Rarities of the Presidential Library reveal the personality of Konstantin Pobedonostsev

In 2017, there will be 190 years since the birth of Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev (May 21, 1827) and 110 years since his death (March 10, 1907). The collection entitled K. P. Pobedonostsev (1827-1907) contains full information about the life and work of a prominent Russian statesman, a legal scholar, the Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, a founder of the system of church and parish schools, public and real schools in Russia, could be found on the Presidential Library website.

The collection includes 154 documents - mainly sources from the Russian State Historical Archive: diaries, official memos, projects, correspondence, and biographical materials. The most loyal reports of K. P. Pobedonostsev as the Ober-Procurator and his scientific works are also included in the collection.

The Presidential Library presented on its website a series of reports by Konstantin Petrovich: The most loyal report of the Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod on the Office of the Orthodox Confession for 1903-1904 and other years; Moscow collected works and other works.

Interest to the personality and state activity of K. P. Pobedonostsev is not accidental. The building that accommodates the Presidential Library, which was opened in May 2009, the years before accommodated the premises of the Most Holy Synod, where the Ober-Prosecutor Pobedonostsev firmly and consistently implemented his views on the policy of that time. However, these views were not some incontestable given and underwent a significant transformation under the influence of specific dramatic events in Russia of that period.

So, for instance, in the late 1850s Pobedonostsev acted as a writer-publicist of liberal views. However, after the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, Pobedonostsev made a sharp criticism of the reforms of the 1860s and 1870s. Rejecting liberal principles, he became the author of the manifesto “On the inviolability of the autocracy.” Most fully his position as a mature politician-statesman is expressed in the Moscow collected works, where he criticized the foundations and principles of the state structure of contemporary Western European culture.

Being the son of a Moscow professor, Pobedonostsev, after graduating in 1846 from the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, was engaged in judicial activities in the Moscow departments of the Governing Senate. With state service, K. P. Pobedonostsev successfully combined pedagogical practice, lecturing for six years at the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University. Subsequently, A. F. Koni, who was listening to Professor Pobedonostsev's lecture when he was a student, recalled: “An excellent civil-law course, clear, concise, accurate and instructive, was read to us by the then Ober-Prosecutor of the Senate Eighth Department Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev.”

A fundamental “Course of Civil Law,” which contained definitions of the concepts of property, proprietary rights, the analysis of ways of acquisition and the termination of the property right; the grounds and limits of the limitation of the rights of the owner was built in the future from lectures and thorough research work in the field of law. Three parts of this remaining actual today Pobedonostsev's work are now available in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library.

In 1880, Pobedonostsev was appointed Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod and remained in office for 26 years, becoming one of the most influential figures in the Russian political elite. More details about the life of Pobedonostsev, about his career and the complications on the position of Ober-Prosecutor of the Most Holy Synod could be found the Ober-prosecutor of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev movie.

Having a reputation as an excellent expert of legal science and a brilliant lecturer and educator, K. P. Pobedonostsev for a long time was the tutor of the great princes Alexander III and Nicholas II. He particularly chummed up with the future Tsar Alexander III. His relationship with Alexander Alexandrovich, first the tsarevich, and from March 1, 1881, the emperor, newer stopped until the death of the latter in 1894.

From the edition of the Letters of Pobedonostsev to Alexander III. T. 1: “Forgive me, Your Majesty, - we read in a letter of 1895, - that I too often, perhaps, bother you requesting your attention to my writings. But what to do when the heart does not tolerate in such matters, in which only Your Majesty can look for a strong support and a lively movement towards the truth… Unfortunately, a reduction of churches and a closing out of the old parishes, to which the people are accustomed, is happening exactly this time, when, with the liberation of the peasants, the need for churches is more urgent than before.”

Extensive collection of letters of K. P. Pobedonostsev to Alexander III - the most important source, reflecting the true role of Pobedonostsev in the mechanism of governance of the Russian Empire.

The philosopher and literary critic V. V. Rozanov in the “Russkiy Mir” (Russian Word) newspaper wrote an obituary on the death of the Ober-Prosecutor: “Pobedonostsev died. And an entire state, public system and even the literary one died with him; died a remarkable, perhaps the most remarkable, face of in a history of the XIX century; a whole historical style of the complete and long era descended into the grave, quietly died after a long illness.”