Pyotr Andreevich Shuvalov

Pyotr Andreevich Shuvalov (Portrait of Franz Krüger , Hermitage (Saint Petersburg) )

Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov ( Russian Пётр Андреевич Шувалов ; * 15, scientific transliteration Pëtr Andreevič Shuvalov. ^Jul. / 27. June  1827 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ; † 10 ^jul. / 22. March  1889 ^greg. In Saint Petersburg) was a Russian statesman and diplomat , best known for his participation in the Berlin Congress .

Early years

Pyotr Shuvalov came from the influential noble family of the Shuvalovs , who had belonged to the elite of the tsarist empire since the mid-18th century. After a short study, he went to the military and became a guard officer. In 1864 he was promoted to Governor General of the Baltic Governments of Estonia , Livonia and Courland .

ambassador

In 1873 he was sent to London with the task of arranging the marriage of Marija Alexandrovna Romanowa , the second daughter of Tsar Alexander II, to Prince Alfred , the second son of Queen Victoria . This mission was diplomatically delicate, as both nations threatened to come into conflict with each other as a result of the Russian advance into Central Asia and the British claims to Afghanistan . However, the Russian Chancellor Gorchakov was able to negotiate a buffer zone treaty with Great Britain in January 1873, in which Afghanistan was declared a British hemisphere. In return, Great Britain promised to remain neutral in the event of a military conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire . The buffer zone between the Russian Empire and British India was established in southern Transcaspia, in what is now Turkmenistan . This buffer zone agreement made Shuvalov's mission to marry off the tsar's daughter to the son of the British queen significantly easier.

Shuvalov mastered this mission to the full satisfaction of the tsar and was appointed Russian ambassador to Great Britain in November 1874. With the outbreak of the Balkan Crisis in 1875, this post assumed special responsibility, when relations between the two states deteriorated dramatically in the wake of the Russo-Ottoman War and the Peace of San Stefano . Russia and Great Britain appeared to be on the verge of war, but Ambassador Shuvalov negotiated a compromise with British Foreign Minister Robert Cecil in London in early May 1878 that would remove the threat of war. This secret preliminary arrangement with Cecil largely reversed the Russian hegemony achieved in San Stefano over the Balkans, but granted the tsarist empire territorial gains in Bessarabia and Transcaucasia as compensation .

Closing session of the Berlin Congress (painting by Anton von Werner , 1881). The handshake with the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck at the closing session of the Berlin Congress made Pyotr Shuvalov famous.

Nevertheless there were disagreements. In particular, Shuvalov took the view that Great Britain had broken its promise of January 1873 to stay out of the conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. So he saw Afghanistan as a new buffer zone between the Russian Empire and British India .

With the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , Schuwalow had developed a close friendly relationship. Bismarck even agreed to Count Shuvalov in a confidential conversation when the Count suspected that the German Chancellor was being haunted by nightmares because of possible coalitions against the German Reich . As a neutral mediator, Shuvalov considered Bismarck to be particularly suitable for resolving the disagreements, because up to that point he had kept completely out of the conflict in the Balkans and the Great Game . Bismarck accepted Shuvalov's second invitation on May 20, 1878 to mediate the Treaty of San Stefano in times of crisis and cleared the way for the Berlin Congress .

Berlin Congress

Count Pyotr Shuvalov, portrait photograph, from around 1880–1886

Here Count Shuvalov represented the interests of his country together with the aged Foreign Minister Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov . When the Count found out that the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli wanted British troops to march into Afghanistan, he distanced himself from the agreements with Cecil and instead advocated a continuation of the three emperor agreement with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary from 1873 wanted to send the Russian troops stationed in the Emirate of Bukhara to Afghanistan to prevent Disraeli. In the event of a conflict with Great Britain there, Bismarck promised him German and Andrassy Austro-Hungarian neutrality.

Prince Gorchakov was able to persuade Great Britain to make more concessions in Transcaucasia than Shuvalov achieved in talks with Cecil. In the negotiations with Disraeli, the prince was able to achieve membership of Ajarias in the Russian Empire. At the time of the Berlin Congress in early July 1878 there were Ottoman troops in Adjara . They had to retire in September. In return, Gorchakov promised Disraeli that he would not stand in the way of British troops marching into Afghanistan. The city of Batumi remained a point of contention between Gorchakov and Disraeli . Bismarck agreed to a compromise for Batumi's membership of the Russian Empire on the premise that it was declared a free port .

In the end, Shuvalov was unable to achieve anything because Gorchakov had presented the agreements he had reached at the Berlin Congress as damaging to Russia and thus ineffective.

After discharge

Public opinion in Russia saw the result of the Berlin Congress as a diplomatic defeat and reacted indignantly. Shuvalov was accused of being too compliant with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , and in the course of the deterioration in German-Russian relations his recall was requested. After a period of shame of a few months, the tsar gave in and put Shuvalov into retirement.

His brother Paul was still active as a diplomat and negotiated the reinsurance treaty between Germany and Russia with Prince von Bismarck in May 1887 in Berlin, which was signed in June 1887.

Web links

Commons : Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Шохуморов Абусаид: Разделения Бадахшана и судьбы исмаилизма. Российская академия наук востоковедения, Академия наук республики Таджикистан инстикистан инстикистан инстикитут востоanbe20., P
2. ↑ Friedrich Benninghoven: Berlin Congress 1878. Secret State Archives Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Das Staatsarchiv 1978, p. 75. "[... Discussion between Schuwalow and Lord Salisbury in London]"
3. ^ ^{A b} Heinrich von Poschinger: Prince von Bismarck and the diplomats . Hardcover 1900, p. 397.
4. ↑ Friedrich Benninghoven: Berlin Congress 1878. Secret State Archives Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Das Staatsarchiv 1978, p. 13.
5. ↑ Kai Merten: Among each other, not next to each other. The coexistence of religious and cultural groups in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. LIT Verlag, Münster 2014, p. 212 f .; Daniel Schmidt: European peacekeeping. The process of successful diplomatic conflict resolution using the example of the Berlin Congress in 1878. Diploma thesis, Federal University for Public Administration, publications on general internal administration. Brühl 2015, footnotes on p. 90.
6. ↑ Otto Plant: Bismarck. The Chancellor . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2008, Book I: Beginning of the Change of Front , Chapter V Balkan Crisis and the Berlin Congress, p. 166.