Vasily Maklakov

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Alekseyevich and the family name is Maklakov.
Maklakov in 1917 as ambassador to France

Vasily Alekseyevich Maklakov (

Tsarism
".

In

émigrés
.

Imperial Russia

The former Gagarin mansion, then the fifth Gymnasium
Plevako's apartment building

Vasily, or Basil, was the son of Alexey Nikolaevich Maklakov (1837 – May 1895), a Moscow

Count Mirabeau. During a visit to the famous World's fair in Paris with his father, French students took him to election meetings and introduced him to candidates.[3]

Back home, Maklakov published an account of the "Paris Student Association" in

Reclus. Back home, Vasily organized a student economic commission and held his first political speech. He met with Leo Tolstoy and began to appear in newspapers, mainly because of the Russian famine of 1891–1892.[4] In 1894, he joined the army in Rostow
as a volunteer.

After his father had a talk about his son with the Director of Police

Carolingian period". After the death of their father, the brothers inherited Dergaykovo-estate near New Jerusalem Monastery
.

Lawyer

Fyodor Plevako

In 1896, he entered the

Tolstoyan", who was accused of storing prohibited works of Tolstoy; that case ended with an extremely lenient sentence.[10] Plevako, a real state adviser, owned a Jugendstil apartment building at Novinskiy Boulevard. Maklakov, divorced, lived there too;[11][10] they both were friendly with Anton Chekhov visiting Moscow in May 1903. Chekhov's intention to spend the summer at the Maklakov estate at Voskresensk did not materialise, but Maklakov signed Chekhov's will. Maklakov owned several hunting dogs and a dacha in Zvenigorod
according to Chekhov.

Between 1901 and 1905, Maklakov defended several political demonstrations but also profitable commercial cases involving major Russian enterprises.[8] He was deeply interested in the rule of law. In 1904, he was the secretary and archivist of the opposition circle Beseda.[12][13] Then, he participated in the Union of Liberation, a moderate reform group of around 23 men. It saw as its task to fight the autocracy and to introduce a constitutional system in Russia. It imagined the future of Russia only in the development of the existing system, an organic evolution, not in coups. The members had a zemstvo background, representing the landowning class and intelligentsia.

The October Manifesto

Sergei Witte in 1905

During the

First Duma
. The ministers remained responsible solely to Nicholas II, not to the Duma.

As deputy in the State Duma

At the end of 1905, Maklakov joined the

death penalty and insisted on the inviolability of the individual. He was strongly opposed the signing of the Vyborg Manifesto, written by Pavel Milyukov. He tended toward conservatism, regretted the dissolution of the Union of Liberation, argued for a shift to the right and opposed alliances with revolutionaries. He hated long political meetings and did not like party discipline.[21] He argued that as a political party the KD must prepare itself for government participation and so must be prepared to defend the rights of whatever sort of government if it wanted to be regarded as a serious political force and to concentrate on defending not only the rights of the people but also those of the state.[22]

After the

landowners and owners of city properties and less value to the votes of the peasantry.[23] In summer 1908, Maklakov travelled to Siberia because of the construction of the Amur Railway. In early 1909, he inherited Plevako's law practice.[9] In May 1909, he delivered a lecture about the legal history of Russia in the 19th century.[24]
In 1912, the influence of the Kadets in the Duma had shrunk.

A high point of his legal career was the defence of

jurors, including the foreman, had been members of the Union of the Russian People
.

First World War

Portrait of Vasily Maklakov, by Leonid Pasternak (1916)

In 1914, Maklakov joined the

Octobrists.[30]

In early November 1916,

Grigory Rasputin and even served as a sort of "legal adviser" to one of its perpetrators, Felix Yusupov, but he categorically refused to participate in the plot. One of the five participants in the assassination, Vladimir Purishkevich, claimed that it was Maklakov who had supplied Prince Felix Yusupov with a dumbbell or truncheon and poison to murder Grigori Rasputin.[35][36][37][38][39] On the day of the murder (30 December 1916), Maklakov left for Moscow,[40] but went back the next day. In 1923, Maklakov wrote that he had supplied Yusupov with harmless aspirin. Also, Lazovert stated later he had used not poison but a harmless powder.[41][23]
The extent of his involvement in the murder of the "mad monk" is a matter of keen debate.

