"Lobanov-Rostovsky" redirects here. Not to be confused with Dimitri Lobanov-Rostovsky.

Prince

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

 Alexey Borisovich Lobanov-Rostovsky ( (December 30, 1824–August 30, 1896) was a Russian statesman

Statesman

A statesman is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...

, probably best remembered for having concluded the Li-Lobanov Treaty

Li-Lobanov Treaty

The Li–Lobanov Treaty or the Sino-Russian Secret Treaty was a treaty signed on June 3, 1896 in Moscow by foreign minister Alexey Lobanov-Rostovsky and finance minister Sergey Witte on behalf of the Russian Empire and viceroy Li Hongzhang on behalf of China...

 with China and for his publication of the Russian Genealogical Book (in two volumes).

Descended from the legendary prince Rurik

Rurik

Rurik, or Riurik , was a semilegendary 9th-century Varangian who founded the Rurik dynasty which ruled Kievan Rus and later some of its successor states, most notably the Tsardom of Russia, until 1598....

, Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky was educated at the famous lyceum

Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum

The Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg also known historically as the Imperial Alexander Lyceum after its founder the Emperor Alexander I with the object of educating youths of the best families, who should afterwards occupy important posts in the Imperial service.Its...

 of Tsarskoye Selo

Tsarskoye Selo

Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...

. At the age of twenty, he entered the diplomatic service

Diplomatic service

Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel enjoy diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to other countries...

 and became minister at Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 in 1859. In 1863, a regrettable incident in his private life made him retire temporarily from the public service

Civil service

The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....

, but four years later he re-entered it and served for ten years as an assistant to the minister of the interior.

At the close of the Russo-Turkish war in 1878, he was selected by Alexander II

Alexander II of Russia

Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...

 as ambassador

Ambassador

An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

 to Constantinople, and for more than a year he carried out with great ability the policy of his government, which aimed at re-establishing tranquility in the Eastern Question

Eastern Question

The "Eastern Question", in European history, encompasses the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. The expression does not apply to any one particular problem, but instead includes a variety of issues raised during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including...

 after the disturbances produced by the reckless action of his predecessor, Count Ignatiev

Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev

Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev was a Russian statesman and diplomat...

. In 1879 he was transferred to London, and in 1882 to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. In March 1895, under Nicholas II

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...

, he was appointed minister of foreign affairs in succession to Nicholas de Giers

Nicholas de Giers

Nicholas de Giers was a Russian Foreign Minister during the reign of Alexander III. He was one of the architects of the Franco-Russian Alliance, which was later transformed into the Triple Entente.- Biography :...

.

In this position he displayed much of the caution of his predecessor, but adopted a more energetic policy in European affairs generally and especially in the Balkan Peninsula. At the time of his appointment the attitude of the Russian government towards the Slav nationalities

Slavic peoples

The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

 had been for several years one of extreme reserve, and he had seemed as ambassador to sympathize with this attitude. But as soon as he became minister of foreign affairs, Russian influence in the Balkan Peninsula suddenly revived. Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

 received financial assistance; a large consignment of arms was sent openly from St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 to the prince of Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

; Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 became ostensibly reconciled with the Russian emperor, and his son Boris

Boris III of Bulgaria

Boris III the Unifier, Tsar of Bulgaria , originally Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver , son of Ferdinand I, came to the throne in 1918 upon the abdication of his father, following the defeat of the Kingdom of Bulgaria during World War I...

 was received into the Eastern Orthodox Church

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

; the Russian embassy at Constantinople tried to bring about a reconciliation between the Bulgarian exarch

Exarch

In the Byzantine Empire, an exarch was governor with extended authority of a province at some remove from the capital Constantinople. The prevailing situation frequently involved him in military operations....

 and the ecumenical patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

; Bulgarians and Serbians

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 professed, at the bidding of Russia, to lay aside their mutual hostility.

All this seemed to foreshadow the creation of a Balkan confederation

Confederation

A confederation in modern political terms is a permanent union of political units for common action in relation to other units. Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution, confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues such as defense, foreign...

 hostile to Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and the sultan

Sultan

Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...

 had reason to feel alarmed. In reality Prince Lobanov was merely trying to establish a strong Russian hegemony

Hegemony

Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...

 among these nationalities, and he had not the slightest intention of provoking a new crisis in the Eastern Question so long as the general European situation did not afford Russia a convenient opportunity for solving it in her own interest without serious intervention from other powers. Meanwhile he considered that the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 must be maintained so far as these other powers were concerned. At the same time efforts were made to weaken the Triple Alliance

Triple Alliance (1882)

The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...

, the principal instrument employed being the entente with France, which Prince Lobanov helped to convert into a formal alliance between the two great powers.

In East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

 he was not less active and became the protector of China in the same sense as he had shown himself the protector of Turkey. By the Yamagata-Lobanov Agreement

Yamagata-Lobanov Agreement

The ', signed on 9 June 1896, was the second of three agreements signed between the Empire of Japan and the Empire of Russia concerning disputes regarding their sphere of influence over Korea....

, Japan was compelled to give up her conquests in Northeast China

Northeast China

Northeast China, historically known in English as Manchuria, is a geographical region of China, consisting of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The region is sometimes called the Three Northeast Provinces...

, so as not to interfere with the future actions of St. Petersburg in Manchuria

Manchuria

Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...

 and financial and political schemes for increasing czarist influence in that part of the world were vigorously supported. All this activity, though combined with a haughty tone towards foreign governments and diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

s, did not produce much general apprehension, probably because there was a widespread conviction that he desired to maintain peace, and that his great ability and strength of character would enable him to control the dangerous forces which he boldly set in motion. However this may be, before he had time to mature his schemes, and when he had been the director of Russian policy for only eighteen months, he died suddenly of heart disease

Heart disease

Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary...

 when travelling with the emperor on August 30, 1896.

Personally, Prince Lobanov-Rostovskiy was a grand aristocrat of the Russian type, proud of being descended from the independent princes of Rostov

Rostov

Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...

, and at the same time an amiable man of wide culture, deeply versed in Russian history and genealogy

Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...

, and perhaps the first authority of his time in all that related to the reign of Tsar Paul I

Paul I of Russia

Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...

 (1754–1801). His extensive collection of coins, particularly those minted by the Russians during their occupation of Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 in 1758–1761, was acquired by the Russian Museum

Russian Museum

The State Russian Museum is the largest depository of Russian fine art in St Petersburg....

.