page_title: Konstantin Pobedonostsev
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Konstantin Pobedonostsev / Life
caption_attribution_description: Konstantin Pobedonostsev grave in the yard of the house 104 in Moskovsky prospect SPb
context_page_description: Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev was a Russian jurist, statesman, and adviser to three Tsars. He was the chief spokesman for reactionary positions. He was the "éminence grise" of imperial politics during the reign of Alexander III of Russia, holding the position of the Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, the non-clerical official who supervised the Russian Orthodox Church.
  His writings on politics, law, art, and culture emphasized the positive element of the spiritual and secular unification of Russia with the acceptance of Christianity. He warned of the negative element in Russia, portraying democratic and liberal movements as enemies of the national and religious unity of Russian people. Achieving a harmonious society, said Pobedonostsev, meant there was a collective responsibility to uphold political and religious unity, hence close supervision of Russian behaviour and thinking was a necessity.
context_section_description: Pobedonostsev's father, Pyotr Vasilyevich Pobedonostsev, was a Professor of literature at Moscow State University. In 1841, he placed his son, then aged 14, in the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, which had been established to prepare young men for civil service. After graduation Konstantin Pobedonostsev entered the public service as an official in the eighth Moscow department of the Senate. The task of the department was to resolve civil cases from guberniyas surrounding Moscow. He was promoted rapidly within the eighth department.
  From 1860 to 1865, he was Professor of civil law at Moscow State University. In 1861, Tsar Alexander II invited him to instruct his son and heir, Nicholas, in the theory of law and administration. In 1865, young Nicholas died, and Pobedonostsev was invited to teach Nicholas's brother Alexander (the future Tsar Alexander III). In 1866, Pobedonostsev moved to a permanent residence in St. Petersburg. Pobedonostsev and Tsarevich Alexander remained very close for almost thirty years, through Alexander's ascension as Tsar in 1881 and until his death in 1894.
  He became a member of the Council of the Empire, and in 1880 – chief procurator of the Holy Synod. In the latter office Pobedonostsev was operating head of the Russian Orthodox Church. During the reign of Alexander III he was one of the most influential men in the empire. He was the mastermind of Alexander's Manifesto of 29 April 1881. The Manifesto on Unshakeable Autocracy proclaimed that the absolute power of the Tsar was unshakable thus putting an end to Loris-Melikov's endeavours to establish a representative body in the empire.
  Actually, Pobedonostsev's ascension in the first days after the assassination of Alexander II resulted in the subsequent resignation of Loris-Melikov and other ministers eager for liberal reforms. He always was an uncompromising conservative and never shrank from boldly expressing his staunch opinions.  He also used his home as a meeting-place for monarchist terrorists who were conspiring, and where he issued a manifesto, with the approval of Alexander the Second, demanding the abolishment of the constitutional movement: "Amid our affliction, the voice of God orders us to vigorously take the ruling power in our own hands..."  He was chosen as a firm, severe hand to take over the universities after the 1899, mass student strikes. Consequently, in progressive circles he was always denounced as an obscurantist, pedant, and an enemy of progress.
  After the death of Alexander III, he lost much of his influence. Tsar Nicholas II adhered to his father's Russification policy and even extending it to Finland, but he generally disliked the idea of systematic religious persecution, and was not wholly averse to the partial emancipation of the Church from civil control.
   In 1901, Nikolai Lagovski, a socialist, tried to kill Pobedonostsev, shooting through the window of Pobedonostsev's office, but missing. Lagovski was sentenced to 6 years of katorga.
  He ordered Tolstoy's excommunication in 1901.
  During the revolutionary tumult which followed the disastrous war with Japan, Pobedonostsev, being nearly 80 years of age, retired from public affairs. He died on 23 March 1907.
  He was fictionalized as old senator Ableukhov in Andrey Bely's novel Petersburg (1912). Arguably he was also depicted in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin.
caption: Konstantin Pobedonostsev grave
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