On 26 February 1917, Nikolai Pokrovsky reported on his negotiations with the Bloc, led by Maklakov, at the session of the Council of Ministers in the Mariinsky Palace. The Bloc spoke for the resignation of the government by Nikolai Golitsyn. On 27 February, Vasily was appointed as one of the 24 commissars the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. On 28 February, his brother Nikolay was arrested having tried to prevent a revolution" together with Alexander Protopopov (on 8 February). After the February Revolution, Vasily Maklakov supported Lavr Kornilov against Kerensky and aspired to take the office of Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government. After the post went to Alexander Kerensky, Maklakov was put in charge of the government's "legal commission". When he was elected in the Moscow City Duma on 8 July, he lived on 32 Novinsky Boulevard. He was friendly with countess Sofia Panina the first woman in world history to hold a cabinet position.[42] Maklakov was elected in the Constituent Assembly but in October send to Paris.[23] Panina was arrested when she refused to transfer the funds of the Ministry of Education to the Bolsheviks. In the first political trial she was accused of embezzling 93,000 rubles from the Ministry, which she denied.

France

Vasily Maklakov by Yury Artsybushev

In October 1917, Maklakov was appointed to replace

Trotsky but nevertheless continued to occupy the splendid mansion of the Russian embassy for seven years.[43] Hôtel d'Estrées served as the informal headquarters of the White émigré, the anti-Bolsheviks
.

Throughout that period, French authorities considered Maklakov "an ambassador who had not yet been accredited".[44] There was considerable ambiguity in this position. For example, he once received a letter from Premier Clemenceau addressed to "Son Excellence Monsieur Maklakoff, Ambassade de Russie", with the lightly erased letters "ur" at the end of "Ambassade".[45] Maklakov lightly compared himself to "a magazine that one puts on a seat to show that it is occupied".[46]

In Paris, he met with Nikolay Sokolov, who had investigated the cases of the

execution of the Romanov family but held no longer legal authority. The Sokolov dossier was marked "secret" and secured inside the military procurator's archive until 1991.[47] His sister Maria organized a gymnasium, funded by Henri Deterding.[48] In 1920 Maklakov and Peter Struve managed to get Wrangel' regime officially recognized by France. Wrangel was extremely friendly, but not everybody was charmed by his personality.[49][50] He wired Pyotr Wrangel that the French considered to encourage the Polish army to attack.[51] Early September, Maklakov visited the Crimea to meet the leaders of the White Army at Sebastopol. It was his last visit to Russia. Maklakov recognized Wrangels qualities, who wanted to implement an agrarian reform, but three months later Wrangel's army ceased to exist. There was an official delegation of Bolsheviks in Paris, diplomatic relations between the Soviets and the United Kingdom and France were established on 2 February and 28 October 1924. Wrangel was told to abandon his (military) adventures.[52]

For ten years, Maklakov corresponded with

White Movement who escaped to Serbia.[53][54]
He assumed control of a network of offices Russes that certified marriages and births of Russian émigrés throughout France and performed other work normally undertaken by Russian consulates.

It was through Maklakov that the widow of Count

coalition cabinet", but Milyukov did not trust the Tsar and his Manifesto and refused to co-operate. Could the revolutions of 1917 have been prevented if the Kadets had adopted a less radical stance, particularly in 1905-1906?[55]

The German Gestapo arrested Maklakov in April 1942, as he had not registered; he then spent 2–3 months in jail without trial.[56] He was forced to leave Paris and moved in at the historian Baron Boris Nolde. Throughout World War II, he kept in touch with the French Resistance. In February 1945, Maklakov and several surviving members of the Provisional Government visited the Soviet embassy to express their pride and gratitude for the war effort of the Russian people. The visit was controversial among the émigré community, particularly after émigrés learned that Maklakov and others had drunk a toast "to the motherland, to the Red Army, to Stalin".[57] In 1929 and again in 1945, he corresponded with Mark Aldanov, the literary consultant of the Chekhov Publishing House, which published mainly works by émigré authors. Some had joined the Union of Russian Patriots.

