Michael Speransky. Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772–1839 - Marc Raeff

(Chris Devlin) #1
THE BEGINNINGS^3

shrines. She led a rigorously ascetic life, ate only a little of the simplest
and coarsest food, kept all fasts most strictly, wore a hair-shirt and
was scantily clad and shod even in mid-winter. She had mystical
experiences and visions, and the villagers thought of her as a semi-saint,
a godly person (bozhii chelovek). Watching his grandmother, the boy
could directly observe the mystical and emotional manifestations of
religion, even before his initiation into the formalism of theo~ogy and
ritual. And many years later the memory of his grandmother's
mysticism guided Speransky towards a fuller and more satisfying
religious experience.
At about the age of twelve, young Speransky left his native village
to attend the seminary at Vladimir, the provincial capital. This
separation, which was to be for life, did not, however, break his ties
with the family and village. Even at the top of the official world of
St. Petersburg, as an intimate adviser of the Emperor, Speransky neither
forgot nor denied his lowly origins and relatives. He was always willing
to co~tribute towards the improvement of the economic and social
position of those members of his family who had stayed in the village.
He provided for the education of his younger brother, Cosmas (Koz'ma)
and of his nephew, placing them in the schools of the capital and
paying for their tuition.^1 And on the rare visits to his home village he
was unaJfectedly friendly towards his former playmates and neighbors.
Today, when we take the easy and relatively pleasant acquisition
of knowledge as a matter of course, we find it difficult to understand
the problems which: accompanied the process of education in the past.
We often do not realize that the character both of the student body
and the faculty, as well as available facilities, played a decisive role in
shaping not only the form, but also the contents of the instruction.
Inadequate buildings, lack of books and texts, a heterogeneous student
body certainly were some of the factors which gave learning its
"scholastic" form in the Middle Ages. The survival of "scholastic"
teaching methods in 18th century Russia was, to a large measure, due
to the physical and social environment in which the process of
education took place.


1 See Letter of Prince A. Kurakin to Prince F. N. Golitsyn (August 1798), Russkii
Arkhiv, 1863, p. 810 in which the former requests Golitsyn to assist in the admission
of Koz'ma Speransky (brother of Michael) to. the University of Moscow. In a letter
to his brother·in·law, M. F. Tretiakov, dated 13 June 1827, Speransky wrote that
although a university education was expensive, he was willing to pay for it in the
case of his nephew(?) Petrusha, after the latter had graduated from the seminary,
V Pamiat' grata M. M. Speranskogo (ed. by A. F. Bychkov), St. Pbg. 1872, p. 443


  • this important collection of Speransky's papers and correspondence will be
    referred to hereafter as Pamiati.

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