Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev

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Count Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev (Russian: Николай Павлович Игнатьев) (17 January (29 January Old Style) 1832 – 20 June (3 July Old Style) 1908) was a Russian statesman and diplomat.

He was born at St Petersburg. His father, Captain Pavel Ignatiev, had been taken into favor by Tsar Nicholas I, owing to his fidelity on the occasion of the military conspiracy in 1825, and Grand Duke Alexander (later Tsar Alexander II) stood sponsor at the boy's baptism. At the age of seventeen he became an officer of the Russian Guards.

Ignatiev's diplomatic career began at the Congress of Paris in 1856, after the Crimean War, where he took an active part as military attaché in the negotiations regarding the demarcation of the Russo-Ottoman frontier on the lower Danube. Two years later he was sent with a small escort on a dangerous mission to the Central Asian states of Khiva and Bukhara. The khan of Khiva laid a plan for detaining him as a hostage, but he eluded the danger and returned safely, after concluding with the emir of Bukhara a treaty of friendship.

His next diplomatic exploit was in the Far East, as plenipotentiary to the court of Peking (Beijing). When the Qing Chinese government was terrified by the advance of the Anglo-French expedition of 1860 and the burning of the Summer Palace in the Second Opium War, he worked on their fears so dexterously that, in the Convention of Peking, he obtained for Russia Outer Manchuria – not only the left bank of the Amur, the original object of the mission, but also a large extent of territory and seacoast south of that river that would become the Russian Maritime Province.

Ignatiev's success was supposed to prove his capacity for dealing with Orientals and paved his way to the post of ambassador at Constantinople (Istanbul), which he occupied from 1864 to 1877. Here his chief aim was to liberate from Ottoman domination and bring under the influence of Russia the Christian nationalities in general and the Bulgarians in particular. His restless activity in this field, mostly of a semiofficial and secret character, culminated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, at the close of which he negotiated with the Ottoman plenipotentiaries the Treaty of San Stefano. As the war which he had done so much to bring about did not eventually secure for Russia advantages commensurate with the sacrifices involved, he fell into disfavour, and retired from active service.

Shortly after the accession of Alexander III in 1881, he was appointed Minister of the Interior on the understanding that he would carry out a nationalist, reactionary policy. After a period of intense, violent, destructive anti-Jewish rioting, known as pogroms, which some accused Ignatiev of fomenting, he issued the May Laws in May 1882. Pogroms received state-sponsorship from local authorities, and typically police were involved in them as well. He retired from office in June 1882. Explanations include that he was suspected of dishonesty or extortion, or that the tsar feared he intended to introduce constitutional government by reviving the Zemsky Sobor (parliament). After that time he exercised no important influence in public affairs.

Ignatiev's son, Count Paul Ignatieff, served as the last Minister of Education under Tsar Nicholas II. His grandson George Ignatieff became a Canadian diplomat, and his great-grandson Michael Ignatieff a prominent academic and Canadian politician.

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