24 THE BEGINNINGSstandard to himself in running his estates and in dealing with his
serfs. Karazin's friendship with Speransky was at first very warm and
intimate, as witness an anguished "cri du coeur" which Speransky
addressed to Karazin on the death of his wife. But the closeness did
not last long. The fault lay with Karazin who was anything but a
steady and reliable individual,. as even a superficial acquaintance withhis biography will show. It is possible that Karazin, upon becoming
Alexander 1's "friend", drew the Emperor's attention to Speransky's
'alents. Furthermore, it is not impossible that Karazin helped Speransky
tl' establish contact with the proponents of German idealistic philosophy
(it particular Schelling's Naturphilosophie) who were teaching at the
Un:versity of Kharkov.^1
Rldishchev and Karazin seem to have been the only acquaintances
of Sl'eransky who could have played an important and constructive
role ill the development of his political and philosophical ideas. As
to the others, we do not know the exact dates when his friendships
were formed, but we have some idea of the composition of his circle
for the years 1808-1812, when Speransky was at the height of his
influence in the government. The circle of "house friends" had not
changed much over the years, and we meet still with the same names
as at the beginning of his career. The closest friend of the Speransky
family, almost a member, was Mrs. Weickardt whose help in bringing
up Speransky's daughter was mentioned earlier. Through her husband,
a court physician, Dr. Weickardt, Speransky was probably in touch
with some of the important academic and scientific figures of the
period, as for example, the early Russian Schellingian, Vellanskii (a
member of the faculty of the Military Medical Academy). Through
Mrs. Weickardt's father, the banker :Amburger, Speransky was in
touch with the monde d'affaires, prominent bankers and merchants of
the capital, like Kraemer, the Jewish tax fanner (otkupshchik) A.
Perets, the Lazarev brothers, famous Armenian financiers and
entrepreneurs, future founders of the Lazarev Institute for Oriental
Languages, Masal'skii who became Speransky's faithful business agent.
A few colleagues and assistants whom he had befriended completed
the roster of familiar faces at the Speransky home. To the last named
group belonged the devoted Tseier (Zeier) who became Speransky's
official private secretary, Lubianovskii, and Magnitskii, whose sardonic
wit and amusing social talents made him the favorite of Speransky's
1 On Karazin see: Shil'der, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi - ego zhizn' i tsarstvovanie,
vol. II (St. Pbg. 1904), pp. 33 ff, 327; V. Semevskii, Krest'ianskii vopros v Rossii v
XVIII i pervoi polovine XIX vekov, I (St. Pbg. 1888), pp. 370-371.