Hospitable Prince Meshchersky. The poet was so saddened by his departure that he responded with an ode. Despite the absence of the odic dimensions and grandeur inherent in the genre, these eighty-eight lines touch the reader's soul so much that the search for information about who Prince Meshchersky is and what he is known for inevitably begins. It turns out - nothing. The most ordinary person, although a representative of an ancient family. Prince Alexander, about whom Derzhavin grieved so much, was significantly surpassed in fame by his descendant, Vladimir, who wrote as a publicist, and also published and edited the magazine Grazhdanin. But Prince Vladimir began publishing in 1887, and Derzhavin's ode "On the Death of Prince Meshchersky" was written in 1779, almost a hundred years ago.

Oh yeah

Death and eternity - two topics that concern everyone and constantly intersect in Derzhavin's ode, the unprecedented sincerity and penetration of the lyrics - that's why these poems quickly became famous and fell in love with the reader. Their lines contain a deep philosophy regarding the insignificant human existence and the huge incomprehensible universe, inside which Prince Meshchersky is still alive. It is comforting for the reader that Derzhavin shows humanity as part of nature, which is eternal, and therefore people are part of this eternity, although each individual life is certainly finite, short-lived and transient. After all, any person - noble and insignificant - will surely die.

The genius of Derzhavin managed to combine life with death in the joyful sensation of the first and the tragic experience of the latter, and the deceased Prince Meshchersky, with the light hand of the poet, received an eternally joyful life - the poet empathized with his close friend so deeply and passionately. Death is gloomy, inexorable, it is indifferent to the fact that the whole life of the hero of the lines of Derzhavin's ode was festive, filled with beauty and contentment, luxury and bliss. The drama is heightened to the limit by precisely this opposition: it is impossible to respond to the death of Prince Meshchersky with the word "has been exhausted." The conflict itself, unfolding in the ode, is conflicting, as well as the figurative system used by the author.

The conflict embedded in the structure of the ode leads to the understanding that the dialectical essence of the universe is contradictory and cannot be brought to unity with a single human destiny. "Where the table was food - there is a coffin ..." - a verse exceptional in its richness. "On the death of Prince Meshchersky" is an ode to eleven stanzas, where in each line life tries to resist death.

Confrontation

Eight lines of any stanza of this ode necessarily declare the opposition of life and death. This is affirmed at various levels of presentation of poetic material. A figurative row, the construction of syntactic constructions, changes in rhythmic patterns of sound, and so on. Derzhavin very abundantly uses tropes - poetic allegories, which over time, already in the work of his followers, will take shape as an oxymoron. This is a rather complicated trope, but also extremely expressive: "Dead Souls" by Gogol, "Living Corpse" by Tolstoy, "Hot Snow" by Bondarev - the names themselves convey all the ambiguity of experiences, feelings, mental states in the transmission of certain events.

Derzhavin became the founder of this means of expression in the literary language. Absolutely opposite meanings coexist in the same image - this is an oxymoron. Ambiguity, contradictions in everything - not only in every act of a person, in his behavior, but all of life - is only an oxymoron, hence such a high degree of truthfulness in the lines of this ode. An analysis of the poem "On the Death of Prince Meshchersky" clearly shows those principles that will subsequently be developed, improved and will increase the psychological load of the work to the maximum. For example, the phrase: "Today is God, tomorrow is dust." This means the following: let us be born in order to die, and together with life we ​​accept our death. This is the main idea and the most important task performed by Derzhavin in this work.

Prince Alexander Meshchersky

An ode composed by Derzhavin and published anonymously in the Saint Petersburg Bulletin of 1779 made this man famous. The young man was so impressed by these lines that he certainly wanted to get acquainted with the author, and not only him. The city, and subsequently the country, hummed, exchanging delight. Even Pushkin, many years after the publication of this work, was so impressed that he took Derzhavin's line as the epigraph to the chapter of Dubrovsky. After all, it would seem impossible to express thoughts about life and death more concretely and briefly. The whole picture of human existence expands to boundless limits. The lines, aphoristically chased, do not convey almost anything life-descriptive about their lyrical, suddenly deceased hero.

The son of luxury, a prosperous person and the best of health. What was striking was his death for friends, relatives and acquaintances. The ode is usually written about historically significant persons, at least this is prescribed by all the laws of classicism. And here - just a friend of the poet. An ordinary mortal, nothing out of the total number of contemporaries outstanding. This is not Suvorov, not Potemkin, but an ordinary prince. Why did Derzhavin's poem "On the Death of Prince Meshchersky" make such an indelible impression not only on contemporaries, but also on distant descendants? This is also an innovation: at that time, not a single poet showed on such a large scale the omnipotence and community of the laws of the universe through the fate of the most ordinary of people.

Image of death

Death is written out by Derzhavin in all its might - in detail and colorfully. Its image is shown in dynamics - sequentially and deployed. From gnashing of teeth to truncation of oblique days of human life - in the first stanza. From swallowing entire kingdoms and mercilessly smashing everything around - to the second.

Further, the scope takes on cosmic dimensions: the stars are crushed, the suns are dying out, all the worlds are threatened with death. There is also some "grounding" here, so as not to fly into this space irrevocably. Derzhavin switches the reader to understanding of life with a small mocking scene: death looks, smiling, at the kings, at the lush rich, at the proud wise men - and sharpens, sharpens the blade of his scythe.

Leitmotifs

The clarity of division into stanzas does not at all interfere with the smoothness of the narration. For this purpose, Derzhavin placed a whole series of special artistic devices at his service. The stanzas seem to flow into one another (a technique used for the first time in Russian literature so completely and clearly). Concentrating the main idea in the last line of the stanza, the poet repeats it in the first line of the next one, then developing and strengthening it. The thought and image that are repeated throughout the text are called the leitmotif, and Derzhavin took advantage of it. Ode "On the Death of Prince Meshchersky" is precisely why it turned out to be such a harmonious and consistent work. The main leitmotifs were indifferent and impassive death and fleeting, like a dream, life.

metaphysical text

Prince Meshchersky was not given high positions, prominent posts, he did not become famous in any way - neither in the military, nor in the administrative, nor in the artistic department. A man without special talents, with pleasant features of purely Russian hospitality (which, in principle, practically everyone then possessed). The first title that Derzhavin gave to his work referred it to the genre of a poetic message, but not to the canonical ode: "To S. V. Perfilyev, on the death of Alexander Ivanovich Meshchersky." However, the pathos of the true ode, sounding like a bell tocsin, betrayed the genre affiliation from the first stanza: "The verb of the times! Metal ringing!".

And here the metaphysical problem becomes clear. The death of any - even a completely unknown person makes humanity a little less complete, and every living person a little less complete. The death of a friend is shown as an existential event in the streams of amazing poetic revelations. Talking about the death of the prince, Derzhavin clearly compares it with his own. The unity of each person with all mankind - this is the metaphysics of this idea. And at the same time, the ode "On the Death of Prince Meshchersky" speaks of the opposition to death, since with each line it prompts reflection on the meaning of being of a particular person in the general universe, despite its intrepid laws.

Semantic structure

Original metamorphoses await the reader in every verse: the pioneer of Russian poetry for the first time introduced absolutely new categories into literature: high-low, eternal-temporal, particular-general, abstract-concrete. Of course, all this has been known since the time of Aristotle. But only with Derzhavin do these categories cease to sound mutually exclusive, entering into a synthesis.

The odic, elevated, enthusiastic sounding states its most disappointing postulates. Human life and its meaning: only a mortal does not think of dying. Such oxymorons are numerous, and all of them in this ode are tragic, this is how Derzhavin feels them. "On the death of Prince Meshchersky" is an ode that puts the reader in the face of death as the only constant, since any entity tomorrow or in a thousand years, like a baobab, dies anyway.

Reader Warning

The existence of such a constant is doubtful and illusory, because existentially, as it were, does not make sense, and, therefore, the essence is not true if there are no traces left of it in the future. Derzhavin added meaning to the well-fed, but mostly meaningless existence of his acquaintance, with the ode "On the death of Prince Meshchersky."

The analysis of this work was made not only by philologists, but also by philosophers, where all its details are connected with the model of the universe, where there is no self-foundation of the existence of an individual, since individuality is devoid of beingness. However, the inner experience of the poet enters into an argument with inevitability, as if warning the reader that he is on the edge of the abyss, that the chain of transformations will not be interrupted, that everyone and everything will disappear in this cosmic mystery without the slightest trace.

Another Prince Meshchersky

Derzhavin had nothing to do with Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Meshchersky, although his ancestor was honored with an ode to his death. Prince Alexander Ivanovich was a state councilor, served in the customs office. He loved literature and the St. Petersburg English Society (club). The Meshchersky family originated from the Tatar princes of the thirteenth century, in the fourteenth and fifteenth - owned Meshchera, among the representatives of the family there were governors - city and regimental. This and all that is known about the Meshchersky princes, nothing special. But in 1838, Karamzin's grandson, Prince Vladimir Meshchersky, was born, a person not in Derzhavin's odious manner. This is one of the main characters of the social life of Russia in the nineteenth century, a character not only of mind-blowing rumors, but also of obscene anecdotes. He worked a lot, published a magazine (later a newspaper), wrote "Speeches of a Conservative", which were quite famous among his contemporaries.

His father is Guard Lieutenant Colonel Pyotr Meshchersky, his mother is the eldest daughter of the famous historiographer and writer Nikolai Karamzin. Parents are morally beautiful people, enlightened and believing in ideals. The son, in his own words, had both a bad character and a nature. He dreamed about exploits in the name of the Fatherland and about sexual attention from strangers. The literary path was chosen by him by chance. In 1981, he described the emperor's visit to the Potemkins, with whom he was on friendly terms. Soon, Prince Meshchersky was granted the chamber junkership. And work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after which the road to the famous circle formed nearby was opened. And the rapid rise of the prince into the elite of the statehood of Russia began.

The tutor of the heir, Count Stroganov, liked Prince Meshchersky, so the prince’s social circle settled down at sky-high heights - he became a close friend of Tsarevich Nicholas (the same meaning is embedded here, despite the attitude towards the future Russian monarch). was given to Vladimir Meshchersky not as easy as it seems: either Stroganov would call him a "bad courtesan", then they would whisper too loudly and giggle behind his back. However, Meshchersky nevertheless became an adviser for the entire entourage of the heir and for himself. The Tsarevich was seriously ill, and the prince accompanied him to Europe for treatment, for which the head of the internal affairs department, Valuev, called him "intimate at court."

After the death of Nicholas (they talked about suicide on the basis of homosexuality), Meshchersky was given another crown prince, in the future - Alexander III, who had feelings for the prince's cousin. Meshchersky managed to neutralize this attachment of the future monarch by taking fire upon himself, for which the imperial family remained very grateful to him. By this time, the writer's itch began to annoy the prince very much, and with the help of the crown prince, a real stronghold of autocracy was established - the magazine "Citizen". Thanks to excellent heirs, the founder of the journal remained in people's memory. After all, such people as Dostoevsky, Tyutchev, Maikov continued his work. And Meshchersky himself, on the pages of Grazhdanin, mercilessly fought against secular education, the Zemstvo, jury trials, peasant self-government and intellectual Jews. "Sodom prince and citizen of Gomorrah", according to Vladimir Solovyov.

Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky was born on January 14, 1839 in St. Petersburg, and on February 4 of the same year the baby was baptized in the capital's Panteleimon Church. The recipient was the grandmother of the newborn - Ekaterina Andreevna Karamzina (widow of the famous historiographer) 1 .

The family of princes Meshchersky has its roots in the 13th century. The ancestor of the Meshcherskys is considered to be a native of the Great Horde, the Tatar prince Beklemish (baptized Mikhail Bakhmetovich), who owned the Meshchersky region at the beginning of the 14th century. Ancient and numerous, the Meshchersky family, however, did not leave a noticeable trace on the tablets of Russian history. Its representatives did not differ much either on the battlefields, or in the civil service, or in the field of fine arts. Perhaps, the “son of luxury, coolness and bliss” A. I. Meshchersky left the greatest memory in himself, and this was only due to the fact that his death gave Gavrila Derzhavin a reason to write a magnificent poem “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky”.

We can also note P. S. Meshchersky (cousin of Vladimir), who in 1817-1833. served as chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, but his long-term prosecutorship was, according to contemporaries, a period of complete stagnation in business, which was, apparently, a consequence of the Meshchersky family trait: a penchant for “coolness” and “bliss”.

Such an addiction, it seems, did not escape the father of V.P. Meshchersky, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Life Guards Grenadier Regiment Pyotr Ivanovich Meshchersky (1802-1876). If you believe the memoirs of his son, then Pyotr Ivanovich embodied in himself that type of kind patriarchal landowner, benefactor of his serfs, which P.V. Gogol tried to portray in his “Selected passages from correspondence with friends”. Having left the service of his own free will and indulged in private life (a rarity in Nikolaev Russia), Pyotr Ivanovich, referring with irony to the bureaucracy and his fellow officials, used to say: “After all, you are all administrators, govern Russia and dispose of everything in your departments. I am the only person in Petersburg who does not serve; therefore, I alone is subject to all of you ... Have pity on me: after all, there are many of you, and I am alone. Try to be less zealous; maybe then things will go better in Russia” 2 . A critical attitude towards the Russian bureaucratic monster was inherited by his son Vladimir, who made the exposure of the vices of the bureaucracy one of his favorite topics in his literary work.

Vladimir's mother, E. N. Meshcherskaya (1805-1867), a representative of the Karamzin family, belonged to a completely different psychological type. A.F. Tyutcheva wrote about her: “The mind of Princess Ekaterina Nikolaevna was unusually caustic, her character was whole and passionate, as absolute in her sympathies as in her dislikes, in her affirmations as in her denials. For her, there were no transitional shades between love and hate; her palette contained only these two specific colors 3 . The black-and-white perception of reality later became characteristic of Prince V.P. Meshchersky. He also inherited from his mother an extraordinary causticity and passion, sometimes reaching a frenzy. The first was useful to him later as a satirist writer, the second - as a fiery publicist. True, on the other hand, both did a lot of harm to him as a person and as a politician.

The most important circumstance that influenced the formation of the character and way of thinking of Vladimir Meshchersky was the close relationship of his mother with the author of The History of the Russian State. The real “cult of Karamzin”, the cult of “Karamzin’s love for the Tsar” reigned in the Meshchersky family. Subsequently, the prince did not tire of emphasizing that he was the “grandson of Karamzin”, being in full confidence that the charisma of the great grandfather found refuge in him, and his mother served for him as a living embodiment of this mystical connection.

V.P. Meshchersky’s childhood passed in his father’s estate Manuylovo, Yamburgsky district, Petersburg province, and later he remembered life there as an “earthly paradise”. At the age of eight, Vladimir was sent to the School of Jurisprudence, where the most severe Nikolaev discipline, the education of rods and senseless cramming reigned. After the home "earthly paradise" the school seemed to him a "cage". A precocious boy with a lively and sensitive mind was annoyed by pedagogical techniques that required memorizing entire pages of obscure text. “History, for example,” the prince recalled, “I acquired as knowledge only by reading history books at home outside the lessons” 4 .

Nevertheless, this did not prevent him years later from praising the Nikolaev education system, thoroughly saturated with the spirit of militarism, seeing in it a panacea for the nihilism that had seized the youth.

In 1857 Prince Meshchersky left the School of Law and decided to serve in the 5th Department of the Senate. However, the work with papers, which had a choleric temperament, seemed boring and insipid to the young man, and he willingly changed the clerical quiet for the restless service of a police attorney at the investigating bailiff in one of the St. Petersburg districts. The change in service was also explained by a higher material content, which was of no small importance for Meshchersky, since, despite his noble family name, his family had very limited funds.

