Conclusion to a book about Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev

Back in 1976 and 1977 I wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev. He was a tutor of the last two tsars on civil law. More importantly, he was Over Procurator of the Russian Orthodox Church from 1880 to 1905. He has the reputation of having been the dark power behind the Russian throne during the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II. I have recently undertaken the task of turning that old dissertation into a book that I intend to have published or to self-publish. Here, for anyone who's interested, is the concluding section of that book.

Some Concluding Remarks

(c)Thomas Calnan Sorenson, 2016. All rights reserved.

What has our study of Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev revealed? Most importantly it has revealed that he had a well-developed political ideology that we can characterize as both conservative and populist. He was a conservative in the spirit of Edmund Burke. He apparently never read Burke, or at least he left no direct evidence that he did. He was however familiar with the writings of Thomas Carlyle, and it was precisely the Burkean elements in Carlyle’s thought that appealed to him. Burke’s principles of prejudice and prescription were the essential elements of Pobedonostsev’s ideology. The Burkean notion of prescription is seen in Pobedonostsev’s historicism. For Pobedonostsev as for Burke institutions were legitimized only by history. Political and social institutions which had developed through history, he believed, corresponded to the needs of a given country as no institution created on the basis of political theories every could. In Russia’s case the two most important institutions created and legitimized by history were the autocracy and the Russian Orthodox Church. Together they had made Russia strong. Pobedonostsev was convinced that Russia’s continued greatness depended upon their preservation into the future essentially unchanged from what they had been in the past.

Pobedonostsev’s historicism was influenced by the school of German legal historicism founded by Savigny. Pobedonostsev was trained as a lawyer. He became a widely respected legal scholar. Savigny’s historicism was the dominant tendency in European legal literature when Pobedonostsev graduated from the Academy of Jurisprudence in 1846, and he clearly accepted the fundamental assumptions of Savigny’s approach to law. Because the German historicists were familiar with Burke, their work reinforced Pobedonostsev’s commitment to the Burkean principles he found in English literature.

Burke’s idea of prejudice was even more central to Pobedonostsev’s thought than was Burke’s other major idea, the idea of prescription. Prejudice for Burke meant a rejection of abstract reason and a reliance on ideas and loyalties accepted largely uncritically simply because they were there. Pobedonostsev rejected abstract reason in terms virtually identical to Burke’s, although Pobedonostsev did not make Burke’s distinction between abstract and political reason. Pobedonostsev denied the validity of all conclusions arrived at logically beginning with general principles. In the place of this approach he put a reliance on what he claimed were the ideas and loyalties of the mass of the Russian people, the narod. The narod, he said, had a sure guide to knowledge and action in its reliance on faith and immediate impression. Because the narod, he believed, rejected the Western notion of reason and abstract rights based on reason it remained true to Russian beliefs and customs. It also retained its traditional fidelity to the two primary institutions of Russian life, autocracy and Orthodoxy.

Pobedonostsev was, then, a conservative in the standard Western sense of that term. He was also a consistent populist. We have seen that a populist, as that term was originally understood in Russia, was one who desired to subordinate his or her own wishes to those of the narod and to work with the narod to attain goals that the narod defined for itself. Pobedonostsev fits that definition quite well, although it does seem that he fits it because he attributed goals that he actually defined himself to the narod as goals it had defined itself. He was not entirely naïve about the Russian narod. He knew full well that most of its members were illiterate. He knew that far too many of them drank far too much vodka and other spirits. Still, he believed in the basic goodness of the narod, and he desired that the autocratic government base its strength directly on the narod and on what he insisted was the narod’s reliable loyalty to the regime. He rejected the claims of the liberal intelligentsia to speak for the narod and its claim of the right to formulate policies for it. He seems, however, not to have been bothered by the reality that he was a member of the conservative intelligentsia who claimed to speak for the narod and claimed the right to formulate policies for it. In other words, he did precisely what he denied his opponents the right to do. Still, he was a populist in the technical, etymological meaning of that word.

