Nikolai Karlowitsch von Meck

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Nikolai Karlowitsch von Meck (BM Kustodijew, 1913)

Nikolai Karlovich von Meck ( Russian Николай Карлович фон Мекк ; born April 28, jul. / 10. May  1863 greg. In Moscow , † May 1929 ) was a Russian railroad entrepreneur and patron .

Life

The Russian railway pioneer Karl von Meck (1821–1876) was von Meck's father . Tchaikovsky sponsor Nadezhda von Meck was from Meck's mother . He grew up with 10 siblings. Von Meck attended a private boarding school in Moscow and in 1877, after the death of his father, began studying law at the Imperial Law School in St. Petersburg . However, he decided to forego a legal career and devote himself entirely to the railroad business. With his mother's permission, he gave up his studies without a degree and began working as a stoker , machinist and clerk at the Nikolaibahn due to a lack of special training .

In 1884, von Meck became a candidate on the board of the Moscow Ryazan Railway Company. On January 23, he married Anna Lvovna Dawydowa (1864-1942), granddaughter of the Decembrist Vasily Dawydow and niece of Tchaikovsky. On November 1, 1890, von Meck became a board member of the Moscow-Ryazan Railway Company. At the initiative of the Ministry of Finance, it was decided in April 1891 to build the section from Kazan to Ryazan, whereupon the company reorganized as the Moscow-Kazan Railway Company. Among the shareholders of the Company were among the major Russian banks . Von Meck who donated for the construction of Sergius of Radonezh 's Church on the Moscow khodynka field with Alexander Nevsky Chapel, Maria Magdalena Chapel and St. Nicholas Chapel to commemorate the deliverance of the Tsarevich Nicholas at ōtsu incident in Japan on May 11, the 1,891th

On May 1, 1892, von Meck was elected chairman of the board of the new company. During the first nine years under his leadership, the route length increased from 233 werst to 2,100 werst. He constantly took care of the modernization of the technical systems and the training of the staff. He founded engineering schools and participated in the society's work for the dissemination of guidebooks. In 1903 he organized the pilgrimage of Nicholas II and his family to the Sarov monastery .

At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, von Meck headed the department for the transport of aid to the Far East at the Grand Duchess Yelisaveta Fyodorovna's committee for the fundraising for the Russian army under the umbrella of the Russian Red Cross . During the Russian Revolution of 1905 he refused to hand over strike leaders to the authorities. In 1912, houses were built for railroad workers at Moscow suburban train stations and building loans were granted. Further plans for an improved infrastructure for the railway workers were prevented by the First World War .

Von Meck was a member of the board of directors of the Russian-Asian Bank . He was a member of the Russian- American Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of the Ujesd Podolsk in the Moscow Zemstvo Assembly. 1913–1915 he was a member of the Finance Commission. He was an honorary peace judge of the Kiev judiciary.

Von Meck has been enthusiastic about music since his youth and played the violin . Professional musicians and music lovers regularly gathered in his home . Sergei Taneyev played there repeatedly . He was a member of the Moscow Department of the Imperial Russian Music Society and a member of the Board of Directors of the Church Chant College of the Holy Synod .

Von Meck collected paintings and maintained contact with artists. He supported Mikhail Vrubel for many years and after his death gave the widow a pension. He also supported Abram Archipow . BM Kustodijew stayed as a guest at his Moscow country estate, Voskressenskoje, and painted landscapes and portraits of Nikolai von Meck, his daughter Galina and other family members. Prince Shcherbatov created the wall paintings in the new building of the Kazan train station . He was a member of the Imperial Philanthropic Society . He was the curator of the Ju. P. Bess Girls High School . Together with his brother Alexander and his nephew Vladimir, he made a generous donation to the Moscow Aristocratic Maidens Institute , where three Von Meck grants were established.

