Creating an imperial elite

Nikolai Grigorievich Repnin (1778-1845), the prominent Russian military and statesman of Left-Bank Ukraine in the first half of the 19th century, was born into the Volkonsky Russian noble family. The well-known Decembrist, Sergei Volkonsky was his younger brother. He began using his maternal grandfather’s surname in 1801. He received an education at the First Cadet School, the best military educational establishment of the day. He fought in the war of 1812 and was Little Russia’s military governor-general in 1816-34.

September 12, 1802, was a memorable date in the life of the 24-year-old Repnin. That was the day he married Varvara Mykolaiivna, the daughter of Count Oleksii Rozumovsky (education minister in 1810-16) and the granddaughter of Kyrylo Rozumovsky, the last Ukrainian hetman (1750-64). Their marriage united two young hearts and two noble families — the Volkonskys and the Rozumovskys, a Ukrainian Cossack family. The bride inherited family estates in Poltava, Chernihiv, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Kostroma gubernias, along with 16,000 serfs.

Among the estates was the picturesque town of Yahotyn, where the grandfather’s palace was located. The wedding ceremony took place at the Rozumovsky family estate in Baturyn. On that day Repnin never suspected that his marriage would become so closely bind his fate with Ukraine’s.

Exactly 16 years later a long wagon train belonging to the Little Russian Governor Adjutant-General and Cavalry General Nikolai Repnin entered Poltava. Behind him was a whole era that had enriched his military and civil administration experience and given him new knowledge and convictions. The military campaigns and the Battle of Austerlitz (1805) where he was injured, taken prisoner, and introduced to Napoleon, were still fresh in his mind. The French emperor liked this educated officer whom he set free with the instruction to notify Alexander I that Napoleon would agree to meet him.

The results of the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) helped Repnin’s diplomatic career. On instructions from Alexander II he became Russia’s state ambassador to the court of Westphalian King Jerome, Napoleon’s brother. Information about the political situation in Europe, in particular about the newly-established kingdom, court moods, and the population’s attitude to the government, now began arriving in St. Petersburg on a regular basis. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs most likely appreciated his information, as Repnin was sent to Madrid to report on the court policies of another of Napoleon’s brothers, Spain’s King Joseph.

However, the deposal of King Frederick-Augustus favored Repnin’s appointment by the vice-king of Saxony (1813-14.) The staff military man obtained unique experience of civil administration, which would be of use to him in the future. Within a short period he normalized Saxon trade, administration, and the tax and credit systems, which allowed him to restore roads and homesteads that were destroyed during the war. He implemented the government’s measures firmly while reckoning, according to tradition, with the population’s needs, and this brought him authority.

Now, enriched by his impressions of great European politics, and the experience of German administration, he began fulfilling his duties as a high-ranking official of the Russian Empire in one of its most developed provinces — Little Russia. It is difficult to say whether Repnin was aware to whom he was obliged for his new appointment. His administrative abilities, shrewd administrative decisions in Saxony, and union through marriage to a Little Russian noble Cossack family was not unnoticed by Ukrainian-born people who occupied leading government posts in Russia’s northern capital. One of them, Count Oleksandr Zavadovsky admitted: “I would like to honor him in Little Russia as much as in Saxony.”

Repnin began governing the Left-Bank gubernias — Poltava and Chernihiv — by checking all the state officials with the same surnames. Rumors had reached him that people were obtaining posts under protection, and he person personally verified all the state institutions and each official, which necessitated frequent travel. He would come to inspect a state institution at 6 a.m. and demand the presence of every official. When he stayed in Poltava, he rose at 3 a.m., worked until noon, and read local reports and instructions from the center. From 2 to 4 p.m. he listened to reports from his subordinate officials. At 6 p.m. he had dinner. Then he rested until 9 p.m. and afterwards received visitors and guests.

