Michael von Taube

Michael von Taube (1920)

Michael Freiherr von Taube , Michael Aleksandrovič von Taube (born May 15, 1869 in Pavlovsk near Saint Petersburg , † November 29, 1961 in Paris ) was a Russian lawyer , politician and civil servant . He worked as a lecturer and professor for international law at various universities, including the University of Saint Petersburg and the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster . He also served as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and from 1911 to 1915 as Russian Deputy Minister for Popular Education.

Origin and family

Michael Baron von Taube was born in Pavlovsk near Saint Petersburg in 1869 and came from the Swedish-Baltic Baltic noble family von Taube , one of which had been in the service of the Russian tsars since the 18th century . Its origins go back to the early 17th century.

His ancestor Johann Georg Baron von Taube (* 1627) became lord of Hallinap in Estonia in 1665 and lord of Roth-Naußlitz in Saxony in 1631 . He was married to Sophie von Mecks, both were buried in Rödern (Saxony). They had seven sons who were in the service of the Electorate of Saxony. His son Johann Georg, * 1654 in Dresden † 1709 in Neukirchen , was the progenitor of the Saxon house of the barons Taube zu Neukirchen and Niederpöllnitz . He was succeeded by Baron von Taube (* / † not known) and Johann Georg von Taube (1750-1830). Michael's father was Friedrich Gideon Michael (1805–1870), who was born in Ratzau and died in Saint Petersburg . He founded the Russian house of those von Taube. His mother was Elisaveta Ivanovna Vashutina (1827-1893), who was married in second marriage.

Michael married Anna Aleksandrovna Baranowa (1862–1915), they had five children:

• Ivan Michailowitsch von Taube (* 1892)
• Alexander Michailowitsch von Taube (* 1889)
• Michail Michailowitsch von Taube (1894–1936)
• Sergei Michailowitsch von Taube (1894–1937)
• Maria Michailowna von Taube (1899–1929)

Career

From 1887 to 1891 he studied law at the University of Saint Petersburg , where he obtained a master's degree in international law under Friedrich Fromhold Martens in 1896 and also received his habilitation a year later . He then moved to the University of Kharkov as a private lecturer , where he became friends with the later Imperial Education Minister Leo Aristidowitsch Kasso . In 1899 he returned to the University of St. Petersburg, where he received his doctorate and became a private lecturer in the same year. Four years later he was appointed associate professor and in 1906 as successor to Martens as full professor. In 1909 he became a full professor of international law at the Imperial Law School in Saint Petersburg. Two years later he resigned from his academic duties due to his political activities.

In addition to his university activities, Taube joined the government as a civil servant. He initially worked as a subordinate legal advisor in the Russian Foreign Ministry before he was appointed deputy head of the legal department (assistant to the director of the 2nd department) in 1905 under the German Baltic Minister Count Lamsdorff. In 1909 Taube rose - again as a direct successor to the late Martens - to a member of the Ministerial Council of the Foreign Ministry (supreme legal advisor) and a member of the Imperial Russian Admiralty Council and received the rank of Imperial Council of State (5th class). At the same time he was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 1909.

Under Foreign Minister Iswolski , Taube lost real influence in the Foreign Ministry and withdrew - disappointed by his successor Sasonow , who was appointed in 1910 - when his friend Kasso, who was appointed Minister of Education in 1910, made him his deputy. In April 1911 Taube took up this position as assistant to the Minister for Popular Education. During Kasso's serious illness and after Kasso's death at the end of 1914, Taube served as executive minister from October 1914 to February 1915. For a time he was seen as his successor, but this was thwarted by the appointment of Count Ignatiev . In February 1915 Taube left his position as Vice Minister and was instead appointed Senator with the rank of Imperial Privy Councilor (2nd class). On New Year's Day 1917, Tsar Nikolai II appointed him a member of the Reichsrat, the then Russian upper house. However, this political position was lost again with the overthrow of the monarchy by the February Revolution in March 1917.

After the communist October Revolution of 1917, Taube left his home country and has since emigrated . In 1919/1920 he worked in Sweden as a private lecturer at Uppsala University and from 1923 to 1929 as professor at the Russian Scientific Institute in Berlin . In addition, he became a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hague Academy for International Law in 1923 . He kept in touch with the emigrated Romanov dynasty and acted as legal advisor to the pretender Kyrill Vladimirovich Romanov . At the same time, Taube published historical writings about his work in the Russian government and his view of the causes of the First World War . In 1931 he was given a teaching position for diplomacy , the history of international law and several other subjects at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In December 1934, although he had already passed the age limit of 65 in the same year, he was appointed honorary professor for special areas of international law. Four years later he was released from teaching for reasons of age. He died in Paris in 1961 .

Works (selection)

• Russia and Western Europe: Russia's special historical development in the European community of nations. Series: From the Institute for International Law at the University of Kiel. Volume 8. Berlin 1928
• Towards the great catastrophe: Russian policy in the prewar period and the end of the Tsarist Empire (1904–1917). Memories of Dr. Michael Baron von Taube. Berlin 1929

literature

• Lecturer for Baron Michael von Taube. In: Lieselotte Steveling: Juristen in Münster: A contribution to the history of the law and political science faculty of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster / Westf. Series: Contributions to the history of sociology. Volume 10. LIT-Verlag, Münster 1999, ISBN 3-82-584084-0 , pp. 458-460

Web links

• Literature by and about Michael von Taube in the catalog of the German National Library
• Baltic Historical Commission (Ed.): Entry on Michael von Taube. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital

Individual evidence

1. ^ Estonian estates: Hallinap in the parish of St. Johannis, Harrien