The first Russian historian. Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev
Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev belonged to an impoverished family of Smolensk princes. His father, Nikita Alekseevich, was a Moscow tenant, that is, a serving man, who, not having inherited the estates, was forced to break out into the people by carrying out various assignments at court. For faithful service to him in the Pskov district, 150 acres of land (163,88 hectares) were granted. Since then, Nikita Tatishchev was listed Pskov landowner. Therefore, his son Basil, born 29 on April 1686, is considered by historians to be a native of Pskov County, although it is possible that he was born in Moscow because his father continued to serve in the capital. There were three sons in the Tatishchev family: the eldest Ivan, Vasily, and the younger - Nikifor.
E. Shirokov. The painting "And therefore to be! (Peter I and V. Tatishchev) ”. Xnumx
About the young years of life of the future statesman almost nothing is known. And only one thing is for sure - the life of the Tatishchev family was full of troubles. After the death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1676, the political situation in Russia remained unstable for a long time. After his successor, Fedor Alekseevich, died in April 1682, the rifle rebellion began. In this regard, the welfare and life of Moscow residents who protected the royal palaces, all the time was under threat. As a result of the outbreak of unrest in May 1682, sixteen years old Ivan Alekseevich and his ten-year-old stepbrother Peter were enthroned. Regents Archers announced their older sister Sophia. However, she tried as quickly as possible to get rid of their "care". In August of the same year, thanks to the support of noble units, the leader of the archers, Ivan Khovansky, was executed, and they themselves went back down.
The seven-year rule of Sofia Alekseevna was marked by a rather powerful economic and social rise. Its government was headed by Vasily Golitsyn - an educated man who knew many foreign languages and was seriously thinking about the abolition of serfdom. However, after Peter Alekseevich grew up, Sophia was deposed (1689 in August-September), and all power passed into the hands of the Naryshkins. Their rather stupid board dragged on until the middle of the 1690s, until at last Peter, who had matured, engaged in public activities. All these events had a direct bearing on the fate of Vasily Nikitich. In 1684, the weak-willed Tsar Ivan Alekseevich (Peter I's brother) married Praskovya Saltykova, who has long-term ties with the Tatishchevs. As usual in such cases, the entire clan of the Tatishchevs was close to the court. There began the court life of the young Basil - as a steward.
At the beginning of 1696, Ivan Alekseevich died. Nine-year-old Vasily Tatishchev and his elder brother Ivan remained in the service of Queen Praskovya Fedorovna for some time, but she obviously could not keep a huge yard, and soon the brothers returned to Pskov. In 1703, Vasily's mother, Fetinya Tatischeva, passed away, and after a short time, his father married again. The relations of the children from the first marriage with the stepmother did not work out, and, in the end, the twenty-year-old Ivan and the seventeen-year-old Vasily went to Moscow to look at the non-young tenants. By that time, the Northern War had already begun, and the Russian army needed to be replenished to fight the Swedes. In January, the 1704 brothers were enrolled in the dragoon regiment as privates. In mid-February, Peter I himself gave a review to their regiment, and in the summer of the same year, having undergone training, the new dragoons went to Narva. Russian troops captured the fortress of August 9, and this event was a baptism of fire for Tatishchev.
After the capture of Narva, Ivan and Vasily took part in hostilities in the Baltic States, joining the army commanded by Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev. 15 July 1705 at the battle of Murmyz (Hemauerthhof) they were both injured. After recovery in the spring 1706 Tatishchevy were made to lieutenant. At the same time, they were among several experienced dragoons sent to Polotsk to train new recruits. And in August, 1706 was sent to Ukraine as part of the newly formed dragoon regiment. The unit was commanded by the dummy clerk Avtomon Ivanov, who assumed all the costs of maintaining the unit and was a longtime friend of the Tatishchev family. By the way, this very experienced administrator also headed the Local Order, and therefore often traveled to Moscow. On trips he took with him twenty Basil Nikitich, often entrusting him with very important tasks. Ivanov’s patronage can be partly explained by the desire to rely on a dedicated person from his circle, but of the two brothers, he singled out the younger one for business qualities. At that time, Vasily was personally represented by Peter.
It is worth noting that the success of his brother, unfortunately, caused envy in Ivan. Their relationship finally deteriorated after the death of his father. For a while they kept together against the stepmother who did not want the division of inheritance. And only in 1712, after she married for the second time, the three sons of Nikita Tatishchev began to divide their father's possessions. The burden was complicated by the constant complaints of Ivan towards the younger brothers, “wrong”, in his opinion, sharing the hereditary lands, and finally ended only in 1715. He reconciled with Basil and Nikifor already in adulthood.
One of the highlights of the life of Tatishchev was the Battle of Poltava, played out 27 June 1709. The attack on the position of the first battalion of the Novgorod regiment became the key episode of the massacre. When the enemy had practically crushed the first battalion, the Russian tsar personally led the second battalion of the Novgorod regiment to the counterattack, supported by the dragoons. At the decisive moment of the battle, one of the bullets pierced Peter with his hat, and the other hit the nearby Vasily Nikitich, easily wounding him. Subsequently, he wrote: “Happy for me is the day when I was wounded in the Poltava field near the sovereign, who himself ordered under bullets and cannonballs, and when he, as usual, kissed me on the forehead and congratulated the wounded for the Fatherland.”
And in the 1711 year, twenty-five Vasily Nikitich participated in the Prut campaign against the Ottoman Empire. The war with the Turks, which ended in defeat, proved to Peter I the illusiveness of his hopes for foreigners, who occupied the main number of command posts in the Russian army. In place of the expelled foreigners, the king began to appoint his countrymen. One of them was Tatishchev, who received the rank of captain after the Prut campaign. And at 1712, a group of young officers was sent to study in Germany and France. Vasily Nikitich, who had mastered the German language well by that time, went on a trip to the German principalities in order to study engineering. However, systematic study did not work out - the young man was constantly withdrawn to his homeland. Abroad, Tatishchev learned a total of two and a half years. During one of the breaks between trips - in the middle of 1714 - Vasily Nikitich married Avdotye Andreevskaya, twice widowed. A year later, they had a daughter, named Eupraxia, and in 1717 - the son of Evgraf. However, Tatishchev's family life did not work out - on duty, he almost did not go home, and his wife did not have a fond feeling for him. They finally broke up in 1728 year.
