Draft:Alexei Argamakov
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Alexei Argamakov | |
|---|---|
| Алексей Михайлович Аргамаков | |
| 1st Director of Moscow University | |
| In office 12 January 1755 – 25 January 1757 | |
| Succeeded by | Ivan Melissino |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1711 unknown |
| Died | 25 January 1757[a] |
| Resting place | Lazarevskoye Cemetery, Alexander Nevsky Lavra |
| Spouse | Irina Yakovlevna Vasilyeva |
| Children | 7, including Pyotr, Alexander and Mikhail Argamakov |
| Education | Geneva Academy |
| Occupation | Civil servant, university administrator |
Alexei Mikhailovich Argamakov (Russian: Алексей Михайлович Аргамаков; 1711 – 25 January 1757) was a Russian civil servant who served as the first director of Moscow University from 1755 until his death in 1757. He was also one of the early figures of Moscow Freemasonry.[1]
Early life
[edit]Argamakov was the son of stolnik Mikhail Mikhailovich Argamakov, a participant in the military campaigns of Peter the Great, who died no earlier than 1714.[1] His mother, Anastasia Yermilovna, became the third wife of Count Andrei Artamonovich Matveyev, a prominent diplomat, in 1720, and the young Argamakov was raised in his stepfather's household.[1] Matveyev later placed him in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment, where Argamakov served until the age of twenty, reaching the rank of guards captain.[1]
Education and early career
[edit]In 1731, Argamakov went abroad to study, attending the Geneva Academy, where he took lectures in mathematics, jurisprudence, anatomy and surgery, and studied French.[1] He subsequently travelled through Germany, England, Italy, France and the Netherlands before returning to Russia in 1735.[1] He petitioned Empress Anna Ioannovna for a government appointment, but ill health kept him out of service until 1741.[1]
In 1741, Baron Karl Ludwig Mengden, president of the Commerce College, appointed Argamakov to the Putivl cloth factory, but Mengden was arrested following the accession of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, leaving Argamakov again without a post.[1] An application to join the College of Foreign Affairs was unsuccessful, and for six years he remained out of service, living with his family in a house he owned on Vasilyevsky Island.[1]
On 2 August 1748, Argamakov entered state service at the Manufacture College and received the rank of collegiate councillor, with responsibility for overseeing the empire's factories and manufactories.[1] In 1754, while retaining this post, he also joined the Commission for the Revision of Laws.[1]
Inspection of the Kremlin Armoury
[edit]In the mid-1750s, Empress Elizabeth ordered a review of the state of Russia's institutions, and Argamakov was tasked with inspecting the Armoury Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin.[1] Following his inspection, he petitioned the Senate for a new inventory of the chamber's holdings and proposed, in a memorandum known as his "Six Points", that a new building be constructed to turn the Armoury into what he described as a repository worthy of Russia's ancient and precious treasures.[1] The historian Sergei Solovyov later remarked that the plan "does him credit and may explain why he was appointed director of Moscow University".[1]
Director of Moscow University
[edit]On 12 January 1755, Argamakov was confirmed by Empress Elizabeth as director of the newly founded Moscow University on the recommendation of the university's curator, Ivan Shuvalov, the appointment coinciding with the signing of the decree establishing the university.[1][2] He thereby became the university's first director, responsible for its finances and general welfare, and served as the principal intermediary between the university in Moscow and Shuvalov, who resided in Saint Petersburg.[1]
Argamakov opened teaching at the university's affiliated gymnasium in the spring of 1755 and brought in its first students, transferred from the Moscow Academy.[1] During his tenure:
- the university's printing house opened on 25 April 1756, beginning publication of the newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti;[1]
- the foundations of the university library were laid, with Argamakov petitioning the Academy of Sciences for assistance in acquiring books;[1]
- the university received a mineral collection from the mining industrialist Nikita Demidov, which formed the basis of its mineralogical cabinet and began a tradition of philanthropy toward Russian education and science;[1]
- equipment was acquired for the university's physics cabinet;[1]
- the Senate issued a decree for the university to acquire the house of P. I. Repnin on Mokhovaya Street, beginning the university's territorial expansion in central Moscow.[1]
The university's academic Conference held its first meeting under Argamakov's chairmanship on 16 October 1756.[1] He was noted for holding enlightened views for his time, freeing several of his own serfs with the intention of later enrolling them at the university as students or staff.[1] To rapidly increase the university's income in its early years, however, he lent funds from its treasury at interest without adequate record-keeping, a practice that, following his sudden death, contributed to a financial crisis for the institution.[1]
Death
[edit]Argamakov fell ill during one of his trips to Saint Petersburg on university business and died suddenly there on 25 January 1757 (some sources give 7 January).[1] He was buried at the Lazarevskoye Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.[1] His grave was subsequently lost, but in 2005, to mark the 250th anniversary of Moscow University, a marble memorial plaque was installed on the cemetery wall in his memory.[1] He left substantial debts and an unresolved matter concerning the manumission of his household serfs.[1]
Family
[edit]Argamakov married Irina Yakovlevna Vasilyeva, daughter of Yakov Savvich Vasilyev, a subensign of a Moscow dragoon regiment.[1] Between 1742 and 1754 they had seven children: Pyotr, Yekaterina, Alexander, Natalya, Alexei, Mikhail and Varvara.[1] Argamakov was a relative of the writer Alexander Radishchev; around 1756, shortly after Moscow University opened, Radishchev's father brought the young Alexander to Moscow to stay in the house of his maternal uncle, whose brother was Argamakov.[1]
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Some sources give 7 January 1757.
References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Ремарчук В. М. (comp.) Ректоры Московского университета: Биографический словарь. Moscow, 1996. pp. 7–9.
- Костышин Д. Н. "А. М. Аргамаков. Материалы для биографии" in Россия в XVIII веке. Vol. 2. Moscow, 2004. pp. 51–176.
- Ремарчук В. В. "АРГАМАКОВ Алексей Михайлович" in Андреев А. Ю., Цыганков Д. А. Императорский Московский университет: 1755—1917: энциклопедический словарь. Moscow: РОССПЭН, 2010. p. 33. ISBN 978-5-8243-1429-8.