ARCHIE BROWN
(1798-1883), Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire, 1856-1881.
A descendant of an illustrious Russian aristocratic family, Alexander Gorchakov was educated at the lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo that is best known for his classmate, Alexander Pushkin. He excelled as a classical scholar and gained more than the usual fluency in Latin and French. He chose a
diplomatic career, entering the foreign ministry under the tutelage of Count Karl Nesselrode, serving as minister to Stuttgart and W?rttemberg during the 1830s and 1840s and to the German Confederation, where he first met Otto von Bismarck. His promotion to Austrian ambassador during the Crimean War was a more serious test of his diplomatic ability and won his recognition as a worthy successor to Nesselrode. He was, nevertheless, a sharp critic, not only of the blunders that led to the war, but also of the peace terms that resulted. He consistently counseled caution on Russian involvement in the Balkans, a policy unheeded by his predecessors and successors, to Russia’s and the world’s misfortune.
As a true Russian following a German master, he rose to the occasion of the Russian defeat in the Crimean War to be Foreign Minister and Chancellor under Tsar Alexander II. In a period of vulnerability and weakness during the reforms of the tsar, he maintained a conservative-cautious front in European diplomacy, while gradually managing to nullify most of the ignominious restrictions of the Treaty of Paris (1856), such as the restrictions on warships in the Black Sea. His major subsequent accomplishments were to shield successfully the substantial Russian expansion in Central Asia (Turkistan) and the Far East (the acquisition of the Maritime Provinces) from European interference and to dispose of a costly and vulnerable territory in North America (Alaska) to the United States in 1867. His greatest accomplishment was the achievement of a dominant position for Russia in the Balkans through the treaty negotiations at San Stefano that concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and at the Congress of Berlin that followed. His over-commitment to pan-Slavic and nationalist Russian goals, however, moved Russia into the center of Great Power rivalries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sowing the seeds for the debacle of World War I.
Much of Gorchakov’s success in advancing Russia’s European interests, however, could also be credited to Bismarck, who promoted German-Russian collaboration, supported Gorchakov’s initiatives, and whose paramount role in European diplomacy overshadowed Gorchakov’s. In response, Gorchakov willingly supported German aggression in Holstein and in the Franco-Prussian War, thus promoting Bismarck’s creation of the German Empire. They were partners in both waging limited wars for expansionist gains and in preserving general peace through aggressive diplomacy, but the Russian chancellor clearly resented the appearance of a German domination of Russian policy. While Bismarck suffered dismissal by his own government in 1879, Gorchakov overstayed his tenure, becoming a senile embarrassment by 1881. Unfortunately for both major European powers, none would follow with equal skill, international outlook, prestige, and ability to compromise and maintain peace. It is perhaps no surprise that Vladimir Putin’s “new Russia” recognizes Gorchakov as a statesman who successfully promoted Russian interests in international relations and, in his honor, awarded the annual “Gorchakov peace prize,” in 2002 to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. See also: ALEXANDER II; NESSELRODE, KARL ROBERT; PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jelavich, Barbara.(1964). A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Kennan, George F.(1979). The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875-1890. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
(1635-1699), born in Cronden, Aberdeen, Scotland, died in Moscow.
Patrick Leopold Gordon, known in Russia as Petr Ivanovich Gordon, was a descendant of a Scottish Catholic aristocratic family and studied at Braunberg College in Danzig (Gdan?sk) where he graduated in 1655. Gordon served in the Swedish and Polish armies, and then entered Russian service in 1661 with the rank of major, given the task of training New Formation regiments. Gordon was dispatched as an unofficial Russian envoy to England in 1666-1667 where he met with James II and played an important role in reviving Anglo-Russian relations, including trade which had been of marginal significance since the expulsion of the English from the Russian interior in 1649. He advised the English government and the Muscovy Company on strategies to adopt for negotiations with Russia. He also was an active participant in the Chyhyryn (Chigirin) campaign in 1677-1678
GOREMYKIN, IVAN LONGINOVICH
and the Crimean expeditions of 1687 and 1689. Gordon headed the Butyrskii Regiment, was promoted to general-major in 1678, and general-lieutenant in 1683.
Having supported the regime of Sof’ia Alek-seevna, in 1689 he switched sides back to Peter I (the Great) who deposed his half-sister. Gordon became one of Peter’s close associates and played a crucial role in the creation of a regular Russian army. He headed the Kozhukhov campaign of 1694 and obtained Peter’s permission for the presence in Russia of a Roman Catholic clergy, and in 1694 founded a Catholic church in Moscow. Gordon was a leader of the Azov campaigns of 1695-1696, and was in charge of the seizure of the fortress in 1696. Gordon subdued the Strel’tsy (Musketeer) Uprising of 1698. He authored an extensive diary describing his experiences in Sweden, Poland, and Russia, 1655-1699, and also produced a large number of surviving letters pertaining to Anglo-Russian political and commercial relations, and late Muscovite political history. See also: PETER I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gordon, Patrick.(1859). Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, AD. 1635-AD. 1699. Aberdeen: Printed for the Spalding Club. Konovalov, Sergei. (1963). “England and Russia: Two Missions, 1666-8,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 10:47-58. Konovalov, Sergei. (1964). “Patrick Gordon’s Dispatches from Russia, 1667.” Oxford Slavonic Papers 11:8-16. Konovalov, Sergei. (1967). “Sixteen Further Letters of Patrick Gordon,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 13:72-95. Poe, Marshall T. (2000). “A People Born to Slavery: Russia.” In Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476- 1748. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Born of a noble family, Goremykin spent his long life almost entirely in public service. During the 1860s, while an official in Russian Poland, he took a special interest in peasant affairs, and later he was involved in many studies of rural issues. Characteristic of his record, however, he never proposed any solutions. After various posts in the Senate, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Interior, Goremykin was appointed minister of Interior in October 1895 by the new tsar, Nicholas II, who valued him as a “safe” bureaucrat and a staunch supporter of the autocracy. Goremykin assured Nicholas that Russian society was basically stable and only some “completion and repair” was required to fix minor problems. Goremykin proposed extending the zemstvo system into the empire’s western provinces plus a few borderlands, but Nicholas, fearing the spread of liberal ideas, decided in October 1899 to replace Goremykin.
After the tsar became disillusioned with Sergei Witte’s reform efforts in 1905 and 1906, he fired Witte as prime minister in April 1906 and brought in Goremykin, then sixty-seven years old. Gore-mykin discarded the program Witte had intended to submit to the First Duma and stonewalled the Duma’s demands. Having decided to dismiss the Duma and seeking a stronger leader, the tsar sent Goremykin into retirement in July 1906, replacing him with Peter Stolypin.
But in January 1914 Goremykin, at the age of seventy-four, again became prime minister. Because of his frailty and lack of initiative and because he rebuffed public attempts to improve the government’s war effort, Goremykin came to symbolize the regime’s incompetence and callousness. Despite public pressure, Nicholas II stuck by his decrepit prime minister until January 1916, when Goremykin was finally replaced. See also: NICHOLAS II; STOLYPIN, PETER AKRADIEVICH; WITTE, SERGEI YULIEVICH
GOREMYKIN, IVAN LONGINOVICH
(1839-1917), minister of interior and twice prime minister under Nicholas II.
