Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov

(1825 - 1888), Russian general and minister, head of Supreme Executive Commission in 1880 - 1881.

Mikhail Loris-Melikov was born in Tiflis into a noble family. He studied at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages in Moscow and at the military school in St. Petersburg (1839 - 1843). In 1843 he started his military service as a minor officer in a guard hussar regiment. In 1847 he asked to be transferred to the Caucasus, where he took part in the war with highlanders in Chechnya and Dagestan. He later fought in the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856. From 1855 to 1875 he served as the superintendent of the different districts beyond the Caucasus and proved a gifted administrator. In 1875 Loris-Melikov was promoted to cavalry general. From 1876 he served as the commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps. During the war with Turkey of 1877 - 1878 Loris-Melikov commanded Russian armies beyond the Caucasus, and distinguished himself in the sieges of Ardagan and Kars. In 1878 he was awarded the title of a count.

In April of 1879, after Alexander Soloviev's assault on emperor Alexander II, Loris - Melikov was appointed temporary governor - general of Kharkov. He tried to gain the support of the liberal community and was the only one of the six governor - generals with emergency powers who did not approve a single death penalty. A week after the explosion of February 5, 1880, in the Winter Palace, he was appointed head of the Supreme Executive Commission and assumed almost dictator-like power. He continued his policy of cooperation with liberals, seeing it as a way of restoring order in the country. At the same time, he was strict in his tactics of dealing with revolutionaries. In the under-ground press, these tactics were called "the wolf's jaws and the fox's tail." In April 1880 Loris-Melikov presented to Alexander II a report containing a program of reforms, including a tax reform, a local governing reform, a passport system reform, and others. The project encouraged the inclusion of elected representatives of the nobility, of zemstvos, and of city government institutions in the discussions of the drafts of some State orders.

In August 1880 the Supreme Executive Commission was dismissed at the order of Loris-Melikov, who believed that the commission had done its job. At the same time, the Ministry of Interior and the Political Police were reinstated. The third division of the Emperor's personal chancellery (the secret police) was dismissed, and its functions were given to the Department of State Police of the Ministry of the Interior. Loris-Melikov was appointed minister of the interior. In September 1880, at the initiative of Loris-Melikov, senators' inspections were undertaken in various regions of Russia. The results were to be taken into consideration during the preparation of reforms. In January 1880 Loris-Melikov presented a report to the emperor in which he suggested the institution of committees for analyzing and implementing the results of the senators' inspections. The committees were to consist of State officials and elected representatives of zemstvos and city governments. The project later became known under the inaccurate name of "Loris-Melikov's Constitution." On the morning of March 13, 1881, Alexander II signed the report presented by Loris-Melikov and called for a meeting of the Council of Ministers to discuss the document. The same day the emperor was killed by the members of People's Will.

At the meeting of the Council of Ministers on March 20, 1881, Loris-Melikov's project was harshly criticized by Konstantin Pobedonostsev and other conservators, who saw this document as a first step toward the creation of a constitution. The new emperor, Alexander III, accepted the conservators' position, and on May 11 he issued the manifesto of the "unquestionability of autocracy," which meant the end of the reformist policy. The next day, Loris-Melikov and two other reformist ministers, Alexander Abaza and Dmitry Miliutin, resigned, provoking the first ministry crisis in Russian history.

Having resigned, but remaining a member of the State Council, Loris-Melikov lived mainly abroad in Germany and France. He died in Nice.

Bibliography

Zaionchkovskii, Petr Andreevich. (1976). The Russian Autocracy under Alexander III. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.

Zaionchkovskii, Petr Andreevich. (1979). The Russian Autocracy in Crisis, 1878-1882. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.