But everything was in order in the service of Vasily Nikitich. Having proved himself to be an executive and enterprising man, he regularly received various responsible tasks from his superiors. At the beginning of 1716, he changed the lineage - the knowledge acquired by him abroad became the basis for sending him to artillery. Abroad, Tatishchev bought a large number of books on various fields of knowledge - from philosophy to the natural sciences. Books at that time were worth quite a few, and Vasily Nikitich made his purchases at the expense of his commander Jacob Bruce, who led the Russian artillery forces, and in 1717 headed the Manufactories and Berg College.
Often, the tasks of Jacob Vilimovich were quite unexpected. For example, in 1717, Tatishchev received an order to re-equip all the artillery units stationed in Pomerania and in Mecklenburg, as well as to put in order all the tools they had. State funds were released for this was extremely small, but Vasily Nikitich successfully completed the difficult task, for which he received a high review of his work from the outstanding Russian military leader Nikita Repnin. Soon after, he joined the Russian delegation at the Åland Congress. The place where the negotiations took place was chosen by Tatishchev.
Communication with Bruce finally changed the direction of Vasily Nikitich - with a military path, he turned to the civilian, meaning, however, as captain of artillery. One of the most pressing issues at the beginning of the eighteenth century was the change in the tax system. Yakov Vilimovich, together with Vasily Nikitich, decided to develop a project for conducting a general land surveying in the huge state of Russia. His ultimate goal was to get rid of the numerous crimes of the local authorities and guarantee a fair distribution of taxes, not ruining either the peasants or landowners and increasing the income of the treasury. To do this, according to the plan, it was necessary to analyze geographical and historical features of individual counties, as well as prepare a certain number of qualified surveyors. In 1716, Bruce, loaded with many assignments, entrusted Vasily Nikitich all the affairs of this project. Having managed to prepare a 130-page document, Tatishchev was forced to go to work in Germany and Poland. However, its development was not useful - in 1718 Peter I decided to introduce per capita taxation (instead of land) in the country. Nevertheless, the tsar listened with interest to Bruce's proposal, instructing him to draw up a geographical description of Russia. Yakov Vilimovich, in turn, handed over this matter to Tatishchev, who in 1719 was officially identified as "the land surveying of the state of everything and the composition of a detailed geography of Russia with landcards."
Vasily Nikitich went headlong into the study of a new topic for him and soon clearly realized the close relationship of geography and history. It was then that a novice scientist first began to collect Russian annals. And at the beginning of 1720, he learned about his new task - to go to the Urals as a representative of the Berg collegium and undertake the development and search for new deposits, as well as organizing the activities of state-owned ore mining enterprises. In addition, Tatishchev had to do countless “search cases”. Almost immediately, he revealed the abuses of the local governor and Akinfiy Demidov, the de facto ruler of the region. The confrontation with the Demidovs, who have powerful ties in the capital, intensified after in July 1721 Tatishchev became the mountain chief of the Siberian province. This position gave him the right to intervene in the internal life of their enterprises. However, this did not last long - failing to bribe Tatishchev, Akinfiy Demidov accused him of bribes and abuse of power. In March 1722, a Dutchman, Wilim Gennin, went to investigate the case and then took control of the province in his own hands. He was an intelligent and honest engineer who quickly became convinced of Tatishchev's innocence and appointed him his assistant. According to the results of the investigation conducted by Gennin, the Senate acquitted Vasily Nikitich and ordered Akinfiy Demidov to pay him six thousand rubles for "defaming".
Vasily Nikitich spent about three years in the Urals and managed to do a lot during this time. The foundation of the cities of Yekaterinburg and Perm became the most noticeable fruits of his works. In addition, it was Tatishchev who first proposed to transfer to another place the copper plant on Kungur (on the River Yekshikha) and the iron plant on Uktus (on the Iset river). His projects were initially rejected at the Berg College, but Vilim Gennin, assessing the interpretive nature of Tatishchev’s proposals, insisted on their implementation with his power. At the end of 1723, Tatishchev left the Urals, openly declaring his intention to never return here. The incessant struggle with the German commanders and local tyrants-voivods, together with the harsh winter in this country, undermined his health - in recent years, Tatishchev became increasingly ill. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Vasily Nikitich had a long conversation with the king, who met him quite affectionately and left him at court. During the conversation, various topics were discussed, in particular the issues of land surveying and the creation of the Academy of Sciences.
At the end of 1724, Tatishchev, on behalf of Peter I, went to Sweden. His goal was to study the local organization of mining and industry, invite Swedish masters to our country and agree on training young people from Russia in various technical specialties. Unfortunately, the results of Vasily Nikitich’s trip turned out to be close to zero. The Swedes, remembering their recent defeats, did not trust the Russians and did not want to contribute to the growth of Russia's power. In addition, Peter died in 1725, and Tatishchev’s mission in the capital was simply forgotten. His personal experience turned out to be more fruitful - Vasily Nikitich visited many mines and factories, bought a lot of books, met prominent Swedish scientists. He also collected important information about Russian history, available in the annals of the Scandinavians.
Vasiliy Nikitich returned from Sweden in the spring of 1726 from Sweden - and ended up in a completely different country. The era of Peter the Great was over, and the courtiers gathered around the new Empress Catherine I, mainly concerned only about strengthening their position and destroying competitors. Jacob Bruce was removed from all posts, and Tatishchev, who received the position of adviser, decided to send the new leadership of the Berg-Collegium to the Urals again. Not wanting to go back there, Vasily Nikitich in every possible way delayed departure, citing the preparation of a report on a trip to Sweden. The scientist also sent a number of notes to the Empress's Cabinet with new projects developed by him - on the construction of the Siberian Highway, on the implementation of a general survey, on the construction of a network of canals to connect the White and Caspian Seas. However, all his proposals of understanding have not been found.