However, family ties have not lost their former significance. Thanks to his kinship with the most brilliant aristocratic families in Russia - the Vyazemskys, Golitsyns, Chernyshevs, Kleinmichels, etc. 5 - the prince was received from a young age in the best houses of St. Petersburg. The pass to the royal court was the name of Karamzin. In 1861 Meshchersky was appointed chamberlain. Courteous courtesy and sociability soon made the prince a welcome guest at court (according to S. Yu. Witte, “Meshchersky’s receptions were always surprisingly sweet and obsequious”). In the court environment, the prince received the nickname "Vovo" Meshchersky. Especially close "Vovo" got along with the heir to the throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich. As B. N. Chicherin said, “they tried to bring him closer to the Grand Duke due to the fact that of all the St. Petersburg young people of high society, he alone had some intellectual and literary interests” 6 .

Using the patronage of the powerful of this world, Meshchersky in 1861 got into the functionaries of special assignments to the Minister of Internal Affairs P. A. Valuev. In the new place, the prince had to travel a lot around the country on business trips. In 1862 he visited Kargopol

and Arkhangelsk, in 1863 he went to Smolensk to organize a people's militia like in 1812 on the occasion of the Polish uprising. In 1864, Meshchersky examined peasant institutions in the Southwestern Territory, and in the same year Valuev sent him to gain experience in the British Scotland Yard.

From his trips, Meshchersky wrote lengthy letters to his heir Nikolai Alexandrovich, sharing with him his impressions of direct contact with the life of the Russian hinterland. These letters already reflected the well-defined sympathies of the young prince. So, in a letter dated July 23, 1863. Meshchersky admired the “energy” of M. N. Muravyov, with which he “calmed down” the North-Western Territory. In a letter about his stay in Moscow dated November 27 of the same year, the prince informed the crown prince: “I met at dinner with the great Russian man of our time Katkov, with whom I simply fell in love.” He liked I. S. Aksakov much less. “He seized me,” wrote Meshchersky, “when he found out that I was an official of Valuev and I was going to revise the volost institutions, calling it an encroachment of harmful and alien administrative influence on the rights of an independent political life of the Russian people; in many respects we agreed with him in opinions, but in many respects we diverged far, and more than once I looked at him with both eyes, so he seemed to me absurd and strange in his original judgments. The Polish question in his mouth is expressed as an eloquent dilemma, from which nothing comes out except a heavy feeling of incomprehension for those who listen to it! 7.

For the socio-political activities of Meshchersky, subsequently, a tough, in the spirit of Katkov and Muravyov, position on the foreign issue will always be characteristic. Along with this, one of the favorite horses of the prince, and after many decades, will remain arguments about the organic principles of Russian life, suppressed by the alien influences of cosmopolitan Petersburg, about which he and Aksakov discussed in 1863.

Meshchersky's correspondence with Tsarevich Nicholas was interrupted by the latter's sudden death in Nice on April 12, 1865, and Meshchersky hastened to establish close friendly relations with the new Tsarevich, Alexander.

He succeeded in this all the more easily because the 20-year-old Alexander Alexandrovich, who suddenly and unexpectedly became the heir to the All-Russian throne, was completely at a loss for the first weeks after such a sharp turn in his fate. With dozens of abilities and a very mediocre education, he felt his unpreparedness for the duties that now fell on his shoulders and experienced an oppressive fear of the future. “Ah, Vladimir Petrovich,” he complained to Meshchersky. - I only know that I don’t know anything, and I don’t understand anything ... I lived until I was 20 calm and carefree, and suddenly such a burden falls on my shoulders ... Military service, I have to command, I need to learn, I need to read, I need to see people necessary, but where for all this time?” eight .

Meshchersky willingly volunteered to help the heir in his labors and worries. Throughout the 1865/1866 academic year, for classes with professors F.G. Turner (political economy), K.P. Pobedonostsev (state law), S.M. lectures on his notes. References to their joint training are constantly found on the pages of the Tsarevich's diary. So, on February 14, 1866, he noted in his journal: “I read the notes of history compiled by V.P. [Meshchersky] after our readings of Solovyov - they helped me collect everything I read and refreshed everything I needed in my memory ...” May 13, 1866 .: “V.P. came at 10. We read with him Pobedonostsev's notes on the ministries, and then - for Turner on the customs duty; when we got to the theory of free trade, we stopped reading this nonsense and started talking.”

Supporters of the principles of free trade Meshchersky accused of lack of patriotism and servility to the West. Regarding the new customs tariff of 1868, the prince wrote to the heir: “The new tariff

will continue to be a product of the imagination of the Minister of Finance, or rather, a brilliant triumph of our gentlemen free traders - to the ruin of Russian industrialists, but on the other hand to the relief and benefit of foreign, and especially English, commerce and manufacture. What do we have free traders, what is surprising? We have everything you can ask for in the market of our social life; just as there are people, even statesmen, who, out of pleasing the Opinion Nationale and the Journal des Debats, are ready to give half of Russia to Poland in order to be considered educated, so there are the Bezobrazovs, the Lamanskys, the Turners, who are ready to stand on a level with the English politicians. economists, ruin all our factories, if only all of England knew that, they say, they are people of the time, preachers of free trade.

Thanks to such comments, the Tsarevich sometimes took out from classes with professors the exact opposite of what they tried to inspire him. No matter how F. G. Turner interpreted his subject in the classroom with the heir, political economics, passed through the censorship of Prince Meshchersky, formed from the future autocrat not a free trader, but a staunch supporter of protectionism.

In addition to preparing for lectures, Meshchersky came up with another ingenious way of ideological and moral control over the soul of a young heir. On May 29, 1865, the very next day after the burial of Tsarevich Nikolai, Meshchersky presented Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich with a thick leather-bound notebook, accompanying the gift with the following wishes: still hidden, but in a few lines you will daily confess yourself in the most sincere and conscientious manner! in turn, you can read whenever you want! By the memory of your sacred and dear brother, I assure you that everything written by you will remain a secret, open only to God, if you trust me so much that you will initiate me into the secrets of your inner world. The Tsarevich followed Meshchersky's advice, and from that day until the summer of 1866 they met almost daily in the evenings and read their diaries to each other.

This mutual reading and discussion of diaries with Meshchersky, Tsarevich Alexander found very useful for himself. Often they sat up far after midnight, enthusiastically arguing about history and politics, about the present and future of Russia, about God, about love, leaving behind cold tea on the table and a huge number of cigarette butts in the ashtray - as a visible result of intense mental work ... Already on January 4, 1866 . the heir noted in his diary: “In general, I am very pleased with the prince’s invention of reading his journals mutually, because it brought me a lot of benefits” 9.

Meshchersky himself was filled with consciousness of the unparalleled significance of his mission. Karamzin's grandson, following the example of his illustrious grandfather, imagined himself called "to tell the truth to kings with a smile", to educate and instruct the most august persons.

Soon Meshchersky had a convenient opportunity to prove in practice his "loyalty without flattery." The late Tsarevich Nicholas died literally on the eve of his marriage to the Danish princess Dagmar. Alexander II, not wanting to upset the long-chosen and verified dynastic combination, had the intention of marrying his second son to Dagmar. He, however, had his own thoughts on this matter. For several years, Grand Duke Alexander had been in love with the maid of honor of the imperial court, Maria Elimovna Meshcherskaya, cousin of V.P. Meshchersky. In the spring of 1866 his love was so strong that he seriously began to think about a misalliance. At the same time, there was an opportunity to renounce the throne and throw off the burdensome duties and burden of responsibility, which seemed unbearable to the young crown prince.

As confidant of the heir, Meshchersky was aware of these moral conflicts. He disapproved of the secret plans of Alexander Alexandrovich and tried by all means to convince his friend, proving the perniciousness of his relationship with the maid of honor. In a diary for the Tsarevich, for example, Meshchersky wrote in March 1866: “In spring, summer, autumn and winter, she was all, she was the main subject of your thoughts and, of course, your feelings; everything else in the world was absorbed by this feeling ... But then you were least of all able to notice to what extent this feeling alienated you from everything that, according to the duty of your oath, should be closest and most permanently inherent in your life.

Self-willed love, Meshchersky believed, contradicts the duty of the Tsarevich to Russia and the Russian people, for the benefit of which he is obliged to direct all his thoughts. However, the arguments of reason had little effect on the passionate feeling that gripped the heir.

When Alexander II became aware of his son's intentions, a thunderstorm broke out. The emperor called for the heir and in a strict form demanded that he immediately go to Denmark to woo Princess Dagmar. The sovereign did not even want to hear about the abdication of the throne, declaring that he, too, was not "out of his own desire in this place." The Tsarevich had no choice but to obey the royal command.

However, the heir did not have to regret later on such a turn of events. His marriage with the Danish princess turned out to be extremely happy, Dagmara (in Orthodoxy - Maria Feodorovna) became a loving wife and devoted friend of Alexander III. Without much effort, he resigned himself to the need to accept the royal crown in the future ... Such a successful outcome of a painful emotional drama could not help but fill the heir with a sense of gratitude, in particular, to Prince Meshchersky, who helped him make the right choice. A few years later, summing up that turning point in his life, Tsarevich Alexander wrote to Meshchersky (April 20, 1868): “I, just like you, look at all the changes that have occurred recently, as a blessing of God and even a miracle!.. Yes, Vladimir Petrovich, we experienced a lot with you, and you saw, I am quite sure, all the terrible struggle that took place in my soul, and all this storm of passions, which at one time completely took possession of me, but the Lord helped get out of it, and I constantly thank Him for this help, which I really needed.

Using the location and full confidence of the heir. Meshchersky firmly took over his preparation for the upcoming reign. Since 1866, Tsesarevich Alexander attended meetings of the State Council, took part in the work of some committees: the Polish, Caucasian, and others. However, Meshchersky considered such activities unproductive. To get acquainted with Russia, in his opinion, should not be based on bureaucratic papers and metropolitan bureaucratic fuss, but on the basis of impressions from living reality, seen with one's own eyes. Therefore, he urged the heir, firstly, to travel around Russian cities and villages as much as possible, and secondly, to communicate directly with various people from the provinces. The heir, who also had a prejudice against "bureaucratic" Petersburg, willingly agreed with these thoughts, but was too heavy to lift and left the capital infrequently.

Meshchersky turned out to be indispensable here too. In 1868-1869. On the instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prince made a trip to the European part of Russia in order to examine the state of the administrative apparatus in the field. He visited several provinces of the Southwestern and Northwestern regions. Meshchersky described in detail his thoughts and impressions from what he saw in correspondence with the Tsarevich. These reports served for Tsarevich Alexander as one of the main sources of information about the situation on the western outskirts of Russia. On April 6, 1869, he wrote in his diary: “I received a letter from Vilna from Meshchersky on 9 sheets of 35 pages. The letter is very

interesting and well written; I read with pleasure and completely almost assimilated the situation of the present tense in this region.

This letter of Meshchersky contained a whole program of Russification of the western outskirts of Russia, the main postulates of which would later find application in the national policy of the reign of Alexander III. “The Russian government still, as if, does not dare to recognize the Western Territory as its inalienable, Russian, property of the Russian Land,” wrote Meshchersky from Vilna, “and almost everything that Karamzin wrote in his famous note to Alexander 1, maybe 40 years later, today, to be said to the Russian government, as if in reproach to its indecision, its fear of setting a firm foot on the soil, soaked so many times with Russian blood and Russian labor sweat. It goes without saying that, as a result of this, the most important question here is not the question of the struggle of the Russian element with the Polish one, but of the destruction of the latter to the root.

Meshchersky attached decisive importance in the “Russification” of the outskirts to strong Russian power, without which all other levers would be ineffective: “Here, a state of siege for every Russian element: the Poles are still guarding the moment when the government recognizes the region as pacified, falls asleep and proclaims the principle of a common the operation of laws; not a single Pole laid down his arms, not a single fanatical flame was extinguished, not a single Polish force was weakened: everything is waiting and everything is awake. Hence, there is only one conclusion: the Russian administration in this region must sacrifice legality for Russian interests, must vigilantly and every minute follow every movement of the Pole and inexorably, blow after blow, pursue one task: the destruction of this element not by the power of the bayonet, but by the power of the Russian mind, Russian will , Russian thought, clothed in dictatorship”.

Meshchersky was generally skeptical about the possibility of “Russification” of the outskirts through slow and gradual natural assimilation, without the active assistance of the central and local Russian authorities. In the letters of 1869 about the South-Western Territory, he regretfully stated the impotence of "society", "the absence of Russian strength, moral, intellectual, industrial and commercial." “Mental life is in the minds of the Polish landowners, material life is in the hands of the Jews!..” Meshchersky complained to the Tsarevich. “There is no support for the Russian principle, which is being strengthened and firmly established by one administration with its limited means, cosmopolitan tendencies and purely superficial bureaucratic methods” 10 .

Prince Meshchersky considered the government of Alexander II unable to cope with either internal transformations or external threats due to its cosmopolitanism, and Alexander Alexandrovich fully shared his friend's opinion.

P. A. Valuev and P. A. Shuvalov served as the personification of “Petersburg cosmopolitanism” for the heir and Prince Meshchersky in the 1860s and 1870s. In their opinion, it was thanks to the intrigues and intrigues of these two dignitaries that “Russian interests” were trampled on the outskirts, and inside Russia the reforms were distorted in every possible way and, instead of strengthening the national Russian principle, led to the spread of an alien, Westernizing spirit. The fight against the "Shuvalov party" was for a long time at the center of cooperation between Meshchersky and the heir. At the beginning of 1868 they managed to achieve serious success in this struggle. When famine struck some of the northern provinces of Russia in January, the heir, following the advice of Prince Meshchersky, decided to establish and head the Committee for Assistance to the Starving. On behalf of the Tsarevich, Meshchersky announced in the "Russian invalid" about the collection of donations. Meanwhile, the Tsarevich himself persuaded the Tsar to give the Committee 1 million rubles. for the prompt purchase of bread, but at the same time the fact of issuing money was kept in the strictest confidence so as not to cause a speculative price increase.

The appeal for help to the starving met with a lively response in society. Every day, the Committee received tens of thousands of rubles, so that after

for several weeks the crown prince was able to return the loan he had taken, and this whole clever combination did not have time to receive wide publicity. The Ministry of the Interior, which according to the state was supposed to deal with the elimination of the consequences of any natural disasters, against the background of such promptness, looked the most pitiful and clumsy way. Interior Minister Valuev flew off his seat, to the deep satisfaction of the heir and Meshchersky.

The struggle of the heir and Meshchersky with Valuev and Shuvalov cannot be considered only a banal swarm of palace groups. This struggle was based on fundamental differences. "Shuvalov's party" of courtiers and bureaucrats Meshchersky opposed a certain "national party". To this party belonged, in his opinion, people who came out of the bowels of Russia, to whom the great reforms gave freedom and scope for activity. “The peasant reform,” Meshchersky argued in a letter to the Tsarevich on June 1, 1871, “has put 50 million free, thinking people on their feet, who from day to day came with rights. The zemstvo reform introduced these 50 million into the state sphere, that is, it opened up to them a whole world in which they learn what they have the right to demand from the authorities for their well-being ... The judicial reform connected autocratic power with the essence of the reform and those new concepts of court and the right to trial , which are now inherent in every bean, every cab driver. Such was the lawful, calm process by means of which the State Power could not but lose part of its unlimited, individual and always heavy arbitrariness. It was the greatest social revolution, which has no equal in the history of the world.”

