Count Sergei Witte And The Twilight Of Imperial Russia

Sergei Witte served as finance minister and later prime minister of Russia during the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and was in large part responsible for the development policies which saw Russia transformed from a peasant economy into an industrial nation. This is the first biography of Witte in English.

A major new biography of Sergei Witte, the most significant statesman of late Tsarist Russia, based on his two memoirs and combining the life story of Witte himself with the story of Russia at the end of the Tsarist age.

A portrait of the twilight years of Isarism by Count Sergei Witte (1849-1915), the man who built modern Russia. Witte presents incisive and often piquant portraits of the mighty and those around them--powerful Alexander III, the weak-willed Nicholas II, and the neurasthenic Empress Alexandra, along with his own notorious cousin, Madam blavatsky, the "priestess of the occult".

Born in 1849, Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte led a prolific and chaotic life in the service of the Russian government during the time of the Russo-Turkish war and the 1905 Russian Revolution. He served under the last emperors of Russia, Alexander III and Nicholas II, and served as the first Prime Minister of the Russian Empire. His memoirs are an amazing (and educational) read for anyone interested in Russia's pre revolutionary history, particularly through his accounts of the tragic rule of Nicholas II and his last days in the court. Witte was a true reformist at the time, negotiating relations between the government and the demonstrators during the Russian revolution by outlining the reforms needed to create a unified Russia. It's not difficult to see why he was stymied by those looking to maintain the autocracy that gave rise to the revolution in the first place.

This is a complete work whose copyright is expired. All pages are fully intact and it has been carefully reviewed. A portrait of the twilight years of Isarism by Count Sergei Witte (1849-1915), the man who built modern Russia. Witte presents incisive and often piquant portraits of the mighty and those around then-powerful Alexander III, the weak-willed Nicholas II, and the neurasthenic Empress Alexandra, along with his own notorious cousin, Madam blavatsky, the "priestess of the occult." Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte also known as Sergius Witte, was a highly influential policy-maker who presided over extensive industrialization within the Russian Empire. He served under the last two emperors of Russia. He was also the author of the October Manifesto of 1905, a precursor to Russia's first constitution, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of the Russian Empire. Witte served as Russian Director of Railway Affairs within the Finance Ministry from 1889-1891; and during this period, he oversaw an ambitious program of railway construction which included the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Witte also obtained the right to assign employees based on their performance, rather than political or familial connections. In 1889, he published a paper titled "National Savings and Friedrich List," which cited the economic theories of Friedrich List and justified the need for a strong domestic industry, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers. The resulted in a new customs law for Russia in 1891, which spurred an increase in industrialization in Russia towards the turn of the century. Tsar Alexander III appointed Witte acting Minister of Ways and Communications in 1892. This gave him control of the railroads in Russia and the authority to impose a reform on the tariffs charged. However, in late 1892, Witte (whose first wife had died in 1890) chose to remarry. The marriage was a scandal, as Witte's second wife, Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich, was not only a converted Jew, but was also divorced, and Witte had come into conflict with her husband while she was still married. The scandal cost Witte many of his connections with the upper nobility.

Sergei Witte served as finance minister and later prime minister of Russia during the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and was in large part responsible for the development policies which saw Russia transformed from a peasant economy into an industrial nation. This is the first biography of Witte in English.

Excerpt from The Memoirs of Count Witte: Translated From the Original Russian Manuscript and Edited Not without hesitancy have I resolved to write a few lines as a foreword to the memoirs of my late husband. I cannot be impartial in my estimate of this work, to which Count Witte attributed so much importance; and the biased judgment of his Wife can hardly be of any interest to the reader. I confess, however, that I have not been able to resist the temptation to take advantage of this occasion to convey to the American public the gratitude which the late Count Witte felt toward the Government, press, and people of the United States for the sympathy they had shown him at the time of the Portsmouth Con ference. America's recent declaration of its resolve to defend Russia's incontestable interests at the critical period of its temporary weakness has shown that this sympathetic attitude toward him at that time was not an accident. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.