At the same time, an outstanding figure was able to enlist the support of very influential people, in particular, Dmitry Golitsyn - a member of the Supreme Privy Council dealing with financial matters. In those years, one of the means of reducing government spending and reducing the tax burden on the tax-paying population was monetary reform, namely, increasing the output of a copper coin in order to gradually replace silver pennies. In mid-February, 1727 Tatishchev was appointed the third member of the Moscow Coin Office, having received the task of setting up the work of domestic mints, who were in a pitiful state. Very quickly, Vasily Nikitich established himself at a new place as a knowledgeable specialist. First of all, he attended to the creation of standards - weights made under his personal control became the most accurate in the country. Then, in order to make life difficult for counterfeiters, Tatishchev improved the coinage. At Yauza, at his suggestion, they created a dam and installed water mills, which several times increased the productivity of three capital mints. The scientist also insisted on the establishment of a decimal monetary system, which allowed to simplify and unify the conversion and circulation of money, but this and a number of his other proposals were not supported.
After the death of Catherine I (in May, 1727) and Peter II (in January, 1730), the problem of succession to the country became acute. The members of the Supreme Privy Council (“Supreme”), under the leadership of Golitsyn and Princes Dolgorukov, decided, under certain conditions, called “Conditions”, to invite the daughter of Ivan V to the Russian throne, Anna Ioannovna. Conditions, by the way, consisted in the empress's refusal to make key decisions without the consent of eight members of the Supreme Council. However, the majority of the nobles took the "Condition" as a usurpation of power by members of the Supreme Council. One of the most active participants in the events was Tatishchev, who in the 1720s had become close to Prince Antiochus Cantemir and Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, ardent supporters of the autocracy. The historian himself was in strained relations with Dolgorukov, who gained strength under Peter II, and therefore hesitated for a long time. In the end, he was the author of some compromise petition, February 25 1730, submitted to the Empress. The deputation of the nobility, recognizing the legitimacy of the autocracy, proposed the establishment of a new authority as part of 21 man elected at the nobility congress. Also put forward a number of measures to facilitate the lives of different classes of the population. Petition, read by Tatishchev, Anna Ioannovna did not like, but she still had to sign it. After that, the queen ordered to break the "condition".
Unfortunately, as a result of absolutist agitation, no changes in the state system happened, and the entire project of Tatishchev was lost in vain. The only positive result was that the new government treated Vasily Nikitich favorably - he played the role of master of ceremonies during the coronation of Anna Ioannovna in April 1730, received villages with a thousand serfs, was awarded the title of state councilor. In addition, Vasily Nikitich took the post of "chief judge" in the capital's monetary office, thereby having the opportunity to influence the financial policy in Russia. However, all these were only illusions. The place of one of the heads of the institution where the money was "baked" belonged to those "feeders" for which it was necessary to pay. Very soon, Tatishchev, who was not afraid to enter into conflicts with the powerful, strongly quarreled with Biron, an influential favorite of Anna Ioannovna, who was distinguished by his open demand for bribes from officials and courtiers.
Vasily Nikitich did not want to put up with it. Soon he had to wage a desperate struggle to preserve his troublesome and not too high office. Because of the 1730 events, the financial situation in Russia has deteriorated sharply, the delays in paying officials ’salaries have become terrifying, condemning them to switch to the old system of feeding’, that is, forcing people to take bribes. Such a system to the favorite of the empress, who was involved in embezzlement, was advantageous in advance - an unpleasant official could always be accused of bribery.
However, Tatishchev was tolerated for some time - there was no one to replace him as a specialist. The case was brought to him only in 1733 year, and the reason was the operation to withdraw defective silver coins from circulation - the income of the merchants who carried out this operation, allegedly significantly surpassed the income of the treasury. Personally, Vasily Nikitich was charged with a bribe from “gangbangers” of three thousand rubles, by the way, a meager amount for the scale of embezzlement in the country and the turnover of the monetary office. Tatishchev himself considered the cause of his dismissal from the post he submitted to Anna Ioannovna a project on the design of schools and the popularization of science. At that time, only 1850 people were trained in Russia, on whom 160 thousands (!) Rubles were spent. Vasily Nikitich proposed a new order of training, increasing the number of students to 21 thousands, while reducing spending on their education by fifty thousand rubles. Of course, no one wanted to part with such a favorable feeding, and therefore Tatishchev was sent into exile to the Urals “for looking at state-owned and particular ore plants”.
Vasiliy Nikitich went to 1734 in the spring to a new place of service. In the Urals, he spent three years and during that time organized the construction of seven new plants. His efforts at local enterprises began to introduce mechanical hammers. He launched an active struggle against the policy of deliberately bringing state plants to a distress situation, which served as the basis for their transfer to private hands. Also, Tatishchev developed the Gornozovodsk charter and, despite the protests of industrialists, put it into practice, took care of the development in the field of medical care, advocating free medical care for factory workers. In addition, he continued the activities started in 1721 on the creation of schools for children of artisans, which again resented breeders who used child labor. In Yekaterinburg, he created a mountain library, and leaving the Ural region, Vasily Nikitich left her almost his entire collection - more than a thousand books.
In 1737, Tatishchev prepared and sent to the Academy of Sciences and the Senate his own manual for geodesists, which he essentially became the first geographic and economic questionnaire. The scientist asked permission to send it to the cities of the country, but was refused, and already sent it to major cities in Siberia. Vasily Nikitich sent copies of the answers to the instructions to the Academy of Sciences, where they had long attracted the interest of historians, geographers and travelers. The Tatishchev questionnaire contained items on terrain and soil, animals and birds, plants, livestock numbers, crafts of ordinary people, the number of factories and plants, and much more.
In May, 1737 Tatishchev was sent to manage the Orenburg Expedition, that is, to head an even more undeveloped edge of the then Russian Empire. The reason for this was his successful work on the organization of production in the Urals. In two years, previously unprofitable enterprises began to generate large profits, which became a signal for Biron and his associates in order to privatize them. Another tidbit for businessmen of various kinds were the richest deposits discovered in 1735 on Mount Grace. Formally, the transfer of Vasily Nikitich to Samara, the “capital” of the Orenburg expedition, was furnished as a promotion, Tatischev was given the rank of lieutenant-general and granted to secret advisers.