Zemstvo self-government seemed to Meshchersky in the 1860s to be the means that would finally ensure the promotion to the forefront of the political life of Russia of truly Russian, soil forces, stifled and trampled by the St. Petersburg "cosmopolitans". The democratic and liberal content of the zemstvo reform received a Slavophile, anti-Western coloring from Meshchersky: “Zemstvo,” he wrote to his heir on October 16, 1868 from Kharkov, “in my opinion, is higher than all the reforms of the reign, after the peasant one; it cannot be compared with any, from Petrovsky to our time, in its significance in the present and for the future, for it had the good fortune to be from the very beginning a purely Russian reform, not mixed with any Western political impurities, but by that very akin to Russia in all its layers and spheres; the peasant, as well as the citizen with the highest education, are equally accessible to the zemstvo, just as the zemstvo is equally accessible to the peasant as to the boyar and the priest.

The peculiar constitutionalism of Meshchersky, who dreamed of “such a constitution, where the representatives of the people’s feelings and needs would not be Mr. at the same time with Freedom, firm respect for the Law, Order and Supreme Power!

Meshchersky pinned great hopes on the zemstvo raznochintsy "democracy" born of the reforms in the struggle against the aristocratic "party of Shuvalov and Co. “They,” Meshchersky wrote to his heir about the “Shuvalov party,” “enemies of the reform on principle, because they see in it some kind of Russian cause, they hear free and independent judgments about it, as a result of it they come across people who recognize it as a rule to avoid the Court and, on the contrary, to look for a social field, in a word, they see the reform in its results, in the picture of the gradual liberation of society from the yoke of old prejudices and in the gradual expansion of the mental horizons of the mass of thinking people.

After April 4, 1866, Shuvalov, as Meshchersky believed, managed to convince the emperor "that it was not a madman who shot at him, but that Russia and its national party were shooting." As a result of this, according to the prince, “many of the adherents of order and Power, forced to choose between the Fatherland and the Power that goes against it, without hesitation

choose the Fatherland and from day to day become - the enemies of the Government. Thus, Meshchersky regarded his disagreements with the authorities as very serious. He even compared these discrepancies with "the sad story of December 14, which mowed down the entire flower of Russian mental strength" 11 .

In an effort to bring together the “flower of Russian mental strength”, that is, the most prominent representatives of the cultural and administrative elite, opposed to Shuvalov’s course, in order to use them to create a spiritually and intellectually rich atmosphere around the future autocrat and, perhaps, to sketch a certain sketch, a prototype of the “national government”, the enterprising prince, as he writes in his memoirs, “offered the crown prince to arrange in his honor small conversations over a cup of tea with people who were sympathetic to him and between whom a lively conversation about issues of Russian life could be entertaining for him. The Tsarevich accepted this offer with pleasure and carefully honored these modest meetings with his presence ... The interlocutors were: K.P. Pobedonostsev, Prince S.N. Urusov, Prince Dm. A. Obolensky, Prince V. A. Cherkassky, Count A. K. Tolstoy, N. A. Kachalov, [G. P.] Galagan; [M. N.] Katkov and [I. S.] Aksakov, when they were in Petersburg.”

S. M. Solovyov, P. N. Batyushkov, S. D. Sheremetev, B. A. Perovsky, writer B. M. Markovich, professor of Moscow University I. K. Babst and others should be added to this list of visitors to the Meshchersky salon. Continuing for several seasons, these meetings were especially frequent, crowded and lively in the winter of 1869/1870. The topics of the conversations were very diverse: the most general ideological and political issues were discussed, and the situation in certain regions of the country, and trends in world politics, and literary novelties that attracted the attention of societies, and sensational theatrical performances ... Gathering at the apartment of the prince , the guests drank tea, smoked cigarettes, lingering in conversations and disputes far after midnight. The most violent clashes arose on issues of foreign policy, where A. K. Tolstoy, who sharply criticized the “Russification” of the outskirts, acted as an irritant for the nationalist-minded majority of the Meshchersky salon regulars.

The participation of the heir in meetings of persons, many of whom had a reputation as oppositionists, caused the highest displeasure. Prince Meshchersky was summoned to Shuvalov in the III Branch. During the conversation, the chief of the gendarmes expressed an unequivocal threat against “people who want to make the head of a political Russian party out of the crown prince at any cost” 12 .

Pressure from above forced the heir to refuse to attend meetings with Meshchersky, and soon completely break off all relations with the prince. This gap was explained to a large extent by some negative character traits of the prince (first of all, importunity that irritated the heir), as well as by the intrigues of Alexander Alexandrovich's inner circle 13 .

Nevertheless, the closure of Meshchersky's salon did not stop the prince's influence on the heir to the throne. Correspondence between them did not stop, and the prince continued to regularly supply Tsarevich Alexander with ready-made views on various burning topics. In addition, excommunicated from direct communication with the future sovereign, Meshchersky found another way to maintain a significant share of his participation in preparing him for the reign. “Already two years ago,” the prince wrote to his heir in 1871, “in my head there was an idea about a journal, with your help, in order to convene under the honest Russian banner all divided people who think the same way, and create an organ worthy of the great tasks of the present time … With this magazine, I guarantee, if God permits, two goals will be achieved: 1) the unification of the Russian camp, and 2) you yourself will at all times have before your eyes true and interesting interpretations of Russian needs and needs and will be able to learn to know Russia.

“There will be no trend in the magazine,” Meshchersky promised. “Cosmopolitanism alone will be expelled, that is, the direction of Vesti and Novoye Vremya… Another purpose of the journal is to be a permanent organ of the Zemstvo, that is, to publish short but complete reviews of everything that the Zemstvo has worked out on each issue, separately by provinces” 14 .

The heir, although he sympathized with Meshchersky's idea, however, did not take the liberty of giving the 80 thousand rubles requested by the prince. on the organization of the publication due to the categorical prohibition of Alexander II to interfere in such enterprises. Then Meshchersky decided to turn to Moscow to wealthy merchants who had previously financed the publication of I. S. Aksakov's newspapers, promising to found in the northern capital "a solid and strong corner of Moscow." “The goal, or the main idea of ​​the newspaper,” wrote Prince V. F. Chizhov on February 16, 1871, “is a firm, dexterous and cautious (unconditionally) fight against the cosmopolitanism of St. Petersburg in all its manifestations and on all vital issues in Russia. To prove and constantly prove that Russia and Russians are capable of self-activity, that there is life inside Russia and that it is fruitful, to give place to every honest voice in defense of this or that local need, to investigate all public questions accurately and conscientiously, to encourage every good Russian deed, “That's what we want when we start the newspaper.”

The answer that came from Moscow, however, revealed significant differences in views with the Moscow Slavophiles, whose like-minded people Meshchersky sincerely considered himself. “We have little faith in the literary activities of St. Petersburg,” Chizhov answered him, “and therefore it is difficult to find so much sympathy for her here that anyone would even dare to help her financially ... We do not quite agree with you regarding the Germans. It is true that we do not feel any special favor for them, but we consider it as unlawful to crush and oppress them, as it is to crush and oppress everyone. It seems to us that we are not at all so weak and insignificant as to give ourselves strength by the pressure of someone else. We are here of such a conviction that if we ourselves were Russians, real true Russians, everything else will fall into place on its own.”

Thus, representatives of the national bourgeoisie did not recognize in Meshchersky a figure close enough to them and capable of becoming a mouthpiece for their interests.

Despite these failures, Meshchersky began publishing Grazhdanin in January 1872 with the money borrowed against the bill. In the spring of 1873, when the payment deadline came, the prince again turned to the heir with a request for assistance, hinting that the refusal would lay the blame on him for the death of the patriotic organ, which had managed to gain authority among “all honest people”. However, this time too the heir evaded participation, and at the end of March 1873 Meshchersky was forced to urgently go to Moscow and ask for money from Katkov, which, apparently, he received, since the publication of Grazhdanin was not interrupted.

As for the degree of distribution of the "Citizen", it has never been particularly high. In 1872 "Citizen" had 1600 subscribers. During the editorial period of F. M. Dostoevsky (1873-1874) - about 2.5 thousand. In 1878, Grazhdanin's subscription increased to 5,000. The growth of interest was due to the Russian-Turkish war and was then reflected in the circulation of all newspapers. However, at the end of 1878, Meshchersky's journal was closed after several warnings caused by Grazhdanin's chauvinistic attacks on the government's foreign policy and the publication of I. S. Aksakov's famous speech on the Berlin Congress. After the resumption of publication in 1882, the previous record number of subscribers of 5,000 was reached by Grazhdanin only in 1894, and even then thanks to a huge government subsidy; up to 1,000 issues were distributed daily at retail. After the death of Alexander III, circulation fell sharply. In 1903, it amounted to only 2 thousand copies and hardly rose higher until the publication of the journal was discontinued in 1914. Among the readers of Grazhdanin, provincial officials, the local nobility,

parish clergy and the military in the staff officer ranks. “In the provinces, the statistics of subscribers by class is as follows,” Meshchersky reported to Alexander III in January 1885, “most of all: 1) the clergy, 2) the nobility. Least of all: 1) zemstvo councils, and 2) the judicial department” 16 . Meshchersky's magazine was not popular in the capitals.

The beginning of the publication of Grazhdanin was marked by a sensation caused by Meshchersky's editorial "Forward or Back?" (N 2 for 1872) In it, summing up the post-reform decade, the prince gave a positive assessment of the changes that had taken place, although he emphasized that "Russia is a state liberated from top to bottom." However, since the country has not yet had time to digest numerous innovations, it is time to give it a break. “To the main reforms,” Meshchersky concluded, “it is necessary to put an end to it, because a pause is needed to let life take shape ... Feverishly jumping forward create stubbornly pulling back: both of them are outside the truth, outside of Russia. Russia needs a reasonable middle ground.”

The liberal press saw nothing in the debut of The Citizen but a vicious outburst of reactionaries and feudal lords dreaming of a revision of the liberation reforms of the 1860s. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin cruelly ridiculed Meshchersky, deducing him under the name of Prince Oboldui-Tarakanov in the “Diary of a Provincial” (“Notes of the Fatherland”, No. 2 for 1872). Not expecting such a cold reception, Meshchersky was forced to justify himself and explain that under the “basic reforms” that should have been postponed to the future, he meant only the establishment of a central representative body, but not any transformations in general. However, these justifications did not change the negative attitude towards the “citizen” in the periodical press. Most of Meshchersky's opponents, agreeing with him that the reforms did not give the expected effect, unlike the prince, they saw the way out not in a “pause” (“to let life develop”), but in the unceasing continuation of “basic reforms”, in the "crowning of the building". But such a discrepancy by no means testified to the "reactionary" nature of the prince, for which he hastened to accuse him. This was keenly caught by F. I. Tyutchev, who wrote to Meshchersky on March 3, 1872: “I continue to study with curiosity the deeply personal attitude of our journalism towards you. All, both those and others, good and bad, adhere to the same tone. It shows a certain annoyance that your position gives you the opportunity to be a sincere and serious liberal without the slightest revolutionary leaven. This is something the best of your press brethren do not forgive you” 17 .

In the early 1870s, Meshchersky had good reason to raise the question of the prospects for Russian reforms before society. He was driven to this not only by the difficult internal political situation, but also by the turbulent European events of those years: the Franco-Prussian war, the lightning-fast defeat of the Napoleonic empire. The Paris Commune… In the mentioned article “Forward or backward?” Meshchersky wrote: “Before our eyes, moving forward from one false movement to another, France finally came to her death: in the corrupted mass of educated people ... there was not a single person who would understand that shouting “forward and forward” is not yet feat of civic courage. Therefore, the prince called for taking Prussia as an example, "where everyone understood that being a citizen does not mean shouting about freedom, but it means freely participating in the correct movement of one's people forward." Proceeding from this, Meshchersky interpreted the very name of his magazine: “Not in the French vulgarized and exhausted “citoyen” one should look for an explanation of the concept of “Citizen”, but in the English and German Burger.” Only the formation of the middle class, the class of "burghers", according to Meshchersky, could give stability to the process of modernizing the country. Otherwise, the reforms were in danger of becoming a superficial and alien phenomenon.

On the other hand, one had to take into account the fact that the formation of the German Empire dramatically changed the balance of power in Europe, leaving Russia face to face with a powerful militaristic state that did not hide

the shaft of their aggressive aspirations to the East. The threat to the western borders from the side of the united Germany, the failure of the outlying policy of "appeasement" of the Poles and the Baltic Sea - all these problems, in the eyes of Meshchersky, gradually pushed the continuation of reforms into the background and even opposed them. This shift in emphasis happened all the more naturally because, even before, anti-Western pathos prevailed in the prince's approval of the liberation reforms. “Do you remember that time,” Meshchersky wrote to Tsarevich Alexander in October 1872, “when, talking about Russia, we dreamed that you would mark your reign with something like a constitution! Since then, many years have passed ... Now, speaking as if before God alone, I will say this: God save you to start your reign with some capital act like a constitution. Then you and everything will perish!.. The beginning of your reign, God forbid, that it be only a preparation for constitutional reform, that is, the establishment of internal order and firmness in all previous reforms. You have to, - Meshchersky urged, - resolve all disputes between Russian and non-Russian forever in the outskirts of our unfortunate fatherland! This, more than any constitution, will attract you the love and help of Russia, and will strengthen and develop Russia along with your throne. This is not a difficult matter, one has only to introduce the uniformity of laws everywhere, and there will be people for this; and only when all the glorious reforms of the past have been approved, when the zemstvos and the courts have been restored, when the zemstvos have gained real economic power, when all national questions have been firmly and steadily resolved in favor of Russia, only then will it be possible for you to begin to convene representatives of the entire state for discussion question of state reform. Without her, you can start and reign for a long time, but to start with her means to ruin the reign!

Meshchersky considered the solution of the national question in Russia (in the Russified sense) to be the main and primary task of the future reign, without which, in his opinion, all other problems could not find a positive solution for the state. The foreign policy component of Meshchersky’s program offered mechanisms for neutralizing the German threat: “From the war with Prussia,” he explained to Alexander Alexandrovich in a letter dated September 4, 1872, “stay away, as if from a great misfortune, but at the same time firmly introduce general laws into the Ostsee edge; to assure Prussia of friendship, not to let a single Prussian into the border provinces, but you are welcome to the internal ones, to Yaroslavl and Kaluga; send agents to study East Prussia, to resolve the Polish question vigorously; and keep talking and repeating everything about unchanging friendship for Prussia. Here, it seems, is your program of action for the future, that program which, as far as it seems, can only make you the strong assistance of intelligent Russian people and the sympathy of all of Russia” 18 .

In 1876 Meshchersky published a programmatic book, Speeches of a Conservative, in which many poisonous arrows were fired in the direction of the “false liberalism” of the 1860s. However, then the prince did not yet deny the legitimacy of the most liberal way of thinking, condemning only "excesses", the desire to artificially force the process of transformation. The failure of the reforms, in his opinion, was explained by the absence of a deterrent, moderating the radicalism of the reformers. Only such a force is capable of making the reforms organic, allowing them to take root and take root in Russian soil. Meshchersky saw such “soil” strength in the local nobility, in the class of landowners, who, due to their closeness to the people, could better understand and take into account their true, and not invented by St. Petersburg bureaucrats and journalists, needs. “It is very likely,” Meshchersky believed, “that if instead of bureaucracy and the newspaper press, the Russian nobility would be the leaders of the social movement in the spirit of freedom ahead ... then from the very first minute, regardless of the form of our government, then the very balance between the forward strivings of Western progress and between the protective movement of purely Russian national and state institutions, headed by

our church, and to which our family belongs; and once this equilibrium had been established, it would not be difficult, in carrying out further reforms, to maintain it. All society would live in the spirit, so to speak, of this correct, calm and inevitable struggle, the struggle of the beginnings of progress and its new freedom with the beginnings of the old life, which for every people is also freedom, and a very precious freedom, the freedom of its spirit, its traditions, his ideals, his beliefs, etc., in a word, the struggle is exactly the same as it is under parliamentarism in England” 19 .

