Karl von Meck

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Karl von Meck

Karl Otto Georg von Meck ( Russian Карл Отто Георг фон Мекк ; born June 23, jul. / 5. July  1821 greg. In sluts tukums municipality , † January 26 jul. / 7. February  1876 greg. In Moscow ) was a Baltic German - Russian railway entrepreneur and patron .

Life

Von Meck came from a German Baltic aristocratic family who immigrated to Livonia from Silesia at the end of the 16th century . His father Otto Adam von Meck left the Russian army as a major , was an arrendator, served the Ministry of Finance as a customs district official and died of cholera in 1830 before reaching retirement age, so that Meck's mother Friederike Wilhelmine, née Hafferberg, daughter of the mayor of Mitau , also joined five young children was now destitute.

In 1838, von Meck began studying at the St. Petersburg Transport Institute of the Engineer Corps and graduated in 1844 as Porutschik . He then served in the traffic office and became staff captain in 1847. On January 14th, Jul. / January 26,  1848 greg. he married Nadezhda Filaretovna von Fralowsky , daughter of a landlord in the Smolensk governorate . The family settled in Roslavl .

In 1851, Meck became Kapitan . In 1858 he became head of construction of the Moscow - Warsaw - Highway and then inspector of the construction of the strategic road network in the western part of Russia . In view of the low annual salary of 1,500 rubles for the family, which now has five children, he quit his job at the request of his wife in 1860 in order to work as an entrepreneur .

After the lost Crimean War , the importance of rail transport was recognized, and the construction of the first railroad lines with private capital began. As an independent railway construction company, von Meck built the railway line from Moscow to Sergiev Posad in 1862 . He participated in the Saratov Railway Company for the construction of railway lines between Moscow and Saratov. The first section from Moscow to Kolomna was put into operation after two years thanks to the special commitment of the company's chief secretary Paul von Derwies and his assistant von Meck. However, the funds were now exhausted and the company insolvent .

The new Moscow- Ryazan railway company was founded in 1863 , with von Derwies as chairman of the board , who won von Meck as the main contractor for the construction of the line from Kolomna to Ryazan. The line was built in a year and a half and quickly put into operation. From this, von Derwies and von Meck built the next section from Ryazan to Koslow (1865–1866) just as quickly .

Von Meck then took part in companies for the construction of further railway lines, including the line from Kursk to Kiev , but the successes were no longer so great.

From his entrepreneurial activity, von Meck made a large fortune. He donated a dormitory and a 10,000 ruble prize for students at the Transport Institute. He was a member of the Board of Trustees for Needy Students at the Imperial St. Vladimir University in Kiev. In 1867 he donated 25,000 rubles to the Society of Friends of Natural Science , Anthropology and Ethnography for the establishment of a chair in anthropology at Moscow University . In 1876 he was appointed honorary curator of the Kamenez Podolski High School by government decree .

Von Meck's wife Nadezhda promoted and supported Pyotr Tchaikovsky , with whom she often exchanged letters.

Von Meck was buried in the cemetery of Moscow's New Alexander convent. He and his wife Nadezhda had 18 children. The widow Nadezhda von Meck continued the family business, initially involving her eldest son Vladimir . He became president of the Moscow Ryazan (later Kazan ) railway company, which was run by his brother Nikolai after his death . His younger brother Alexander devoted himself to charity, archeology and alpinism . Von Meck's son Maximilian (1869–1950) was a diplomat in Washington, DC and Cetinje , consul in Newcastle upon Tyne (until 1911) and died in England . From Meck's daughter Jelisaweta (1848-1907) married the engineer Alexander Alexandrowitsch Iolschin in 1872. Alexandra (1849–1920) married the landowner and politician Count Emmanuil Bennigsen in 1874 . Julija (1853–1915) married her mother's secretary, Wladislaw Albertowitsch Pachulski. Lidija (1855-1910) married Fyodor Fyodorowitsch Löwis of Menar and had 10 children. Sofja (1867–1936) married Alexander Rimski-Korsakow in 1884 , with whom she had four children, and in 1901 her second marriage was Prince Dmitri Mikhailovich Golitsyn. Lyudmila (1872–1946) married Prince Andrei Schirinski-Schichmatow in 1889 , had five children and in 1914 changed her father's name from Karlowna to Georgievna because of the anti-German mood.

Web links

Commons : Familie Von Meck  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Baltic Historical Commission (Ed.): Entry on Karl Otto Georg von Meck. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital (accessed September 11, 2018).
  2. ↑ a b c Galina Nikolajewna von Meck: Фон Мекк - железнодорожные "короли" и меценаты (accessed on September 2, 2017).
  3. ↑ Юлиан ТОЛСТОВ: Семья предпринимателей фон Мекк (accessed August 31, 2017).
  4. ↑ Гавлин М. Л .: Династия. Железнодорожные короли фон Мекк . In: Экономическая история. Обозрение . No. 7 , 2001, p. 133–152 ( [1] accessed September 3, 2017).
  5. ↑ Julia Keld: Nikolaus Karlovich von Meck (accessed on September 1, 2017).
  6. ↑ Князь Николай Михайлович: Московский некрополь, т. 2 . 1907, p. 1245 ( [2] accessed on September 2, 2017).
personal data
SURNAME From Meck, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Von Meck, Karl Otto Georg (full name); Мекк, Карл Оттон Георг фон (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic-Russian railway entrepreneur and patron
DATE OF BIRTH July 5, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Sluts, Tukums district
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1876
Place of death Moscow