At the new place, the statesman faced many serious problems. The purpose of the Orenburg expeditions was to ensure the presence of Russians in Central Asia. For this, a whole network of fortresses was created on the lands inhabited by Cossacks and Bashkirs. However, soon the Bashkirs, who retained almost complete self-government, regarded the events of the Russians as an attack on their rights and in the 1735 year they launched a major uprising, which was suppressed with extreme cruelty. Vasily Nikitich, managing the factories in the Urals at that time, took part in the service to pacify the Bashkir lands adjoining his possessions, and he learned from this a certain lesson - it is necessary to agree well with the Bashkirs. Having headed the Orenburg expedition, Tatishchev took measures to reconcile the Bashkir aristocracy - he let the prisoners go home under "honest word", pardoned those who arrived with a confession. Only once did he let the two leaders be executed, but he himself regretted it later - the reprisals against them only provoked another riot. Vasily Nikitich also tried to stop the looting of the military and the abuse of Russian officials. All his peacekeeping steps did not bring noticeable fruits - the Bashkirs continued to rebel. In St. Petersburg, Tatishchev was accused of "softness", and Biron gave the complaints a turn. The historian again went to court for bribery and abuse, while losing all his ranks. On arrival in 1739 in the northern capital in May, he spent some time in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then was placed under house arrest. Of course, nothing substantial was found on him, but the case was never closed.
Surprisingly, the delay in the investigation saved Tatishchev from much larger troubles. In April, 1740 arrested Artemy Volynsky, a cabinet minister intent on competing with the German clique that ruled Russia on behalf of the empress. A similar fate befell the members of his circle, who discussed the pressing problems of public life. From some of them Vasily Nikitich received ancient manuscripts for use, was in constant correspondence with others. In this gathering of intellectuals, his authority was indisputable. In particular, Volynsky himself, writing the “General Plan on the correction of state internal affairs,” expressed the hope that his work could please “even Vasily Tatischev.” Fortunately, neither Volynskiy nor its confidants have given away their like-minded person. Executed them in July 1740.
And in October of the same year, Anna Ivanovna died, bequeathed the throne to a two-month grandnephew. Biron was appointed Regent. 9 was arrested by Field Marshal Christopher Munnich on November 1740. Anna Leopoldovna, the mother of the baby emperor, became Regent together, and the real power was in the hands of Andrei Osterman. He advised Tatishchev to confirm the charges against him, promising complete forgiveness. The sick and exhausted Vasily Nikitich agreed to this humiliation, but this did not lead to an improvement in his situation. Remaining on remand, in July 1741 received a new appointment - to head the Kalmyk commission, which dealt with the issues of arrangement of the Kalmyks, who became nationals of Russia in 1724.
The historian encountered this people who professed Buddhism back in 1738 - for the baptized Kalmyks, he founded the city of Stavropol (now Togliatti). The main part of them lived near Astrakhan, and traditionally quarreled with the Tatars, constantly attacking them. In addition, they themselves were divided into two clans, leading endless feuds, during which thousands of ordinary Kalmyks were either physically destroyed or sold into slavery in Persia and Turkey. Vasily Nikitich could not use force - there were no troops under his leadership, and funds for representation expenses were allocated by the College of Foreign Affairs irregularly and little. Therefore, Tatishchev could only negotiate, arrange endless meetings, give gifts, invite the warring princes to visit. The sense of such diplomacy was not enough - the Kalmyk nobility did not fulfill the treaties and changed the point of view on many questions several times a day.
In 1739, Tatishchev completed the first version of “History,” composed “in the ancient dialect”. He created his works in fragments, in his spare time from extremely intensive administrative activities. By the way, “Russian History” became the greatest scientific feat of Vasily Nikitich, having absorbed a huge amount of unique information that has not yet lost its value. Modern historians to evaluate the work of Tatishchev is quite difficult. The current study of Old Russian texts is based on the results of more than two centuries of research of the chronicles carried out by many generations of linguists, sources and historians. However, in the first half of the eighteenth century there was no such tool at all. Facing incomprehensible words, Tatishchev had only to guess exactly what they meant. Of course, he was wrong. But surprisingly, these errors were not so many. Vasily Nikitich constantly rewrote his texts, as he constantly looked for more and more new chronicles, and also gained experience, comprehending the meaning of previously not understood fragments. Because of this, various versions of his works contain contradictions and contradictions. Later it became a ground for suspicion - Tatishchev was accused of falsification, speculation, fraud.
Vasily Nikitich tied up high hopes with Elizabeth Petrovna, who came to power in November 1741 after the palace coup. And although the Germans who hated him were removed from power, all this had no effect on the position of Tatishchev. The former entourage and members of their families, who considered the historian to be one of those guilty in the disgrace that had befallen them, entered the empress’s inner circle. Remaining on the status of the suspect, Vasiliy Nikitich in December 1741 was appointed governor of Astrakhan, without having received the appropriate authority. He tried very ill to improve the situation in the province as much as he could; however, without support from the capital, he could not significantly change the situation. As a result, Tatishchev asked for resignation due to illness, but instead the investigation of his “case” was resumed. The investigators failed to dig up anything new, and in August the Senate decided to collect 1745 from Tatishchev a fine, invented by Biron's investigators, in 4616 rubles. After that, he was sent under house arrest to one of his villages.
Vasily Nikitich spent the rest of his life in the village of Boldino in the Moscow region, being under the vigilant supervision of the soldiers. Here he finally gained the opportunity to summarize his scientific activities, to supplement and revise his manuscripts. In addition, the indefatigable old man was treating local peasants, conducted an active correspondence with the Academy of Sciences, unsuccessfully trying to publish his “History”, and also sent two notes to the very top - about the flight of serfs and about conducting a census of the population. Their content went far beyond the stated topics. According to legend, two days before his death, Tatishchev went to the cemetery and found a place for the grave. The next day, the courier allegedly arrived at him with the order of Alexander Nevsky and a letter about his acquittal, but Vasily Nikitich returned the award as already unnecessary. He died on July 26 1750.
Monument to V.N. Tatischev in Tolyatti
After himself, Tatishchev, a man of encyclopedic knowledge, constantly engaged in self-education, left a lot of manuscripts relating to various areas of knowledge: metallurgy and mining, money circulation and economics, geology and mineralogy, mechanics and mathematics, folklore and linguistics, law and pedagogy, and of course same history and geography. Wherever fate threw him, he did not stop studying history, he studied with great attention those regions in which he had to live. The first volume of History of Russia, prepared by Gerard Miller, was published in 1768 year, but even now far from all the works of this outstanding man are published. By the way, the first and only (!) Lifetime publication of Vasily Nikitich was the work “On Mammoth Bone”. She came out in Sweden at 1725 and was republished there four years later, because it aroused great interest. And no wonder - it was the first scientific description of the remains of a fossil elephant. It is also worth adding that the son of this great man was indifferent to the memory and merit of his father. The inherited papers Evraf Tatishchev kept extremely carelessly, and from a huge collection of manuscripts and books a lot of things decayed and became unreadable.