One of the most important aspects of Pobedonostsev’s thought was its consistency from the beginning to the end of his career. Pobedonostsev was never a liberal despite the fact that he has often been considered by observers to have been one. In his first important published work, the article “On Reform in Civil Judicial Procedure,” which appeared in 1859, the fundamental elements of his ideology were already apparent. In his work on the judicial reform of 1864 he consistently stressed that any reform had to be based on the needs and desires of the Russian narod, not on abstract juridical theory. He stressed the historically conditioned nature of judicial institutions and rejected any effort to transplant institutions from one society to another. These are the basic principles of his fully developed conservatism. He held those principles from the time of his first significant publication in 1859 to his death in 1907.

It is not surprising that even in 1859 Pobedonostsev was a consistent conservative. He was in many respects a product of the reign of Nicholas I, the reactionary tsar who came to the throne in 1825 putting down the revolt of the Decembrists, a group of nobles and military offices who undertook essentially a coup d’état as Nicholas I came to the throne. His father was a conservative nationalist. The education he received at the Academy of Jurisprudence was designed to produce competent and loyal servants of the autocracy. Pobedonostsev was not exposed to the lively and often radical intellectual atmosphere that so significantly influenced some of his contemporaries in Moscow in the 1840’s. He was not the sort of person attracted to fashionable intellectual doctrines and heated debates. He was not part of the debate between the Westerners and the Slavophiles, and he was untouched by Russian Hegelianism. His training and personality helped make him a supporter rather than an opponent of autocracy.

There are some significant parallels between Pobedonostsev’s thought and the doctrine of Official Nationality that was prevalent under Nicholas I. Official Nationality stressed Orthodoxy, autocracy, and Russian nationality, as did Pobedonostsev. Nicholas I and his supporters believed in the uniqueness of Russian institutions, as did Pobedonostsev. It seems probable that he was influenced at least in a general way by the atmosphere of Official Nationality in which he grew up. We have seen that much of the legislation he initiated as Over Procurator of the Holy Synod was designed to return to the status quo under Nicholas I before the reforms of Alexander II. He seems to have seen the years before 1855, the year in which Nicholas I died and Alexander II came to the throne, as in many respects a golden age for Russia. It is not possible, however, to establish any direct influence on him of any specific writers of that era. He never referred to Uvarov or any other apologist for Nicholas I as a source of his ideas. The sources for his specific ideas appear to have Western rather than Russian, although sources on his development before 1859 are lacking. Official Nationality was probably important for Pobedonostsev, but it is impossible to establish specific influences on him from that era.

The question of Pobedonostsev’s relationship to the Slavophiles is complex. They had similar conceptions of the nature of the Russian narod, although many of the Slavophiles were probably more guilty of romanticizing the narod than Pobedonostsev was. Yet Pobedonostsev was by no means a Slavophile. His conception of Russian history was very different from theirs. He did not seek a return to Russia’s pre-Petrine past. After all, he spent twenty-five years in a governmental and ecclesiastical position that Peter the Great had created. He did not believe that Peter’s reforms had broken the moral bond tying the narod to the tsar like many of the Slavophiles did. His conception of Russian Orthodoxy did not include the notion of sobornost’ that was so important to such Slavophiles as Khomiakov.[1] Despite his denunciation of Alexander II, the structure of the Russian state in the nineteenth century was much more satisfactory to him than it was to the Slavophiles. He differed from many of the Slavophiles in temperament too. He frequently criticized his friend Ivan Aksakov for his intemperate attacks on the government. Slavophile thinking was clearly not an important source of Pobedonostsev’s ideas.