The new governor-general quickly understood that it was difficult to judge Little Russia either by Saxon or Russian yardsticks. In comparison to the Saxons, Ukrainians were in no hurry to put their state affairs in order, and they had a peculiar understanding of legality and state interests. The most striking difference, compared to the Russians, was the presence of a large Cossack class. He was also impressed by the fact that local noblemen constantly maintained close links with high-ranking officials of Ukrainian origin, to whom they often appealed for help. Therefore, Repnin began to concentrate all the power in his hands and immediately informed the noblemen about this. In 1817 he did not confirm Dmytro Troshchynsky’s appointment as the leader of the nobility in Poltava Gubernia, whose election took place against the background of violations of voting procedures and vote counting. On Repnin’s orders a new election was held according to the law and “custom.”

The bitterest clashes were with the Chernihiv noblemen. Nikolai’s edict of 1826 to Repnin has been preserved. Reacting to the governor’s report about the disorder caused by the noblemen during the elections, the emperor noted severely that perhaps Ukrainian noblemen do not deserve to enjoy the class privileges of their ancestors. Thus, Repnin tried to use his St. Petersburg contacts in order to suppress any possibility of pressure being exerted on him.

Contemplating the historical fate of the local elite, he decided that its distrust of the government could be overcome only if they realized that this was their own state. For this reason he supported the Poltava noblemen’s petition demanding that the Little Russian ranks be made equal with those of the Russian nobility. To his petition to the capital he added his own request in which he treated the just — in his opinion — demands with understanding.

This question received a negative response in the Senate. His defense of the local nobility’s interests put Repnin in opposition to the center, which considered that only higher ranks could claim hereditary nobility, and the lower ranks — to a personal one. This was a government policy that fostered the absorption of the Little Russian gentry into the Russian one through service in civil institutions and the army, not heredity. In its struggle for recognition of these rights the Little Russian nobility consolidated, nurtured, and preserved the ideals of its fatherland, which had its own history and heroic past worthy of pride, but which were being unfairly disregarded by the center. The government’s refusal to recognize the full range of the nobility’s rights evoked opposition moods. This led the governor to submit a new appeal in 1827, this time to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in which he called the Heraldry’s refusal arbitrariness.

The last appeal was initiated by the government: in 1828 a committee was created to draft rules concerning the arrangement of Little Russian rights to the nobility. However, it stated that the Heraldry acted properly. In view of this, the governor-general’s attitude to Little Russia’s past, and, in particular, his assistance to the descendants of former Little Russian officers in their desire to have their own written history of their land deserve special mention.

This question became extremely important for Left-Bank Ukraine in 1820-30. The need to prove that the Little Russian gentry had the same rights to nobility, and hence to ranks, as the Great Russian nobility, had long ago reached its peak. To understand the grounds for these claims, Repnin began taking an interest in Ukraine’s history and assisting the head of his own chancery, Dmytro Bantysh-Kamensky, in writing it. This work of history, The History of Little Russia, consisting of four parts, was written over a period of five years. It is believed that Repnin prepared the text of one chapter, which was devoted to the Battle of Berestechko in 1651.

As an administrator, Repnin had to take into consideration the interests that inspired the elite in the region under his control, especially the ideas of the distinctions of ethno-national values. He had a sympathetic attitude to the search for historical roots and did not impede the desire to learn the historical heritage. Here one had to demonstrate political correctness — the creation of a past had to be directed to a channel that would be beneficial to the empire and prevent it from growing into an opposition movement.

To win the noblemen over to the empire’s side, Repnin proposed the idea of establishing a cadet school in Poltava, a secondary educational establishment for noblemen’s children, who would adopt the Russian culture. Such a school would provide young people with an opportunity to obtain an education without which one could not expect new ranks and career advancement. Repnin understood better than his predecessors that educated local noblemen would make more efforts for the development of the Russian Empire. Through the prince’s intercession the Institute for Noble Maidens was opened in Poltava in 1818 under the patronage of the governor-general’s wife. This educational establishment offered a secondary-level education to “young women,” and was the sixth establishment of its kind in Russia and the first in Left-Bank Ukraine.

(To be continued in the next issue)