According to the book AG. Kuzmina "Tatishchev"
E. Shirokov. The painting "And therefore to be! (Peter I and V. Tatishchev) ”. Xnumx
About the young years of life of the future statesman almost nothing is known. And only one thing is for sure - the life of the Tatishchev family was full of troubles. After the death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1676, the political situation in Russia remained unstable for a long time. After his successor, Fedor Alekseevich, died in April 1682, the rifle rebellion began. In this regard, the welfare and life of Moscow residents who protected the royal palaces, all the time was under threat. As a result of the outbreak of unrest in May 1682, sixteen years old Ivan Alekseevich and his ten-year-old stepbrother Peter were enthroned. Regents Archers announced their older sister Sophia. However, she tried as quickly as possible to get rid of their "care". In August of the same year, thanks to the support of noble units, the leader of the archers, Ivan Khovansky, was executed, and they themselves went back down.
The seven-year rule of Sofia Alekseevna was marked by a rather powerful economic and social rise. Its government was headed by Vasily Golitsyn - an educated man who knew many foreign languages and was seriously thinking about the abolition of serfdom. However, after Peter Alekseevich grew up, Sophia was deposed (1689 in August-September), and all power passed into the hands of the Naryshkins. Their rather stupid board dragged on until the middle of the 1690s, until at last Peter, who had matured, engaged in public activities. All these events had a direct bearing on the fate of Vasily Nikitich. In 1684, the weak-willed Tsar Ivan Alekseevich (Peter I's brother) married Praskovya Saltykova, who has long-term ties with the Tatishchevs. As usual in such cases, the entire clan of the Tatishchevs was close to the court. There began the court life of the young Basil - as a steward.
At the beginning of 1696, Ivan Alekseevich died. Nine-year-old Vasily Tatishchev and his elder brother Ivan remained in the service of Queen Praskovya Fedorovna for some time, but she obviously could not keep a huge yard, and soon the brothers returned to Pskov. In 1703, Vasily's mother, Fetinya Tatischeva, passed away, and after a short time, his father married again. The relations of the children from the first marriage with the stepmother did not work out, and, in the end, the twenty-year-old Ivan and the seventeen-year-old Vasily went to Moscow to look at the non-young tenants. By that time, the Northern War had already begun, and the Russian army needed to be replenished to fight the Swedes. In January, the 1704 brothers were enrolled in the dragoon regiment as privates. In mid-February, Peter I himself gave a review to their regiment, and in the summer of the same year, having undergone training, the new dragoons went to Narva. Russian troops captured the fortress of August 9, and this event was a baptism of fire for Tatishchev.
After the capture of Narva, Ivan and Vasily took part in hostilities in the Baltic States, joining the army commanded by Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev. 15 July 1705 at the battle of Murmyz (Hemauerthhof) they were both injured. After recovery in the spring 1706 Tatishchevy were made to lieutenant. At the same time, they were among several experienced dragoons sent to Polotsk to train new recruits. And in August, 1706 was sent to Ukraine as part of the newly formed dragoon regiment. The unit was commanded by the dummy clerk Avtomon Ivanov, who assumed all the costs of maintaining the unit and was a longtime friend of the Tatishchev family. By the way, this very experienced administrator also headed the Local Order, and therefore often traveled to Moscow. On trips he took with him twenty Basil Nikitich, often entrusting him with very important tasks. Ivanov’s patronage can be partly explained by the desire to rely on a dedicated person from his circle, but of the two brothers, he singled out the younger one for business qualities. At that time, Vasily was personally represented by Peter.
It is worth noting that the success of his brother, unfortunately, caused envy in Ivan. Their relationship finally deteriorated after the death of his father. For a while they kept together against the stepmother who did not want the division of inheritance. And only in 1712, after she married for the second time, the three sons of Nikita Tatishchev began to divide their father's possessions. The burden was complicated by the constant complaints of Ivan towards the younger brothers, “wrong”, in his opinion, sharing the hereditary lands, and finally ended only in 1715. He reconciled with Basil and Nikifor already in adulthood.
One of the highlights of the life of Tatishchev was the Battle of Poltava, played out 27 June 1709. The attack on the position of the first battalion of the Novgorod regiment became the key episode of the massacre. When the enemy had practically crushed the first battalion, the Russian tsar personally led the second battalion of the Novgorod regiment to the counterattack, supported by the dragoons. At the decisive moment of the battle, one of the bullets pierced Peter with his hat, and the other hit the nearby Vasily Nikitich, easily wounding him. Subsequently, he wrote: “Happy for me is the day when I was wounded in the Poltava field near the sovereign, who himself ordered under bullets and cannonballs, and when he, as usual, kissed me on the forehead and congratulated the wounded for the Fatherland.”
And in the 1711 year, twenty-five Vasily Nikitich participated in the Prut campaign against the Ottoman Empire. The war with the Turks, which ended in defeat, proved to Peter I the illusiveness of his hopes for foreigners, who occupied the main number of command posts in the Russian army. In place of the expelled foreigners, the king began to appoint his countrymen. One of them was Tatishchev, who received the rank of captain after the Prut campaign. And at 1712, a group of young officers was sent to study in Germany and France. Vasily Nikitich, who had mastered the German language well by that time, went on a trip to the German principalities in order to study engineering. However, systematic study did not work out - the young man was constantly withdrawn to his homeland. Abroad, Tatishchev learned a total of two and a half years. During one of the breaks between trips - in the middle of 1714 - Vasily Nikitich married Avdotye Andreevskaya, twice widowed. A year later, they had a daughter, named Eupraxia, and in 1717 - the son of Evgraf. However, Tatishchev's family life did not work out - on duty, he almost did not go home, and his wife did not have a fond feeling for him. They finally broke up in 1728 year.
But everything was in order in the service of Vasily Nikitich. Having proved himself to be an executive and enterprising man, he regularly received various responsible tasks from his superiors. At the beginning of 1716, he changed the lineage - the knowledge acquired by him abroad became the basis for sending him to artillery. Abroad, Tatishchev bought a large number of books on various fields of knowledge - from philosophy to the natural sciences. Books at that time were worth quite a few, and Vasily Nikitich made his purchases at the expense of his commander Jacob Bruce, who led the Russian artillery forces, and in 1717 headed the Manufactories and Berg College.