Meshchersky's position in "Speeches of a Conservative" looks rather moderate, rather even moderately liberal (with references to English parliamentarism), rather than conservative. However, the very principle of liberal-conservative “equilibrium” put forward by him predetermined the instability of this position. In the second half of the 1870s, with the radicalization of public sentiment, the growth of the revolutionary struggle against the autocracy, Meshchersky, in accordance with his theory, had to “rule” more and more, turning from a moderate liberal (at the beginning of the decade) into a conservative, and then into a reactionary. The conservative evolution of Meshchersky was also facilitated by the fact that by the end of the 1870s, the prince despaired of waiting for the Russian “burgher” to enter the political scene, who could become a guarantor of sustainable development, and turned his eyes exclusively to the nobility, seeing in him the only bulwark of public order. If there was any sense in the latter, then the hope that the nobility would be able to play the role of "leader of the movement in the spirit of freedom" turned out to be futile. By linking himself politically with the landlord class, Meshchersky was to experience the consequences of this step.

During the crisis of autocracy 1879-1881. the prince completely abandoned the previous positive assessment of the “great reforms”. The new institutions (courts, zemstvos, etc.) turned out to be not the embryos of some special “purely Russian” political system, as Meshchersky once hoped, but ordinary elements of civil society, not much different from their Western counterparts and prototypes. During the years of the Narodnaya Volya terror, instead of unconditionally supporting the government in the fight against "sedition", they, from the point of view of the prince, themselves became sources of unrest. In 1880 Meshchersky in his book “On Modern Russia” publicly declared the Zemstvo reform, which he had never tired of admiring before, a “comedy”. In the same book, the prince will sing of Nicholas I, arguing that during his reign "Russia was brought almost to the ideal of its historical purpose and existence." “This ideal of Russia,” Meshchersky assured, “is her autocracy.”20 He developed the same idea in the brochure “What do we need? Reflections on Current Events”, dedicated to the establishment of the Supreme Administrative Commission in February 1880. “Crazy liberals,” Meshchersky wrote, “expect from Count. Loris-Melikov new concessions to them, new flirting with them, new currying favor with them, new liberal measures to please them... Russia expects something else from him. She doesn't need any action. She needs one thing: she is waiting for calm and peace under the strong, firm and honest authority of the Sovereign Anointed of God of the Russian Tsar” 21 . To succeed, the prince believed, Loris-Melikov should have imitated M. N. Muravyov and his methods of combating sedition. Meshchersky sent his pamphlet to the "dictator" with a request to pay attention to his advice. During a personal meeting, the prince tried to convince Loris: “Now a firm hand is needed to establish order; first of all, strong power, and everything else after” 22 . However, Meshchersky was disappointed: Loris-Melikov decided to combine the “wolf mouth” with the “fox tail”. This, according to the prince, was a mistake that led to the disaster on March 1, 1881. Meshchersky laid the main blame for this catastrophe on “Petersburg”, personified by liberal bureaucrats, cosmopolitans from the high society and representatives of the “advanced” press, who seized Loris-Melikov and, with their influence, ruined the cause of the “dictatorship”.

The satirical depiction of "Petersburg", this privileged, but "groundless", anti-national milieu, was the subject of numerous novels by the prince, which were a resounding success in the 1870s 23 . The greatest popularity fell on Meshchersky's first novel, One of Our Bismarcks (The Citizen, 1873-1874), and the greatest scandal was associated with its continuation - the "fantastic" novel Count Obezyaninov in a New Place (1879).

Censorship did not allow Obezyaninov to be published for a long time, and not without reason, since even before its publication, the book managed to make a lot of noise. Against the usual, in addition to "Petersburg", it also got "Moscow". Referring to his wife, who had read the novel in manuscript, Pobedonostsev wrote to E.F. Tyutcheva (September 21, 1879): “According to her, not only should the book be destroyed, but the author should also be ostracized… would be in Moscow. - At the request of Count Obezyaninov, he is sent from Moscow a description of all persons known in society during the Slavic movement, and then these persons are taken out as active and put into their mouths their original speeches and expressions that the author heard ... Here is Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov], and Anna Fedorovna with all her sayings, and m-me Durnovo, and O. Novikova, and everything. My wife was especially outraged by the description of our good Countess Bludova - in her room, with her speeches, even with those stories about dreams and visions that she secretly conveyed with tears. Judge the indelicacy of the author: he draws Alexander Kireev

and talks about his declarations of love and plans to marry between the figures of the mazurka, about his activities in the Committee on Old Catholics and that he travels abroad on the account of the Committee under the pretext of commissions! This is what a dishonest pen can write to!” 24.

Among the reading public, Meshchersky's novels were a success akin to that which Khlestakov's letter to "Tryapichkin's soul" had in the county town of N. A vivid illustration of this is a rather curious story recorded from the words of Meshchersky himself in the diary of A. V. Bogdanovich. “When he brought out the type of Count Obezyaninov in his novel One of Our Bismarcks,” says Bogdanovich, “he met P. N. Durnovo at one meeting, who asked him if he painted portraits or types. The prince replied that he did not write portraits, but types. Then Durnovo said that Count Obezyaninov was a portrait of Levashov. Then at lunch we meet Meshchersky with Levashov (country N.V.), who holds out his hand to him with the words: “You have beautifully described P.N. Durnovo in your Obezyaninov” 25 .

Meshchersky was distinguished by exceptional literary fertility, the flip side of which was superficiality. F. M. Dostoevsky, who knew the prince closely, reproached him for “writing his novels on the fly, that is, not processing the ideological and not finishing their literary and technical side.” “You can’t write like that,” Dostoevsky thought. “Now he is still in fashion, that’s why he is holding on ... He will last another five or six years, and then they will forget him ... And it will be a pity, because he had an undoubted talent.” And indeed, Meshchersky's numerous novels did not outlive their author. The prince's journalism also suffered from similar shortcomings, sometimes causing irritation even among like-minded people. For example, N. S. Leskov, who collaborated in Grazhdanin, wrote to I. S. Aksakov about Meshchersky in March 1875: “This is just some kind of literary Ahasuerus: the one said “go”, and this one: “write”, and he writes, and for what he does not undertake, he vulgarizes everything. The most amazing thing is that with his intercession for power, you want to feel like a rebel, with his singing of love you think of something else, even with his intercession for faith and the church, I lose patience and speak almost insane speeches in the taste of atheism and unbelief. I agree with you that it would not be bad for him to “forbid” writing; but even better - can't he be persuaded to do this honorably: can't you bring him an address about this? 26 .

After the accession of Alexander III, Meshchersky for some time remained in the shadow of the then all-powerful Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod. In anticipation of his time, the prince voluntarily became a client of Pobedenostsev: he sent him proofreading of The Citizen for censorship, and accepted valuable instructions for execution. It was on the pages of "The Citizen" in May 1882. Pobedonostsev came across the name of D. A. Tolstoy, whom Meshchersky proposed to replace N. P. Ignatiev, who had discredited himself by playing Zemsky Sobor. The chief prosecutor liked the idea expressed by Meshchersky so much that he seized on it and used all his influence to convince the tsar to appoint Tolstoy as Minister of the Interior 28 . This participation of Meshchersky in the appointment, which Alexander III soon recognized as extremely successful, apparently played an important role in the return of the tsar's favor to the prince.

Tolstoy also did not forget the service rendered by the prince. Meshchersky's journal began to receive state subsidies. The amount of this subsidy in 1885 was 3 thousand rubles, monthly issued to the prince from the funds of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by Comrade Minister I. N. Durnovo.

In addition to The Citizen, which came out twice a week. Meshchersky since 1884. regularly passed through trusted persons to the tsar a special handwritten “Diary”, in which he placed “thoughts, and rumors, and rumors, and gossip,” which, for censorship reasons, did not appear on the pages of the “Citizen”. The most frequently touched upon topic in this "Diary" of Meshchersky immediately became the situation in the Ministry of Finance. The severe consequences of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. and the economic crisis of the first half of the 1880s doomed the Russian budget to a chronic deficit, which

the department of N. X. Bunge did not manage to overcome it. Meshchersky, however, saw in this the evil will of the closest associates of the liberal minister of finance. First of all, the director of the Salary Department A. A. Richter, the vice director of the same Department V. I. Kovalevsky, the manager of the Peasant and Noble Banks E. E. Kartavtsev, whom the prince called either “red”, or “ dynamites and anarchists." In the economic course pursued by Bunge and his assistants, according to Meshchersky, one could guess “undoubted attempts to lead the policy of finance to such an acute situation that, pointing to it, one could say: yes, one salvation is in the constitution!”. Therefore, in the change of leadership of the financial department, Meshchersky saw “the only sure way to save our Sovereign from that accursed political conspiracy, which is actively carried out under the cover of the good-natured Bunge in the Ministry of Finance, where several people want to bring the Sovereign through bankruptcy and riots to force him to renounce Autocracy".

Since December 1885, the prince in his “secret” diaries persistently suggested that the tsar appoint Ivan Alekseevich Vyshnegradsky instead of N. Kh. Bunge.

Alexander III apparently agreed with the views of Prince Meshchersky. April 1886. Vyshnegradsky was appointed a member of the State Council by tsar's decree, and on January 1, 1887, he was appointed Minister of Finance. “His plan is simple,” Meshchersky wrote to Alexander III, outlining Vyshnegradsky’s program, “to survive two, three, four months of the crisis while the battle lasts, and then go to the goal: to untie Russia from Berlin and allow the mighty Russian state to be just as free in its economic life, as the Russian Sovereign makes it politically free and independent of Europe ... This is the historical importance of the moment we are now experiencing. The child will understand that if Vyshnegradsky threatened even the slightest harm to Russia and undertook something stupid or erroneous, he would find, as Bunge found, sympathy and assistance and simply complete support in Berlin. But by the strength of the anger and hatred for Vyshnegradsky that suddenly gripped all of official Germany, it is clear as day that he is approaching Germany’s sore spot and she senses that he is going to engage in a mortal battle with the Berlin kings of the exchange, the battle of Ruslan with Chernomor, to free Lyudmila - that is, Russian economic life, from the seductions and accursed charms of Chernomor.

Obviously, the conceptual, political part of this program belonged entirely to Prince Meshchersky, and Vyshnegradsky was assigned only the role of a technical performer. The latter, as promised to the Tsar by Meshchersky, really managed to overcome the budget deficit, revive the domestic market and destroy the humiliating dependence of the Russian government on the Berlin Jewish capitalists (which, however, did not prevent him from soon falling into the clutches of the Parisian capitalists). All this prompted Alexander III to believe in the lucky star of Prince Meshchersky and listen to his advice even more sensitively.

Such an incredible success of Meshchersky, as the appointment of his own man to a key post in the government, caused extreme irritation not only among the liberal bureaucrats, but also among K. P. Pobedonostsev. In the first half of the 1880s, the undivided influence of the Chief Prosecutor allowed him to appoint his nominees to the most important government posts: M. N. Ostrovsky - Minister of State Property in 1881, I. D. Delyanova - Minister of Education in 1882, E M. Feoktistova - head of the Main Department for Press in 1883, N. A. Manaseina - Minister of Justice in 1885. However, the appointment of Vyshnegradsky, in addition to any participation of the head of the Synod, clearly marked the beginning of the decline of the era of Pobedonostsev. “What can I do now, I can’t do anything, now people are appointed according to the “Citizen”!” - complained Pobedonostsev.

Even more serious damage was suffered by the Pobedonostsev group in the summer of 1887 with the death of M. N. Katkov, whose Moskovskie Vedomosti always provided powerful information support to this group. The death of Katkov (as well as I. S. Aksakov, who died even earlier, in January 1886) gave the editor of Grazhdanin a monopoly in conservative journalism. “Katkov is no longer there,” Meshchersky stated in a letter to the tsar, “of those known for my devotion to the government and conservative principles, I am the only one left.” At the same time, Meshchersky started an intrigue with the aim of taking possession of Moskovskie Vedomosti as well. The struggle for the “Katkovo inheritance” became the reason for the scandal raised in July 1887 by the efforts of the Pobedonostsev clique around the strange relationship between Prince Meshchersky and a certain bugler of one of the guards regiments. Meshchersky was accused of sodomy. The prince himself resolutely rejected such slanders, and, in turn, in a letter to the tsar, he exposed his opponents: Ostrovsky wife and cohabitation three together, provided that for this Feoktistov enjoys the favors of Ostrovsky. In my opinion, there is no abomination in the world more vile than this, and so what? The same Pobedonostsev, who knows perfectly well that my summer story is slander and lies ... slanders me with this slander and confuses you, and right there, knowing everything about Feoktistov, finds it consistent with your interests to support Feoktistov’s deal with Petrovsky ”29.

The "war of compromising evidence" did not formally bring decisive success to either side. S. A. Petrovsky, a protege of Delyanov and Pobedonostsev, was appointed editor of Moskovskie Vedomosti (Meshchersky suggested D. I. Ilovaisky). On the other hand, Alexander III did not heed the scandalous accusations against Meshchersky and fully retained his confidence in the prince. Since that time, the advice of Meshchersky, and not Pobedonostsev, has become decisive in the appointment to the highest posts in the government. In 1889 T. I. Filippov, a friend of Meshchersky and a long-time collaborator of Grazhdanin, was appointed to the position of State Comptroller. At the same time, Meshchersky had to endure a difficult struggle. Pobedonostsev repeatedly warned the tsar against this candidacy in writing and orally. D. M. Solsky, who left the post of state controller, in a conversation with Alexander III also called Terty Filippov an “unsuitable” successor to himself. However, Meshchersky's word outweighed all objections. “God bless you! The decree has been received,” wrote Prince Filippov on July 26, 1889, knowing full well to whom he owes his appointment 30 . In April of the same year, he took the place of the Minister of Internal Affairs, I. N. Durnovo, whom Meshchersky, in letters to the Tsar, predicted as the successors of Count D. A. Tolstoy since the summer of 1884.

The famous "vendrichiad" also contributed to the growth of Meshchersky's authority in the eyes of Alexander III. After the wreck of the tsar's train near the Borki station in October 1888, the emperor had the intention of putting things in order in the rather neglected Russian railway economy. Meshchersky responded with a proposal to appoint Colonel A. A. Vendrich to the Ministry of Railways for the post of special inspector with unlimited powers, promising that he would mercilessly “strangle swindlers and introduce savings.” The king approved the appointment. “The track department was going through difficult days,” a contemporary of the events recalled. - Colonel Wendrich raged on the railways. This honest, but tough German was composed by Prince Meshchersky, pointing to him to Emperor Alexander III as the only person capable of dispelling the chaos of Russian railways ... Wendrich turned the hornet's nest of “Kukuevites” (as the railway department was called in memory of the disaster at Kukuyevo station) ... Wendrich crumbled, the heads of the roads went crazy, and a groan from the “vendrichiad” 31 swept through Russia. The forceful energetic style of the colonel was to the taste of Alexander III; he was even going to nominate Wendrich for the post of Minister of Railways, and only general resistance

The collapse of the metropolitan bureaucracy, horrified by the arbitrariness of the colonel, forced the tsar to abandon his intention. However, Alexander III was once again convinced that despite the “lack of people” that struck the conservative camp, about which Pobedonostsev did not stop sighing, Prince Meshchersky managed to seek out and recommend very successful figures from the tsar’s point of view ...