We have seen how Pobedonostsev’s career in public service and his personality were related in many ways to his ideology. His life touched upon most of the significant events in the history of Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century. He first became active in public affairs during the period of intense discussion and debate about the most fundamental problems of Russian life that preceded the introduction of the Great Reforms of the 1860’s. He witnessed the implementation of those reforms and the period of indecision and doubt that followed them in the 1870’s. He lived through and commented on the “crisis of autocracy” at the end of that decade. His critique of the rise of revolutionary terrorism, a critique based on the fundamental assumptions of his ideology, led him to dismiss the significant threat it appeared to pose, blaming Russia’s problems instead on the weakness and vacillation he perceived in the government’s policies. The ultimate victory of the revolutionaries in Russia has led modern historians to stress the importance of the revolutionaries for Russia from the moment they first appeared. In the late 1870’s, however, Pobedonostsev’s faith in the fundamental loyalty of the narod to the regime was probably not as unrealistic as it might appear. The revolutionary populists were most often rejected by the peasants to whom they appealed. Pobedonostsev had great faith that the government could rely on the devotion of the narod.

Pobedonostsev obtained the institutional base from which he would proceed to work out the consequences of his ideology when he became Over Procurator of the Holy Synod in 1880. In 1881 he was able to exercise decisive influence on the new Emperor Alexander III in the events that led to the issuing of the Manifesto on the Reaffirmation of Autocracy that Pobedonostsev had written. His opposition to any continuation of the reform policies of the previous reign was a direct consequence of his ideology. His success in stopping the adoption of the “constitution” of Loris-Melikov ended hope for peaceful constitutional evolution in Russia and ushered in the era of reaction and counter-reform that would last until 1905.

Pobedonostsev’s own contribution to the counter-reforms appeared in the form of four pieces of legislation issued in 1884 and 1885. The reform of the number of Orthodox parishes and of their structure, as well as reform of the Church’s schools embodied in these laws constitutes Pobedonostsev’s plan for the Russian Orthodox Church, his program as Over Procurator. It too was a logical consequence of his ideology. He desired to increase the number of churches and clergymen serving the narod. He wanted those clergymen to be priests not trained theologians or men learned in secular disciplines. Their chief duty was only to perform the Orthodox liturgy completely, beautifully, and often. The Church for Pobedonostsev was more an institution of the Russian narod than it was the successor to the Patriarchate of Constantinople that it claimed to be. He meant to bind it more closely than ever to the masses it was meant to serve.

Of the four measures that made up Pobedonostsev’s program by far the most important to him was the law on the parish schools of 1884. Pobedonostsev designed those schools to be the principal educational institution of the narod. Its function was to tie education to the Church, to provide the basics of literacy in a manner understandable to the narod while strengthening the attachment of the narod to Orthodoxy and the state. His success in founding and spreading the parish schools was remarkable. By the time he left office in 1905 the parish schools constituted nearly half of all popular education in Russia. He had created a huge system of public instruction that was a major part of the Imperial government’s drive to attain universal literacy, a goal to which Pobedonostsev was wholeheartedly devoted. The parish schools were Pobedonostsev’s major accomplishment and the fullest embodiment of his ideology.

That being said, we must not forget how limited the education those schools provided really was. Many of them existed only in someone’s home and provided the most absolutely basic instruction if indeed they provided any at all. Most of the others offered only two years of instruction. The most education any of them offered was only four years. Pobedonostsev was not trying to create a truly well-educated population. He was trying to create only the most basic literacy, and he tied that literacy to the Russian Orthodox Church, its liturgy, singing, and doctrines, not to any goal of secular education. The parish schools were better than nothing, and we must never forget the realities of Russian life when we evaluate them.[2] Still, in 1905, most of the Russian population was educated to nothing like the levels prevalent in Western Europe or the United States.

Pobedonostsev’s long career in state service ended amid the turmoil of the Revolution of 1905. His participation in the events of that year was limited to questions involving the Church, and those efforts had their effect. His letters to Nicholas II in the spring of 1905 were no doubt largely responsible for the Emperor’s decision not to call the general council of the Church that was being demanded in many quarters both inside and outside the Church. His argument in those letters is a perfect illustration of this ideology in action, appealing to historical precedent and the desires of the narod as authority for his ideas.