—OLEG BUDNITSKII

Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov
December 20, 1825 (1825-12-20) – December 10, 1888 (1888-12-11)
An 1888 portrait of Loris-Melikov by Ivan Aivazovsky.
Place of birth	Tiflis, Russian Georgia
Place of death	Nice, France
Resting place	Tbilisi, Georgia
Allegiance	Russian Empire
Service/branch	Cavalry
Rank	General of the Cavalry
Unit	IX Russian Army Corps
Battles/wars	Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78

Count Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov (Russian: граф Михаил Тариелович Лорис-Меликов, Armenian: Միքայել Լորիս-Մելիքով; January 1 [O.S. December 20, 1825] 1826 – December 22 [O.S. December 10] 1888) was a Russian statesman, General of the Cavalry, and Adjutant General of the Svita.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Military career 1.3 Civil administrator 2 Notes 3 External links

Biography

Early life

Loris-Melikov was the son of an Armenian merchant of the Meliks of Lori.^[1] He was born in Tiflis, Georgia in 1825 or 1826, and educated in St Petersburg, first at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, and afterwards at the Guards' Cadet Institute. He joined a hussar regiment, and four years afterwards (1847) he was sent to the Caucasus, where he remained for more than twenty years, and made for himself during troublous times the reputation of a distinguished cavalry officer and an able administrator. In the latter capacity, though a keen soldier, he aimed always at preparing the warlike and turbulent population committed to his charge for the transition from military to normal civil administration, and in this work his favorite instrument was the schoolmaster.

Military career

Left to right: Pyotr Dmitrievich Sviatopolk-Mirskii, Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia and Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov in 1877

In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, he commanded a separate corps d'armée on the Turkish frontier in Asia Minor. After taking the fortress of Ardahan, he was repulsed by Ahmed Muhtar Pasha at Zevin, but subsequently defeated his opponent at Ajaria, took Kars by storm, and laid siege to Erzerum. For these services he received the title of Count. He was awarded the Order of Saint George of the second degree on October 27 1877 for his service in Ajaria.

Civil administrator

Tombstone of Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov. Pantheon of St. Kevork Armenian Apostolic Church, Tbilisi, Georgia(country).

In the following year, Loris-Melikov became the temporary governor-general of the region of the Lower Volga to combat an outbreak of the plague. The measures he adopted proved so effectual that he was transferred to the provinces of Central Russia to combat the Nihilists and Anarchists, who had adopted a policy of terrorism, and had succeeded in assassinating the governor of Kharkov.^[2]

His success in this struggle led to his appointment as chief of the Supreme Administrative Commission which had been created in St Petersburg after the February 1880 assassination attempt on the tsar to deal with the revolutionary agitation in general.^[3] Here, as in the Caucasus, he showed a decided preference for the employment of ordinary legal methods rather than exceptional extra-legal measures, and an attempt on his own life soon after he assumed office did not shake his convictions. In his opinion the best policy was to strike at the root of the evil by removing the causes of popular discontent, and for this purpose he recommended to the emperor Alexander II a large scheme of administrative and economic reforms. Alexander, who was beginning to lose faith in the efficacy of the simple method of police repression hitherto employed, lent a willing ear to the suggestion; and when the Supreme Commission was dissolved in August 1880, he appointed Count Loris-Melikov Minister of the Interior with exceptional powers.^[4]

The proposed scheme of reforms was at once taken in hand, but it was never carried out. On the very day (13 March 1881) that the emperor signed a ukase creating several commissions, composed of officials and eminent private individuals, who should prepare reforms in various branches of the administration, he was assassinated by Nihilist conspirators; and his successor, Alexander III, at once adopted a strongly reactionary policy. Count Loris-Melikov didn't immediately resign but when the new Emperor started to undo some of the reforms that his father, Alexander II had promulgated, Count Loris-Melikov resigned several months later and lived in retirement until his death, which took place at Nice on 22 December 1888.^[5]

Notes

1. ^ Radzinsky, Edvard (2006). Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. Translated by Antonina Bouis. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 351. ISBN 0-7432-8426-7. 
2. ^ Frank, Joseph (2003). Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 480. ISBN 0-6911-1569-9. 
3. ^ Moss, Walter Gerald (2005). A History Of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. Anthem Series Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. London: Anthem Press. pp. 38. ISBN 1-8433-1034-1. 
4. ^ Kappeler, Andreas (2001). The Russian Empire: A Multi-Ethnic History. London: Longman. pp. 301. ISBN 0-5822-3415-8. 
5. ^ Moss. History Of Russia, p. 45.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• The Honorable House of Melik

Preceded by Lev Makov

Minister of Interior 1880 – 1881

Succeeded by Nikolay Ignatyev

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