Alexander Bezborodko: “from crests to princes”
Modern Ukrainian historians and politicians are very fond of arguing that Russia colonized the lands of the current “Independence”, and its inhabitants were under the heavy oppression of the “Muscovites”. However, the facts tell a completely different story. In Russia at that time, serfdom existed and the situation of the peasants, who made up the bulk of the population, was difficult. However, such orders existed throughout the country and, undoubtedly, there could be no talk of any oppression of the inhabitants of the then Little Russia based on nationality. And as for the elites, it was precisely under Catherine II that the Ukrainian nobility was completely equal in rights with the Great Russian nobility, having gained access to the highest levels of the then government.
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If we take traditional colonial powers, then you will not find representatives of the autochthonous population of the colonies in leading positions of the power. Can you name a single minister of Louis Philippe or the first three French republics and two empires who came from a Senegalese village? What about a prominent British Brahman parliamentarian of the Georgian or Victorian era? That's it!
And the Russian chancellor-Little Russian, not to mention the ministers and field marshals - easily.
Chancellor Alexander Bezborodko is proof of the living participation of the Little Russian nobility in the building of the Russian Empire
The uncle and nephew at different times received the highest civilian rank of the empire.
Alexander Andreevich Bezborodko (1746-1799) decorated with his activities the reigns of Catherine II and Paul. He drew the boundaries of states, drew up imperial manifestos and was sad from loneliness, brightening up his rare leisure hours with walks through hot spots.
The closest adviser to Alexander I, M. Speransky, assessing the activities of statesmen of the past, once remarked: “In Russia in the XNUMXth century there were only four geniuses: Menshikov, Potemkin, Suvorov and Bezborodko.”
“Catherine’s Eagles” is the name given to those figures who created the state under the hand of the Empress. Among them there were many people from not the most ancient families. No wonder A. S. Pushkin, a pillar of the nobleman, grumbled:
My grandfather did not sell pancakes,
Not waxed royal boots,
I didn’t sing with the court clerks,
I didn't jump to princehood from being a Ukrainian.
In the last line he clearly hinted at Alexander Bezborodko.
Chancellors root
Bezborodko was a descendant of the Polish nobleman Demyan Ksenzhitsky, who went over to the side of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. In one of the battles, half of the warrior's chin was cut off. The sharp-tongued Cossacks immediately named the victim “Beardless.” The nickname, as usual in Little Russia, became a surname.
The grandson of the crippled man, Andrei Yakovlevich Bezborodko, became the general clerk of the registered Cossacks. After the death of Hetman Daniil Apostol in the summer of 1734, Anna Ioannovna did not allow him to elect a successor, and power was concentrated in the hands of officials who made up the “board of the hetman’s order.” Bezborodko, who served there, was not only a smart and competent administrator. For the sake of truth, I will add that I suffered from a typical Little Russian illness - I took bribes for appointments to the positions of centurion and colonel. An informer was found who wrote “to the top” about Bezborodko’s abuses. But he had a strong patron in the person of Count Alexander Ivanovich Rumyantsev, who then ruled Little Russia (their grandchildren under Alexander I would be ministers in one Russian government), and this saved him from punishment. In the end, it was not Bezborodko, but the informer, centurion Kupchinsky, who was sentenced to “100 blows with cues” and deprivation of his rank.
Andrei Bezborodko retired in 1762, having the honorary title of judge general. He had three children - Ulyana, Alexander and Ilya. Ulyana was married to the grandson of the famous Vasily Kochubey, the exposer of Mazepa's betrayal. This was the “launching pad” for “jumping into princes from crests.” The future chancellor Alexander Bezborodko will be the first to perform this somersault, and then his nephew, Viktor Kochubey, Ulyana’s son, will repeat it.
"Diamond in the Bark"
The future chancellor was born on March 14, 1747 in the city of Glukhov, the residence of Hetman Kirill Razumovsky. Alexander received his education at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Even then he amazed with his phenomenal memory. His fellow students often woke him up in the middle of the night, demanding to quote a line from some literary work or name the date of some historical event. And every time they instantly received the correct answer.