In the summer of 1887 Meshchersky managed to get the consent of Alexander Sh to the transformation of Grazhdanin into a daily newspaper. Since October 1, 1887 “Grazhdanin” began to appear in a daily format, thanks to a secret subsidy issued by Meshchersky from the state treasury, which now amounted to up to 100 thousand rubles. in year. Such generous support became possible not only thanks to the emperor's favor, but also to the assistance of Meshchersky's nominees - Vyshnegradsky and Durnovo 32 .

All attempts by the Pobedonostsev group to deliver a counterattack to Meshchersky ended in complete failure. The repeated initiation by the head of the Main Directorate for Press Affairs Feoktistov of censorship prosecutions against Grazhdanin did not find sympathy either with the Minister of the Interior D. A. Tolstoy or the tsar, and Meshchersky continued to sting and scourge his opponents with the printed word. Even in August 1888, when Feoktistov’s initiative to issue a warning to the completely unbridled “Citizen” was supported by Tolstoy, Alexander III passed a resolution: “I definitely don’t see why give a warning.”

The defeat of Pobedonostsev in the struggle with Prince Meshchersky for influence on the tsar should be explained by the disappointment of Alexander III in the ability of the chief prosecutor and his minions to propose a constructive program for a new, post-reform government course. Pobedonostsev, irreplaceable as a strangler of liberal trends, was in no way suited to the role of a generator of fresh ideas. At the beginning of his reign, when the emperor was faced with the task of first of all extinguishing the smallest revolutionary and opposition centers, Pobedonostsev enjoyed dominant influence. Later, the questions of where and how to go further came to the fore, and here the chief prosecutor was unable to offer the tsar anything, except for the notorious “freezing”. Alexander III complained to S.Yu. Witte that “from many years of experience he became convinced that Pobedonostsev is an excellent critic, but he himself can never create anything” 33 . Meshchersky, on the contrary, literally gushed with new ideas, always having some concrete proposal ready on any issue. These proposals could be rational, they could be shocking, as, for example, his plan to solve the Eastern Question by buying from Turkey for 9 million rubles. Black Sea straits 34 . But against the backdrop of Pobedonostsev's impotent pessimism, the resilient Meshchersky instilled in Alexander III more confidence in the future. The tsar undoubtedly appreciated Meshchersky's abilities and, when meeting with him, was invariably affectionate, although he preferred not to advertise his ties with the prince because of his odious reputation in public opinion.

The changes that followed in the fate of Meshchersky starting from 1887 had a favorable effect on the household side of the prince's life. Until now, Meshchersky constantly experienced material difficulties. After his father's death (1876), the share he received under the division of the inheritance went entirely to pay off debts for the publication of Grazhdanin. Now, generous subsidies allowed him to start his own printing house, which, thanks to Meshchersky's patrons in the top administration, began to receive profitable government orders. Wandering around hotels and furnished rooms is over. From now on, Meshchersky settled in an apartment at No. 6 on Grodnensky Lane, where he lived for more than 20 years. The editorial office of Grazhdanin was located in the same house. Meshchersky got his own exit, a dacha in Tsarskoe Selo... A circle of young people formed around the editor of Grazhdanin, whom Meshchersky called his "pupils" and "spiritual children." Using his influence and connections, the prince pushed these “spiritual children” up the career ladder, among whom stood out the future

the flag-captain of Nicholas II K. D. Nilov, the infamous swindler I. F. Manasevich-Manuilov, the well-known journalist, employee of the “Citizen” I. I. Kolyshko (“Bayan”) and N. F. Burdukov. The last Meshchersky, who had neither a wife nor children, declared in his will the heir. In society, however, Burdukov, like other "spiritual children", was considered simply "minions" of Meshchersky. About Nilov, for example, S.Yu. Witte wrote: “He was very loved by Prince Meshchersky in his youth, so Prince Meshchersky has on his desk various photographic cards of midshipman Nilov in various poses. Then he was a handsome young man” 35 .

In addition to promoting "spiritual children", Meshchersky used his growing influence to unceremoniously interfere in government activities. His word turned out to be decisive in such an important issue as the law on zemstvo chiefs. As is known, the draft “reform of the peasant administration” drawn up by the Assistant Minister of the Interior A.D. Pazukhin and submitted to the State Council in early 1887 caused numerous criticisms, and Tolstoy had to compromise with the opponents of the project. Extremely dissatisfied with this turn, Meshchersky irritably told Pazukhin in the summer of 1887: “Your Tolstoy is not quite firm and brave in his plans for provincial reform. He seems to have been led astray by Pobedonostsev and Manasein... Count Tolstoy is too accommodating and attaches too much price to his opponents. Well, what is Pobedonostsev's protest in this matter? Nothing exactly: a repetition of Manasein's words, and Manasein's protest even less so. Neither one nor the other is practically unaware of this issue. All their objections are theory and phrase! Gr. Tolstoy should have rolled them out and not surrendered to any compromises.

Pazukhin promised to “push” the chief. However, his efforts were not enough. At the end of 1888, when the battles over the law on zemstvo chiefs reached their climax, and the scales began to tip in favor of the opponents of Pazukhin's original version, Meshchersky wrote an energetic message to the emperor himself demanding to intervene. “According to the original project,” the prince explained, “it was supposed that the justice of the peace in the district, as an institution unnecessary and harmful in other cases, should be completely abolished and replaced by district chiefs ... This was precisely the essence of the project, its saving power, because in addition to the spirit of slander, the justice of the peace represented in the county the main cause of the fall of government power, and, moreover, by choice. And what? Pobedonostsev and Manasein were uprooted from c. Tolstoy fatal concession; it was to keep the justices of the peace, and to divide their cases between them and between the new district chiefs!

“Under these conditions,” Meshchersky frightened the tsar, “there is no doubt that the conceived reform will produce this: it will worsen anarchy and chaos in the county, it will paralyze the strength of the new district chief; it will cause a new antagonism between departments on the spot, in the world of peasants; it will cause an explosion of disappointment in some and indignation in others due to the imposition of double taxes, and all this is in the hands of - to whom? – the socialists and the gang of Loris, who want to bring the constitution to the point of necessity by means of anarchy” 36 .

The prince reinforced his letter with a number of behind-the-scenes intrigues and a series of articles in Grazhdanin, advocating the liquidation of the institution of magistrates simultaneously with the adoption of the law on zemstvo chiefs. This active campaign ended with the well-known imperial resolution on January 28, 1889, which, unexpectedly for everyone, decided the matter in exact accordance with the wishes of Meshchersky 37 .

One of the episodes of the struggle around this law on Zemstvo chiefs can serve as an indicator of Meshchersky's influence during this period. In early December 1888, in the pages of Grazhdanin, the prince accused the State Council of deliberately dragging out and sabotaging the discussion of Count Tolstoy's project. Such an impudent attack on the part of the newspaper Meshcher-

State Secretary A. A. Polovtsov perceived the state secretary A. A. Polovtsov as an indirect proposal to resign. In dismay, he wrote to Pobedonostsev, begging him to suggest the correct interpretation of the article “Citizen”: “Since, as far as I know, Meshchersky enjoys patronage in Gatchina, he knows whom he can beat with impunity. His article has no other meaning than what he says in a tone ... Wouldn’t it be better, ”Polovtsov asked,“ to think about finding means to retire somewhere under the pretext of illness or something else? 38.

In the middle of 1892, unable to withstand many years of persecution, Polovtsov nevertheless left the post of state secretary. However, in retaliation for the insinuations against his father, in which “Grazhdanin” practiced all this time, Meshchersky was once publicly beaten by the sons of Polovtsov ...

In May 1892, a meeting between Meshchersky and the Tsar took place in Peterhof, at which the question of the composition of the State Council was discussed. The prince attributed the opposition of the latter to the counter-reforms to the predominance of liberal bureaucrats in it and recommended changing the principle of nominating candidates for members of the State Council, proposing to appoint not only "Petersburg dignitaries" and minister-bureaucrats, but also practical administrators from among the provincial governors. The views of Meshchersky were fully understood by the tsar, and the result of this meeting was the removal of Polovtsov, as well as the appointment of Chernigov Governor A.K. Anastasyev as a member of the State Council.

The arguments that Meshchersky used to compromise Polovtsov in the eyes of the tsar are not without interest: “He,” the prince wrote in his “secret” diary, “represents, firstly, the Shuvalov party, that is, all non-Russian instincts, and secondly ... monetary strength. This power is corrupting and harmful, because, on the one hand, it lies in the connection of his money with a certain number of influential people who borrowed money from him, and on the other hand, in connection with all the big money and bigwigs, not excluding, of course, the Jewish ".

By the way, the Jewish question was one of the cross-cutting topics both in Meshchersky's journalism and in his correspondence with the tsar. No one better than him was able to recognize the secret “Jewish combination” in various social and political processes. The monetary power of the Jews seemed to him so invincible that even Katkov, according to Meshchersky, "imperceptibly allowed himself to be entangled in the hands of the Jews." Meshchersky considered the "Jewish" character of the Russian revolutionary movement to be an axiom. “All of Europe knows,” he assured Alexander III, “that just as in an ordinary crime one must always look for a woman as the cause of a crime, so in all the current conspiracies of socialists and anarchists one must look for a Jew, a hidden but important engine of intrigue ... Under Nikolai Pavlovich, the Jews were crushed , but, next to this, the leaders of the revolution were also crushed. In the next reign, freedom gave rampant to all elements of the destruction of the state, starting with nihilism and ending with the most terrible anarchism, and next to this, it is noteworthy how quickly and imperceptibly the Jews went uphill and to what power they reached.

The conclusion from this suggested itself: in order to crush the revolution, it is necessary to crush the Jews. Especially dangerous seemed to Meshchersky the young Jewish intelligentsia, who had embarked on the path of emancipation. “It is not the Jews that are terrible with their dirty masses,” he asserted, “but the Jewish intellectual is terrible, taken from the crowd by us and brought up and educated by us into the eternal enemy of the Russian Autocracy and the Russian Church.”

In 1887, criticizing in "The Citizen" (June 18, No. 49) the softness of the "percentage rate" introduced by Delyanov, Meshchersky proposed limiting the admission of Jews to the gymnasium by children of merchants of the 1st guild. And in 1894, in a letter to Alexander III, he already advised to reduce the quota for Jews in gymnasiums to 0.5% and tightly close the way for Jews to higher education: “Why,” Meshchersky wondered, “do not completely prohibit access to a Jew in the faculties of the university legal, literature, natural, in a word, everywhere except medical?

In fairness, it should be noted that Meshchersky advocated the abolition of the "Pale of Settlement", considering it an ineffective, archaic means of combating Jewry. He saw the main task of this struggle in preventing Jews from entering the sphere of the state-political, financial and intellectual elite of Russia. He dreamed not only of depriving Jews of the opportunity to study at universities, but also of prohibiting them from holding any positions in the state apparatus, in zemstvo and city institutions, on the boards of banks and railways, in the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines.

It would not be a mistake to link the clear tightening of policy towards the Jews in the second half of the reign of Alexander III with the sharply increased influence of Prince Meshchersky and his nominee I. N. Durnovo.

In 1892 Meshchersky's political influence reached its apogee. In fact, not one of the major appointments of this year was without a weighty word from the editor of The Citizen. In the spring of 1892, when Vyshnegradsky recommended S.Yu. Witte for the post of Minister of Railways, Alexander III first of all sent Meshchersky to find out the opinion and only after the approval of the latter appointed Witte minister. And after Witte replaced the suddenly ill Vyshnegradsky in August 1892, another devoted supporter of Meshchersky, A. K. Krivoshey, was appointed to the vacant post of the Minister of Railways. In the same year, the nominees of Meshchersky, the Penza governor A. A. Tatishchev and Chernigov, A. K. Anastasyev, became members of the State Council. St. Petersburg mayor P. A. Gresser and the manager of the Noble and Peasant Banks A. A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov also closely interacted with the prince. All these statesmen, who in one way or another owed their careers to Meshchersky, gathered on Wednesdays at Meshchersky’s apartment for interviews, and the prince smugly called these meetings a “forum”. In December 1892 in the "spheres" they began to seriously talk about the possibility of appointing Prince Meshchersky himself as a member of the State Council 40 .

However, this brilliant period did not last long for Meshchersky. The unexpected death of Alexander III in the autumn of 1894 completely destroyed the building that had been so laboriously erected. The new emperor reacted coldly to his father's privy councillor. Former supporters and allies hastened to dissociate themselves from the disgraced "temporary worker". I. N. Durnovo told Nicholas II that he was “disappointed in Prince Meshchersky” and advised him not to give him more money for the publication of Grazhdanin. State Comptroller Filippov submitted a note to Nikolai exposing the abuses of the Minister of Railways A. K. Krivoshein. Meshchersky's protégé I. I. Kolyshko was also implicated in these abuses, whom the prince appointed as an official for special assignments under the Minister of Railways. The tsar drove out Krivoshein and Kolyshko, and a shadow of suspicion fell on the prince.

Only at the beginning of the 20th century, when D.S. Sipyagin, a distant relative of Meshchersky, became Minister of the Interior, did the prince gradually gain confidence in Nicholas II. In January 1902, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Citizen, the prince was awarded the highest audience for the first time. For a whole hour, Nikolai listened to the speeches of the prince, inclining him to the manifestation of "strictness." In the articles of Grazhdanin, Meshchersky advised, in the fight against the newly revived sedition, to take as an example to follow the course of action of Alexander III in 1881. Nikolai, by his own admission, read and re-read these arguments "with special attention and some kind of joyful awe." "What a comforting coincidence of your thought with mine," he exclaimed in a letter to Meshchersky. Soon the king switched to "you" with the prince. He called his relationship with Meshchersky "a secret and defensive alliance." The royal "ally" was showered with blessings. From the beginning of 1902, Nikolai ordered the renewal of the state subsidy to Grazhdanin (24,000 rubles a year). The small-format weekly leaflet, which was filled mainly with the works of the pen of the editor himself, turned into a “sheet”; the correspondent network was restored. Having not served anywhere since 1876, Meshchersky received the rank of real

state councilor and Vladimir on the neck. Communication with the king was maintained through correspondence: “Bosom friend of Prince. Meshchersky, Admiral Nilov, having become the flag-captain of His Majesty, traveled between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo, exchanging the messages of Prince. Meshchersky (Meshchersky had such handwriting that the tsar once prayed:

“have pity on me, I can’t make out your scribbles”) - to royal messages, written in calligraphy and sealed with a seal with a double-headed eagle. The influence of the prince increased again to such an extent that, according to Kolyshko, Witte and Sipyagin “met twice a week for dinner in Grodnensky Lane (near Prince Meshchersky), and there the three of them ruled Russia” 42 .

In 1902-1903. the prince, of course, was again at the peak of his power, however, it must be taken into account that, according to the fair remark of E.V. “influenced” him only up to the moment when he said and did what Nicholas wished” 43 . The happy gift of guessing and clearly formulating the thoughts and desires that were semiconsciously stirring in the mind of the emperor - that was the reason for the re-ascension of Meshchersky. This congeniality was pointed out by Nicholas II in one of his letters to the prince: “I see with pleasure that our communication is not accidental. This is a direct consequence of the upbringing of my dear father, and therefore the hereditary succession of everything that was dear to him and constituted the covenant of his reign and completely passed to me and fills my soul completely. You appeared, and immediately revived and further strengthened this covenant. I somehow grew up in my own eyes. This may seem ridiculous, but it is true nonetheless. You have discerned my soul with your intuition” 44 .

