Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov
Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov ( Russian Михаил Семёнович Воронцов ., Scientific transliteration Mikhail Semenovic Voroncov ; born May 19 . Jul / thirtieth May 1782 greg. In Saint Petersburg , † November 6 jul. / 18th November 1856 greg. In Odessa ) was a Russian officer and politician. He was Governor General of New Russia and Bessarabia and Viceroy of the Caucasus . He championed liberal ideas, modernized southern Russia and the southern Caucasus.
Life
Mikhail Semjonowitsch Voronzow was the son of Semjon Romanowitsch Voronzow (1744-1832) and Ekaterina Alexejewna Senjawina (1761-1784). He spent his childhood and youth in Venice and England , where his father represented Russia as a diplomat. There he received a broad education, which included the humanities and natural sciences as well as attending the English parliament and factories. Because the father expected a bourgeois revolution and the abolition of noble privileges in Russia too, the son also had to learn a trade.
In 1801 Vorontsov returned to Russia. After a year as a lieutenant in the bodyguard of the Preobrazhensky regiment , he served in the Russian army in the Caucasus , fought against the Swedes in Pomerania , on the Danube and against the Turks near Ruschtschuk . In 1805 he became a major, in 1807 a colonel and in 1810 a major general .
At the beginning of the Patriotic War of 1812 , Vorontsov fought in the army of Prince Bagration and took part in the Battle of Smolensk . During the Battle of Borodino he commanded the 2nd Grenadier Division and defended the entrenchments at Shevardino against the French army. Despite enormous losses, his division held the entrusted positions to the end, Count Vorontsov himself received a bayonet wound in close combat and had to leave the battlefield. He had his wound bandaged and went to his property in Andryevskoye in the Pokrovsky district to heal, where he initially refused to evacuate his house to take in the wounded. Hardly recovered, he returned to the army and was transferred to the Chichagov army . During the armistice (summer 1813) he was transferred to the Northern Army; After the resumption of hostilities, his troops fought in the Battle of Dennewitz and also distinguished themselves in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig . In the campaign of 1814 his troops stood together with the corps of Generals Sacken and Langeron in the army of the Prussian Field Marshal Blücher and proved their worth in the battle of Craonne against Napoleon . On February 23, 1814, Count Voronzow was awarded the Order of St. George, 2nd class.
Back in Moscow in 1820, Vorontsov joined the liberal movement in Russia. As an officer, he had already written a memorandum on the humane treatment of the lower ranks. Now he proposed to Emperor Alexander I a society for the liberation of serfs . This refused.
In 1823 Vorontsov became Governor General of Novorossia and Bessarabia , took the administrative seat in Odessa and a private residence near Alupka in the Crimea . He made a great contribution to the development of Odessa into a modern port city, hired Western European engineers and doctors and initiated urban development projects. He founded a theater, a public library , a lyceum, an institute for oriental languages and various scientific societies, sponsored English and French local newspapers.
Under his rule, the population of the Russian south grew because it was known that he did not persecute escaped serfs. Refugees quickly found work in the expanding economies of port cities on the Black Sea . Between 1823 and 1849 the population of Odessa doubled. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin praised freedom in the city.
In 1844 Vorontsov was appointed viceroy of the Caucasus and received the title of prince. Despite his advanced age, he also earned services in the South Caucasus for the development of culture, trade, industry and transport, although he had to accept setbacks in the fight against the Chechens . In 1845 an army he had sent was repulsed by the Chechens led by Imam Shamil . In contrast to his military measures, however, the infrastructural development of the Caucasus region that he initiated was successful. In 1848 he engaged the Italian Giovanni Scudieri as chief architect of Tbilisi . In the same year he founded the first theater in Transcaucasia in Tbilisi, and in 1846 the first public library. Countless educational institutions and learned societies go back to him, including the first magazine in Georgian Ziskari , the Ethnographic Museum and a branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society . His palace (today the Youth Palace ) is still a gem in the center of the Georgian capital.
Vorontsov's aim was to bring the areas under his administration closer to Europe, to provide an enlightened education, to create private capital and to encourage private investments to exploit the natural resources in the regions. This also indirectly contributed to the suppression of the Chechen resistance in 1859.
In 1855 Vorontsov retired. In 1856 he was appointed field marshal by Alexander II . In the same year he died in Odessa and was buried there.
Vorontsov was married to Elisaveta Ksawerewna Branizkaja, a relative of Prince Potjomkin , and was considered one of the richest men in Russia.
literature
- AM Dondukow-Korsakow: Knjaz 'Mikhail Vorontsow . in: Starina i Novizna , 1902, p. 298
- Jaromir Hirtenfeld : The Military Maria Theresa Order and its Members , Vienna 1857, p. 1310
- Anthony LH Rhinelander: Prince Mikhail Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar . McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal 1990
- MP Shcherbinin : Biography general-field marshal knjasja MS Voronzowa . Tipografija Eduarda Weimara, St. Petersburg 1858
Works
- Michail Sergeevič Voroncov: Vypiski iz dnevnika svetlejšago knjazja MS Voroncova s 1845 po 1854 g. , Saint Petersburg 1902
Web links
- Biography of Mikhail Vorontsov (English)
- Museum of the Vorontsov Family (English / Russian)
- Images of the Vorontsov Palace in the Crimea (English)
- Vorontsov's services to Georgia's culture (English, PDF; 207 kB)
- Article Michail Semjonowitsch Voronzow in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vorontsov, Mikhail Semjonowitsch |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Воронцов, Михаил Семёнович (Russian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Russian field marshal, governor general, viceroy |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 30, 1782 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 18, 1856 |
| Place of death | Odessa , Russian Empire |