Pobedonostsev’s personality was as complex and many-sided as was his career in public service. He was not a notably friendly or sociable man. He preferred a life of seclusion and study to a  life in the public spotlight. He preferred books to people and resented the numerous intrusions into his privacy that were inevitable given his high position in the government. He was very nearly humorless. It is difficult to imagine him laughing and joking with friends. He took life much too seriously for that. He was almost continually depressed, morose, and gloomy. He was in all probability an unpleasant man to be around for any length of time.

There was, however, another an considerably less well-known aspect of his personality. There is no doubt that he was a devoutly religious man in his own way. He loved the Russian Orthodox Church with all his heart, or at least he loved its beautiful and powerful liturgy. In the Church he found a spiritual and emotional release that helped him survive the depression and morbidity that characterized so much of his life. In his statements on the Church service there is a joy and an elevation of spirit found nowhere else in his writings. In his relationship with the Church he was capable of a great sentimentality that could on occasion become maudlin and saccharine. The sincerity of his feelings cannot , however, be questioned, and his love of the Church had important consequences for his policies as Over Procurator. We see it, for example, in his frequently expressed desire to teach people Church singing. I doubt that ever said he wanted to teach people Church theology.

Was Pobedonostsev’s faith in the Russian narod justified? Was the narod in fact what Pobedonostsev always claimed it was? There is little doubt that for most of the period we have been discussing the mass of Russians were loyal subjects of the tsar and at least nominally children of the Russian Orthodox Church. They could hardly be otherwise, given the traditions of Russian life and the resistance to change that has always characterized backward, peasant societies. Still, despite his awareness of many of the vices of the narod, his view of it turns out to have been an idealization. He saw in it strength, faith, and virtue. He saw it as the force in which autocracy and Orthodoxy were grounded and made secure. Yet the Russian narod turned out not to be quite so loyal to Orthodoxy and autocracy. By 1905 unrest had become so widespread that sweeping concessions buy the government were necessary to stop the erosion of public confidence in the government. By 1917, only ten years after Pobedonostsev’s death, virtually no support for the autocracy remained at all, and the last Russian emperor fell from power almost without resistance. Pobedonostsev’s beloved narod did nothing to preserve autocracy. Under the Soviet government the Russian Orthodox Church was reduced almost to a caricature of its former self. It supported a government that oppressed it and retained only a most tenuous hold on a small portion of the Russian population. Unlike autocracy the Russian Orthodox Church didn’t die under Communism. It has had a resurgence to a place of prominence in Russian life since the fall of the Soviet Union. I recently saw on TV an Orthodox priest blessing a Russian rocket before it blasted off to take astronauts into space, something that certainly would not have happened under the Communists. Vladimir Putin uses the Orthodox Church, perhaps quite cynically, for his own political purposes. Yet it cannot be said that the Russian narod defended the Church with the vigor Pobedonostsev would have expected. In the end the narod as a source of strength for an unaltered autocracy and an unchanging Orthodoxy turned out to be a mirage. Pobedonostsev’s fall from power in 1905 corresponded with the first act of the great drama that was so to transform the Russia he loved and defended.

In the end Pobedonostsev appears as a tragic figure. He spend his life defending a system that was doomed to failure. His devotion to that system, to the autocracy, the Russian Orthodox Church, and his romanticized image of the narod kept him from seeing how weak Russia really was. He may have put his faith in God, but he also put in a population that truly was not what he thought it was. He fought to preserve that which could not be preserved. He was a true conservative, and in his commitment to keeping what could not be kept his dream went the way of all conservative dreams, into the dustbin of history. Konstantin Petrovich, you are indeed a fascinating character. I just wish you had seen the reality of your nation and her people more clearly. If Imperial Russia had tried in earnest to modernize, to democratize, and to deal in truly constructive ways with her manifold problems perhaps her future would have been different. Pobedonostsev was one of the figures who kept it from being different. We can only wish that it had been otherwise.

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[1] Sobornost’ means something like “communality.” It is based on the Russian ecclesiastical word sobor, which means “council.” It refers to a desire for the different parts of society to work together, I suppose as if they met regularly in council.

[2] As I write it I can hear Pobedonostsev applauding that last statement I just made.