Back in 1904, the Emperor himself offered Prince Sergei Dmitrievich Urusov the position of governor of Kharkiv on several occasions. However, Sergei Dmitrievich was serving as governor of Bessarabia at the time, and he did not particularly care for Kharkiv. He recounts this story in considerable detail in his book *The Governor’s Notes*. The book itself was so popular with readers that it was reprinted several times before 1917.
In addition to explaining the reasons for his decision to leave Kharkiv, the prince shares quite a few interesting details about:
— the Minister of Internal Affairs, Prince Pyotr Dmitrievich Svyatopolk-Mirsky.
— the vice-governor of Kharkiv, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Azanchevsky-Azancheev, who literally “paved the way” for his career in our city.
However, for us Kharkiv residents, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this story is the description of our city provided by Prince Urusov.
I received an encrypted telegram from the Minister of the Interior with the following content:
“Do you agree to a transfer to Kharkiv? It is highly desirable, Prince Svyatopolk-Mirsky.”
Although the Kharkiv Governorate is considered almost the best in Russia in terms of the governor’s administration, and the reasons behind the proposals for my transfer were flattering to me, I was deeply saddened at the thought of leaving Bessarabia.
Moreover, Kharkiv is an expensive city to live in, restless and unpleasant in terms of police duties, and difficult in terms of representation and local official relations. Three institutions of higher learning, the court of appeals, and a multitude of high-ranking military officials—all of these portended no small amount of trouble and complications for the governor, compared to which the concerns of Chișinău began to seem like a pleasant diversion in my eyes. However, following the rule I had adopted—not to determine my own fate—I did not dare to categorically refuse the new appointment and replied by telegram with the following message: “I consider it my duty to comply with Your Excellency’s wishes, although I would have preferred to remain in Bessarabia, where, having become familiar with the region, I could serve to the benefit of the cause. Furthermore, I doubt that serving alongside the Kharkiv Vice-Governor A. would lead to the desired unity among the representatives of the province’s administrative authorities.”
However, on October 12, I received a telegram from the department director informing me that “the Imperial decree had been issued and would be published in the coming days,” so I left for St. Petersburg without delay.
I had known about A., the vice governor of Kharkiv, since my college days. Even back in college, he had an unenviable reputation, and, as is often the case, for the sake of self-preservation and his career, he had to ride the favorite horse of individuals with a less-than-stellar reputation— — exaggerated displays of selfless devotion to the throne and the convictions of an admirer of “strong government” and the “Russian spirit.” He was, evidently, well known to the minister—a landowner from Kharkiv—who, immediately upon receiving my telegram, ordered that A. be offered a transfer to another province. However, fortune smiled temporarily on this administrator—a type much favored at Court—thanks to a single circumstance that came to the attention of His Imperial Majesty. It turned out that when troops were being dispatched from Kharkiv to the theater of war, A. had ordered straw to be placed in the soldiers’ railcars, which led to some sort of confrontation with the railroad authorities—a confrontation that ended in his triumph: he was first awarded the title of chamberlain and then appointed governor of Tomsk, despite the objections of Prince Mirsky, who had personally reported to the Emperor that such an appointment was undesirable. Information obtained from a reliable source allows me to quote the Emperor’s actual reply, in which he expressed the hope that A., following his appointment as governor, would change for the better thanks to his increased salary; in this regard, the Emperor mentioned the straw mattress as the decisive factor in favor of the candidate he had chosen…
Upon arriving in St. Petersburg, I found the minister in a very difficult position regarding the filling of the recently vacant governorship in the Tver Province, which was considered particularly difficult due to the government’s relations with the “seditious” Tver zemstvo, which, as mentioned earlier, was in an exceptional situation….
After speaking with me, Prince Mirsky deemed it appropriate to abandon the idea of transferring me to Kharkiv, instead entrusting me with the task of traveling to govern the Tver Governorate and, after familiarizing myself with the situation on the ground, finding a way out of the complicated predicament in which both the government and the zemstvo had found themselves. For my part, I had no objections to such a change. I was glad to be rid of Kharkiv, and as a former member of the zemstvo, my relations with the zemstvo did not daunt me. But obstacles arose on the part of the Sovereign, as I learned from the correspondence that took place between the Tsar and the Minister of the Interior regarding my appointment. Prince Mirsky’s first written report, in which he sought the Tsar’s approval to revoke my appointment to Kharkiv, was met with a negative resolution from the Tsar. The list of my qualities—which the Minister of the Interior deemed necessary to cite as evidence for the need to transfer me to Tver—prompted a rather substantial remark: “These qualities are not superfluous in Kharkiv either.” A second, insistent petition from Prince Mirsky prompted the Emperor to write a note to the minister, in which he expressed his desire to appoint Zasyadko, the chairman of the Tver Provincial Zemstvo, as governor of Tver; Zasyadko had held that position for several months at the time,
by government appointment. Only Prince Mirsky’s third, categorical statement regarding the impossibility of such an appointment—coupled with a question about the Tsar’s personal trust in the Minister of the Interior—secured the necessary consent.
The incident involving the “Kharkiv straw” and the appointment to the governorship that resulted from it actually received a great deal of publicity throughout the former Empire. So who knows—maybe this expression entered common usage precisely because of our beloved city.
- About the military pilot school and the airfield in Kharkiv… - 04.11.2020
- Kharkiv Artisans and the 1887 Exhibition - 17.08.2020
- Nikanor Savich—A Political Career by Mistake - 13.07.2020