Alexei Mikhailovich Argamakov

Alexei Mikhailovich Argamakow ( Russian Алексей Михайлович Аргамаков * 1711 , † January 25 ^{. Jul} / 5. February  1757 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ) was a Russian government official and first director of the University of Moscow .

Life

Argamakov was the only son of Seneschal Mikhail M. Argamakow and his wife Anastassija Yermilovna Argamakova, lady-in-waiting of the Duchess of Courland Anna Ivanovna . After the death of her husband in 1720, Argamakov's mother married the widowed diplomat Count Andrei Artamonowitsch Matvejew . Argamakov grew up in Moscow in the house of his stepfather, who then let him join the St. Petersburg Preobrazhensk body guard regiment . He left the regiment in 1731 as a guard captain. He then attended lectures at the University of Geneva on mathematics , law , anatomy , surgery and studied the French language . Then he traveled through Germany , England , Italy , France and the Netherlands and returned to St. Petersburg in 1735. He asked Anna Ioannovna to join the civil service, but did not take on any service until 1741 for health reasons.

In 1741 Argamakov was sent to the Putywler cloth factory by the president of the trade college, Baron Karl Ludwig Mengden . But after the overthrow of Elizabeth Petrovna , Mengden was arrested and Argamakov was again without service. He applied to the College on Foreign Affairs to no avail. He married Anna Osipovna Sipjagina. Her only son Vasily later married the sister of the comedy writer Dennis von Wiesen . Argamakov lived with the family in their own house on St. Petersburg's Vasilievsky Island . Second wife he married Irina Yakovlevna Wassilewna, daughter of Podporutschiks the Moscow Dragoon - Regiment , with whom he had four sons and three daughters.

In 1748 he entered the state service in the Manufactory College as a collegiate councilor (sixth rank ) and controlled the activities of the manufactories and factories. In 1754 he was also a member of the commission for the revision of the laws.

In the mid-1750s, Elizabeth Petrovna decided to reorganize and reform all the institutions of the Russian Empire . Argamakov was commissioned to examine the work and the situation in the armory of the Moscow Kremlin . In his report to the Senate , he called for an inventory to be drawn up and updated on an ongoing basis and proposed the construction of a new building for the armory. According to the historian Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov , this work qualified him as an extraordinary organizer.

In January 1755, Elisabeth Petrovna founded the University of Moscow and, on the recommendation of Ivan Ivanovich Shuwalov, appointed Argamakov as the first director of this new university. Argamakov managed the university's budget and tirelessly mediated between the university and the curator in St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1755, he opened classes in the university gymnasium and invited the first students from the Moscow Academy to study at the university. In April 1756 the university printing house was opened, which printed the Moskovsky Vedomosti . A university library was established, for which Argamakov applied for a library fund from the Academy of Sciences . He received a mineral collection from the mining entrepreneur Nikita Akinfijewitsch Demidow , which formed the basis of the university's mineral collection. He bought the equipment for a physics cabinet at the university. A Senate ukas arranged for the house of Pyotr Ivanovich Repnin to be bought for the university, which began the expansion of the university. In October 1756 the university conference met for the first time under Argamakov's chairmanship. He released several of his serfs who were then students or university employees. To help build the university quickly, he used his own funds to give interest-free loans without promissory notes , which after his sudden death led to a financial crisis at the university. Argamakov's successor as director of Moscow University was Ivan Ivanovich Melissino .

Argamakov was one of the pioneers of Freemasonry in Moscow.

Argamakov traveled frequently to St. Petersburg. During his last trip, he fell seriously ill and died. He was buried in the Lazarus Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St. Petersburg. His grave has not been preserved. In 2005, a marble plaque was placed on the cemetery wall to mark the 250th anniversary of Moscow University .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Funeral-SPb.ru: Аргамаков, Алексей Михайлович ( memento of March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on November 13, 2017).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Д. Н. Костышин: Алексей Михайлович Аргамаков: материалы для биографии . In: Россия в XVII столетии . tape II , 2004, p. 51-176 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Летопись Московского университета: Аргамаков Алексей Михайлович (accessed November 12, 2017).
4. ↑ Андреев А. Ю., Цыганков Д. А .: Императорский Московский университет: 1755–1917: энциклопедический словарь . Российская политическая энциклопедия (РОССПЭН), Moscow 2010, ISBN 978-5-8243-1429-8 , p. 33 .