Ivan Ivanovich Bezkoi

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Portrait of Ivan Ivanovich Bezkoi by Alexander Roslin (1777)
Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum

Ivan Ivanovich Bezkoi ( Russian Ива́н Ива́нович Бецко́й; born February 14, 1704 in Stockholm ; † September 11, 1795 in Saint Petersburg ) was a Russian school reformer and advisor for education to Catherine II . He was President of the Russian Academy of Arts for thirty years from 1764 to 1794 .

Live and act

Bezkoi's parents were Ivan Jurjewitsch Trubezkoi (1667-1750), a Russian field marshal, and his Swedish lover, a Baroness von Wrede . Bezkoi's last name was the short form of his father's last name, as was not uncommon for illegitimate children at the time. His father was one of the first to serve as a captain in the Preobrazhensk body guard regiment until 1693. A year later he was made lieutenant colonel. During the Great Northern War he was taken prisoner in Sweden; he stayed in Sweden for the next 18 years . Later Charles XII allowed . that Trubezkoi's wife, Irina Naryschkina (1671–1749) could come to her husband to live with him in Sweden.

So Iwan Bezkoi was born in Stockholm. He received his first military instruction from his father, for further training he was sent to a military academy in Copenhagen and then to serve in a Danish cavalry regiment. During a practice ride he was thrown from his horse and seriously injured, apparently forcing him to give up his military career. He initially traveled through Europe for a long time, often as a courier in Berlin, Vienna and Paris. He stayed in Paris from 1722 to 1726 and worked as secretary to the Russian ambassador.

He made the acquaintance of the Duchess Johanna Elisabeth of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , the mother of Catherine II. Field Marshal Trubetskoi returned to Russia in 1729 , where he then worked as his father's aide-de-camp .

Anastassija Trubezkaja, Hereditary Princess of Hesse-Homburg in her second marriage, the sister of Betskoi

A palace revolution in 1741 brought Elizabeth Petrovna , daughter of Peter the Great, to power . She replaced the regent Anna Leopoldowna and her favorite Ernst Johann von Biron . Bezkoi was involved in the putsch with the Preobrazhensky regiment and thus helped Elisabeth.

The grateful Empress promoted him to major general and asked him to serve Johanna Elisabeth von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf . In January 1744 Johanna Elisabeth von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf and her daughter Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg traveled to Russia. The following year the princess married the Russian heir to the throne, Grand Duke Peter Fyodorovich . The Zerbst princess Johanna Elisabeth participated in the intrigues of the court several times and spied for the Prussian king Friedrich II , which is why the tsarina later forbade mail between mother and daughter. Almost two years after her departure, Johanna Elisabeth returned to Zerbst.

After Johanna Elisabeth was expelled from Russia in 1747, Bezkoi resigned from office and went to Paris, where he spent the next fifteen years. He kept close contacts with the encyclopedists , especially Jean-Jacques Rousseau . He was at least in correspondence with Denis Diderot . He also found access to the highest circles of the French aristocracy, which his only half-sister Anastasia Ivanovna paved for him. In 1779 he was elected an honorary member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Ivan Ivanovich Bezkoi. Painting by Alexander Roslin

The culmination of his long career was the establishment of the first unified Russian system for public education .

Betskoi's plan for the foundling house in Moscow .

He found his final resting place in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery .

literature

  • AS Lappo-Danilevsky: II Betskoy and His System of Education . SPB , 1904.
  • PM Maykov: Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy: A Biography . SPB, 1904.

Web links

Commons : Category: Ivan Betskoy  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Russian Academy of Arts. Official site, online
  2. ^ Trubetskoy Family from the time of Peter the Great to the present day
  3. ^ According to unofficial rumors, Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg (* May 2, 1729) was his daughter.
  4. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 39.
personal data
SURNAME Bezkoi, Ivan Ivanovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Betskoy, Ivan; Trubetskoi, Ivan Ivanovich; Бецкой, Иван Иванович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian military and reformer
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1704
PLACE OF BIRTH Stockholm
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1795
Place of death St. Petersburg