ADMINISTRATIVE ACfIVITlES 1802-1812^61of their own age destined for careers in the government. The idea of
a restricted school for future governors was also warmly welcomed by
those who had fallen under the influence of Catholicism and who
wished to see the Russian nobility educated in the great tradition of
the Jesuit schools for the aristocracy. The Catholic party was quite
strong at court and counted among its members some very influential
dignitaries, e.g. the Minister of Education, Count A. K. Razumovskii,
a close friend of Joseph de Maistre, and a patron of the Jesuits, who
had been responsible for securing wide privileges for the Jesuit
Academy in Polotsk.
Thus a variety of motives and considerations combined in support
of the creation of a Lycee near the capital, under the direct supervision
of the Emperor and the Court. The true authorship of the regulations
and statute for the Lycee is still in doubt, but probably - as most
legislation of that period - it was due to the combined efforts of
several persons. The final draft of the regulations was written by I.
Martynov, a former classmate's of Speransky at the Alexandro-Nevskii
seminary, who was now a high official at the Ministry of Education.
But most likely Martynov only gave literary and "bureaucratic" form
to the ideas of all those who participated in the elaboration of the
regulations. Officially, credit for the Lycee's organization was taken
by the Minister of Education. However, later in a letter written to his
friend and business agent from exile, Speransky maintained that he
had been the real author of the statute for the Tsarsko-Sel'skii Litsei.^1
The Lycee's report for the year 1849-1850 reaffirmed Speransky's
authorship, but modern investigators have so far failed to uncover the
original draft of the statutes written by Speransky.2
Whatever the truth of the matter - and it cannot be established to
our satisfaction at the moment - Speransky did exercise an appreciable
influence on the pedagogical principles adopted for the Lycee. On
December 11, 1808, he read to the Emperor a paper entitled
"Preliminary rules for a speciallycee." 3 Probably the paper was written
1 Letter from Velikopol'e (Speransky's estate near Novgorod), dated 4 February
1815: "This school [the Tsarsko-Sel'skii lycee] was organized and its statute written
by me, although others appropriated this work ... " Druzheskie pis'ma k P. G.
Masal'skomu, p. 65. A recent biographer of Alexandre Rennenkampf states that
Rennenkampf talked to Speransky about his project of a special school for future
officials; the conversation took place in 1810 upon Rennenkampf's return from
study abroad. Jean Savant, Alexandre de Rennenkamp! et ses amis (Paris 1946) p. 47.
2 I. la. Seleznev, Istoricheskii ocherk Imperatorskogo byvshego Tsarskosel'skogo
nyne Aleksandrovskogo litseia %a pervoe ego 50·i letie s 1811 po 1861 g. (St. Pbg.
1861), p. 8.
3 D. F. Kobeko, Imperatorskii Tsarskosel'skii litsei (St. Pbg. 1911), pp. 6-7.