Mikhail Nikolaevich Muravyov - prominent statesman of the XIX century
Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky was the founder of the home society of mathematicians with training courses (1810 year), vice-chairman of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (1850-1857 years), a member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1857 year). There were participants in the Patriotic War 1812 of the Year and the Wars of the Sixth Coalition (1813-1814 years), General of Infantry (1856 year). His civil service was marked by the following milestones: Grodno civil governor (1831-1835 years), Kursk civil and military governor (1835-1839 years), member of the State Council (1850), Minister of State Property (1857-1862 years). Grodno Minsk and Vilna Governor-General (1863-1865 years). Cavalier of many orders and awards of the Russian Empire, including the highest award - the Order of St. Andrew the First Called.
He was known as the leader of the suppression of the uprising in the North-Western Territory, especially the 1863 uprising of the year, also known as the January Uprising. The January Uprising is a gentry uprising in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, the North-Western Territory and Volyn in order to restore the Commonwealth in the eastern borders of the year 1772, the uprising failed. At the same time, the liberal and populist circles within the empire, Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, was nicknamed “the Muravyov Hangman”. Indeed, in the struggle against the participants in the uprising, Muravyov resorted to measures of intimidation - the organization of public executions, which, however, were only the direct and implacable participants in the uprising who were guilty of the killings. Executions were carried out only after thorough investigations.
In total, over the years of Muravyov’s rule, 128 participants in the uprising were executed, from 8,2 to 12,5, thousands were sent into exile, as well as penal servitude or prison companies. Mainly they were direct participants in the armed uprising: representatives of the nobility and Catholic priests, the proportion of Catholics among the repressed was more than 95%, which fully corresponded to the general proportion among all the rebels. At the same time, out of approximately 77 of thousands of participants in the uprising, only 16% were brought to criminal responsibility, while the rest were simply able to return home without incurring any punishment.
As a child, Mikhail Muravyov received a good home education. In 1810, he entered the Moscow University, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, where at the age of 14, with the help of his father, he founded the Moscow Society of Mathematicians. The main goal of this society was the dissemination of mathematical knowledge in Russia through free public lectures in mathematics and military science. At the same time, Mikhail himself gave lectures on descriptive and analytical geometry that were not taught at the university. December 23 1811 enrolled in a school of column leaders (the schools of column leaders in Moscow and St. Petersburg trained cadets, future officers of the General Staff), brilliantly passing the exam in mathematics.
December 27 1811 was promoted to the ensigns of the retinue of His Imperial Majesty in the quartermaster movement. In April, 1812 of the year went to Vilna to the 1-th Western Army, commanded by Barclay de Tolly. Since August, 1812 was in the possession of the Chief of Staff of the Western Army, Count Leonty Bennigsen. At the age of 16, he took part in the Battle of Borodino. During the battle on the battery, Nikolay Raevsky was seriously wounded in the leg by a cannonball and almost died. He was evacuated to Nizhny Novgorod, where, thanks to the cares of his father and Dr. Mudrov, he soon recovered, but for the rest of his life he was forced to walk with a cane. For the battle on the Raevsky battery, Mikhail Muravyov was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir of the 4 degree with a bow.
After recovery at the beginning of 1813, Mikhail Muravyov was again sent to the Russian army, which at that moment was already abroad. He became a participant in the Battle of Dresden with the Chief of General Staff, March 16 (28 in new style) 1813 was produced as lieutenant. In 1814, he returned to St. Petersburg in connection with his state of health, where in August of the same year he was appointed to the Guards General Staff. He wrote a letter of resignation, which was not accepted by the emperor. Therefore, having slightly improved his health, he returned to military service again.
In 1820, Mikhail Muravyov was promoted to captain, later to lieutenant colonel, and made his way to the emperor's retinue in the quartermaster unit. Soon he retired for health reasons, after which he settled on the estates of Luzintsy and Khoroshkovo, Smolensk Province, where he began to lead a landlord life. During the two-year famine, he managed to organize a worldly dining room, which provided food to the peasants every day for 150. He also prompted the nobility to appeal to Earl Kochubei the Minister of the Interior with a request for assistance to local peasants.
In January 1826, the newly made landowner was arrested in the case of the Decembrists and even imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but rather quickly released with an acquittal certificate by personal order of Emperor Nicholas I. In July of the same year, he was enrolled in the civil service and re-appointed to the army. In 1827, Nicholas I presented a note on improving local judicial and administrative institutions and eliminating all forms of bribery in them, after which he was transferred to the service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
With 1827, his long civil service period in various positions begins. 12 June 1827 of the Year Muravyov was appointed Vitebsk Deputy Governor and College Advisor. 15 September of the following year became the Mogilev Governor, while he was promoted to the rank of State Counselor. During these years, he opposed the abundance of the anti-Russian and pro-Polish element in the state administration at all levels, having established himself as an ardent opponent of the Poles and Catholicism. At the same time, he tried to influence the current situation not by using layoffs, but by reforming the system of education and training of future officials. In 1830, he prepared and sent a note in which he justified the need to disseminate the Russian education system in all educational institutions of the North-West Territory. According to his direct submission in January 1831, an imperial edict was issued, which repealed the Lithuanian Statute, closed the Main Tribunal and subordinated all residents of the region to general imperial legislation. In the legal proceedings, Russian was introduced instead of Polish.