Despite encroaching deafness, Maklakov remained at the helm of the Russian Emigration Office (eventually subsumed into the structure of Charles de Gaulle's government) until his death at the age of 88. His front-rank reputation and talent for mediation allowed Maklakov (rather than better-known but controversial men like Kerensky and Milyukov) to manoeuvre between the many warring factions that made up the Russian émigré community and to represent their interests in dealing with the French government. For years, Maklakov was assisted by his sister Maria who was able to decipher his handwriting and did the typing in Rue Peguy (5th arrondissement of Paris). He died in a Swiss spa.[58]

Legacy

In his memoirs, "From the Past", first published in 1954, Maklakov discusses the causes of events in Russia, which he witnessed and participated in, touches upon such issues that have not lost their relevance today such as the essence of democracy, the functions of a democratic state, the relationship between the state and the individual, the coordination of the interests of the majority in society and minorities. He expressed his hope for its further evolution", for "its synthesis with the rest of the world".[7] He was not entirely satisfied with Western democracies: they could not prevent world wars, nor the emergence of totalitarian regimes, nor ensure equal rights for all.

"If our planet does not perish sooner from cosmic causes, then a peaceful community of people on it can only be built on the principles of equal for all, that is, fair rights. Not on the deceptive victory of the strongest, not on self-denial or self-sacrifice to others, but on justice. The future is hidden from us; no one can guarantee that justice will prevail in the world. But for human nature, peace is possible only on these principles.[7]

Maklakov spent most of his career attempting to reform the (legal) system in Russia unsuccessfully. He wrote several books on the history of social thought and the Russian liberal movement. In Soviet times Maklakov (and the Kadets) were seen as "bourgeois" and "not studied".[7]

In 1926 and with the help of Nikolai Golovin Maklakov took control of the Okhrana archives from 1883 to 1917 stored at the Paris embassy.[59] His personal archive was transferred to Hoover Institution (Stanford University) after his death.[60][61][62] In 1959 Georgy Adamovich published a biography on Maklakov.

Works

  • "Tolstoy as a public figure" (1912)
  • Memories. Leader of the Moscow Cadets on Russian politics. 1880–1917
  • "State Power and Public Life at the Decline of Old Russia," (1936)
  • "The First State Duma. Memories of a Contemporary," completed in 1939 and even typed, but did not go on sale.
  • The First State Duma: Contemporary Reminiscenses. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1964.
  • "The Second State Duma" (1940) or (1944, 1946)?
  • Court speeches, Duma speeches, and public lectures. 1904-1926 (with a foreword by M.A. Aldanov) - Paris. 1949
  • "Soviet Power and Emigration"
  • From the past. Contemporary notes. Chekhov Publishing House. New York 1954
  • Politician, Lawyer, Man (1959).[3]

Sources

  • Dedkov, N.I. (2005) The conservative liberalism of Vasilii Maklakov.
    ISBN 978-5-88735-134-6
  • Hamza, Gabor, Some Remarks on the Educational Background and Political Career of Alexander Fjodorovits Kerensky in (Tzarist) Russia. Polgari Szemle 11 (2015) 394–397. pp.
  • Hamza, Gabor, Survey on the oeuvre of Vasilij Aleksejevic Maklakov (1869–1957), the Statesman, Diplomat and Scholar of Classical Antiquity. Jogelmeleti Szemle 2016/4. http://jesz.ajk.elte.hu/2016_4.pdf
  • Kröner, A.W.(1998) "The Debate Between Miliukov and Maklakov on the Chances for Russian Liberalism." [s.n.].
  • Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov: A Russian liberal between autocracy and revolution 1869–1957
  • Smith, Douglas (2016). Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    ISBN 978-0-374-71123-8
    .
  • Williams, Stephen F. (2017) The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vasily Maklakov.

