Abstract
Fate took the Russian generals who had participated in the Napoleonic Wars in different directions. Many transferred to the civil service, became provincial governors or central government ministers, or held other top positions. This chapter aims to open up a scholarly debate on the position and role of military men in the political elite of the Russian Empire in the first half of the nineteenth century. In particular, an attempt is made to shed light on the following: first, to show how military men, particularly those who participated in the Napoleonic Wars, were represented in the ruling elite of the Russian Empire in the first half of the nineteenth century; second, to situate these findings within the broader context of the history of the ruling elite; third, and more broadly, to clarify the question of the reputation of minister-generals in society.
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Notes
Liia Ia. Pavlova, Dekabristy — uchastniki voin 1805–1814 gg. (Moscow, 1979);
Anastasiia G. Gotovtseva, ‘1812 god i zagranichnye pokhody v otsenke dekabrista Matveia Murav’ eva-Apostola’, in Epokha 1812 goda v sud’bakh Rossii i Evropy: mate-rialy mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii (Moskva, 8–11 oktiabria 2012 g.) (Moscow, 2013), 421–28.
These issues were dealt with in the early twentieth-century works celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the higher and central state institutions, and also in the biographies of individual statesmen. The following works merit particular attention: John Shelton Curtis, The Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1825–1855 (Durham, NC, 1965);
Petr A. Zaionchkovskii, Pravitel’stvennyi apparat samoderzhavnoi Rossii v XIX v. (Moscow, 1978);
W. Bruce Lincoln, ‘The Ministers of Nicholas I: A Brief Inquiry into Their Backgrounds and Service Careers’, Russian Review, 34, 3 (1975): 308–23; Idem, Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (Bloomington, IN and London: 1978);
Walter M. Pintner, ‘The Russian Higher Civil Service on the Eve of the “Great Reforms”’, Journal of Social History, 8, 3 (1975): 55–68;
Walter Pintner and Don Karl Rooney, eds., Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC, 1980).
Aleksandr V. Nikitenko, Zapiski i dnevnik, vol. 1 (Moscow, 2005), 118.
The data have been compiled from the analysis given in the following reference works: Denis N. Shilov, Gosudarstvennye deiateli Rossiiskoi imperi: glavy vysshikh i tsentral’nykh uchrezhdenii 1802–1917 (St Petersburg, 2001);
Denis N. Shilov and Iu. A. Kuz’min, Chleny Gosudarstvennogo Soveta Rossiiskoi imperii. 1801–1906: biobib-liograficheskii spravochnik (St Petersburg, 2006); Otechestvennaia voina 1812 goda: entsiklopediia (Moscow, 2004); Zagranichnye pokhody rossiiskoi armii, 1813–1815 gody: entsiklopediia, 2 vols (Moscow, 2011).
Thus, Major General Alesksandr I. Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii made the following observation on his arrival at Petersburg in 1829: ‘I spent only ten days more in St Petersburg and found everything much changed; most of those who had had influence in the time of Alexander were there no longer, their places taken by others:’ Aleksandr I. Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, ‘Zapiski A. I. Mikhailovskogo-Danilevskogo. 1829 god’, Russkaia starina, 7 (1893): 177.
O. V. Moriakova, Sistema mestnogo samoupravleniia v Rossii pri Nikolae I (Moscow, 1998), 42. According to Moriakova’s statistics, based on her study of the administrative cadres in the 15 provinces of central European Russia at the time of Nicholas I, 64.5 per cent of those appointed as civil governors were from a military background.
Petr A. Zaionchkovskii, ‘Gubernskaia administratsiia nakanune Krymskoi voiny’, Voprosy istorii, 9 (1975): 38.
Dominic Lieven, Aristokratiia v Evrope, 1815–1914 (St Petersburg, 2000), 264.
See Larisa G. Zakharova and Sergei V. Mironenko, eds., Perepiska tsesarevicha Aleksandra Nikolaevicha s imperatorom Nikolaem I, 1838–1839 (Moscow, 2008).
Otto de Bray, ‘Imperator Nikolai I i ego spodvizhniki (vospominaniia gr. Ottona de Bre. 1849–1852)’, Russkaia starina, 109, 1 (1902): 128.
Petr M. Zaionchkovskii, Vostochnaia voina v sviazi s sovremennoi ei politicheskoi obstanovkoi, 2 vols (Moscow, 2002), 1, 62.
Ivan N. Bozherianov, Graf Egor Frantsevich Kankrin, ego zhizn’, literaturnye trudy i dvadtsatiletniaia deiatel’nost’ upravleniia Ministerstvom finansov (St Petersburg, 1897), 40.
As cited in Alexei A. Krivopalov, ‘Fel’dmarshal I. F. Paskevich i problema strategii Rossii v Vostochnoi voine 1853–1856 gg’, Russkii sbornik: issledovaniia po istorii Rossii, 7 (Moscow, 2009): 254.
Andrei P. Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf P. D. Kiselev i ego vremia, 3 vols (St Petersburg, 1882), 1, 21.
As cited in Mikhail A. Davydov, Oppozitsiia ego Velichestva (Moscow, 2005), 62–3.
Modest A. Korf, Dnevnik. god 1843-i (Moscow, 2004), 279.
Richard Wortman, Vlastiteli i sudii: Razvitie pravovogo soznaniia v imperatorskoi Rossii (Moscow, 2004), 67–8.
Walter M. Pintner, ‘The Russian Higher Civil Service on the Eve of the “Great Reforms”’, Journal of Social History, 8, 3 (1975): 63–6.
W. Bruce Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform. Russia’s Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825–1861 (DeKalb, IL, 1986), 7.
M. M. Shevchenko, ‘Istoricheskoe znachenie politicheskoi sistemy imperatora Nikolaia I: novaia tochka zreniia’, in Liubov’ I. Skripkina, ed., XIX vek v istorii Rossii: sovremennye kontseptsii istorii Rossii XIX veka i ikh muzeinaia interpretatsiia (Moscow, 2007), 288.
See, for example: Alexander M. Martin, ‘Russia and the legacy of 1812’, in The Cambridge History of Russia, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 2006);
Vadim S. Parsamov, ‘K genezisu politicheskogo diskursa dekabristov; ideologema “narodnaia voin”’, in Oksana I. Kiianskaia, Mikhail P. Odesskii, eds., Dekabristy: aktual’nye problemy i novye podkhody (Moscow, 2008), 159–94.
Modest A. Korf, Zapiski (Moscow, 2003), 175–7.
Boris N. Chicherin, Moskva sorokovykh godov (Moscow, 1997), 77.
A. Ia. Storozhenko, ‘Otryvki iz vospominanii’, in Storozhenki. Famil’nyi arkhiv, vol. 1 (Kiev, 1902), 424, 428.
Mikhail A. Dmitriev, Glavy iz vospominanii moei zhizni (Moscow, 1998), 502.
Aleksei S. Khomiakov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 8 vols (Moscow: 1900), 8, 179.
Sergei M. Solov’ev, ‘Iz zapisok S. M. Solov’eva’, in Sorokovye gody XIX veka v memuarakh sovremenikov. Dokumnetakh epokhi i khudozhestvennykh proizvedeniakh (Moscow, 1958), 26.
Dominic Lieven, Russia against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814 (London, 2010).
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Bibikov, G. (2015). Heroes of the Napoleonic Wars in the Ruling Elite of the Russian Empire. In: Hartley, J.M., Keenan, P., Lieven, D. (eds) Russia and the Napoleonic Wars. War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137528001_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137528001_16
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