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Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev
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Count Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev (17 January Old Style (29 January on Western calendar) 1832 – 20 June Old Style (3 July on Western calendar) 1908) was a Russian statesman and diplomat. During his career he was sometimes at odds with another Corps of Pages alumnus, Count Pyotr Shuvalov.
lai Pavlovich Ignatiev was born in St Petersburg. His father, Captain Pavel Ignatiev, had been taken into favour by Tsar Nicholas I, owing to his fidelity on the occasion of the Decembrist revolt in 1825, and Grand Duke Alexander (later Tsar Alexander II) stood sponsor at the boy's baptism.
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Count Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev (17 January Old Style (29 January on Western calendar) 1832 – 20 June Old Style (3 July on Western calendar) 1908) was a Russian statesman and diplomat. During his career he was sometimes at odds with another Corps of Pages alumnus, Count Pyotr Shuvalov.
Life
Early life
Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev was born in St Petersburg. His father, Captain Pavel Ignatiev, had been taken into favour by Tsar Nicholas I, owing to his fidelity on the occasion of the Decembrist revolt in 1825, and Grand Duke Alexander (later Tsar Alexander II) stood sponsor at the boy's baptism. After graduating from the Corps of Pages, at the age of seventeen he became an officer of the Russian Guards. He was appointed military attaché in London in charge of intelligence but was expelled by Britain after a failed operation.
Diplomatic career and involvement in the Great Game
Ignatiev's diplomatic career began at the Congress of Paris in 1856, after the Crimean War, where he took an active part as military attaché in the negotiations regarding the demarcation of the Russo-Ottoman frontier on the lower Danube.
Two years later he was sent with a small escort on a dangerous mission to the Central Asian states of Khiva and Bukhara. The khan of Khiva laid a plan for detaining him as a hostage, but he eluded the danger and returned safely, after concluding a treaty of friendship with the emir of Bukhara.
His next diplomatic exploit was in the Far East, as plenipotentiary to the court of Peking (Beijing). When the Qing Chinese government was terrified by the advance of the Anglo-French expedition of 1860 and the burning of the Summer Palace in the Second Opium War, he worked on their fears so dexterously that, in the Convention of Peking, he obtained for Russia Outer Manchuria – not only the left bank of the Amur, the original object of the mission, but also a large extent of territory and seacoast south of that river that would become the Russian Maritime Province.
The Balkans
Ignatiev's success was supposed to prove his capacity for dealing with "Orientals" and paved his way to the post of ambassador at Constantinople (Istanbul), which he occupied from 1864 to 1877. Here his chief aim was to liberate from Ottoman domination and bring under the influence of Russia the Christian nationalities in general and the Bulgarians in particular. His restless activity in this field, mostly of a semiofficial and secret character, culminated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, at the close of which he negotiated with the Ottoman plenipotentiaries the Treaty of San Stefano. As the war which he had done so much to bring about did not eventually secure for Russia advantages commensurate with the sacrifices involved, he fell into disfavour with Alexander II in part due to efforts of Count Pyotr Shuvalov, and retired from active service. Soon thereafter Treaty of San Stefano was revised through the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, signed on Russia behalf by Count Pyotr Shuvalov.
Despite that Count Ignatiev remained widely popular in Bulgaria and even was considered by some for the Bulgarian throne, which eventually was granted to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, his personal enemy.
Later life
In the meantime Count Ignatiev served as Governor of Nizhny Novgorod, where he was credited with the expansion of the Makariev Fair. Shortly after the accession of Alexander III in 1881, he was appointed Minister of the Interior on the understanding that he would carry out a nationalist, reactionary policy. After a period of intense, violent, destructive anti-Jewish rioting, known as pogroms, which some accused Ignatiev of fomenting, he issued the infamous "May Laws" in May 1882. Pogroms received state-sponsorship from local authorities, and typically police were involved in them as well. He retired from office in June 1882. Explanations include that he was suspected of dishonesty or extortion, or that the tsar feared he intended to introduce constitutional government by reviving the Zemsky Sobor (parliament). After that time he exercised no important influence in public affairs.
Ignatiev's son, Count Paul Ignatieff, served as the last Minister of Education under Tsar Nicholas II. His grandson George Ignatieff became a Canadian diplomat, and his great-grandson Michael Ignatieff is the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Nicholas Ignatiev in popular media
- Count Ignatiev is one of many historical figures that show up in the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser. Ignatiev first appears in Flashman at the Charge, then again in Flashman in the Great Game. He could have appeared in Flashman and the Dragon but did not (Flashman was fictionally part of the expedition to Peking but they never crossed paths). In the books, Ignatiev becomes a deadly enemy of Flashman and tries to kill him on several occasions. He is described as having the distinguishing feature of one brown eye and one eye split between brown and blue (sectoral heterochromia).
- A Count Ignatieff appears in the adventure novel, The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling, an alternate history set in the year 2025, most likely as an homage to the Flashman books.
- A frequented trade pedestrian street in central Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is named Graf Ignatiev Street after Count Ignatiev. It is popularly known simply as Grafa, "The Count".
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