The “testament” of Alexander III, as Meshchersky understood it, was reduced to an apology for autocracy and all kinds of protrusion of the leading role of the nobility as the support of the throne. The last reign, it would seem, brought the full realization of all the aspirations of the prince. The nobility gained predominance in local self-government bodies, the peasant masses found themselves at the undivided disposal of the zemstvo chiefs-nobles, the Noble Bank was created to provide material support for the “noble class”, etc. However, despite all these measures, in one of his last diaries for Alexander III (1893), Meshchersky, as before, described the situation in the form of a “fatal question”: “to be or not to be the landed nobility.” And although “constantly making relief one or the other to the nobility in its debt, the government should experience the state of a person who is tired of the same petitioner,” nevertheless, insisted Meshchersky, it is necessary to provide urgent assistance to the nobility, because with the ruin of the latter “ Russia will be covered with noble proletarians driven out of their nests; in the countryside, among the people, there will be a kulak and an official, then the main centuries-old conservative support of the Autocracy will be destroyed, and Russia will go to the mercy of all liberal and groundless elements. Meshchersky saw salvation from death in the fact that the already preferential terms of lending to the Noble Bank were made almost charitable, for which “the entire amount of arrears should be turned into debt capital, deferred debt for another 30, 40 years and lowering the percentage from 5 to 2 1/2 , or turn all borrowers into perpetual tenants of the treasury, recognizing their lands as state lands” 45 .

All these complaints of Meshchersky most eloquently confirm the conclusion made by the former Secretary of State S. E. Kryzhanovsky in his “Memoirs” that the nobility “by the end of the reign of Emperor Alexander III, from the position of an element that supported the throne, had already moved to the position of a state guardian. To maintain its appearance and visibility, it required continuous assistance in one form or another from the state treasury and became a parasite” 46 . In this way,

The noble-protective views of Meshchersky were even then an obvious anachronism, but it was precisely this that attracted Nicholas II to them, who was inclined to rule the state “in the old days”.

When, after the assassination of Sipyagin on April 2, 1902, Meshchersky proposed appointing V.K. Plehve to the vacant seat, the tsar readily agreed with this choice: coolness, and believe me, it appeared in my soul ... ”Relationships with Plehve developed well at first with Meshchersky. Nicholas II approved the prince's intention to work closely with the new minister of the interior. “I find it wonderful your idea to keep Plehve au courant 47 of those questions about which you want to write to me,” the emperor informed Meshchersky in a letter dated May 26, 1902. and added: “I very much approve of the idea that you travel around Russia during the summer and that you write to me without fail about what you have seen and heard” 48 .

The trip undertaken by Meshchersky in the wake of the peasant uprisings in the spring of 1902. plunged the prince into despair. The inability of the administration to cope with the growing, like a snowball, mass protest was striking. On July 14, 1902, for example, Meshchersky informed Plehve from Kyiv: “Everywhere I have been, I have experienced some strange impression of the contrast between the serious needs of power and the order of the present acute moment and almost operetta means to satisfy them. The governor, outside the provisions of enhanced security, can do nothing with his normal power, poverty in the field of means for police search, a miserable police staff in the city, and in the county there is one police officer with several police officers and with a police officer for the volost, without a penny for the search - and all this Together they make up the governing and protecting force of the Russian state administration at a moment when every volost is bombarded with proclamations, when agitators are scurrying everywhere, when people are swarming from all sides with the aim of undermining the state building.

The way out of the explosive situation was seen by Meshchersky in the strengthening and militarization of the administrative apparatus. “If tomorrow,” Meshchersky believed, “each governor is given 2,000-3,000 Cossacks, then the day after tomorrow not only peasant nerves will calm down, but liberals will calm down and even prosecutors and the spirits of the Ministry of Finance will come to terms” 49 .

The recommendations of Prince Meshchersky were understood by both Plehve and Nicholas II, who, having read Meshchersky’s report on the trip, wrote to him on August 8, 1902: “The thought of military candidates for governorships and the presence of Cossacks in every big city seems to me useful and necessary." Going, following the example of Meshchersky, on a trip to Russia, Nikolai turned to the prince: “Please sketch out a few words for me that I would like to say to the volost foremen in Moscow or Kursk. I find this idea also very successful. For the people, the language should be simple and intelligible…” 50 .

Meshchersky fulfilled the request of the king, but Plehve rejected all of his text and compiled his own, which caused the indignation of the prince. “You,” he wrote to Plehve, “put into the mouth of the Sovereign words that even the governor would not have said for fear of weakening the dignity of power: “I am sure that the authorities will not allow this” (riots)! Where the whole Russian family longs to hear the word from the Tsar: “I will not allow this,” there the Russian Tsar reassures the people that the authorities will not allow this. After all, for a peasant, the boss is a constable, a policeman” 51 .

Meshchersky, obviously, did not flatter himself at the expense of the attitude of the people to the representatives of power and therefore considered it necessary, in addition to toughening repressions, to extinguish the unrest by some concessions to the pressing demands of life. To this end, the prince decided to publish a manifesto outlining the program of government policy, in which, along with confirmation of the inviolability of the autocracy, moderate reforms would be proclaimed. In the process of working out the text of the manifesto, serious disagreements emerged between Plehve and Meshchersky. Plehve, inclined to rely on naked force, in every possible way delayed the publication of the manifesto,

repeatedly reworked the projects proposed by Meshchersky. As a result, the most significant points about “expanding reasonable freedom of speech and conscience” and about the need to “bring people's needs closer to the throne by expanding the initiative of local life” disappeared from the original text. Spoiled by the ruthless hand of Plehve, this beloved offspring of Prince Meshchersky was finally promulgated in the form of the Supreme Manifesto on February 26, 1903 and made a rather pitiful impression in society due to its lack of content 52 .

Frustrated, Meshchersky started an intrigue against Plehve, finding himself an accomplice in the person of the Minister of Finance Witte, who also did not approve of the straightforward rigidity of the course of the Minister of the Interior. S. V. Zubatov also joined this duumvirate, dissatisfied with Plehve's skeptical attitude towards his undertakings with workers' organizations. “Little by little, Meshchersky's house turned, as it were, into a safe house of a conspiracy against the Plehve ministry,” recalled the director of the Police Department, A. A. Lopukhin. According to him, by August 1903 this conspiracy against Plehve “was so mature that the three conspirators who had already begun to gather together for general meetings, it was finally decided to overthrow him and install S. Yu. Witte himself in his place ... To carry out this political The combination was chosen and the following plan began to be carried out: Zubatov composed a letter, as if written by one loyal subject to another and, as it were, got to Zubatov by perusal. It ardently condemned Plehve's policy, said that Plehve was deceiving the tsar and undermining people's faith in him, it was also said that only Witte, by his talent and devotion personally to Nicholas II, was able to lead a policy that would protect him from troubles and would add splendor to his reign. Meshchersky had to convey this letter to Nicholas II, as the voice of the people, and convince him to follow the path indicated by this voice” 53 .

However, this plan was unexpectedly thwarted. The spy Plehve turned out to be surrounded by Zubatov, who immediately informed the boss about the plot and even presented him with a copy of the letter fabricated by Zubatov. On the day of the next report, Plehve told Nicholas II what dirty tricks his finance minister was engaged in. The failed conspirators paid dearly. The tsar, without explanation, removed Witte from his ministerial post (as a consolation, appointing him chairman of the Committee of Ministers). Zubatov, however, was not only removed from service, but also expelled from St. Petersburg ... As for Prince Meshchersky, he tried to pretend that nothing special had happened, and continued to write his messages to Plehve, filled with cloying outpourings of friendship and devotion. However, in the fall, a scandalous explanation nevertheless occurred between them. Plehve directly called one of Prince Kolyshko's favorites a "scoundrel", and accused Meshchersky himself of "two-faced game" and "undermining" him, Plehve 54 .

This story hopelessly spoiled not only the relationship between the prince and the Minister of the Interior, but also seriously undermined the trust of Nicholas II won with such difficulty by Meshchersky. Moreover, by an evil irony of fate, this happened precisely at the moment when the behind-the-scenes influence of the prince could finally play a beneficial role. The fact is that in 1903 Meshchersky, along with Witte, turned out to be the most consistent and resolute opponent of the notorious “bezobrazovskaya gang” and tried with all his might to convince Nikolai not to get involved in Far Eastern adventures. After the failure of their conspiracy against Plehve, nothing could interfere with the course towards a “small victorious war”.

In the course of the Russo-Japanese War, anticipating its catastrophic outcome, in the autumn of 1904 Meshchersky sent a letter to Nikolai, in which he urged him to take an extraordinary step. According to Meshchersky, while Port Arthur has not yet been taken and the Russian army has not suffered a crushing defeat, the tsar could “not only without dropping His dignity, but, raising it, directly from Himself offer the Emperor of Japan, without

all mediators, stop the war on both sides and agree on the main conditions of peace. “It is likely to be assumed,” the prince thought, “that the Emperor of Japan will be not only pleased with this direct appeal to him by the Russian Emperor, but also flattered, and an end will be put to the war, beneficial only to our enemies. In Russia, this chivalrous and Christian act of the Sovereign in the name of love for his people will be received with an explosion of joy and blessings ... "Moreover, according to the prince," Russia's interests in the Far East - both in relation to China, and in relation to England and America - require not only peace, but also the most complete and defensive and offensive alliance with Japan, in order to jointly be the masters of the Pacific Ocean and wrest Japan from the embrace of England and America.

Nicholas II did not listen to reasonable advice. After the defeat of the Russian troops near Mukden, Meshchersky again turned to the king with a plea for an immediate conclusion of peace with Japan. “If you decide to continue the war,” he warned Nikolai, “then in these 4, 5, 6 months that will be needed to restore our fighting forces, Russia, ignited by all the internal issues you raised at once, both the constitution and the Jewish population, and agrarian unrest, and a dispersed press, and a working-class movement, and strikes, with the complete impotence of power, can perish from the most terrible revolutionary hurricane, which will demolish everything, from the landowners' estates to the Throne.

And again, Nikolai did not heed the voice of an experienced adviser ... However, even the prince's vast political experience did not contain recipes against the "revolutionary hurricane", and when it broke out, Meshchersky panicked. According to Witte, having come to him, the prince “wept, assuring that Russia was lost and that the only salvation of Russia lies in the constitution” 56 . However, as soon as the authorities repulsed the onslaught of the revolution, Meshchersky returned to his former self-confidence. In The Citizen, he again brings up the old speeches about the beneficence of unlimited tsarist power, about the unacceptability of constitutional principles, etc.

Regarding the well-known address of the Third Duma to the Tsar on November 13, 1907, in which, at the request of the majority, the words of the appeal to the “Autocrat of All Russia” were excluded, Meshchersky wrote to Nicholas II: “Two years ago, before the publication of the Manifesto on October 17, the illusion was conceivable that the constitutional Western European forms of government could help restore order and curb the revolutionary movement. But today, after the experience of the first two Dumas, after the crudely tactless behavior of the third Duma, which proved that its Octobrists are the same Cadets, after repeated eloquent manifestations by Russia, that is, by the Russian people, that it does not want any European constitution and is even indifferent to the Duma, allow that you will condescend to the daring plan of a gang of Octobrists and acknowledge the abolition of the Autocracy as a fact, it would be tantamount to recognizing the Third Duma as a revolutionary Constituent Assembly, to which you capitulated.”

“Do not hand over the multi-million Russian people to a gang of reckless constitutionalists,” Meshchersky called out and advised, “inspired by the memory of Nicholas!”, to give a harsh answer to the Duma address and forbid “discussion of the fundamental laws.” “Two years ago,” the prince concluded, “like everyone else, I also thought that Russia was ripe for something like European constitutionalism, but today I firmly believe that Russia is not even ripe for a deliberative Duma.”57

In subsequent years, the struggle to limit the powers of parliament became Meshchersky's main concern. He sought, if not to liquidate the Duma altogether, then at least to deprive it of its legislative rights. He also waged a wide campaign for giving the emperor the right to approve the bill even if it was rejected by one of the chambers, hoping, in case of resistance from the Duma, to pass the most odious laws through the Council of State. On this basis, Meshchersky did not

relations developed with P. A. Stolypin, who sought to act within the constitutional framework. The independent and powerful prime minister did not want to bow down to Grodnensky Lane, preferring to pay off the prince's harassment with handouts.

Stolypin's successor as chairman of the Council of Ministers, VN Kokovtsov, was even less inclined to reckon with Meshchersky. While still Minister of Finance, Kokovtsov, outraged by yet another swearing article in Grazhdanin against Foreign Minister A.P. Izvolsky, even dared to threaten Meshchersky with depriving him of his state subsidy, which was given to him annually through the cash desk of the Ministry of Finance 58 . Meshchersky responded with constant attacks on Kokovtsov in The Citizen, demanding the abolition of the Council of Ministers and the institute of premiership, this “grand vizirat” that limits the autocratic power of the tsar. Kokovtsov is not a servant of his sovereign, but a servant of the “Rodzyanok and Guchkovs,” the prince asserted.

For the time being, Meshchersky's efforts remained fruitless, since Nikolai had not yet forgotten the ambiguous behavior of the prince in 1903-1905. Only at the beginning of 1913, on the occasion of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, Meshchersky managed to beg forgiveness and complete oblivion of past sins. Throughout 1913. the prince harassed the tsar for the resignation of Kokovtsov, which he succeeded in January 1914.

“My labors have not been in vain!” - exulted Meshchersky, having learned about the dismissal of Kokovtsov 59 . Newspapers wrote that “never before has the influence of Grigory Rasputin and Prince. Meshchersky was not as strong as it is now," that "all St. Petersburg political, social and literary circles listen with great attention to Meshchersky's statements," and "The Citizen" is sold out without a trace on the day of its release 60 . The sudden increase in the popularity of Meshchersky's newspaper was explained simply: informed people knew that Grazhdanin was almost the only newspaper read by Nicholas II. Salon Meshchersky again became attractive to the highest officials of the empire. The patronage of the prince willingly enjoyed the Minister of Internal Affairs N. A. Maklakov and the Minister of Agriculture A. V. Krivoshey. Meshchersky tried to fight Rasputin's influence, but Nicholas II invariably answered the prince's persuasion to expel the "old man" from the capital: "I prefer ten Rasputins to one wife's hysteria."

In the last years of his life, on the eve of the First World War, Meshchersky paid much attention to international problems. From the very beginning, the prince did not share the general enthusiasm for the Russian-French alliance, believing that Russia was not on the way with republican France. In addition, there were other reasons for his pro-German sympathies. As the mouthpiece of the local nobility, whose economic prosperity largely depended on the export of food and agricultural products to Germany, Meshchersky had to take into account the interests of the landlords. On the other hand, he did not leave the bitter realization that Russia was not ready for any serious foreign policy clash, and even more so a clash with the most powerful military power in Europe, which the prince always considered the German Empire.

Back in 1876, Meshchersky prophetically warned the future Alexander III against a break with Germany: “For a long, very long time,” the prince urged him, “for two, three or four reigns, the national policy for Russia requires an alliance with Germany at all costs . The war with Germany is the death of our dynasty, your death and the most terrible danger for Russia” 62 .

