Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonoszew

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Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonoszew

Konstantin Pobedonostsev ( Russian Cyrillic Константин Петрович Победоносцев ., Scientific transliteration Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev ; born May 21 . Jul / 2. June  1827 greg. In Moscow ; † 10 jul. / 23. March  1907 greg. In Saint Petersburg ) was a Russian lawyer , civil servant , thinker , and publicist . He is considered the most important representative of Russian conservatism and the “ gray eminence ” of tsarist politics during the tenure of his student Alexander III.

Life

Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonoszew was born on May 21st . / June 2, 1827 greg. born in Moscow. His grandfather was a priest, Pobedonoszew's father, Pyotr Vasilyevich Pobedonoszew, professor of literature at Lomonosov University in Moscow . In 1841 he registered his son at the St. Petersburg Law School . Its main purpose was to prepare young men for civil service. After completing his school career, Pobedonoszew served as a civil servant in various ministries of the Moscow Senate, with his main task being to mediate in the cases of the governorates around Moscow. Within a short time he was promoted within the ministry. At the same time, since 1859, he gave lectures in public law at Moscow University . For the next six years he taught eight hours a week while working in the ministry. From 1860 to 1865 he was a professor of public law at Lomonosov University. After he was appointed by Alexander II in 1861 to teach his son and heir to the throne Nikolaus legal theory and administrative science, he resigned from the professorship due to lack of time. In 1865, however, he was elected professor emeritus at the university.

When Nikolaus died on April 12, 1865, Pobedonoszew began teaching his brother Alexander (the future Tsar Alexander III). In 1866 he finally moved to Saint Petersburg . The relationship between Pobedonoszew and Alexander remained very close for almost thirty years, until Alexander's death in 1894.

In 1868 Pobedonoszew became a senator in St. Petersburg, in 1874 a member of the Imperial Council and in 1880 chief procurator of the Holy Synod of Russia , thus de facto head of the Russian Orthodox Church .

Pobedonoszew's grave in Moscow

During the tenure of Alexander III. he was one of the most influential people in the empire and largely responsible for the conservative turnaround that was characteristic of the era. In liberal circles he was always seen as an obscurant and enemy of all progress. He is considered to be the author of the manifesto of April 29, 1881, which proclaimed the absolute power of the Russian tsar as unshakable and thus put an end to Loris-Melikov's attempts to establish a parliament or a national assembly . The further rise of Pobedonoszew immediately after the assassination of Alexander II led to the resignation of Loris-Melikov and other liberal-minded ministers.

After the death of Alexander III. however, his influence on Nicholas II decreased significantly. Although he adhered to his father's policy of Russification, he rejected the concept of systematic religious persecution and was not entirely averse to the partial emancipation of the Russian Orthodox Church from state control.

In 1901 Nikolai Lagowski committed an assassination attempt on Pobedonoszew by shooting into the window of his office, but missing the senator. Lagowski was sentenced to 6 years in a Siberian penal camp.

In response to the first signs of liberalization during the Russian Revolution of 1905 , the almost 80-year-old Pobedonoszew resigned from office. He died on March 23, 1907 in Saint Petersburg . He was thematized by Andrei Bely in the form of the old Senator Ableuchow in his novel Petersburg (1912).

Academic studies in civil law

Apart from his importance as a statesman and thinker, Pobedonoszew made an important contribution to the development of Russian civil law . He is considered one of the most knowledgeable Russian lawyers of the 19th century. His main work was the three-volume "Textbook of Civil Law" (Курс гражданского права) .

In addition, he criticized the judicial reform of Alexander II on an anonymous basis in the Moscow newspaper Moskowskije Vedomosti in 1865. In his opinion, the establishment of the judiciary as a third state authority was inadvisable, since Russia at the time was suffering from a shortage of qualified judges.

doctrine

Painting of Ilya Repins by Pobedonoszew, who was known for his lean, corpse-pale figure.

Pobedonoszew is considered the most important representative of Russian conservatism. He rejected Western ideals of freedom and independence as "dangerous illusions of nihilistic youth". Main objects of his aversion were democratic and parliamentary administrative methods, the modern judiciary, freedom of the press , secular education and the like. a.

As a counterbalance to the products of Western rationalism , which are seen as dangerous , he represented a kind of vis inertiae and saw social life as an organism that develops towards an inner goal. Any artificial restructuring, e.g. B. in the political sphere, d. H. any reaction to strictly logical thought processes was considered dangerous and unnatural, since humans cannot grasp this development in a logical way. Thus he saw any reform as a violation of the natural order.

From this view follows the need to worship the Church and autocratic power. Pobedonoszew attached great importance to the historical continuity of traditional Russian institutions, e.g. B. the Russian Orthodox Church and the monarchy, and insisted on conservative values ​​as a link between the generations.

In applied politics, he exerted great influence on Alexander III. by significantly promoting its Russification policy. This led to administrative nationalist propaganda and the organized persecution of Russian Jews in the so-called pogroms . Pobedonoszew also supported the anti-Jewish May Laws of 1882. From him the following saying has been passed down: "One third (of the Russian Jews) will die, one third will emigrate, and the last third will be completely assimilated in the Russian people."

Pobedonoszew's views led, among other things, to a. on friendship with Dostoevsky and a correspondence that arose from it.

Works

literature

  • Friedrich Steinmann; Elias Hurwicz : Konstantin Petrowitsch Pobjedonoszew, the statesman of the reaction under Alexander III. , Königsberg, Berlin: Ost-Europa-Verl. 1933.
  • Gerhard Simon : Konstantin Petrovič Pobedonoscev and the ecclesiastical politics of St. Sinod 1880-1905. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1969 (Church in the East 7), plus Hamburg, Phil. F., Diss. Aug 20, 1969

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pobedonoszew, Konstantin Petrovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Победоносцев, Константин Петрович (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian lawyer, civil servant, thinker and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1907
Place of death St. Petersburg