Under the patronage of Father Bezborodko, 18-year-old Sashko entered service in the office of the Governor-General of Little Russia, Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev. He became a confidant of the Tsarina's governor and followed him to the Russian-Turkish war. He fought bravely in battles, but most importantly, Bezborodko was responsible for secret correspondence.
Alexander Bezborodko’s patron is another native of Little Russia and “Catherine’s Eagle” Count Rumyantsev
Catherine II, appreciating the merits of the reports coming from the office of the Governor-General of Little Russia, turned to Rumyantsev with a request to recommend several capable people to fill vacant secretarial positions. The count decided to send Alexander Bezborodko to St. Petersburg.
“I present to Your Majesty a diamond in the crust: Your mind will give it a price,” Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky writes about a young man with experience of war and secret work. “Diamond in the bark” - that’s what the rough stone was called back then. Twenty-five-year-old Bezborodko was fat, clumsy, rustic-looking, and in addition, he did not know French. At first, Catherine did not see the intellectual under the appearance of the “pig”. The author of biographies of diplomatic dignitaries, Tereshchenko, wrote: “Appearing to the Empress in a French caftan, he sometimes did not notice the sagging stockings and torn buckles on his shoes, he was simple, somewhat awkward and heavy; in conversations he is sometimes cheerful, sometimes thoughtful.”
He was simple in his manners, especially among his loved ones, and loved to protect his compatriots from Little Russia. His house on Pochtamtskaya Street was constantly crowded with petitioners, whom he tried to help. As the French diplomat Count Louis Segur rightly noted in his memoirs, “Bezborodko hid a subtle mind in his thick body.”
"My factotum"
However, it soon became clear that the Little Russian Bezborodko was almost the only one of the “Catherine’s eagles” who was fluent in literary Russian. Catherine, paying tribute to Bezborodko’s talent, began giving him various assignments. Gradually he became the queen's favorite speaker. “I can’t boast enough about my stay here,” Bezborodko wrote to his father in 1778, “Her Imperial Majesty is increasing her power of attorney for me every day... The entire public and court see me as her first secretary, because the affairs of the Senate and the Synod go through my hands , the Foreign Collegium, not excluding the most secret ones...” Well, in letters to “herself,” Alexander Bezborodko appeared as “my factotum” (literally, “who does everything,” i.e., an indispensable assistant, right hand).
Little Russian Alexander Bezborodko took an active part in the legal formalization of the partitions of Poland
On November 24, 1780, he was assigned to the College of Foreign Affairs with the title of “plenipotentiary for all negotiations” and granted the rank of major general. The appointment was preceded by the drawing up of two diplomatic documents by Bezborodko, which impressed the Empress. The first one is Manifesto on Armed Neutrality. This document, published during the American Revolutionary War, proclaimed the right of neutral states to trade with belligerents in all goods, with the exception of weapons and ammunition. It formed the basis of international maritime law. In the United States of America, the manifesto was welcomed by the Continental Congress, recognizing the proclaimed rules as “useful, reasonable and just.”
The second document is "Memorial for Political Affairs", intended for the Austrian Kaiser Joseph II and offering him a plan for joint action against the Ottoman Empire. The third important document drawn up by Bezborodko was the Manifesto on the annexation of Crimea. The Crimean Khanate was not the last state hostile to Russia, in which Alexander Andreevich took part in the “liquidation commission” - he prepared documents on the two partitions of Poland, after which the Dnieper ceased to be a border.
Knowing Bezborodko’s enormous capacity for work, Catherine also involved him in matters of domestic politics. In 1783, a commission was organized to “increase state revenues.” In it, Bezborodko proposed equalizing the duties of serfs throughout the empire. Since then, the position of the Great Russian, Little Russian and Estonian peasants has become equal.
