leonidovna Galitzina (1842-1917), daughter of Prince Leonid Mikhailovich Galitzine and Anna Matveyevna Tolstaïa.
Their eight children included Ignatiev's son,
Other sons of Count Ignatiev included: - General Nikolai Nikolaevich Ignatiev (1872-1962), commander of the
In fiction
In the novel Flashman at the Charge (1973) by George MacDonald Fraser, Ignatyev appears as a Russian military staff officer, who in 1854 presents a proposal to the Tsar of a Russian invasion of British-held India. He reappears in the 1975 novel Flashman in the Great Game as a fomenter of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[8] In both novels he is a villain: Fraser portrays him as intelligent and refined, but also ruthless, cruel, savage and dangerous.[9]
References
- ^ John L. Evans, Russian Expansion on the Amur, 1848-1860: the Push to the Pacific (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999).
- ^
George Ignatieff (1985). The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff. University of Toronto Press. pp. 25–32. ISBN 9781442638594.
- ISBN 0-671-51099-1.
- ^ Peter Kropotkin (1905-01-01). "The Constitutional Movement in Russia". revoltlib.com. The Nineteenth Century.
- ^ (F. Roger Devlin, "Solzhenitsyn on the Jews and Tsarist Russia")
- ^ Sebag Montefiore, Simon (2016). The Romanovs. United Kingdom: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 464.
- ISBN 9781800240971.
- OCLC 9094080.
Ellenborough cleared his throat and fixed his boozy spaniel eyes on me. 'Count Ignatieff',' says he, 'has made two clandestine visits to India in the past year. Our politicals first had word of him last autumn at Ghuznee; he came over the Khyber disguised as an Afridi horse-coper, to Peshawar. There we lost him — as you might expect, one disguised man among so many natives —'
- OCLC 752553129.
He looked tough, and immensely self-assured; it was in his glance, in the abrupt way he moved...He was the kind who knew exactly what was what, where everything was, and precisely who was who - especially himself.....But I'd just seen him at work, and knew the kind of soulless, animal cruelty behind the suave mask. I know my villains, and this Captain Count Ignatieff was a bad one; you could feel the savage strength of the man like an electric wave.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ignatiev, Nicholas Pavlovich, Count". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 292. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Ignatieff. George (1985). The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff. University of Toronto Press. pp. 25–32. ISBN 9781442638594.
External links
Media related to Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev at Wikimedia Commons