Vyacheslav von Plehve
Encyclopedia
Meshchovsk
Meshchovsk is a town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Tureya River southwest of Kaluga. Population: It was first mentioned in Russian chronicles in connection with the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1238...
, Kaluga
Kaluga
Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...
Guberniya
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
– in St Petersburg) was the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior.
Biography
He was the only son of schoolteacher Konstantin von Plehve and Elizaveta Mikhailovna Shamaev, daughter of a minor landowner. In 1851 Plehve's family moved from MeshchovskMeshchovsk
Meshchovsk is a town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Tureya River southwest of Kaluga. Population: It was first mentioned in Russian chronicles in connection with the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1238...
to Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, where his father accepted a job as instructor in a gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
.
After studying law at the Moscow University, he became a prosecutor's assistant in 1867 and served in various positions in the Ministry of Justice. He served as assistant prosecutor in the Vladimir
Vladimir
Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River, to the east of Moscow along the M7 motorway. Population:...
circuit court and as prosecutor in Vologda
Vologda
Vologda is a city and the administrative, cultural, and scientific center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the Vologda River. The city is a major transport knot of the Northwest of Russia. Vologda is among the Russian cities possessing an especially valuable historical heritage...
. In 1876 he was appointed assistant prosecutor of the Warsaw Chamber of Justice, and - in 1879 - prosecutor of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Justice.
In 1881 he investigated the murder of 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...
and then joined the MVD as a Director of the Department of Police, also in charge of Okhrana. He is credited with the destruction of numerous "People's Will
People's Will
Will of the People is a political party that aimed for representation in the Parliament of Sweden, but only got 881 votes nation-wide in the Swedish general election, 2006, of a national turnout of 5,650,416...
" terrorist groups.
He became a member of the Governing Senate
Governing Senate
The Governing Senate was a legislative, judicial, and executive body of Russian Monarchs, instituted by Peter the Great to replace the Boyar Duma and lasted until the very end of the Russian Empire. It was chaired by the Ober-Procurator...
in 1884 and Assistant Minister of Interior in 1885. As Assistant Minister, at first under Count Dmitry Tolstoy
Dmitry Tolstoy
Count Dmitry Andreyevich Tolstoy was a Russian statesman, a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia . He belonged to the comital branch of the Tolstoy family....
and later under his successor, Ivan Durnovo, Plehve had shown definite administrative talent.
Made an Actual Privy Counsellor in 1899, he was Finnish Minister Secretary of State
Finnish Minister Secretary of State
The Minister–Secretary of State for Finland represented Finnish interests in the Imperial Court in Saint Petersburg. Before 1834 the title was secretary of state...
from that year until 1904. He supported the abolition of the separate Finnish army in 1901.
In April 1902, following the assassination of Dmitry Sipyagin
Dmitry Sipyagin
Dmitry Sergeyevich Sipyagin , a Russian statesman.Born in Kiev, Sipyagin graduated from the Judicial Department of St Petersburg University in 1876. Served in the MVD as Vice-Governor of Kharkov , Governor of Courland and Governor of Moscow...
, he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Chief of Gendarmes
Special Corps of Gendarmes
The Special Corps of Gendarmes was the uniformed security police of the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main responsibilities were law enforcement and state security....
. After a brief attempt at conciliation with the zemstvo
Zemstvo
Zemstvo was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of the zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were put into effect in 1864...
conservatives failed, he relapsed - disbanding the police-supported labour unions (zubatovshchina
Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov
Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov was a famous Russian police administrator. Despite rumors, he was never a Colonel in the Special Corps of Gendarmes...
).
In August 1903 he met with Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl , born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl was an Ashkenazi Jew Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the State of Israel.-Early life:...
in Saint 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...
, discussing the establishment of Zionist societies in Russia and proposed a Russian government request to the Turks to obtain a charter for Jewish colonisation of Palestine.
Plehve was an obvious target for revolutionaries. After he did nothing to prevent a bloody wave of anti-Jewish violence in 1903, the known double agent Evno Azef decided not to inform on the SR plans to kill Plehve. He survived one attack in 1903 and two in 1904 before the Socialist-Revolutionary
Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...
Combat Group succeeded. On 15 July 1904 a bomb was thrown into Plehve's carriage by Yegor Sozonov, in Saint 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...
, killing him. He was 58 years old.
Plehve had used his position as Minister of Interior to insist that Hirsh Lekert
Hirsh Lekert
Hirsh Lekert was a Jewish socialist activist and member of the Bund.- Life :...
, the assassin of the governor of Vilna, Victor von Wahl
Victor von Wahl
Victor von Wahl was an Imperial Russian Army general, mayor of St. Petersburg, and governor of Vilnius. He came from Baltic German aristocracy. He had also been a director of the Xenia Institute, an exclusive school for aristocratic women....
, be tried under wartime law. This virtually guaranteed a death sentence.
Further reading
- V.I. GurkoVladimir GurkoVladimir Iosifovich Gurko was a Russian government official and right-wing politician.- Life :Son of the Iosif Gurko. Brother of the general Vasily Gurko....
. Features And Figures Of The Past. Government And Opinion In The Reign Of Nicholas II. - Edward H. Judge. Plehve: repression and reform in imperial Russia, 1902-1904.