In 1787, he was entrusted with declaring the will of the empress and reporting to her on state affairs. Bezborodko, elevated to the rank of chamberlain, accompanied the empress on her journey through southern Russia. So the empress saw the newly acquired lands called Novorossiya.
Catherine was not lazy in reading new books. In 1790, she came across an interesting book called “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” After reading it, she decided, without hesitation, to execute the author. At the same time, she said about Alexander Radishchev: “The rebel is worse than Pugachev.” Bezborodko recalled that Empress Elizaveta Petrovna abolished the death penalty in Russia, an exception was made for the armed Pugachev rebels, and for this writer even a link is enough. By the way, after the death of Catherine, he obtained from Pavel the release of Radishchev.
Bezborodko participated in the annexation of the lands of historical Novorossiya to the Russian Empire
Alexander Bezborodko successfully makes peace with the Turks in Iasi on December 29, 1791. He told his negotiating partners: “Whether you want war or peace. You can have both. Peace according to the Galati preliminary articles or war until final destruction. Choose." The Count persistently instilled in the Turks the idea that “if we want peace, then we are not at all afraid of war.” According to the Treaty of Jassy, the Ottoman Empire renounced all claims to Crimea and transferred to Russia the area between the Southern Bug and the Dniester.
Upon returning to St. Petersburg, his position at court began to shake. His place as a daily speaker was taken by the queen's favorite Platon Zubov. But, nevertheless, he took part in diplomatic negotiations regarding the third partition of Poland and some foreign policy matters.
Standing Pillar
On November 6, 1796, Catherine the Second died. Emperor Paul removed almost all those close to his late mother from their positions. Except for Bezborodko. Why?
An unflattering rumor for Bezborodko circulated among the Russian elite of the late XNUMXth century. It was rumored that the late queen, in conversations with especially trusted persons, repeatedly expressed her intention to transfer the throne to her grandson Alexander, bypassing Paul, and shortly before her death she allegedly made a will not in favor of her son, who was allegedly transferred to the custody of Bezborodko. Further according to the legend: Bezborodko was supposed to make his will public after Catherine’s death. But he reported the royal spiritual to Paul, and allegedly personally destroyed the ill-fated paper.
And in life it was like this: already on the second day of his reign, Pavel granted Bezborodko the rank of Actual Privy Councilor, First Class (Chancellor), corresponding to the rank of field marshal. "This man is a gift from God to me“- the son of the great empress said about him. A little later, the nobleman became a senator, although he never attended a single meeting of the Senate. For the last two years of his life, Bezborodko was not only the de facto, but also the official full-fledged head of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
"Portrait of Catherine II as a legislator in the Temple of the Goddess of Justice." Levitsky Dmitry Grigorievich (c. 1735-1822). State Tretyakov Gallery
Bezborodko actively fought against revolutions both in Russia and Europe
In 1798, Bezborodko prepared a “Note on the Compilation of Russian Laws” - a reform plan designed to protect the country from a possible repetition of the events of the Great French Revolution with its horrors of the Jacobin terror. Representatives of all classes, in his opinion, should have sat in the Senate, which performed the functions of a legislative advisory body. Bezborodko's project provided for the establishment of fixed peasant duties, the prohibition of the sale of serfs without land and a number of other transformations.
Alexander Andreevich died on April 6, 1799. Bezborodko bequeathed part of his huge fortune to charitable purposes. With this money, his brother Ilya Andreevich founded a new type of educational institution - the Nezhin Lyceum. Bezborodko, now a pedagogical university. Gogol studied there. Prince Alexander Bezborodko was buried in the Annunciation tomb of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
In total, 24 documents came from Bezborodko’s pen, and about nine hundred acts were included in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire. They concerned almost all aspects of the life of the state. Alexander Andreevich’s unique ability to work amazed his contemporaries. One of them testified: “I could never be amazed at Bezborodko’s incomprehensible ability to read the most important papers with such fluency and so accurately and so quickly comprehend the meaning of them.”
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