Also enthusiastic about von Meck for horses and had a Brabant - stud at his country estate Woskressenskoje. He was a member and vice-president of various societies promoting trotter breeding. In 1899 he bought one of the first automobiles in Russia and became enthusiastic about motorsport . With others he founded the Moscow Automobile Club and was its first director. 1910-1911 he organized the first Russian car races and took part in them. With Pavel von Plehwe he took over the chairmanship of the Moscow airline in 1910 . He was a member of the organizing committee for fundraising for building an air fleet and donated for building an airplane in 1913.

After the October Revolution , von Meck worked as an advisor to the financial administration of the People's Commissariat for Transport and represented the commissariat in the Gosplan Commission. He published his ideas on the economy and the prospects of rail transport in a series of books from 1921 to 1927. During this time, von Meck was arrested several times for counterrevolutionary statements against the Soviet regime and was not allowed to leave Moscow. Finally he was arrested again in 1928 by the GPU and sentenced to death by shooting in the Shakhty trial for participating in a counter-revolutionary underground movement in the People's Commissariat for Transport and on the railroad of the USSR, as did the entrepreneurs Pyotr Palchinsky and Alexander Fyodorovich Velichko . The notice of the shooting was published in Izvestia on May 24, 1929 . Von Meck was buried in the Vagankovo ​​cemetery in Moscow. Von Meck's wife Anna was also arrested and sentenced to three years in exile. The Academician Vladimir Vernadsky knew the official accusation and stated that von Meck, who after the October Revolution in all its capitals had renounced voluntarily in public was considered to be completely innocent. Von Meck was rehabilitated in 1990. Welitschko, von Meck and Palschinski are mentioned as resistance heroes in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag archipelago .

Von Meck had six children: Kira (1885–1969), Andrei (died as a child), Mark (1890–1918, shot in Omsk ), Galina (1891–1985 in England ), Attal (1894–1916, killed in the First World War during his first combat mission on the Stochid River ) and Ljuzella (1896–1933). The adopted daughter Jelena Nikolajewna Meck (1897–1926) had adopted Nikolai and Anna von Meck in 1904 when their parents Alexander Chakman, von Meck's sworn attorney, and his wife had died during the cholera epidemic . Jelena married the Privatdozent of Moscow University (MGU) Nikolai Sergejewitsch Moissejew, who died in Butyrka prison during the Stalinist purges in 1930 . Her son was the mathematician Nikita Nikolajewitsch Moissejew .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Гавлин М. Л .: Созидающая династия. Железнодорожные короли фон Мекк . In: НГ . No. 17 , 2000 ( msu.ru [accessed August 31, 2017]).
  2. ↑ a b АРХИВ АЛЕКСАНДРА Н. ЯКОВЛЕВА: Мекк Николай Карлович фон (accessed September 1, 2017).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Julia Keld: Nikolaus Karlovich von Meck (accessed on September 1, 2017).
  4. ↑ Юлиан ТОЛСТОВ: Семья предпринимателей фон Мекк (accessed August 31, 2017).
  5. ↑ a b c Galina von Meck: Как я их помню . Фонд им. И. Д. Сытина, Moscow 1999.
  6. ↑ Царскосельское автомобильно-спортивное клуб: Барон фон Мекк Николай Карлович (accessed August 31, 2017).
  7. ↑ Грико Т. И .: Автомобильные общества России и первая мировая война . In: Известия Московского государственного университета МАМИ . tape 6 , no. 1 , 2013, p. 54-58 .
  8. ↑ Вернадский В. И .: Дневники: 1926–1934 . Наука, Moscow 2001, ISBN 5-02-004409-1 , p. 15 .
  9. ↑ Солженицын А .: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ. Т.1 . Центр Новый мир, Moscow 1990, p. 270-271 .
  10. ↑ Константин Родионов: Фон-Мекк и Моисеевы . In: Альманах Преображение . No. 5 , 2014 ( from-meck.info [accessed August 30, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Meck, Nikolai Karlowitsch from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Фон Мекк, Николай Карлович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian railroad entrepreneur and patron
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH May 1929
Place of death Moscow