Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov-Vilensky
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Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov (1796-1866) was one of the most reactionary Russian imperial statesmen of the 19th century. He should not be confused with his grandson, Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, who served as Russian Foreign Minister between 1897 and 1900.
During his years at the University of Moscow, Muravyov set up the Mathematical Society, of which he would later become president. He volunteered during the Patriotic War of 1812 and was wounded at Borodino. In 1816 he became a co-founder of the first Decembrist societies and, although he didn't actively participate in the movement after 1820, he was briefly apprehended by the police after their failed uprising in December, 1825.
Upon the intercession of his high-placed relatives, Muravyov was appointed Vice-Governor of Vitebsk (1826) and Governor of Mogilyov (1828). At these posts, he became known for his harsh policy of Russification. He instituted a complete ban on Latin alphabet and Lithuanian language printed matter (see knygnešiai). The ban was lifted only in 1904.
Muravyov's experiences during the November Uprising in 1830 persuaded him that two principal agents responsible for the spread of Polish nationalism were the Roman Catholic priests and the Polish students. As a consequence, he made it his priority to close the Vilnius University and to expel Catholic priests from other educational facilities. He was reported as saying that "what Russian rifle did not succeed in doing, will be finished off by Russian schools".
In 1831 Muravyov governed Grodno, only to be moved to Minsk the following year. In 1850, he was made a member of the State Council of the Russian Empire. In the 1850s he served as Vice-President of the Russian Geographical Society. Alexander II appointed him Minister of State Properties, a position which Muravyov used to lead the reactionary party opposed to the emancipation of the serfs. His administration of state-owned peasant households proved catastrophic and effectively reduced many of them to bankruptcy.
During the Polish-Lithuanian January Uprising of 1863, Muravyov was appointed Governor General of Northwestern Krai (now Lithuania and part of Belarus). He promptly subdued the rebellion, resettling whole Lithuanian villages to Siberia and devolving attendant expenses on the Catholic clergy. Kastus Kalinouski was one of many local partriots executed on his orders. Those settlements where the rebels were reported had to pay enormous contributions. As a consequence, Muravyov became known as the "hangman of Vilnius"[1]. To many nationally minded Russians, who resented Alexander II's refusal to fully support the nationalist cause, Muravyov was a hero and the de facto head of the "Russian Party". They flooded Muravyov with congratulatory telegrams on his nameday, November 8, 1863, a form of public expression previously unknown in Russia .
On May 1, 1865 Muravyov was relieved from his duties. For his vital services to the Empire, he received a comital title and spent late 1865 and early 1866 writing his memoirs. At the time of his death Muravyov was investigating Dmitry Karakozov's attempt to assassinate the tsar.
In the long term, Muravyov's policy proved successful. There were no more Polish rebellions after his resignation. He was also instrumental in rooting out Roman Catholicism in Belarus, prohibiting construction of new churches and converting the existing ones to Eastern Orthodox chapels. These policies were viewed by him as symmetrical to polonization measures undertaken by previous Polish and Lithuanian administration of the area.
Assessment of Muravyov's activity by the educated strata of the Russian society varied from enraptured odes by Fyodor Tyutchev to caustic satires by Nikolai Nekrasov. After the suppression of the 1863 uprising, the celebrated emigre writer Alexander Herzen, whose influence on the Russian public opinion had been fatally damaged by his support for the rebels, bitterly joked that Muravyov should replace Alexander II on the throne as a more consistent and forceful nationalist. In Poland and Lithuania he has been viewed as a personification of tsarist repression and Russification.
