Sergei Juljewitsch Witte
Sergei Witte ( Russian Сергей Юльевич Витте ., Scientific transliteration Sergei Vitte Jul'evic ; born June 17 . Jul / 29. June 1849 greg. In Tbilisi , Georgia today; † February 28 . Jul / 13. March 1915 greg. in Petrograd , now St. Petersburg) was a Russian businessman and statesman . He pursued the idea of a modernized tsarist rule. Through skilful interventions in favor of the economically active bourgeoisie, he achieved a modernization of the Russian economy.
Life
Witte was born in Tbilisi on June 29, 1849. His father Julius Christoph Heinrich Georg Witte came from the Baltic States, belonged to the Baltic German knighthood of Pleskau , today Pskow, and had studied agriculture and metallurgy in Prussia . On the occasion of his marriage, he converted from the Lutheran to the Orthodox faith. His mother was of Russian descent, daughter of Princess Helene Dolgoruki , and the occultist Helena Blavatsky was his cousin.
After finishing school, Witte began studying mathematics at the New Russian University in Odessa , which he finished in 1870. He first found a job with the Russian Railways , where he successively became director of the Odessa Railway and the Southwest Railway , which ran from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
In 1879 he went to St. Petersburg, where he became a member of the Baranov Commission established by the Tsar , which worked out a new railway policy for the government. Witte wrote a railway charter that became the basis of the first operating regulations of the Russian railways. He founded the newspaper Kiewer Wort in Kiev , which appeared from 1887 and was supposed to create good press for his railway projects.
As a successful entrepreneur , he was appointed to the Russian state administration in 1889 and appointed head of the railway affairs department. In February 1892 he became railroad minister , on August 30th of the same year he became Russian finance minister and, through his deputy and confidant Afinogen Antonovich, campaigned for a gold standard in the currency.
He advocated the modernization of Russia, demanded greater industrialization of the economy and pushed the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway . His reform efforts led to a conflict with other ministers, especially the conservative interior minister Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehwe , who denounced him to Tsar Nicholas II . Plehwe claimed that Witte was part of a Jewish conspiracy. Witte therefore had to resign on August 29, 1903 from his post as finance minister.
When Russia's defeat became apparent in the Russo-Japanese War , Nicholas II remembered Witte's negotiating skills and in June 1905 sent him to America as chief negotiator to negotiate the terms of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty with Japan . Witte turned out to be a brilliant and tough negotiating partner who, despite Russia's devastating defeat on the battlefield, was able to negotiate relatively mild contractual terms. Russia lost the Liaodong peninsula , the port of Port Arthur (now part of Dalian ) and the concessions for the railways in Manchuria . In addition, Russia undertook to surrender southern Sakhalin to Japan. However, the Japanese negotiator Komura Jutaro was unable to enforce a complete surrender of Sakhalin and high compensation payments . While the Japanese public received the peace treaty with displeasure and led to the Hibiya riots , Nicholas II was satisfied with Witte, brought him back into the government and raised him to the nobility. In the course of the Bulygin reform of August 1905, which introduced an advisory Duma , Witte was the first head of government in Russia to be charged with forming a cabinet - previously all ministers were directly responsible to the tsar.
On October 17, the tsar had to issue the October Manifesto written by Witte , which introduced civil liberties and converted the Duma into a legislative body in order to prevent an impending revolution . Witte himself had urged this step and warned of the consequences of an unyielding attitude. After the elections to the first Duma, he came under renewed pressure because liberal parties were able to win decisive votes and the tsar doubted the reforms that had been initiated. Under pressure from conservative government circles, Witte was again forced to resign in April 1906.
Witte retired into private life and wrote his memoirs . Occasionally he publicly expressed his opinion on current political events in Russia. During the July crisis , he protested strongly against Russia entering the First World War , warned of defeat and instead suggested negotiations with the German Reich to prevent the outbreak of war. The tsar did not agree to this.
On March 13, 1915, Witte died of meningitis at the age of 65 in Petrograd (today St. Petersburg) and was buried in the Old St. Lazarus Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery .
As part of an initiative in 2011, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared Witte to be their role model for reform.
Publications
- Lectures on politics and economics. Two volumes. German publishing house, Stuttgart 1913.
- Memories. With an introduction by Prof. Otto Hoetzsch . Translated into German by Herbert v. Hoerner . Ullstein, Berlin 1923.
- Mémoires du comte Witte (1849–1915). Trad. François Rousseau, Paris 1921.
- The Memoirs of Count Witte. Edited by Sidney Harcave. ME Sharpe, 1990, ISBN 0-87332-571-0
literature
- Francis W. Wcislo: Tales of Imperial Russia: The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-954356-4
- Sidney Harcave: Count Sergei Witte and the twilight of imperial Russia. A biography. Sharpe, Armonk (NY) et al. a. 2004, ISBN 0-7656-1422-7
- Vladimir von Korostowetz: Count Witte, the helmsman in need. Brückenverlag, Berlin 1929.
- Theodore H. von Laue: Sergei Witte and the industrialization of Russia. Columbia University Press, New York a. a. 1963.
- Howard D. Mehlinger & John M. Thompson: Count Witte and the Tsarist government in the 1905 revolution. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind., Et al. a. 1972, ISBN 0-253-31470-4
- Paul Petrowitsch Sibiriaseff: Statesman Witte. A look into the secrets of Russian financial policy. Berlin 1904.
- Philipp Franz Bresnitz von Sydacoff: Intimate from the kingdom of Nicholas II. Count Witte in the light of truth. Volume V. Verlag B. Elischer, Leipzig 1907.
Web links
- Newspaper article about Sergei Juljewitsch Witte in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- Extensive biography (Russian)
- Memoirs of Count Witte (English)
- Photography by Sergei Witte
- Baltic Historical Commission (ed.): Entry on Sergei Juljewitsch Witte. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerald Hosp: Medvedev's model: The Count of the Tsar . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . May 4, 2011.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| (Newly created office) | Prime Minister of the Russian Empire November 6, 1905 - May 5, 1906 |
Ivan Goremykin |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Witte, Sergei Juljewitsch |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Витте, Сергей Юльевич (Russian); Count Witte |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Russian businessman and politician, Prime Minister |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 29, 1849 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tbilisi |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 13, 1915 |
| Place of death | Petrograd |