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The End of the Volunteer Fleet: Some Evidence on the Scope of Pobedonostsev's Power in Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Thomas C. Sorenson
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Konstantin P. Pobedonostsev was long considered the real power behind the throne during the reigns of the last two emperors of Russia. He was said to have determined the reactionary policies of the 1880s and 1890s. Robert Byrnes has recently demonstrated that Pobedonostsev's influence was in fact considerably less than had been assumed. Byrnes quite properly maintains that Pobedonostsev had very little power under Nicholas II, that his importance for Alexander III began to decline after 1890, and that even at the height of his power Pobedonostsev could not always persuade Alexander to adopt his point of view. However, although Byrnes concludes that his influence was limited, he still attributes to Pobedonostsev considerable power in “his own special spheres of interest.“ Evidence exists, nevertheless, that even this assessment of Pobedonostsev's power needs to be reconsidered. An event occurred in March 1883 which demonstrates that he was not always in a position to determine policy at will even in matters of vital interest to him.

Type
Notes and Comment
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 131 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

References

1. Adams, Arthur, “Pobedonostsev and the Rule of Firmness,” Slavonic and East European Review, 32, no. 78 (December 1953): 132 Google Scholar. See also “Pobedonostsev and Alexander III,” Slavonic and East European Review, 7, no. 19 (June 1928): 30.

2. Byrnes, Robert F., Pobedonostsev, His Life and Thought (Bloomington, 1968), p. 358 Google Scholar. See pp. 161-62 for Byrnes’s discussion of the limitations of Pobedonostsev's power in the early 1880s. The Baranov incident which Byrnes emphasizes does not appear to have been as significant as the events discussed in this paper, primarily because Pobedonostsev did not attempt to influence the tsar's decision in that case with nearly as much energy and determination as he did for the Volunteer Fleet. See Pobedonostsev, K. P., Pis'ma Pobedonostseva k Aleksandru III, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1925-26), 1: 350–51Google Scholar, for the single piece of evidence cited by Byrnes.

3. Byrnes refers briefly to this incident but assigns no importance to it (Pobedonostsev, p. 135).

4. Ibid., p. 76.

5. Pobedonostsev to Katherine Tiutcheva, May 30, 1878, as quoted in “Pobedonostsev and Alexander III,” pp. 51-52. In this letter Pobedonostsev announced his intention of separating Alexander from the Volunteer Fleet altogether.

6. Pis'ma k Aleksandru III, vol. 1, letters for 1880. In this year thirty-five of the forty-nine letters deal wholly or in part with the Volunteer Fleet. For assessments of the role of the Volunteer Fleet in the development of the relationship between Alexander III and Pobedonostsev see “Pobedonostsev and Alexander III,” p. 51, and Byrnes, Pobedonostsev, p. 138.

7. See, for example, Pis'ma k Aleksandru III, letters of Apr. 17 and May 6, 1881, 1: 326, 339-40.

8. Ibid., letter of Dec. 24, 1881, pp. 358-60.

9. Ibid., letter of May 1, 1882, p. 378.

10. Ibid., 2: 13-20.

11. “K. P. Pobedonostsev i ego korrespondenty,” Pis'ma i zapiski, vol. 1: Novum Regnum (Moscow and Petrograd, 1923), pp. 302-4.

12. Pis'ma k Aleksandru III, 2: 20-22

13. Ibid., pp. 22-24 and 24-26.

14. Pis'ma i zapiski, p. 304.