Often, the tasks of Jacob Vilimovich were quite unexpected. For example, in 1717, Tatishchev received an order to re-equip all the artillery units stationed in Pomerania and in Mecklenburg, as well as to put in order all the tools they had. State funds were released for this was extremely small, but Vasily Nikitich successfully completed the difficult task, for which he received a high review of his work from the outstanding Russian military leader Nikita Repnin. Soon after, he joined the Russian delegation at the Åland Congress. The place where the negotiations took place was chosen by Tatishchev.
Communication with Bruce finally changed the direction of Vasily Nikitich - with a military path, he turned to the civilian, meaning, however, as captain of artillery. One of the most pressing issues at the beginning of the eighteenth century was the change in the tax system. Yakov Vilimovich, together with Vasily Nikitich, decided to develop a project for conducting a general land surveying in the huge state of Russia. His ultimate goal was to get rid of the numerous crimes of the local authorities and guarantee a fair distribution of taxes, not ruining either the peasants or landowners and increasing the income of the treasury. To do this, according to the plan, it was necessary to analyze geographical and historical features of individual counties, as well as prepare a certain number of qualified surveyors. In 1716, Bruce, loaded with many assignments, entrusted Vasily Nikitich all the affairs of this project. Having managed to prepare a 130-page document, Tatishchev was forced to go to work in Germany and Poland. However, its development was not useful - in 1718 Peter I decided to introduce per capita taxation (instead of land) in the country. Nevertheless, the tsar listened with interest to Bruce's proposal, instructing him to draw up a geographical description of Russia. Yakov Vilimovich, in turn, handed over this matter to Tatishchev, who in 1719 was officially identified as "the land surveying of the state of everything and the composition of a detailed geography of Russia with landcards."
Vasily Nikitich went headlong into the study of a new topic for him and soon clearly realized the close relationship of geography and history. It was then that a novice scientist first began to collect Russian annals. And at the beginning of 1720, he learned about his new task - to go to the Urals as a representative of the Berg collegium and undertake the development and search for new deposits, as well as organizing the activities of state-owned ore mining enterprises. In addition, Tatishchev had to do countless “search cases”. Almost immediately, he revealed the abuses of the local governor and Akinfiy Demidov, the de facto ruler of the region. The confrontation with the Demidovs, who have powerful ties in the capital, intensified after in July 1721 Tatishchev became the mountain chief of the Siberian province. This position gave him the right to intervene in the internal life of their enterprises. However, this did not last long - failing to bribe Tatishchev, Akinfiy Demidov accused him of bribes and abuse of power. In March 1722, a Dutchman, Wilim Gennin, went to investigate the case and then took control of the province in his own hands. He was an intelligent and honest engineer who quickly became convinced of Tatishchev's innocence and appointed him his assistant. According to the results of the investigation conducted by Gennin, the Senate acquitted Vasily Nikitich and ordered Akinfiy Demidov to pay him six thousand rubles for "defaming".
Vasily Nikitich spent about three years in the Urals and managed to do a lot during this time. The foundation of the cities of Yekaterinburg and Perm became the most noticeable fruits of his works. In addition, it was Tatishchev who first proposed to transfer to another place the copper plant on Kungur (on the River Yekshikha) and the iron plant on Uktus (on the Iset river). His projects were initially rejected at the Berg College, but Vilim Gennin, assessing the interpretive nature of Tatishchev’s proposals, insisted on their implementation with his power. At the end of 1723, Tatishchev left the Urals, openly declaring his intention to never return here. The incessant struggle with the German commanders and local tyrants-voivods, together with the harsh winter in this country, undermined his health - in recent years, Tatishchev became increasingly ill. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Vasily Nikitich had a long conversation with the king, who met him quite affectionately and left him at court. During the conversation, various topics were discussed, in particular the issues of land surveying and the creation of the Academy of Sciences.
At the end of 1724, Tatishchev, on behalf of Peter I, went to Sweden. His goal was to study the local organization of mining and industry, invite Swedish masters to our country and agree on training young people from Russia in various technical specialties. Unfortunately, the results of Vasily Nikitich’s trip turned out to be close to zero. The Swedes, remembering their recent defeats, did not trust the Russians and did not want to contribute to the growth of Russia's power. In addition, Peter died in 1725, and Tatishchev’s mission in the capital was simply forgotten. His personal experience turned out to be more fruitful - Vasily Nikitich visited many mines and factories, bought a lot of books, met prominent Swedish scientists. He also collected important information about Russian history, available in the annals of the Scandinavians.
Vasiliy Nikitich returned from Sweden in the spring of 1726 from Sweden - and ended up in a completely different country. The era of Peter the Great was over, and the courtiers gathered around the new Empress Catherine I, mainly concerned only about strengthening their position and destroying competitors. Jacob Bruce was removed from all posts, and Tatishchev, who received the position of adviser, decided to send the new leadership of the Berg-Collegium to the Urals again. Not wanting to go back there, Vasily Nikitich in every possible way delayed departure, citing the preparation of a report on a trip to Sweden. The scientist also sent a number of notes to the Empress's Cabinet with new projects developed by him - on the construction of the Siberian Highway, on the implementation of a general survey, on the construction of a network of canals to connect the White and Caspian Seas. However, all his proposals of understanding have not been found.
At the same time, an outstanding figure was able to enlist the support of very influential people, in particular, Dmitry Golitsyn - a member of the Supreme Privy Council dealing with financial matters. In those years, one of the means of reducing government spending and reducing the tax burden on the tax-paying population was monetary reform, namely, increasing the output of a copper coin in order to gradually replace silver pennies. In mid-February, 1727 Tatishchev was appointed the third member of the Moscow Coin Office, having received the task of setting up the work of domestic mints, who were in a pitiful state. Very quickly, Vasily Nikitich established himself at a new place as a knowledgeable specialist. First of all, he attended to the creation of standards - weights made under his personal control became the most accurate in the country. Then, in order to make life difficult for counterfeiters, Tatishchev improved the coinage. At Yauza, at his suggestion, they created a dam and installed water mills, which several times increased the productivity of three capital mints. The scientist also insisted on the establishment of a decimal monetary system, which allowed to simplify and unify the conversion and circulation of money, but this and a number of his other proposals were not supported.
