Mikhail Matveyevich Stasyulevich (Михаи́л Матве́евич Стасюле́вич, August 28, 1826,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

– January 23, 1911, Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a

Russian writer Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its émigrés, and to Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different ethnic origins, including bilingual ...

, scholar, historian, journalist, editor and publisher. He is best known as the founder (in 1866) and editor-in-chief (1866–1909) of ''

Vestnik Evropy ''Vestnik Evropy'' () (''Herald of Europe'' or ''Messenger of Europe'') was the major liberal magazine of late-nineteenth-century Russia. It was published from 1866 to 1918. The magazine (named for an earlier publication edited by Nikolay Kara ...

'' ("Herald of Europe"), one of Russia's leading literary magazines of the time.

Biography

Mikhail Stasyulevich was born in Saint Petersburg to the family of a doctor. He graduated from the

Saint Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

's Philology faculty in 1847. In 1852 he was invited to teach the children of the Russian monarch's family and in 1860-1862 was a personal history tutor for tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich. In 1856-59, Stasyulevich toured Europe, meeting many members of the Russian emigre community, such as the Utin family, who would later become heavily involved in revolutionary activity back in Russia, and Alexandr Herzen, the famous editor of '' Kolokol'', a progressive paper that was illegal in Russia. He actively participated in the academic life of Western European universities, intending to bring the European modes of pedagogy to Saint Petersburg University. One of his fellow professors at the university, P.V. Ostrogorskii, described him as a "brilliant lecturer-popularizer" who "showed us for the first time history's significance and explained the profound meaning of civilization." In April 1859, he married Liuba Utin, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, the sister of his colleague

Boris Utin Boris Isaakovitch Utin (1832–1872) was a professor at Saint Petersburg University. He was sympathetic to the student movement in Russia and resigned during the student unrest of 1861, afterwards becoming a lawyer and a member of the Saint Peter ...

. In 1861, in a time of student unrest in Saint Petersburg in response to repressive laws passed by the tsarist government, Stasyulevich and four Saint Petersburg University colleagues -

Konstantin Kavelin Konstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin (; November 4, 1818 – May 5, 1885) was a Russian historian, jurist, and sociologist, sometimes called the chief architect of early Russian liberalism. Born in Saint Petersburg into an old noble family, Kavelin ...

Alexander Pypin Alexander Nikolayevich Pypin (; 6 April 1833 – 9 December 1904) was a Russian literary historian, ethnographer, journalist and editor; a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and (briefly, in 1904), its vice-president. Nikolai Chernyshevsky ...

Włodzimierz Spasowicz Włodzimierz Spasowicz or Vladimir Spasovich (1829–1906) was a Polish-Russian lawyer often acclaimed as the most brilliant defense attorney of Imperial Russia. Spasovich attended school in Minsk and studied law in St. Petersburg University, wh ...

, and

- attempted to reform the institution, but were unsuccessful. Two of Stasyulevich's brothers-in-law, Nikolai and

Yevgeny Utin Yevgeny Isaakovitch Utin () (3 November 1843 – 9 August 1894) was a Russian lawyer and journalist. He was arrested in the student unrest in Saint Petersburg in 1861 and held in the Peter and Paul Fortress for some time. After graduating from th ...

, were arrested in the student demonstrations of 26 and 27 September. Stasyulevich did not outright support the students, believing it would be counterproductive to do so, but when the authorities gave harsh penalties to the students and closed the university in the fall of 1861, he and his four reform-minded colleagues resigned in response. Stasyulevich wanted to create a political space for moderate liberals - somewhere that could host criticism of the state as far as possible within the bounds of official censorship. For this purpose, in 1866 he founded ''

'' ("Herald of Europe"), naming it after a defunct journal founded by

Nikolai Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin () was a Russian historian, writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for his fundamental ''History of the Russian State'', a 12-volume national history. Early life Karamzin was born in the small village of ...

, a famous writer. To get approval from the Interior Ministry, Stasyulevich emphasized that this was primarily to be a ''historical'' journal, not a political one. To underscore the intent, he convinced

Nikolai Kostomarov Mykola Ivanovych Kostomarov (; May 16, 1817 – April 19, 1885) or Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov () was one of the most distinguished Russian–Ukrainian historians, one of the first anti-Normanists, and the father of modern Ukrainian historiog ...

, a well-known historian, to join the editorial board. The journal was financially supported by the Gintsburg banking family, who were prominent Jewish philanthropists. Away from the eyes of government censors, Stasyulevich and his wife hosted a weekly salon for progressive intellectuals to debate the concerns of the day more openly than was allowed in print. Although ''Herald'' was intended as a historical journal, Stasyulevich fought hard to attract literary talent, in order to drive subscription rates. In particular, he encouraged

Ivan Goncharov Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov ( , ; rus, Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Гончаро́в, r=Iván Aleksándrovich Goncharóv, p=ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ ɡənʲtɕɪˈrof; – ) was a Russian novelist best known for his n ...

's ''

Precipice In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are co ...

''. The ''Herald'' was also important for launching

Emile Zola Emile or Émile may refer to: * Émile (novel) (1827), autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life * Emile, Canadian film made in 2003 by Carl Bessai * '' Emile: or, On Education'' (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a treatise o ...

's literary career. He also opened his own printing shop in November 1872, with the aim of printing the works of Russia's greatest writers at affordable prices. He printed 5000 copies of each volume. He was also the author of numerous articles on contemporary Russian literature, and later literary memoirs (on

and Aleksey K. Tolstoy, among others). His grave in the Voskresenskaya church was destroyed in the late 1920s, as well as the church itself. The first comprehensive study of his legacy, ''A Man of His Times'', was written by Viktor Kelner and published in 1993.

Selected works

* A History of the Middle Ages in Writings of the Time and Modern Day Studies / История средних веков в ее писателях и исследованиях новейших ученых (Vol. 1—3, Saint Petersburg, 1863—65) * A Study in Review of the Philosophy of History's Basic Systems / Опыт исторического обзора главных систем философии истории (Saint Petersburg, 1866)

Bibliography

* М. М. Стасюлевич и его современники в их переписке / M. M. Stasyulevich. Correspondence With the Contemporaries. Vols. 1—5, Saint Petersburg, 1911—1913. * ''Kelner, Viktor''
Человек своего времени
/ A man of His Times. Russian national Library. 1993. .

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stasyulevich, Mikhail Matveevich 1826 births 1911 deaths Writers from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Party of Democratic Reform (Russia) politicians Russian male journalists 19th-century historians from the Russian Empire Editors from the Russian Empire Publishers (people) from the Russian Empire