Prince Platon Alexandrovich Shirinsky-Shikhmatov (russian: Платон Александрович Ширинский-Шихматов; 1790–1853) was Nicholas I's deputy education minister (1842–50) and education minister (1850–53) who spearheaded the

Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality (russian: Правосла́вие, самодержа́вие, наро́дность, Pravoslávie, samoderzhávie, naródnost'), also known as Official Nationality,Riasanovsky, p. 132 was the dominant imper ...

policy introduced by his predecessor

Sergey Uvarov Count Sergey Semionovich Uvarov (russian: Граф Серге́й Семёнович Ува́ров; 5 September O.S. 25 August">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 25 August1786, Moscow &ndash ...

. He was also an amateur poet and translator. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov came from a

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

princely family that could trace its lineage to

Genghis Khan ''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr /> Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan'' , birth_name = Temüjin , successor = Tolui (as regent) Ögedei Khan , spouse = , issue = , house = Borjigin ...

. He served with distinction in the Russian Navy during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. As a protégé of admiral

Alexander Shishkov Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov (russian: Алекса́ндр Семёнович Шишко́в) (, Moscow - , Saint Petersburg) was a Russian writer, literary critic, philologist, memoirist, military and statesman, Admiral (1824). He created a ...

he followed his mentor from the navy to the ministry of education. Boasting that he was but "a blind tool of his emperor's will", he sought to increase the number of university students who were of noble origin at the expense of commoners. He believed that it was the nobility's duty to rule Russia.The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia
/ref> Shirinsky-Shikhmatov's most durable achievement was the

Archaeographic Commission The Archaeographic Commission (Археографическая комиссия) was set up in St. Petersburg in 1834 by Platon Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, Nikolay Ustryalov, and Pavel Stroyev with the aim of publishing historical and ethnographic mat ...

set up in 1834 to oversee the publication of medieval archives and chronicles. It continues under a different name to this day.

References

1790 births 1853 deaths Education ministers Members of the Russian Academy Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Russian male poets Russian nobility Russian people of Tatar descent 19th-century poets 19th-century translators 19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire {{russia-translator-stub