In January, 1830 was promoted to the rank of State Councilor. During the uprising, 1830-1831 was General-Police Master and Quarter-General under Count Pavel A. Tolstoy, Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Army, and was directly involved in the defeat of the insurgency in the Vilna, Vitebsk and Minsk provinces. During this period, he was engaged in organizing civil administration in the Belarusian lands and in conducting investigative affairs over the Polish rebels. 9 August 1831, Mikhail Muravyov was appointed Grodno civil governor, and in December of the same year he was promoted to major general. Being the governor of Grodno, Muravyov earned himself a reputation as an uncompromising fighter of sedition, "a true Russian man", as well as an extremely strict administrator. During this period, he made the maximum amount of effort to eliminate the consequences of the 1830-1831 uprising, as well as for the Russification of the governed province.
Since 1839, the ministerial period of service of Mikhail Muravyov began. The future graph of 12 in May 1839 was appointed Director of the Tax and Fees Department. 9 August 1842, he became a senator, received the rank of privy councilor. From October 2 of the same year - the manager of the Land Survey Building on the Rights of the Chief Director, as well as the Trustee of the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute. 21 May 1849, he was given the rank of lieutenant general. 1 January 1850 - Member of the Council of State. 28 August 1856 of the Year Muravyov was promoted to the rank of General from Infantry. In the same year, Mikhail Muravyov was appointed chairman of the Department of Courts of the Ministry of the Court and of Courts, 17 on April 1857 became Minister of State Property. While working in these positions, he made numerous expert and revision trips, in which he was characterized by people who knew him as a principled, tough and incorruptible official.
After making revision trips, he decided to start working on the question of the abolition of serfdom in the country. As a result, at the end of 1857, Muravyov submitted to the Secret Committee on Peasant Affairs a note prepared by him entitled “Comments on the procedure for the liberation of the peasants”. Mikhail Muravyov advocated a gradual change in the agrarian system in the country, so that it would not meet sharp resistance at all levels. Later he became an opponent of the project of the abolition of serfdom officially adopted in Russia. The project he prepared was different from the project that was personally supported by Emperor Alexander II. This was the reason for the growth of tension between them, and ultimately Alexander II essentially accused his minister of covertly opposing the peasant policy in Russia. 1 January 1862 of the Year Muraviev resigned as Minister of State Property, and 29 of November of the same year - the post of Chairman of the Department of Commons. Due to poor health at a fairly respectable age, at that time he was already 66 years old, he finally resigned, now planning to spend the rest of his days in peace and tranquility of a regular life on the estate.
However, the plans of Mikhail Muravyov about a calm old age did not come true. In the 1863 year, the January Uprising, which began in the Kingdom of Poland, spread to the Northwest Territory. According to the official terminology of the legislation of the Russian Empire, the uprising in the Kingdom of Poland was interpreted as a revolt. As the situation in the North-West region became increasingly tense, Chancellor Gorchiakov urged the Russian emperor to replace inactive Governor-General of the Territory with inactive Vladimir Nazimov with time-tested and experienced in the region Mikhail Muravyov. As a result, the king personally received Muravyov at home, and already 1 in May 1863, he became Vilna, Grodno and Minsk governor-general and part-time commander of all troops of the Vilna military district. He had the authority of the commander of a separate corps in wartime, and was also the chief commander of the Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces. Later, the Grodno historian Orlovsky will write that despite the advanced age (66 years), Muravyov worked until 18 hours a day, starting to receive reports already at 5 in the morning. Without leaving his office, Mikhail Muravyov now ruled 6 provinces.
The suppression of the January Uprising did not end the activities of Mikhail Muravyov in the North-Western Territory. Being quite an experienced statesman, he understood perfectly well that in order to prevent such uprisings, in the future, it was necessary to radically change life in the province, to return him, as the governor-general himself said, to the “old Russian” path. Possessing very wide powers this time, Muravyov began to realize much of what he had planned in 1831 in the province. He consistently pursued a policy of solid Russification in the province, which, in the terminology and concepts of that time, was not opposed to the local Belarusian culture, on the contrary, including it as one of its constituent parts. The Governor-General treated the Belarusians in accordance with the prevailing concept of the three branches of the Russian people at that time and vigorously supported the emancipation of the Belarusians from Polish cultural domination. In the end, thanks to all his activities and a number of fundamental and productive reforms, Mikhail Muravyov was able to put an end to the Polish-Catholic dominance in the socio-economic, social, cultural and educational sphere over the Orthodox Belarusian peasant majority of the North-Western Territory.
The residence of Mikhail Muravyov in Vilna was the governor-general’s palace, which remained his home until his dismissal from office. This happened at his personal request. 17 April 1865, in recognition of his achievements as governor-general, he was granted the title of count with the right to write the double name Muravyov-Vilensky. In this case, the emperor he was given the right to choose his own successor. So, Konstantin Petrovich Kaufman, who later became famous as a hero of Turkestan, became the governor of the North-West Territory.
In April, Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky, 1866, was appointed chairman of the High Commission in the case of the assassination attempt on the life of the emperor Dmitry Karakozov. However, he did not live up to the execution of the accused, having died on August 31 (September 12 in a new style) 1866 in St. Petersburg, where he was buried at the Lazarevsky cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. At his funeral stood in the honor guard Perm Infantry Regiment, which was sponsored by Count Muravyov. Russian Emperor Alexander II also took part in the farewell ceremony, who spent his subject on his last journey.
Based on materials from open sources
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