Filipp Filippovich Vigel (; – ) was a Russian noble of Swedish extraction who served in the foreign ministry. He accompanied Count Golovkin on his 1805 mission to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, presided over the department of foreign religions and governed the town of

Kerch Kerch, also known as Keriç or Kerich, is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of Crimea. It has a population of Founded 2,600 years ago as the Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies, ancient Greek colony Pantik ...

. Vigel witnessed every major event of

Alexander I Alexander I may refer to: * Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon from 495 to 454 BC * Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus * Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas, ruler of the Seleucid Empire 150-145 BC * Pope Alex ...

's reign and conversed with other Russian cultural figures. His colleagues at the Arzamas Society included

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

, who gently mocked Vigel's

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...

proclivities in a verse epistle. Vigel is remembered primarily for his copious

memoirs A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobio ...

covering the history of Russia from the reign of

Emperor Paul Paul I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination in 1801. Paul remained overshadowed by his mother, Catherine the Great, for most of his life. He adopted the laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules that lasted ...

to the

November Uprising The November Uprising (1830–31) (), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in Russian Partition, the heartland of Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. ...

(1831). They were published by

Mikhail Katkov Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov (; 13 February 1818 – 1 August 1887) was a conservative Russian journalist influential during the reign of tsar Alexander III. He was a proponent of Russian nationalism, an important figure in the creation of a fee ...

in 1864; the expanded edition (1892) appeared in seven books. Vigel's reminiscences are engaging, pithy and readily quotable. They are considered unreliable in so far as they concern the Western-leaning literati such as

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the Grotesque#In literature, grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works "The Nose (Gogol short story), ...

and Pyotr Chaadayev. Vigel hated them passionately. It was Vigel who denounced Chaadayev to the authorities.

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

*
The Memoirs of Filipp Vigel
1786 births 1856 deaths Diplomats of the Russian Empire Mayors of places in the Russian Empire Russian gay writers Russian gay politicians Gay memoirists Gay diplomats 19th-century memoirists from the Russian Empire {{Russia-writer-stub