Pyotr Alexandrovich Valuev

Pyotr Valuev. Portrait of Ivan Kramskoi

Count Pyotr Alexandrovich Valuev ( Russian Пётр Александрович Валуев ., Scientific transliteration Pëtr Aleksandrovich Valuev , born September 22 ^{. Jul} / 4. October  1815 ^greg. In Tsaritsyno , † January 27 ^jul. / 8. February  1890 ^greg. In Saint Petersburg ) was a Russian statesman and writer .

Life

Childhood and youth

Valujew came from an old Russian-German noble family. His father Alexandr Petrovich Valujew was chamberlain to the Russian Senate, his mother, Jelisaweta Fjodorovna, belonged to the German noble Brincken family from Courland . After the early death of his father, Pyotr Valuev lived most of the time on an estate, where he enjoyed a good home education: in addition to his native language, he spoke German and French and four other foreign languages. In 1831, the then Russian Tsar Nicholas I met the young Valuev and appointed him to the office of the Moscow Governor General. In 1834 he was promoted to chamberlain. Valuev made the acquaintance of the most important Russian artists of his time and met in the salon of the widow of the historian Karamzin with the famous poets Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky and Alexander Pushkin , who chose him as the model for the protagonist of his story The Captain's Daughter, P. Grinev. His great affinity for poetry was increased by his marriage in 1836 to the daughter of the then well-known Russian poet Pyotr Vyazemsky , who also knew how to use his influence at court in favor of his son-in-law. It was through him that Valuyev met another well-known Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov .

Political career

In 1845, Valuyev was appointed official for special tasks to the governor general in Livonia. His descent from the von den Brincken family, which is known in the Baltic States, made it easier for him to gain acceptance in the German-born aristocratic society of Livonia and did not prove to be detrimental to his future career. In 1852 he was awarded the rank of Council of State for his services in drawing up the new administrative statute for the city of Riga (1849) . A year later he was promoted to civilian governor of the Russian province of Courland . In early 1859 he was appointed to St. Petersburg and appointed head of two of four departments of the Ministry of State Property. Valjuev was one of the authors of the “Project of the Three Members”, in which the plans of the liberal Russian Tsar Alexander II to abolish serfdom were criticized. Nevertheless, the tsar left him at his post and appointed him privy councilor and state secretary . After Russian Interior Minister Sergej Stepanowitsch Lanskoi , who was considered too liberal and “peasant-friendly” by most Russian nobles, had to resign, Alexander II appointed Valuev as the new Interior Minister in 1861 , which was viewed as a gesture of reconciliation to the nobility.

Russian Minister of the Interior

The most important field of activity for Valuev as Minister of the Interior was the implementation of the peasant reform of 1861. To prevent possible unrest, he organized a strong control over the activities of the peasants on site and did not hesitate to use ruthless force to suppress peasant uprisings. On the other hand, he was of the opinion that the Russian nobility should not be disadvantaged too much in favor of the peasants and should be generously compensated for the lost lands. In 1863 he submitted a “project of the new constitution” to the Tsar, in which he suggested a reform of the State Council and demanded certain concessions from the local self-government ( Zemstvo ). However, the tsar rejected his proposal.

After the "Transitional Rules for the Treatment of Press Products" had taken the form of a law on May 12, 1862, Valuev, as the minister responsible, was also given the authority to control the press through the instrument of political censorship . On April 6, 1865, Valuev replaced the "transitional rules" of 1862 with a new directive that tightened the already strong censorship even more. "Valuev tries with the determination of a madman to put his idea of ​​subjugation of the press under his control into practice and to make it pro-government in his sense," the historian Alexander Kornilov later noted , while another contemporary, the agrochemist and left-liberal AN Engelhardt the period from 1863 to 1868, in which Valuyev was Minister of the Interior, described as an "era of the most shameless literary terror". This harsh law was immediately nicknamed the "Valuev Law" in the press. Between 1865 and 1868, more than thirty so-called "warnings" were distributed to the press for "violating" the law, six of which were banned for a period and two for good. The "Valuev Law" remained in force until the revolution of 1905.

In addition, Valuyev took an active part in the reform of the urban administrative structure. The law passed in 1870 was largely based on his proposals and, among other things, gave city councils more autonomy in solving municipal problems.

After the assassination attempt by the student Karakosow in 1866, Alexander II intensified the policy of repression. He appointed Count Pyotr Shuvalov as head of the gendarmerie , who endeavored to control the entire government with special powers. On April 3, 1868, Valuyev was dismissed as Minister of the Interior on the pretext of not taking decisive action against the consequences of the bad harvest of 1867.

Further career

After his release, Valuyev traveled abroad for a long time. Shortly after his return, he was “pardoned” by the tsar and in December 1870 appointed chairman of the agricultural credit institute. Between 1872 and 1877 he served as Minister of State Property. In 1877 he became chairman of the Committee of Ministers. In 1880, however, his influence began to wane as his opponent, Count Loris-Melikow, eclipsed him . In 1881 Valujew was by Alexander III. retired. After the death of Valujew his diaries were published, which represent an important source of knowledge about the government circles of the Russian Empire in the 19th century.

Writing career

Under the influence of his father-in-law Vyazemsky, Valuev tried harder to get involved in literature. However, his first works were not literary in the strict sense, but treatises on various political and economic problems in the country, such as For example, the “Thoughts of a Russian in the second half of 1855”, written in September 1855, in which he was primarily critical of the causes and consequences of the still raging Crimean War .

Valuev began writing novels in the 1870s while still working in the government. His first novel, Lorin , was finished in 1878 and initially circulated as a manuscript before being published in 1882. After his retirement, Valuyev concentrated on writing and published four novels, essays on the history of Christianity and numerous poems before he died in Saint Petersburg in 1890.

literature

• Yuri Selditsch: Pyotr Alexandrowitsch Valujew i jewo wremja ["Pyotr Alexandrowitsch Valujew and his time"], Moscow, Agraf, 2005, ISBN 5-7784-0242-2 .
• James A. Malloy, Jr .: Petr Aleksandrovich Valuev in The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History , volume 41, Academic International Press, 1996-2003.
• NR Antonov: Count Pyotr Alexandrowitsch Walujew in: Russkije swezkije bogoslowi i ich religiosno-obschtschetvennoje mirossoserzanije , Volume 1, St. Petersburg, 1912, reprinted in: Pyotr Walujew: Tscherny bor: Powesti, stati , Moscow, Agraf, 2002.

See also

• List of Interior Ministers of Tsarist Russia

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Eduardowitsch Getmanski: Pjotr ​​Alexandrowitsch Walujew , in: Woprosy istorii, 2002, No. 6, pp. 58-86, pp. 71 f.

Web links

• Article Pyotr Alexandrowitsch Valujew in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D002980~2a%3D~2b%3DPjotr%20Alexandrovich%20Valuev