After the death of Catherine I (in May, 1727) and Peter II (in January, 1730), the problem of succession to the country became acute. The members of the Supreme Privy Council (“Supreme”), under the leadership of Golitsyn and Princes Dolgorukov, decided, under certain conditions, called “Conditions”, to invite the daughter of Ivan V to the Russian throne, Anna Ioannovna. Conditions, by the way, consisted in the empress's refusal to make key decisions without the consent of eight members of the Supreme Council. However, the majority of the nobles took the "Condition" as a usurpation of power by members of the Supreme Council. One of the most active participants in the events was Tatishchev, who in the 1720s had become close to Prince Antiochus Cantemir and Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, ardent supporters of the autocracy. The historian himself was in strained relations with Dolgorukov, who gained strength under Peter II, and therefore hesitated for a long time. In the end, he was the author of some compromise petition, February 25 1730, submitted to the Empress. The deputation of the nobility, recognizing the legitimacy of the autocracy, proposed the establishment of a new authority as part of 21 man elected at the nobility congress. Also put forward a number of measures to facilitate the lives of different classes of the population. Petition, read by Tatishchev, Anna Ioannovna did not like, but she still had to sign it. After that, the queen ordered to break the "condition".
Unfortunately, as a result of absolutist agitation, no changes in the state system happened, and the entire project of Tatishchev was lost in vain. The only positive result was that the new government treated Vasily Nikitich favorably - he played the role of master of ceremonies during the coronation of Anna Ioannovna in April 1730, received villages with a thousand serfs, was awarded the title of state councilor. In addition, Vasily Nikitich took the post of "chief judge" in the capital's monetary office, thereby having the opportunity to influence the financial policy in Russia. However, all these were only illusions. The place of one of the heads of the institution where the money was "baked" belonged to those "feeders" for which it was necessary to pay. Very soon, Tatishchev, who was not afraid to enter into conflicts with the powerful, strongly quarreled with Biron, an influential favorite of Anna Ioannovna, who was distinguished by his open demand for bribes from officials and courtiers.
Vasily Nikitich did not want to put up with it. Soon he had to wage a desperate struggle to preserve his troublesome and not too high office. Because of the 1730 events, the financial situation in Russia has deteriorated sharply, the delays in paying officials ’salaries have become terrifying, condemning them to switch to the old system of feeding’, that is, forcing people to take bribes. Such a system to the favorite of the empress, who was involved in embezzlement, was advantageous in advance - an unpleasant official could always be accused of bribery.
However, Tatishchev was tolerated for some time - there was no one to replace him as a specialist. The case was brought to him only in 1733 year, and the reason was the operation to withdraw defective silver coins from circulation - the income of the merchants who carried out this operation, allegedly significantly surpassed the income of the treasury. Personally, Vasily Nikitich was charged with a bribe from “gangbangers” of three thousand rubles, by the way, a meager amount for the scale of embezzlement in the country and the turnover of the monetary office. Tatishchev himself considered the cause of his dismissal from the post he submitted to Anna Ioannovna a project on the design of schools and the popularization of science. At that time, only 1850 people were trained in Russia, on whom 160 thousands (!) Rubles were spent. Vasily Nikitich proposed a new order of training, increasing the number of students to 21 thousands, while reducing spending on their education by fifty thousand rubles. Of course, no one wanted to part with such a favorable feeding, and therefore Tatishchev was sent into exile to the Urals “for looking at state-owned and particular ore plants”.
Vasiliy Nikitich went to 1734 in the spring to a new place of service. In the Urals, he spent three years and during that time organized the construction of seven new plants. His efforts at local enterprises began to introduce mechanical hammers. He launched an active struggle against the policy of deliberately bringing state plants to a distress situation, which served as the basis for their transfer to private hands. Also, Tatishchev developed the Gornozovodsk charter and, despite the protests of industrialists, put it into practice, took care of the development in the field of medical care, advocating free medical care for factory workers. In addition, he continued the activities started in 1721 on the creation of schools for children of artisans, which again resented breeders who used child labor. In Yekaterinburg, he created a mountain library, and leaving the Ural region, Vasily Nikitich left her almost his entire collection - more than a thousand books.
In 1737, Tatishchev prepared and sent to the Academy of Sciences and the Senate his own manual for geodesists, which he essentially became the first geographic and economic questionnaire. The scientist asked permission to send it to the cities of the country, but was refused, and already sent it to major cities in Siberia. Vasily Nikitich sent copies of the answers to the instructions to the Academy of Sciences, where they had long attracted the interest of historians, geographers and travelers. The Tatishchev questionnaire contained items on terrain and soil, animals and birds, plants, livestock numbers, crafts of ordinary people, the number of factories and plants, and much more.
In May, 1737 Tatishchev was sent to manage the Orenburg Expedition, that is, to head an even more undeveloped edge of the then Russian Empire. The reason for this was his successful work on the organization of production in the Urals. In two years, previously unprofitable enterprises began to generate large profits, which became a signal for Biron and his associates in order to privatize them. Another tidbit for businessmen of various kinds were the richest deposits discovered in 1735 on Mount Grace. Formally, the transfer of Vasily Nikitich to Samara, the “capital” of the Orenburg expedition, was furnished as a promotion, Tatischev was given the rank of lieutenant-general and granted to secret advisers.
At the new place, the statesman faced many serious problems. The purpose of the Orenburg expeditions was to ensure the presence of Russians in Central Asia. For this, a whole network of fortresses was created on the lands inhabited by Cossacks and Bashkirs. However, soon the Bashkirs, who retained almost complete self-government, regarded the events of the Russians as an attack on their rights and in the 1735 year they launched a major uprising, which was suppressed with extreme cruelty. Vasily Nikitich, managing the factories in the Urals at that time, took part in the service to pacify the Bashkir lands adjoining his possessions, and he learned from this a certain lesson - it is necessary to agree well with the Bashkirs. Having headed the Orenburg expedition, Tatishchev took measures to reconcile the Bashkir aristocracy - he let the prisoners go home under "honest word", pardoned those who arrived with a confession. Only once did he let the two leaders be executed, but he himself regretted it later - the reprisals against them only provoked another riot. Vasily Nikitich also tried to stop the looting of the military and the abuse of Russian officials. All his peacekeeping steps did not bring noticeable fruits - the Bashkirs continued to rebel. In St. Petersburg, Tatishchev was accused of "softness", and Biron gave the complaints a turn. The historian again went to court for bribery and abuse, while losing all his ranks. On arrival in 1739 in the northern capital in May, he spent some time in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then was placed under house arrest. Of course, nothing substantial was found on him, but the case was never closed.
