The Presidential Library marks the 220th anniversary of Modest Korff. He "excelled in high performance and active work"

September 23, 2020, marks the 220th anniversary of Modest Andreevich Korff (1800-1876), the Russian statesman, member of the first "Pushkin" class of graduates of the Imperial Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, director of the Imperial Public Library (1849-1861), historian and writer. The Presidential Library's portal provides his memoirs, works about Nicholas I, Peter I and others, as well as publications revealing this outstanding personality.

The January issue of the "Russkaya Starina" magazine (1904) published the diary records of Count Korff. Here we can meet the question: "How did I make my... career? <...> My knowledge is limited by university courses... <...> My imagination is rather weak; the mind is quite active, but not transcendental at all... and native shyness, which I try to hide and suppress as much as possible, deprives me any chance to stand out in a crowd... ".

The lyceum student of 1832, Yakov Grot writes about Korff in the research "Pushkin, His Lyceum Comrades and Mentors" the following: "Even during the years of my schooling at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, Baron Modest Andreevich began to win fame. In the eyes of the lyceum students, he was one of the first celebrities, who graduated from this institution. Pushkin, Prince Gorchakov, Valchowski and Baron Korff - these are the names that we mentioned most often when talking about the past of the Lyceum".

The "Russkaya Starina" magazine also illustrates Korff's rapid upward mobility. Being personally acquainted with Nicholas I, he had been taken into the II Department of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery, which launched active work in systematizing legislation under the leadership of Count Mikhail Speransky. For five years, Korff assisted Mikhail Mikhailovich and learned a lot about administration and law under his supervision.

Later, Korff completed the basic multi volume collection "Life of Count Speransky" based on his regular diary records. The author pictures a political portrait interesting in many respects and analyzes the reasons for Speransky's rapid ascension to the state Olympus and the future failure: "The power of the Secretary of State was much higher than the power of the ministers. But more sensitive minds forecasted the following precarious position of the Tsar's favourite. <...> The aristocrats disputed the qualification of privileges, anticipating even greater oppression in the future; senior officials of the government were confused with subordination to the "upstart". <...> "A crowd of noblemen with all their retinue... dislike me as a dangerous innovator", Speransky wrote in a letter to Emperor Nicholas I. "Concealing their passions under the guise of public benefit, they try to pose personal enmity as the state enmity".

Nicholas I considered young Korff as a successor of Speransky. From 1834, Modest Andreevich served as the Secretary of State. In 1843, he was appointed a member of the State Council.

For 12 years, from 1849 to 1861, Korff was director of the Imperial Public Library. He received it in wrecks: "the book depository, which used to be famous in the whole Europe, one of the monuments of national glory... was neglected, chaotic, forgotten. It was only a phantom of the former library at Nevsky Prospect". The new director, solving numerous problems, including purely financial, set himself the task of accumulating all publications about Russia in foreign languages in the Public Library. It was the establishment and development or foreign books collection about Russia - the so-called Rossica. At present, it is the collection of international scientific importance.

Performing such a significant work, Korff became a censor in the Secret Committee. It was created in 1848, "for the regular supervision of the spirit and direction" of the press. These responsibilities were personally entrusted to Korff by Nicholas I. Herzen noted, "Modest Andreevich loves censorship most of all". However, the irony of the London "Kolokol" publisher was unfair: in 1856, Korff - the chairman of the Committee, presented a report to Alexander II. He insisted on the liquidation of the institution because it was "not useful anymore and could bring only evil".

Modest Andreevich, who occurred at the epicentre of the political life of his epoch, was, among other things, a writer who wrote very freely. In his diaries, Modest Korff revealed the off-stage life of the highest authorities. Many high-level officials were caustically described by the author's pen.

Korff did not like the high society, although communication of this kind was one of his duties: "Yesterday Countess Razumovskaya had a reception. It was a real London, crowded, stuffy party. There were mobs everywhere beginning from the first step of the staircase. It demanded great efforts to force the way to the hostess to greet her and then disappear into the crowd or immediately go home, as many did. There were both the Emperor and the Empress, and the Grand Prince Mikhail Pavlovich with his wife",- we read in the magazine "Russkaya Starina".

He wrote very much the reverse about those selfless people who worked for the welfare of Motherland and devoted themselves to public service.

The "Russkaya Starina" (April 1900) includes an essay entitled "From the Records of the Baron (Future Count) M. A Korff". The author gives a stunning description of the commandant of the Petersburg (Peter and Paul) Fortress garrison, who began his service as a recruit and became a general and chevalier of the Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky: "Ivan Nikitich Skobelev died in February. He won general fame and became famous thanks to his career, lion's courage and literary works written in the soldier's language. He was very original in his receptions and speeches. The Petersburg public loved him very much... He was one of those exceptional natures who under the veil of typical soldier's frankness and impudence did much that was prohibited to others".

The attention of the reading public to the writer's talent of a prominent official increased promptly.

"Until the last years of his life, Count Korff excelled in high performance and active work", writes Academician Yakov Grot about Korff's eventful life in the publication "Pushkin, His Lyceum Comrades and Mentors": "<...> The speech is not about only about his official duties: he, also, ... created various historical works by the highest orders; finally, he wrote a well-known biography of his former director... This book is one of the most precious masterpieces of Russian literature of the 1860s. It is rich in information and news... but it is also a monument to a new spirit that emerged in Russia in the first years of the reign of Alexander II".