348 LAST YEARS - CONCLUSIONtion of Russia). We -j need not go into Speransky's arguments, for - oddly
perhaps, but not unexpectedly - they are not essentially different from
those he had elaborated during his exile and which we have described
and analyzed in Chapter Seven. In lecturing to the Grand Duke he again
expressed his reliance on the enlightened autocrat who, ruling on the
basis of clear and just laws, prepares and guides his people towards the
achievement of higher spiritual and moral goals. 1 Did Grand Duke
Alexander remember Speransky's words and apply them after he had
become Emperor Alexander II? There is no direct evidence for it in
the existing biographies (which stress the moral and humanitarian
influence of the poet Zhukovskii), but a more searching examination
of the sources might perhaps show some traces of it.
After 1833, Speransky spent most of his working time in various
committees, in the discussion and elaboration of a great number and
wide range of problems and measures. We cannot follow his participa-
tion in detail, nor do we really need to, because ~ as noted previously
- Speransky played a secondary role, being at best only a part-time
member. As usual, he wrote numerous papers and opinions, drafted
acts and proposals of legislation; but almost none of them were im-
plemented in the form he had suggested. They were collaborative
efforts from which originality and creative innovation were banned by
the necessity of reaching some compromise solution that would be
acceptable to the conservative Emperor. Speransky could no longer
feel, as he had before his exile, that he was able to "tailler darns le vir. 2
We might mention a few of the matters in which Speransky's partici-
pation has been recorded. Of anecdotal rather than real significance
was his voice in favor of railroad building in Russia, which the Minister
of Finance, Count Kankrin, bitterly opposed. Of greater positive value
was his role in the discussions on education. Speransky helped to write
the statute of the Vladimir University at Kiev. He managed to include
provisions for a limited form of academic autonomy, though he had
to bow to the Emperor's wish to put the university under the super-
vision of the bureaucracy. In any case, considering the period at which
it was established, the Vladimir University was very well treated indeed,
and enjoyed greater freedom than the other Russian universities of
the time.
1 A more complete analysis of Speransky's lectures to the Grand Duke is to be
found in my article, "The Political Philosophy of Speranskij," The American
Slavic and East European Review, vol. XII, No. 1 (February 1953), pp. 14-18.
2 F. P. Lubianovskii, "Vospominaniia F. P. Lubianovskogo," Russkii Arkhiv,
(1872), p. 486.