Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenev

Nikolai Iwanowitsch Turgenew (JI Austria, 1823)

Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenev ( Russian Николай Иванович Тургенев ; born October 12 ^{. Jul} / 23. October  1789 ^greg. In Simbirsk , † October 29 ^jul. / 10. November  1871 ^greg. In Bougival ) was a Russian economist , constitutional lawyer and publicist .

Life

Turgenev was the son of the Freemason and later director of Moscow University Ivan Petrovich Turgenev and had four brothers: Ivan (died as children), Andrei (1781-1803), Alexander (1784-1845) and Sergei (1792-1827). Nikolai Turgenev graduated from the Moscow nobility boarding school at Moscow University. He studied history , law , political economy and financial law at the University of Moscow and then at the University of Göttingen . In 1811 he was admitted to a Masonic lodge in Paris . Later in Russia he also took part in Masonic lodge sessions.

In 1812 Turgenev returned to Russia . But in 1813 he was assigned to the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein , who was to reorganize Germany on behalf of the Russian and Austrian emperors and the Prussian king. The three-year collaboration with the reformer Stein shaped Turgenev's thinking.

In 1816 Turgenev returned to Russia and served in the Legislative Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the State Council Chancellery as State Secretary Assistant. In late 1818 Turgenev published a book on practical tax theory at his own expense . In it he examined the problems of peasant serfdom and argued for complete freedom of trade and against high protective tariffs , for low taxes for the “common people” and against the tax exemption of the nobility, as well as against imprisonment and corporal punishment for late payment. In his opinion, willingness to pay taxes can only be expected in republics, but not in despotism. On the back of the front page, he promised to use the proceeds from book sales to pay taxes on indebted farmers. In 1819 the second edition was printed, and in 1825 the book was banned, with all available copies confiscated.

In the summer of 1818 Turgenev settled on the family seat and estate Turgenowo near Ardatow in the Simbirsk governorate , which belonged to him and his brothers Alexander and Sergei. He undid the forced labor of the farmers from through donations, so that the farmers two thirds of their previous income paid. In 1819 the St. Petersburg governor-general Mikhail Miloradowitsch Turgenev commissioned a memorandum on serfdom for the emperor. In it Turgenev showed that the government must take the initiative to limit serfdom, that the burden on peasants must be reduced, and that the peasants must not be separated from the land. The memorandum was approved by the emperor, but it was not until 1833 that the ban on selling people separately from their families and in 1841 the ban on buying peasants without the land belonging to them came.

In 1819 Turgenev became a member of the secret welfare union . In 1819, at the suggestion of Pavel Pestel, an event was held to discuss the form of government, republic or monarchy , and after a heated discussion with Turgenev's participation, the republic was voted. However, a restricted monarchy was pursued later. Because of the disagreement about how to proceed, around 20 members of the welfare union, including Turgenew, Jakuschkin and Michael von Wiesen , decided in Moscow in 1821 to dissolve the welfare union and to cease its activities, especially since the government had become aware of them. Instead, one part of the new society should pursue philanthropic goals as before , while the other part set itself the goal of restricting the autocracy in Russia, whereby the military should also be counted on. Extensive reforms are planned for the tax system and the judiciary. The standing army and conscription should be abolished.

In the summer of 1825 Turgenev received a letter from Finance Minister Georg Cancrin abroad with an offer to become director of the Manufactory Department , which he refused. In December 1825 the Decembrist uprising took place , which was immediately suppressed with the arrest of all sympathizers . In January 1826, Turgenev was in England . He learned that he was considered a Decembrist and sent a letter to St. Petersburg explaining that he was only a member of the disbanded welfare union and had nothing to do with the Decembrists. Shortly afterwards, the secretary of the Russian embassy in London gave him the request from Foreign Minister Karl Robert von Nesselrode to submit to the Supreme Court in St. Petersburg. Turgenew declined, referring to the letter he had already sent and his inadequate state of health, which prevented such a trip. Turgenev's extradition was unsuccessfully requested from the British Foreign Secretary George Canning . Turgenev later learned that the Russian embassies in Europe were demanding his arrest and that secret agents were to arrest him in England. The rumor of Turgenev's extradition to St. Petersburg influenced a poem by Pushkin addressed to Vyazemsky . The St. Petersburg Supreme Court found that Turgenev was a member of the Decembrist secret society and had participated in all of its activities, and sentenced him to death in absentia. The Emperor Nicholas I converted the sentence into Katorga forced labor with loss of civil rank and nobility . On the advice of his brother Alexander, Turgenev wrote a letter to Emperor Nicholas I in 1827 with references to his innocence. An acquaintance of his brother Alexander also campaigned in vain for him with the request, if the sentence could not be overturned, at least to order the embassies in Europe not to bother him. Turgenev did not have the right to settle in Europe in 1830. In 1833 he married Clara Gastonowa de Rice (1814–1891) in Geneva . They then lived in Paris and had three children: Fanni (1835–1890), Albert (Alexander, 1843–1892, artist and art historian ) and Pjotr (1853–1912, sculptor ). Turgenev's brother Alexander kept trying to get Turgenev's acquittal. To regulate Nikolai Turgenev's material situation, Alexander sold the Turgenowo family estate to his cousin Boris Petrovich Turgenev.

The plans for reforms that Turgenev had developed together with his friends from the welfare union by 1825, he put down in writing and put them together in order to be able to publish them in the form of a book. He completed most of this work in 1842. He postponed the publication so as not to endanger his brother Alexander. After his death in 1845 he added the part Pia Desideria to his manuscript and in 1847 published the entire work in three volumes with the title La Russie et les Russes . The focus was on the abolition of serfdom and the reform of the state structure of Russia. In one of his political pamphlets in 1848 he declared that the socialist and communist ideas wanted to lead people back to barbarism .

After the enthronement of Alexander II , Turgenev regained his civil status and was again a member of the nobility. In 1857, 1859 and 1864 he visited Russia. During this time he published brochures on peasant liberation, some anonymously . In 1862, his proposal for local self-government appeared under the title A Look at the Case of Russia .

Web links

Commons : Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenev  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Е. К. Беспалова, Е. К. Рыкова: Симбирский род Тургеневых . УЛЬЯНОВСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ, Ulyanovsk 2011 ( venec.ulstu.ru [PDF; accessed August 4, 2017]).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Тургенев (Николай Иванович). Brockhaus-Efron
3. ↑ Nikolaj Ivanovitj T. In: Theodor Westrin, Ruben Gustafsson Berg, Eugen Fahlstedt (ed.): Nordisk familjebok konversationslexikon och realencyklopedi . 2nd Edition. tape 30 : Tromsdalstind – Urakami . Nordisk familjeboks förlag, Stockholm 1920, Sp. 359 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
4. ↑ А.А.Ялбулганов: Опыт теории налогов "Н.И.Тургенева и развитие финансовой мысли в России XIX-XX вв. In: Финансы . No. 9 , 1998.
5. ↑ Тургенев Н.И .: Россия и русские . Moscow 1915.