Under Nicholas II, Meshchersky, going to the waters to Germany for treatment, was repeatedly involved in the execution of orders of a delicate nature and the establishment of informal contacts with the German and Austrian courts. “I had Count Eulenburg with gracious greetings from the Kaiser,” Meshchersky wrote to A.V. Krivoshein from Baden-Baden in June 1908 63 . And in March 1914, the prince informed the same addressee that he was “instructed to calm Vienna with a letter” (apparently, regarding

activation of Russian-Serbian contacts). With the same goal of calming Meshchersky in February 1914. published an article in the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, in which he argued that Russia would never fight over the Balkans.

Meshchersky showed his pro-German sympathies in full measure in 1908. During the period of military alarm raised by the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary, the prince strongly opposed any Russian intervention in the Balkan complications. “If the Serbs want to fight the Austrians, let them fight, Russia doesn’t care about that,” he wrote in Grazhdanin. He called pan-Slavist propaganda "Slavo-maniac nonsense" that "excites Russia against the German race and pushes it to war with the only state whose alliance with us we need" 64 .

Meshchersky got rid of all Slavophile illusions during the Eastern Crisis of 1876, after he personally traveled around Serbia as a correspondent. “There is not the slightest doubt that,” he wrote from there to the heir to the throne, “that the people who started the war in Serbia had no other reason than to count on Russia, that is, through Russia, to get something for themselves, and, moreover, a cold calculation , selfish, calculation, based not on respect and not on sympathy for us, but on the simple idea that we, fools, will give our money and turn our foreheads in their favor, and then we will go home.

Meshchersky treated the Slavic “false brothers” just as harshly during the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, emphasizing on the pages of Grazhdanin their duplicity and cynical calculation in relation to Russia.

“In the era of the 13th and 14th years,” recalled one of the “spiritual children” of Meshchersky I. I. Kolyshko, “the efforts of Prince. Meshchersky were sent to reconcile Nicholas II with Wilhelm P. To this end, he arranged for his nephew, General, to be a military agent in Berlin. Shebeko, who served the cause of rapprochement ... Book. Meshchersky managed to persuade the tsar to accept the Kaiser's invitation to his sister's wedding. Before leaving, the tsar writes to an ally (that is, Meshchersky. - I.D.): “I’m going to Berlin to work for the happiness of Russia. When I return, I will receive you and tell you in detail.” The Tsar was very pleased with the Berlin meeting. Meshchersky triumphed, Sazonov woke up. And events moved on. The chauvinist group (Sazonov, Sukhomlinov, Guchkov, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, and others) did not doze off. In the State The Duma received emergency military credits. In July 1914 book. Meshchersky, already seriously ill, travels to Peterhof and begs the tsar to “release the military tension.” The king gives his "word of honor" that there will be no war. Exhausted by nervous tension, the mentor catches pneumonia and dies” 65 .

19. V. P. Meshchersky, Speeches of a Conservative, vol. 1. St. Petersburg. 1876, p. 99-100.

20. MESHCHERSKY V. P. About modern Russia (according to the manuscript of a foreigner). T. 1. St. Petersburg. 1880, p. 166-169. Later he formulated this ideal even more categorically: “Russia is Russia only because and for the fact that it is the realization of the idea of ​​Autocracy. A non-autocratic tsar in Russia is not a Russian tsar; His people cease to be the Russian people.” (SARF, f. 677, op. 1, file 110, sheet 19).

21. MESHCHERSKY VP What do we need? Reflections on current events. SPb. 1880, p. 46-47.

22. MESHCHERSKY VP My memories. T. 2, p. 454.

23. N. S. Leskov complained to I. S. Aksakov in March 1875: “Sometimes it seems that society has completely lost its taste: many people like Meshchersky’s “Women [of the St. Petersburg High Society]” more than “Anna Karenina” ... ”( Leskov N. S. Collected Works, V. 10, M. 1958, p. 389).

24. OR RSL, f. 230, map. 4409, d. 1, l. 43 vol. - 44.

25. Bogdanovich A. V. Three last autocrats. M. 1990, p. 279.

26. F. M. Dostoevsky in the memoirs of contemporaries. T. 2. M. 1964, p. 250; LESKOV N. S. Collected Works. T. 10. M. 1958, p. 393.

27. This is evidenced by the correspondence between Meshchersky and Pobedonostsev in the early 1880s. “Ah, don’t play too hard on the nobility - you’ll just hit on a false note!” - exhorted Prince Pobedonostsev in one of the notes (RGADA, f. 1378, op. 2, d. 7, l. 38). “I advise,” he wrote in another note, “not to talk about the chairman of the Kakhan[ovskaya] Commission; say better - with an influential member. It’s embarrassing to directly accuse Kakhanov of wanting to destroy the nobility…” (ibid., fol. 34). And on another issue, Pobedonostsev even demanded: “Better be silent, it’s better for business ...” (ibid., fol. 11v.).

28. MESHCHERSKY VP My memories. T. 3. St. Petersburg. 1912, p. 90-91.

29. GARF, f. 677. op. 1, d. 897, l. 51; d. 115, l. 3ob., 130 ob. - 131 ob.; d. 105, l. 12, 51, 14.

30. RGADA, f. 1378, op. 2, d. 8, l. 17.

31. PEG I. I. Memories. The decline of tsarism. - GARF, f. 5881, op. 1, d. 345, l. 4-5; 347, l. 6-7.

32. FEOKTISTOV EM Behind the scenes of politics and literature. L. 1929, p. 246; Witte S. Yu. Memories. T. 3, M. 1960, p. 578.

48. Oxford Slavonic papers. Op. cit., p. 130, 132.

49. GARF, f. 586, op. 1, d. 904, l. 157-157v., 159. Meshchersky saw in the Ministry of Finance almost a revolutionary organization. “There is everything here,” he wrote in the same letter to Plehve, “an army of tax inspectors, excise inspectors and under them a horde of sellers of drinking shops, with intellectuals, where at any time and without any supervision any propaganda can find any number of accomplices , then a whole world of sobriety societies with their people's houses, then schools, then traveling officials, then the Chamber, the excise department, the Noble and Peasant Banks, and at the disposal of the latter a whole secret organization of Jewish commission agents-agents, scouring the province to lure estate sellers to the Peasant Bank…” (sheet 156v.).

50. Oxford Slavonic papers. Op. cit., p. 134.

51. GARF, f. 586, op. 1, d. 904, l. 151 vol. Meshchersky's letter to VK Plehve dated September 30. In a speech to representatives of peasant societies in Kursk, the tsar, in particular, said: “In the spring, in some areas of the Poltava and Kharkov provinces, the peasants plundered the economy. The perpetrators will suffer the deserved punishment, and the authorities will be able, I am sure, to prevent such riots in the future ... ”

64. See Bestuzhev IV Struggle in Russia on foreign policy issues. 1906-1910. M. 1961, p. 297.

65. GARF, f. 677, op. 1, d. 895, l. 295; f. 5881, op. 1, d. 346, l. 21-22. Judging by the tsar's diary entries, the last meeting between Nicholas II and Meshchersky took place on June 26, 1914. in Peterhof (Diaries of Emperor Nicholas II. M. 1991. p. 472). According to diplomat M. A. Taube, in response to Meshchersky’s ardent warnings, the tsar “gave his word of honor that as long as he rules, Russia will never break the peace” (TAUBE M. La poliuque russe d' avant-guerre et la fin de l' Empire des tsars (1904-1917), P. 1928, pp. 331-332).

prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky(January 14 () , St. Petersburg - July 10 () , Tsarskoe Selo) - Russian writer and publicist of extreme right views, publisher-editor of the magazine (since October 1, 1887 - newspapers) " Citizen", Chamberlain of Alexander II.

Biography

Representative of the princely family Meshchersky. The son of the daughter of N. M. Karamzin, for which he received a special increase in salary: Karamzin was a state historiographer, and the court paid his family a pension. Meshchersky's parents, Pyotr Ivanovich and Ekaterina Nikolaevna, belonged to Pushkin's inner circle, his grandmother was Sofia Sergeevna Meshcherskaya, who translated from French.

Meshchersky was best known as an influential conservative publicist and consultant to the government (first to Alexander III, then, after a short disgrace, to Nicholas II), who became famous for his proposal to "put an end" to the reforms of Alexander II.

The newspaper Grazhdanin, which he published, was subsidized by the government. General A. A. Mosolov, who was the head of the office of the Ministry of the Imperial Court (1900-1916), testified in his memoirs that Meshchersky received an annual subsidy from a ten million fund; also wrote about him: “During my service at court, I do not remember a single case when Meshchersky did not get the mercy he asked for for someone from the sovereign. He wrote directly to His Majesty, and I had quite a few letters in my hands, written in the prince's murderous handwriting with the emperor's invariable resolution: "Execute." For some time, the writer F. M. Dostoevsky collaborated with him, who was earlier, since January 1, 1873, the editor-publisher of the weekly. Since 1873 he was a real state councilor.

Meshchersky's reputation, odious among liberals and leftists, was not the best among conservatives, many of whom sought to disassociate themselves from him. This was connected not only with the activities of Meshchersky as the "gray eminence" of the government, but also with the scandalous stories that arose in connection with the homosexual orientation of the prince.

An indecent story took place between Meshchersky and Count Keller around a young trumpeter from the Life Rifle Battalion of the capital's garrison subordinate to the Count. The prince achieved the resignation of the military leader, who prevented him from seeing his lover. But a later investigation confirmed the correctness of Count Keller, and rumors about the case quickly spread throughout St. Petersburg. .

Historians characterize it like this:

Even more odious was the reputation of another troubadour of reaction in the 1980s and 1990s, Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky. This gentleman, who glorified the national need for rods (“as a Russian person needs salt, so he needs rods”), “a despicable representative of the back porch”, “a scoundrel, an insolent man without a conscience”, moreover, “thrice convicted of sodomy” , was a personal friend of Alexander III. His magazine The Citizen was subsidized by the tsar and therefore was considered in informed circles to be the "royal organ", the "desk book of tsars". I. S. Turgenev wrote about him in 1872, that is, even when The Citizen was not as reactionary as in the 80s: “This is, without a doubt, the most fetid journal of all those now published in Russia.”

Creation

His satirical novels from high society life, sometimes published under the initials “K.V.M.”, enjoyed success mainly: “Women from the St. Petersburg high society”, “One of our Bismarcks”, “Lord Apostle in the St. Petersburg high society”, “I want to be Russian”, “Secrets of Modern Petersburg”, “Terrible Woman”, “Realists of the Big World”, “Prince Noni”, “Count Obezyaninov”, “A Terrible Night”, etc.

Meshchersky also owns: "Essays on current social life in Russia" (St. Petersburg, 1868), "In the wake of time" (1879), etc.

During his lifetime, his "Memoirs" were published in 3 parts (St. Petersburg, 1897-1912), describing some events in the political and social life of the 1880-1890s.

Awards

• The title of Chamber Juncker (1861);
• Order of St. Anne, 3rd class (1864);
• Title of Chamberlain (1872);
• Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree (1902);

Notes

Literature

• Chernikova N. V. "Our century is the century of cowardice ..." Religious life of the Russian Empire through the eyes of an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs // Bulletin of Church History. 2006. No. 2. S. 45–80.
• List of civil servants. 1914
• Dronov I.E. Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky. - Questions of history. - 2001. - No. 10. - C. 57-84.

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Meshchersky Vladimir Petrovich, prince famous journalist and novelist (1839 1914), maternal grandson of N.M. Karamzin. He graduated from the course at the School of Law; was a police solicitor and district judge in St. Petersburg, an official for special assignments under ... ... Biographical Dictionary

- (1839 1914) Russian publicist, prince. He founded and published a conservatively monarchist newspaper, the magazine Citizen (since 1872) ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Russian writer and publicist, ideologist of the noble reaction; prince. Graduated from the School of Law. Served in the Ministry of the Interior. Since 1860 he was published in the "Northern Bee", ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

- (1839 1914), prince, publicist. He founded and published a conservatively monarchist newspaper, the journal Grazhdanin (St. Petersburg, from 1872). * * * MESHCHERSKY Vladimir Petrovich MESHCHERSKY Vladimir Petrovich (1839-1914), Russian publicist, prince. Founded and... encyclopedic Dictionary

Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky (January 14 (26), 1839, St. Petersburg July 10 (23), 1914, Tsarskoye Selo) prince, Russian writer and publicist, publisher, editor of the Grazhdanin newspaper, chamberlain of Alexander II. Prince V.P. Meshchersky Was the grandson of Nicholas ... ... Wikipedia

- [prince, 1839 1914] journalist and novelist. Genus. in the family of a noble landowner. Graduated from the School of Law. He stood close to court spheres and enjoyed great influence in government circles. One of the most active supporters of the nobility ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

Publicist and novelist, prince; genus. in 1839, maternal grandson of N. M. Karamzin; was brought up at the Imperial School of Law, was a police solicitor and district judge in St. Petersburg, an official for special assignments under the Minister of the Interior. AT… … Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Meshchersky Vladimir Petrovich (1838-1914), prince, chamberlain, journalist, publicist, prose writer.

Meshchersky Vladimir Petrovich, 1838-1914, prince, real state councilor, chamberlain, editor-publisher of the newspaper Grazhdanin. He was highly respected by the Tsar.

Meshchersky Vladimir Petrovich (1839-1914) - prince, famous Black Hundreds. In the 60s. wrote several novels and contributed to Moskovskie Vedomosti, Russkiy Vestnik and other conservative publications. Since 1872, he was the publisher, then the editor of the ultra-monarchist newspaper Grazhdanin, which Nicholas II subsequently read regularly. He founded the newspaper "Friendly Speeches". He sharply criticized the reformist course of P. A. Stolypin. He was an opponent of Russia's participation in the great European war.

Used materials from the book: Rasputin's Diary. M., CJSC "Olma Media Group". 2008. (This text belongs to the compilers of the book - Candidate of Historical Sciences D.A. Kotsyubinsky and Candidate of Historical Sciences I.V. Lukoyanov).

Meshchersky, Vladimir Petrovich, prince, - Russian writer and publicist. He began to publish in 1860 in Severnaya Pchela, Moskovskie Vedomosti, and Russkiy Vestnik. The first books: the poem "Tavrida" (1863), "Essays on the current social life in Russia" (1868-1870). M. opposed not only the revolutionary movement, but also against the liberal reforms. Being close to the court and government circles, which subsidized his publications - "The Citizen" (1872-1914), "Good" (1881), "Friendly Speeches" (1905), M. defended the feudal-noble privileges and the inviolability of autocracy. Along with journalism (the collections Speech of a Conservative, 1876, In the Street of Time, 1879), M. appeared with novels that denounced the mores of high society, the penetration of unbelief into the environment of the aristocracy: Women from St. Petersburg High Society (1847), Men St. Petersburg Great Light (1897), One of Our Bismarcks (1847), Lord Apostle in the Great St. Petersburg Light (1876) and others. Notes of a schoolboy who shot himself” (1875). In novels, short stories, and comedies, which bore a primitively edifying character, were characterized by sketchy characters and illustrativeness, M. propagated the same reactionary ideas. M. - the author of articles about F.I. Tyutchev, L.N. Tolstoy, A.K. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, memoirs "My memories" (1897-1912).

Brief literary encyclopedia in 9 volumes. State scientific publishing house "Soviet Encyclopedia", v.4, M., 1967.

Meshchersky, Prince. Vladimir Petrovich (January 11, 1839-July 10, 1914), writer, publisher-editor, right-wing publicist, public figure, owner of an influential right-wing salon in St. Petersburg.