Surprisingly, the delay in the investigation saved Tatishchev from much larger troubles. In April, 1740 arrested Artemy Volynsky, a cabinet minister intent on competing with the German clique that ruled Russia on behalf of the empress. A similar fate befell the members of his circle, who discussed the pressing problems of public life. From some of them Vasily Nikitich received ancient manuscripts for use, was in constant correspondence with others. In this gathering of intellectuals, his authority was indisputable. In particular, Volynsky himself, writing the “General Plan on the correction of state internal affairs,” expressed the hope that his work could please “even Vasily Tatischev.” Fortunately, neither Volynskiy nor its confidants have given away their like-minded person. Executed them in July 1740.
And in October of the same year, Anna Ivanovna died, bequeathed the throne to a two-month grandnephew. Biron was appointed Regent. 9 was arrested by Field Marshal Christopher Munnich on November 1740. Anna Leopoldovna, the mother of the baby emperor, became Regent together, and the real power was in the hands of Andrei Osterman. He advised Tatishchev to confirm the charges against him, promising complete forgiveness. The sick and exhausted Vasily Nikitich agreed to this humiliation, but this did not lead to an improvement in his situation. Remaining on remand, in July 1741 received a new appointment - to head the Kalmyk commission, which dealt with the issues of arrangement of the Kalmyks, who became nationals of Russia in 1724.
The historian encountered this people who professed Buddhism back in 1738 - for the baptized Kalmyks, he founded the city of Stavropol (now Togliatti). The main part of them lived near Astrakhan, and traditionally quarreled with the Tatars, constantly attacking them. In addition, they themselves were divided into two clans, leading endless feuds, during which thousands of ordinary Kalmyks were either physically destroyed or sold into slavery in Persia and Turkey. Vasily Nikitich could not use force - there were no troops under his leadership, and funds for representation expenses were allocated by the College of Foreign Affairs irregularly and little. Therefore, Tatishchev could only negotiate, arrange endless meetings, give gifts, invite the warring princes to visit. The sense of such diplomacy was not enough - the Kalmyk nobility did not fulfill the treaties and changed the point of view on many questions several times a day.
In 1739, Tatishchev completed the first version of “History,” composed “in the ancient dialect”. He created his works in fragments, in his spare time from extremely intensive administrative activities. By the way, “Russian History” became the greatest scientific feat of Vasily Nikitich, having absorbed a huge amount of unique information that has not yet lost its value. Modern historians to evaluate the work of Tatishchev is quite difficult. The current study of Old Russian texts is based on the results of more than two centuries of research of the chronicles carried out by many generations of linguists, sources and historians. However, in the first half of the eighteenth century there was no such tool at all. Facing incomprehensible words, Tatishchev had only to guess exactly what they meant. Of course, he was wrong. But surprisingly, these errors were not so many. Vasily Nikitich constantly rewrote his texts, as he constantly looked for more and more new chronicles, and also gained experience, comprehending the meaning of previously not understood fragments. Because of this, various versions of his works contain contradictions and contradictions. Later it became a ground for suspicion - Tatishchev was accused of falsification, speculation, fraud.
Vasily Nikitich tied up high hopes with Elizabeth Petrovna, who came to power in November 1741 after the palace coup. And although the Germans who hated him were removed from power, all this had no effect on the position of Tatishchev. The former entourage and members of their families, who considered the historian to be one of those guilty in the disgrace that had befallen them, entered the empress’s inner circle. Remaining on the status of the suspect, Vasiliy Nikitich in December 1741 was appointed governor of Astrakhan, without having received the appropriate authority. He tried very ill to improve the situation in the province as much as he could; however, without support from the capital, he could not significantly change the situation. As a result, Tatishchev asked for resignation due to illness, but instead the investigation of his “case” was resumed. The investigators failed to dig up anything new, and in August the Senate decided to collect 1745 from Tatishchev a fine, invented by Biron's investigators, in 4616 rubles. After that, he was sent under house arrest to one of his villages.
Vasily Nikitich spent the rest of his life in the village of Boldino in the Moscow region, being under the vigilant supervision of the soldiers. Here he finally gained the opportunity to summarize his scientific activities, to supplement and revise his manuscripts. In addition, the indefatigable old man was treating local peasants, conducted an active correspondence with the Academy of Sciences, unsuccessfully trying to publish his “History”, and also sent two notes to the very top - about the flight of serfs and about conducting a census of the population. Their content went far beyond the stated topics. According to legend, two days before his death, Tatishchev went to the cemetery and found a place for the grave. The next day, the courier allegedly arrived at him with the order of Alexander Nevsky and a letter about his acquittal, but Vasily Nikitich returned the award as already unnecessary. He died on July 26 1750.
Monument to V.N. Tatischev in Tolyatti
After himself, Tatishchev, a man of encyclopedic knowledge, constantly engaged in self-education, left a lot of manuscripts relating to various areas of knowledge: metallurgy and mining, money circulation and economics, geology and mineralogy, mechanics and mathematics, folklore and linguistics, law and pedagogy, and of course same history and geography. Wherever fate threw him, he did not stop studying history, he studied with great attention those regions in which he had to live. The first volume of History of Russia, prepared by Gerard Miller, was published in 1768 year, but even now far from all the works of this outstanding man are published. By the way, the first and only (!) Lifetime publication of Vasily Nikitich was the work “On Mammoth Bone”. She came out in Sweden at 1725 and was republished there four years later, because it aroused great interest. And no wonder - it was the first scientific description of the remains of a fossil elephant. It is also worth adding that the son of this great man was indifferent to the memory and merit of his father. The inherited papers Evraf Tatishchev kept extremely carelessly, and from a huge collection of manuscripts and books a lot of things decayed and became unreadable.
According to the book AG. Kuzmina "Tatishchev"
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