References

  1. ^ Famous ophthalmologist A. N. Maklakov
  2. ^ Pavel Krasheninnikov on Maklakov's Memories.[1] Archived 2022-08-20 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  4. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  5. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  6. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 25, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d В.м, Шевырин (February 12, 2001). "Василий Алексеевич Маклаков (1869-1957)". Россия и современный мир (3): 150–158. Archived from the original on April 2, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via cyberleninka.ru.
  8. ^
    ISBN 9781594039546. Archived
    from the original on February 12, 2023. Retrieved February 12, 2023 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ a b "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on October 14, 2011. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  10. ^ a b "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  11. ^ Kröner, p. 54
  12. ^ Kröner, p. 40, 65
  13. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  14. ^ Scenarios of Power, From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II Archived 2023-02-12 at the Wayback Machine, by Richard Wortman, pg. 398
  15. ^ "История России в портретах. В 2-х тт. Т.1. с.285-308 Сергей Витте". www.peoples.ru. Archived from the original on June 7, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  16. ^ Figes, p. 194–5
  17. ^ Williams, S (2006) Liberal Reform under an Illiberal Regime: The Creation of Private Property in Russia in 1906-1915 - Introduction
  18. ^ "1905 :: Электронное периодическое издание Открытый текст". www.opentextnn.ru. Archived from the original on February 16, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  19. ^ "Маклаков, Василий Алексеевич". Archived from the original on February 12, 2023. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  20. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  21. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 3, 106, 109, 114
  22. ^ Kröner, A.W. (1998) "The Debate Between Miliukov and Maklakov on the Chances for Russian Liberalism", p. 107
  23. ^
    ISBN 9781911414957. Archived
    from the original on February 12, 2023. Retrieved February 12, 2023 – via Google Books.
  24. ^ "Ф. Н. Плевако". Archived from the original on February 12, 2023. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  25. ^ "В. А. Маклаков УБИЙСТВО А. ЮЩИНСКОГО 1914 Бейлис Речь на суде 25.10.1913 LDN-knigi". Archived from the original on December 11, 2007. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  26. ^ Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution, 1891-1924, page 276
  27. ^ Douglas Smith (2016) Rasputin, p. 484
  28. ^ "Vasily Alekseyevich Maklakov | Russian politician | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  29. ISBN 0-19-519787-9
    . Page 169; Simmons, Ernest J. Two Types of Russian Liberalism: Maklakov and Miliukov, in Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought. Harvard University Press, 1955, 129–43.
  30. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 115
  31. ^ A. Kerensky (1965) Russia and History's turning point, p. 150.
  32. ^ D. Smith, p. 571-572
  33. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 132
  34. ^ M. Nelipa 110-115
  35. ^ "Слово и пуля". flb.ru. Archived from the original on May 21, 2022. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  36. ^ "За пирожки обидно". Archived from the original on July 2, 2007. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  37. ^ Pourichkévitch, V. (1924) Comment j'ai tué Raspoutine, Preface.
  38. ISBN 9780307754660
    – via Google Books.
  39. ^ The Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921: An Annotated Bibliography by Jonathan Smele [2]
  40. ^ "Маклаков В.А." www.hrono.ru. Archived from the original on September 26, 2022. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  41. ^ D. Smith, p. 594-595
  42. ^ The White Knight of the Black Sea: The Life of General Peter Wrangel by Anthony Willem Kröner, p. 50
  43. ^ "Василий Алексеевич Маклаков (1869–1957). "ХОТЯ ЭТО И ПОДЛОЕ ПРАВИТЕЛЬСТВО, НО ЭТО ВСЕ-ТАКИ РУССКОЕ ПРАВИТЕЛЬСТВО…". Роковая Фемида. Драматические судьбы знаменитых российских юристов. Александр Григорьевич Звягинцев". Archived from the original on September 5, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  44. ^ Hassell, James E. Russian Refugees in France and the United States Between the World Wars. DIANE, 1991. Page 25.
  45. ^ Quoted from Hassell, page 33.
  46. ^ Hassell, page 25.
  47. ^ M. Nelipa, p. 110
  48. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 176
  49. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 166
  50. ^ A. Kröner (2010), p. 277, 374
  51. ^ A. Kröner (2010), p. 237-238
  52. ^ A. Kröner (2010), p. 294, 299, 333, 374-375, 404
  53. ^ "Письмо. В.А. Маклаков — В.В. Шульгину. Paris, le 2 Июня 1924". Archived from the original on February 12, 2023. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  54. ^ "Спор о России : В. А. Маклаков - В. В. Шульгин. Переписка, 1919-1939". Archived from the original on April 9, 2022. Retrieved April 9, 2022.
  55. ^ Kröner, A.W. (1998) "The Debate Between Miliukov and Maklakov on the Chances for Russian Liberalism", p. 2, 57, 95-100
  56. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 189
  57. ^ Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Princeton University Press, 1991. Page 84.
  58. ^ "Братья (Маклаковы). Генрих Иоффе. Слово\Word, №86". Archived from the original on July 4, 2017. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  59. ^ Kröner, Anthony (2021) Vasilii Maklakov. A Russian liberal, between autocracy and revolution 1869-1957, p. 182
  60. ^ "Library & Archives History". Hoover Institution. Archived from the original on April 8, 2022. Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  61. ^ "Hoover, Okhrana records". Archived from the original on April 16, 2022. Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  62. ^ "Maklakov (Vasilii A.) papers". oac.cdlib.org. Archived from the original on July 8, 2022. Retrieved April 14, 2022.
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