Prince Platon Alexandrovich Shirinsky-Shikhmatov (; 1790–1853) was Nicholas I's deputy

education minister An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...

(1842–50) and education minister (1850–53) who spearheaded the

Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality (; Transliteration, transliterated: Pravoslávie, samoderzhávie, naródnost'), also known as Official Nationalism,Riasanovsky, p. 132 was the dominant Imperial ideological doctrine of Russian Emperor Nichol ...

policy introduced by his predecessor

Sergey Uvarov Count Sergey Semionovich Uvarov (; – ) was a Russian classical scholar and politician who is best remembered as an influential statesman under Nicholas I of Russia. Biography Uvarov, connected through marriage with the Razumovsky family, ...

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

Tatar Tatar may refer to: Peoples * Tatars, an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" * Volga Tatars, a people from the Volga-Ural region of western Russia * Crimean Tatars, a people from the Crimea peninsula by the B ...

princely family that could trace its lineage to

Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...

. He served with distinction in the

Russian Navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...

during the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

. As a protégé of admiral

Alexander Shishkov Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov (; – ) was a Russian writer, literary critic, philologist, memoirist, military and statesman, Admiral (1824). He created a new trend in Russian literature, called "postafactum", a type of archaism. Early years ...

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 Gerasimovich Ustryalov, Nikolay Ustryalov, and Pavel Stroyev with the aim of publishing h ...

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 Borjigin Education ministers Members of the Russian Academy Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Male poets from the Russian Empire Nobility from the Russian Empire People from the Russian Empire of Tatar descent 19th-century poets 19th-century translators 19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire {{russia-translator-stub