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Count Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky ( January 12 [O.S. January 1] 1772 – February 23 [O.S. February 11] 1839) was probably the greatest of Russian reformers, founder of the Russian jurisprudence and theoretical law. He was a close advisor to Alexander I and later to Nicholas I, he is sometimes called the father of Russian liberalism.
Speransky was the son of a village priest and spent his early days at the ecclesiastical seminary in St Petersburg, where he rose to be professor ofmathematics and physics. His brilliant intellectual qualities attracted the attention of the government, and he became secretary to Prince Kurakin. He soon became known as the most competent of the imperial officials.
Count Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky ( January 12 [O.S. January 1] 1772 – February 23 [O.S. February 11] 1839) was probably the greatest of Russian reformers, founder of the Russian jurisprudence and theoretical law. He was a close advisor to Alexander I and later to Nicholas I, he is sometimes called the father of Russian liberalism.
Speransky was the son of a village priest and spent his early days at the ecclesiastical seminary in St Petersburg, where he rose to be professor ofmathematics and physics. His brilliant intellectual qualities attracted the attention of the government, and he became secretary to Prince Kurakin. He soon became known as the most competent of the imperial officials.
A young man came to Kurakin, who gave him an exam. Prince instructed to write letters to eleven different people. It took a whole hour to briefly explain the contents of letters. Speransky wrote all documents during the night. In the morning eleven letters lay on the table in front of the Prince. It was written in an elegant form which was unusual for Russian business correspondence. Kurakin was surprised.
The most important phase of his career opened in 1808, when the emperor Alexander I took Speransky to the Congress of Erfurt and put him into direct communication with Napoleon, who described him as the only clear head in Russia.
Speransky saw Europe, and Europe saw Speransky. According to eyewitnesses, at Erfurt each of the emperors, wanting to show his own greatness, sought to show off his retinue. Napoleon showed his companions and all his power of German kings and princes of the ruling, and Alexander I - his Secretary of State who was Speransky. Later Russian emperor addressed to him with a question:”How he likes abroad?” Speransky answered that our people were better and there were the establishments better.
According to rumors during the meeting of Napoleon and Alexander, the first had a long talk with Speransky. After that emperor of France said to Alexander: “Can you swop this person (Speransky) on the one of my kindom?”
Speransky had many conversations with Alexander on the question of Russian administrative reform. Speransky considered that Russia was ready to begin to reform and get a constitution, which could provide not only civil but also political freedom. His projects of reform envisaged a constitutional system based on a series of dumas, the cantonal assembly (volost) electing the duma of the district, the dumas of the districts electing that of the province or government, and these electing the Duma of the empire. As mediating power between the autocrat and the Duma there was to be a nominated council of state.
This plan, worked out by Speransky in 1809, was for the most part stillborn, only the council of the empire coming into existence in January 1810. The Duma of the empire created in 1905 bears the name suggested by Speransky, and the institution of local self-government (the zemstvo) in 1864 was one of the reforms proposed by him. Speransky's labors also bore fruit in the constitutions granted by Alexander to Finland and Poland.
From 1809 to 1812 Speransky was all-powerful in Russia. He replaced the earlier favorites, members of the unofficial committee, in the emperor's confidence, becoming practically sole minister, all questions being laid by him alone before the emperor and usually settled at once by the two between them. Speransky used his immense influence for no personal ends. He was an idealist, but in this very fact lay the seeds of his failure.
There are such reforms and proposals made by Speransky as the reform of bureaucracy (August 1809), work on a plan of government conversions(1807-1812), the project of criminal code of the Russian Empire (1813), Decree on the free cultivators (February 20, 1803), Institution to manage the Siberian provinces (1822), "Note about system of the judiciary and government institutions in Russia", "Introduction to the Legal Code of state laws" (1808-1809), degree about the establishment of the State Council (1810) and so on.
A number of persons in the entourage of the emperor, including the grand duchess Catherine, Fessler, Karamzin, Rostopchin, the Finnish general Count Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, the Minister State Secretary of the Grand Duchy of Finland in St Petersbourg, intrigued to involve him in a charge of treason. Alexander did not believe the charge, but he made Speransky responsible for the unpopularity incurred by himself in consequence of the hated reforms and the still more hated French policy, and on the 17/29 March 1812 dismissed him from office.
1810-1812 Speransky was Chancellor of the Imperial Alexander University in Turku, Finland.
Later career under Nicholas I.
Reinstated in the public service in 1816, he was appointed governor-general of Siberia, for which he drew up a new scheme of government, and in 1821 entered the council of state.
In 1826, Speransky was appointed by Nicholas I to the head of the Second Section of the Imperial Chancellery, a committee formed to codify Russian law. Under his able leadership the committee's work was fruitful, with the 1833 publication of the complete collection of the laws of the Russian Empire, which contained 35,993 enactments. This codification, called the 'Full Collection of Laws' (Polnoje Sobranije Zakonov), was presented to Nicholas I and formed the basis for the 'Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire' (Svod Zakonov Rossiskoj Imperii). Speransky's liberal ideas were subsequently scrutinized and elaborated by Konstantin Kavelin and Boris Chicherin.
Political views and reforms
Speransky was a supporter of the constitutional order. He was convinced that the new laws should grant the authority to society. It was necessary to create civil and criminal laws, public litigation, freedom of the press for new liberal state.
He considered that the beginning of these reforms should be a reorganization of the state apparatus. Young reformer started to work out the plan of state modernization.
The most complete view of the new reformer Speransky represe
Speransky believe that
only civil rights guaranteed stability and development of the state. According to
his labors emperor should grant the constitution to Russian society
in oder to consolidate the rights and responsibilities of each person. Speransky divides society base
Speransky considered that it is necessary to:
Speransky argued that there were no examples in history when educated commercial society lived for a long time under the yoke of serfdom. If the government ignores this fact there would be conflict between the authority and nation. So government should carefully observe the development of society.
One of the most important labor of Speransky is “Laws of the Russian Empire”. It consists of 45 tomes and includes all decrees and laws since the Conciliar Code (1649). Speransky was awarded the Order of St. Andrew. On the special session of the State Council in January 1833 emperor Nicholas I, taken off with a St. Andrew's star, put it on Speransky.
According to contemporaries…
Nicholas I said:”He was the most faithful and zealous man with a huge information, experience and tireless work!”
Klyuchevsky called him
“Voltaire in the Orthodox theological shell
Tolstoy gave him an excellent character:”… saw him as a reasonable, strictly intellectual, huge mi