Born in St. Petersburg, on the side of his mother - E. V. Karamzina - was the grandson of the great Russian historian and writer N. M. Karamzin. On the side of his father - Lieutenant Colonel of the Guards P. I. Meshchersky - the grandson of the famous translator and author of religious and moral books for the people, Princess S. S. Meshcherskaya. An indisputable cult of the historian Karamzin reigned in the Meshchersky family, which apparently predetermined the young prince's desire for writing. Having received an excellent home education, he graduated from the School of Law (1857). In 1857-1858 he served as a ml. assistant secretary in the 5th Department of the Senate, in 1859 a police lawyer in the Rozhdestvenskaya part of St. Petersburg, and from the end of 1859 a civil judge of the St. Petersburg district court. In 1861, he was among those young people who were chosen to play and work with the children of Alexander II - Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich and his brother Alexander Alexandrovich (the future Emperor Alexander III). In the summer of 1861 he accompanied the royal family on a trip to the Crimea. From 1861 Meshchersky chamber junker, from 1869 - chamberlain of the Supreme Court.

From to. 1861 he is an official for special assignments under the Minister of the Interior. On business matters, Meshchersky had to travel a lot and often around the provinces of Russia. He learned the country not from the high offices of the authorities and firsthand. Much of what he saw and heard on his trips already then plunged the young official into rather sad reflections about the correctness of the chosen methods for reorganizing Russia. “At that time I took out two convictions: first, that life in Russia is moving forward, and second, that in many ways Petersburg liberalism hinders this forward movement of Russian life ... Russia borrowed life from various liberal newspapers and magazines. The liberal and precisely the false-liberal press has taken possession of society as completely as the tavern has taken possession of the people,” he wrote in his “Speeches of a Conservative”. And the trips to Great Britain, France, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, made in the same years on behalf of the heir to the throne and the Minister of the Interior, allowed him to understand quite well the peculiarities of Western political systems.

In 1867, unexpectedly for friends and family, Meshchersky announced his decision to leave the service and engage in professional journalism. The decision, by the standards of the people of his circle, is very strange. “Everything will be forgiven for you, but they will not forgive you for being Prince Meshchersky,” the poet F.I. Tyutchev predicted to him at the same time. Already in the 60s and In the 1970s, Meshchersky gained fame for his articles on topical social topics, being published in the newspapers Severnaya Pchela, Russkiy Invalid, Moskovskie Vedomosti, and Russkiy Vestnik magazine. A series of pamphlet novels and stories by Meshchersky brought the author great and well-deserved success. These are: the novels “10 Years in the Life of a Magazine Editor” (1869), “Notes of a Schoolboy Who Shot Himself” (1875), “A Terrible Night” (1881), “Prince Noni” (1882); novels: "One of our Bismarcks" (1872-1873), "Secrets of modern Petersburg" (1876-1877), "Women from the St. Petersburg high society" (1873-1874), "Count Obezyaninov in a new place" (1879), etc. Peru book. Meshchersky owns several plays, of which the comedies "Heart Diseases" (1885) and "Million" (1887) were staged at the Alexandrinsky Theater. His poetry collections have also been published. The main problems raised by Meshchersky in these works are the cosmopolitanism of the highest bureaucracy, the moral degradation of high society, the corruption of youth, careerism and the unbridled thirst for money. Against the backdrop of the weakening of religiosity and the dominance of liberal-bourgeois views, these social vices led, in the author's opinion, post-reform Russia to severe social upheavals. But with literary success, the number of influential ill-wishers of the prince also grew rapidly. A special, “photographic” method of writing contributed to the fact that people unmistakably guessed themselves in satirical characters: Minister P. A. Valuev, editor of Sovremennik, poet N. A. Nekrasov, historian N. I. Kostomarov ... endless insults in the press, the spread of vile gossip, anonymous epigrams going from hand to hand.

The name of the prince was inextricably linked in the public mind, primarily with the existence of the magazine-newspaper "Grazhdanin", founded by Meshchersky in 1872 with private donations. In the very first issue of the new edition, the “Announcement to Readers” proclaimed: “We are not assigned to any workshop. We stand straight and firm in the midst of the life of the Russian state, and from it we draw the principles that must form the basis of our journal. Our inner life, in all its layers, will be the main subject of our attention. In ourselves, in the embryo of our spiritual life, lies that power, on the development of which our whole future depends. In his publication, Meshchersky tried to put into practice his favorite slogan - "Study Russia." On the pages of the "Citizen" all the topical issues of the then life of Russia were widely discussed: problems of foreign policy, the church question, education problems, workers' and peasants' questions, the fight against drunkenness, corruption of morals, etc. The main place was occupied by journalism, but chapters from novels, short stories, poems. There was a very good bibliographic department. F. I. Tyutchev, A. K. Tolstoy, M. P. Pogodin, I. S. Aksakov, F. M. Dostoevsky (one of the editors in 1873-1874), Ya. P. Polonsky, A. N. Maykov, V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, N. N. Strakhov, V. V. Rozanov and others. Most of the published materials belonged to Meshchersky himself. Here, one after another, his journalistic works are published, directed against the methods by which the transformations were carried out in Russia. The great misfortune for all of Russia, according to Meshchersky, is that the most important transformations have been entrusted to the cosmopolitan bureaucracy, which has fenced itself off from the Russian people with a Chinese wall. With the abolition of serfdom, the Russian nobility was, as it were, removed from the people. “The greatest evil done to Russia by our liberals is that in order to expel the nobility from our lives, they resorted to the most unscrupulous lies. They assured everyone and everyone, assured even the nobility itself that serfdom and the nobility are one and the same, ”Meshchersky wrote bitterly. He saw the preservation of Russia as a huge power in the strengthening of those spiritual, moral and state-folk ideals by which the country lived, starting from St. Vladimir. Otherwise, Russia will face the fate of a colony of non-Russian Europe. The political ideal of Meshchersky was the reign of Nicholas I - a period of strong autocratic power, based on the nobility and the many millions of people with their faith in God and the king. The newspaper-magazine of the prince enjoyed the greatest influence during the reign of Alexander III, when the articles published here with the ideological justification of the counter-reforms were perceived by court circles as a reflection of the views of the Tsar himself. Since then, the influence of this publication has declined markedly. The attitude towards the prince, even in conservative circles, has always been ambiguous. The personal attacks, causticity and causticity he allowed in his articles, some negative traits of his character, made Meshchersky many influential enemies. The prince's articles were repeatedly criticized by representatives of the conservative press. For example, after the publication in the 2nd issue of "The Citizen" for 1872 of his sensational article "Forward or Back", which proposed "to reform the main<...>make a point."

Meshchersky also published the magazines Dobro (1881), Dobryak (1882), Friendly Speeches (1903-1914), and the newspaper Rus (1894-1896). Not being in the public service, Prince. Meshchersky, as a representative of a well-born family, whose members were always included in the highest spheres, considered himself entitled to interfere in the affairs of state life and sometimes achieved precisely those decisions that matured in the silence of his office. This happened, for example, in 1902, when V. K. Plehve, a supporter of the most drastic repressive measures against the revolutionary and liberal movement, was appointed to the post of Minister of the Interior. Every day, people came to Grodnensky Lane in St. Petersburg, where Meshchersky's apartment and the editorial office of Grazhdanin were located, with various, sometimes very interesting proposals, projects, requests, and simply in search of intercession and justice. The prince also tried to influence the solution of foreign policy issues. In particular, he persistently warned Emperor Nicholas II against entering the war with Japan, and then with Germany. Being a staunch supporter of autocratic power, Meshchersky showed hesitation only once - in the autumn of 1905, when he advocated the introduction of a constitution in order to save the monarchy. Meshchersky was one of the inspirers of the right-monarchist movement, supported the Union of the Russian People and the Union of Landowners. Many facts of Meshchersky’s personal disinterestedness are known: the organization of assistance during the famine in the Samara Territory in 1873, the constant assistance to the Society for the Care of Sick and Poor Children, the maintenance, at his own expense, of hospitals for chronically ill children, etc. He died in Tsarskoe Selo, was buried in Alexandro- Nevsky Lavra.

Y. Klimakov

Used materials of the book: Black Hundred. Historical Encyclopedia 1900-1917. Rep. editor O.A. Platonov. Moscow, Kraft+, Institute of Russian Civilization, 2008.

MESHCHERSKY Vladimir Petrovich, Prince (11.01. 1839-10.07.1914), writer and publicist, public figure.

Born in St. Petersburg in an old aristocratic family. His father served in the guard with the rank of lieutenant colonel, his mother was the daughter of N. M. Karamzin. After receiving an excellent home education, Meshchersky entered the privileged School of Law, which he graduated in 1857. Then he entered the service and was a police attorney and judge in St. Petersburg for 7 years, then traveled all over Russia for another 7 years, being an official on special assignments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Meshchersky's bureaucratic career ended with his dismissal "for convictions that disagree with the views of the ministry." After his resignation, until the end of his days, he was listed "according to the Ministry of Public Education" without a place and position, that is, he was actually a private person. However, Meshchersky did not go into private life, and it was from that time that his literary and social activities began.

From his youth, he was noted for his literary abilities. Beginning in 1860, he placed his works in the Northern Bee, and then also in the Russkiy Vestnik. Meshchersky wrote poetry in his youth (his poem Taurida was published in 1863). However, in the future he wrote only prose, becoming one of the most prominent writers in the genre of novels about the life of the "high society", widely popular in his time. Glory to Meshchersky was brought by the novels “Women of the St. Petersburg High Society” (1874), “Men of the St. Petersburg High Society” (1897), “One of Our Bismarcks” (1874), “Lord Apostle in the St. Petersburg High Society” (1876). Meshchersky also paid tribute to the genre of the anti-nihilistic novel, creating such works as "Secrets of Modern Petersburg" (1876-77), "Notes of a schoolboy who shot himself" (1875). In addition to belles-lettres, Meshchersky from the very beginning of his literary life felt a vocation for political journalism. In 1868-70, his "Essays on Present Social Life in Russia" were published, which very venomously assessed the activities of liberal social forces.

Meshchersky's call to "put an end" to the liberal reforms of the 1860s led opponents to nickname him "Prince Tochka." However, Meshchersky was proud of all the insulting nicknames received from his enemies. Back in the 1860s, he met the heir to the throne, Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Alexander III, who courted his sister. Possessing the gift of a storyteller, giving very accurate descriptions of the highest ranks of the empire and at the same time very critically evaluating the “era of liberalism” of the 1860s (which was then unfashionable), Meshchersky managed to become a trusted adviser to the heir. From 1872 until his death, i.e., 42 years old, Meshchersky published the weekly magazine-newspaper Grazhdanin. About a year (1873-74) "The Citizen" was edited by F. M. Dostoevsky, but then Meshchersky took the editing into his own hands. The Grazhdanin editorial office at 77 Nevsky Prospekt became the "think tank" of the Conservatives, where programs and demands were developed. Meshchersky himself expounded and promoted them on the pages of his publications.

In addition to Grazhdanin, he also published the magazines Dobro (1881), Dobryak (1882), Friendly Speeches (1903-14), and the newspaper Rus (1894-96). Since the autumn of 1884, he began to publish something like a diary in the form of letters containing a statement of his views on current events and intended for one reader - Alexander III. Meshchersky's closeness to the court, his awareness of the intentions of the "top" contributed to the transformation of Meshchersky into an influential politician, "the maker of ministers." Meshchersky was among those figures who pursued a course of counter-reforms in the 1880s. Meshchersky's political views were a synthesis of Slavophilism and protectionism. He made very strong demands, in fact becoming one of the forerunners of the right-wing radicalism of AD. XX century, and it is no coincidence that A. I. Dubrovin considered him his forerunner. Meshchersky demanded an end to liberal reformism, to strengthen the role of the nobility in the life of the country. The nobility, Meshchersky believed, was "the army of the autocracy." The fundamental defect of the reforms of the 1860s is that they were carried out in their own interests by the bureaucracy. As a result, the nobility was pushed aside, a wall in the form of bureaucracy grew between the tsar and the people.

Meshchersky advised, in order to strengthen the nobility, to create a system of cheap credit for landowners, for which purpose to strengthen the importance and powers of the Noble Bank, to raise the role of Noble Assemblies at all levels. However, Meshchersky was not at all an apologist for the nobility. In his novels about the "high society" he was very critical of the mental and moral qualities of the aristocracy. In general, when Meshchersky spoke about the nobility, he spoke rather about the national elite of any class origin. But on the other hand, the protection of the position of the nobility, according to Meshchersky, should become the most important task of the government. He perfectly understood the problems facing Russia and offered very sound ideas for solving them. He sharply opposed classical gymnasiums, demanding an expansion of the network of real schools, the creation of a system of vocational education, and called for an increase in the number of military schools that trained personnel not only for the mass army, but also for industrial development. Meshchersky advocated religious tolerance, against ridiculous foreign policy, in particular, in the Far East, gloomily predicting the coming war with Japan to the delight of the West.

As a politician and thinker, Meshchersky was lonely. He was not loved by the "high society" for the impartial, sometimes evil image in his novels. His causticity and other qualities of character made him many enemies among the highest bureaucracy of the country. Meshchersky did not add popularity and some features of his nature. It is clear that for the nihilists and liberals Meshchersky was a mortal enemy, and they did everything to ensure that the very name of the book. Meshchersky remained forgotten. Meshchersky was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

Lebedev S.V.

Used materials from the site Great Encyclopedia of the Russian people - http://www.rusinst.ru

Read further:

Jewish pogroms , whose organization is attributed to the Black Hundreds.

Compositions:

Conservative speeches. Issue. 1-2. St. Petersburg, 1876;

Essays on current public life in Russia. Issue. 1-2. St. Petersburg, 1868-1870;

The truth about Serbia. St. Petersburg, 1877;

Caucasian travel diary. SPb., 1878;

In the wake of time. SPb., 1879; What we need? SPb., 1880;

Do not slander the youth! SPb., 1880;

About modern Russia. According to a foreigner's manuscript. T. 1.SP6., 1880;

Collection of military stories. 1877-1878. Ch. 1-2. St. Petersburg, 1880-1882;

Letters from a father to his son (an old jurist to a new one) and from a son (a minister) to his father. (From past). SPb., 1897;

My memories. Ch. 1-3. St. Petersburg, 1897-1912;

"My devotion to you has one basis - national policy" // Historical archive. 2000. No. 3 and others.

Literature:

B.G. Prince V.P. Meshchersky // Historical Bulletin. 1914. No. 8;

Viktorovich V. A. Meshchersky Vladimir Petrovich // Russian Writers. 1800-1917:

Biographical Dictionary. T. 4. M., 1999;

Kartsov A.S. Prince V.P. Meshchersky: family ties // From the depths of time. 1996. Issue. 6. St. Petersburg, 1996;

Klimakov Yu.V. “He had the courage to stand alone” // Moscow Journal. 2002. No. 11;

Kutuzov P. Fundamentals of patriotic beliefs of Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky. M., 1902.

Lenin V.I., Complete Works, 5th ed., vol. 24, M., 1961, p. 20-21;

Shelgunov N.V., Essays on Russian life, St. Petersburg, 1895, p. 481-488;

Korolenko V.G., Prince Meshchersky and the late ministers, "Russian Wealth", 1904, No. 12, p. 155-161;

Dostoevsky F.M., Letters, vols. 1-4, M.-L., 1928-1959 (see name index);

Witte S.Yu., Memoirs, vol. 3, M., 1960;

History of the Russian novel, vol. 2, M.-L., 1964, p. 111-113;

Zaionchkovsky P.A., Alexander III and his inner circle, "Questions of History", 1966, No. 8;

Vengerov S., Sources of the Dictionary of Russian Writers, vol. 4, St. Petersburg, 1917.