Osterman is briefly

The son of the Lutheran pastor, A. Osterman was born on May 30, Art. He was educated at the University in Yen, however, however, he was supposed to leave first in Eisen, and then in Amsterdam to Holland, the accused, as there is a news of the murder of his comrade. In Holland in the city of Osterman’s elder brother, John Christopher Dietrich, later the Mecklenburg envoy in Russia, already served at that time at the Russian court as the teacher of the children of Tsar John Alekseevich.

Possessing the languages ​​of German, Dutch, Latin, French and Italian and well -studied Russian - from the contemporaries of Peter the Great, he wrote most correctly in stylistic and grammatically - Osterman was determined in the city during the marching office of Peter the Great and already in the early years of service received rather serious instructions.

So, in the city, upon returning from the trip, Osterman in the same year received the title of secretary of the embassy office. In the city of Osterman, he was under Shafirov during the negotiations of the latter with the Turkish vizier of the Prutsk campaign and, obviously, received the title of secretary secretary at the Shafirov himself, on July 12.

From this time, Osterman begins more independent and responsible career career. In February, in June, Kurakin, the threads of foreign Russian policy were concentrated, and where the Swedish Minister of the Bar. Hertz took part in the prepared grandiose conspiracy of the English Jacobites. Osterman, along with Field-Fieldser General Bruce, took part in the Aland Congress of the Swedish authorized-Hertz and Gielmborg, where he played the main role from the Russian side, despite the fact that he was officially only the second authorized.

With the formation of the Foreign Collegium Osterman on February 13, Lilienstedt and Bar. Strezfeld and for the conclusion of the Nistadt world on August 30 was awarded the title of Baron, the rank of secret adviser, money and villages. From the city of Osterman, he fulfilled the position of vice president of the collegium of foreign grandfather. In the Peter's reign, Osterman’s service was generally concentrated exclusively in the department of foreign grandfather; With the successors of Peter the Great, taking one of the highest state posts, Osterman at the same time takes a prominent part in the affairs of our domestic policy.

After the accession to the throne of Catherine I, Osterman received the title of Vice Chancellor and the rank of real secret adviser. At the beginning of G. Osterman was granted the cavaliers of the Order of St. Andrei the First-Called and appointed by the chief-hofmaster the teacher of the Grand Duke of the heir Peter Alekseevich; He retained the last title and throughout the reign of Peter II.

Osterman’s participation in the events of G. in the same year, with the abolition of the High Private Council and the restoration of the Senate, Osterman was appointed senator; On November 10, Osterman, with the rank of second cabinet-minister, became part of the newly established office besides him, gr. Golovkin and Prince. Golovkina, received the title of the first office-minister.

After the death of Anna Ioannovna, Osterman’s position was somewhat shaken. True, on November 10, Mikhail Golovkin was appointed Vice Chancellor of the Interior. By the end of the reign of Anna Leopoldovna, the primitive influence of Osterman on the course of state affairs begins to recover again; The fall of the Braunschweig surname was interrupted, however, his career career. Arrested on the night of November 25 Osterman married Marf Ivanovna Streshneva.

Thick; Hence the Osterman-Tolsty and Ivan r. Osterman, early, and gradually passed his career career, early reaching the exceptional position in government spheres. With his official successes, he owed his ability to adapt to people and circumstances as much as his ability, if, if not more than that inherent in him the remarkable abilities of a large statesman. The mind is clear and distinct, Osterman was not so much distinguished by creative abilities, but by the ability to correctly understand the position of this moment and, having weighed and evaluating all the means at his disposal, to set for himself and pursue quite definite and completely achievable goals.

He possessed sufficient flexibility in order to retreat in details from one developed program, since the cash conditions of living reality were contrary to this program. The ultimate goal of this program remained, however, constantly the same; It was a state interest, which he understood in the sense of the prosperity of the state and strengthen its external power, with lean, if possible, to those folk forces that feed and support the state body.

A stranger in Russia and is hardly at all capable of sincere national feeling, Osterman looked at his state activity, largely, as a responsibility that was known to them, which his own interests forced him in good faith.Approaching Peter the Great and retracted into his work, he, however, was apparently sincerely passionate about the work of this latter, like a European, and faithfully stood guard after this matter after the king of the transformer himself went into the grave, and his successors sometimes forgot, and sometimes deliberately distorted his covenants.

This did not interfere with Osterman quite independently and the state program of Peter the Great himself. Having passed a serious service school in the difficult years of the Northern War, Osterman made up a clear idea of ​​the new conditions that were created for Russia, thanks to its new position in Europe, and those tasks that these conditions flowed out. The student in many respects of Peter the Great, thanks to the distinctness and versatility of his mind, was often his active assistant, formulating in clear positions what was felt by these last, and, perhaps, sometimes prompting those conclusions at which the sovereign himself had not yet stopped.

The Petrine program is mainly in the field of foreign policy - perceived by Osterman and the program conducted by him from G. in the last years of the Peter's reign was distinguished in its essential features by an aggressive character. Having closer after the death of Peter the Great with the internal state of affairs in the state and the cash state of his forces, Osterman retreated from the Petrine principles in the field of domestic policy, imbued with Peter the Great Principle of strict mercantilism and consistent state guardianship; In the field of foreign policy, remaining faithful to Peter's traditions, for the same reason he gradually passed to a more conciliatory direction.

The participation of Osterman in the affairs of domestic politics during the life of Peter the Great himself was relatively insignificant and affected mainly when the collegial administration was arranged. It is not known to what extent that Osterman participated in the grandfather of the introduction of colleges; He undoubtedly belongs to a significant share of participation in those partial events that in the last years of the Petrine reign they tried to streamline office work in newly introduced institutions and, above all, in the College of Foreign Affairs.

Osterman expressed his personal views on the desirable nature of the structure of the latter, “a proposal to compose a state of foreign affairs college”, which he presented in the city, noting the importance of the issues that the College of Foreign Affairs should lead, this “eternal state archive and all ancient and all in the state of affairs, actions, behavior and taken measures of eternal news”, Osterman is desirable so that this college is gradually replenished "People from noble and honest houses" familiar with the political sciences, which will give her the opportunity to do without translators, who are difficult to rely on, as on foreigners.

The strict preservation of secrets should be, according to Osterman, in general, the main start of office work in the College of Foreign Affairs, which in his “proposal” he calls directly “secret advice”. To conduct this beginning, he recommended a number of measures that were mainly reduced to simplifying office work in the collegium and withdrawal from its conduct of cases that were not directly related to its main task, to the possible reduction of the personnel of the board, strict control over employees both in the service and outside it, and to increase the salary.

However, it can be assumed that later, when their author got more importance in the government spheres, they were actually partially carried out in the form of partial events and orders. Since we can judge on the basis of the preserved documents of the College of Foreign Grandfather, its office work under Osterman was very distinct, and its composition, among which Russian surnames predominated, constantly remained a little short.

After the death of Peter the Great, Osterman’s activity on domestic policy extends significantly and takes on a more fundamental character. This activity was most relief in the events undertaken according to his instructions and opinion, the purpose of which was to rise in welfare, shaken by the long years of war and reforms, the weakening of tax! This is undertaken in the city and later, when the question of streamlining the collection of per capita tax was raised, Osterman always spoke out for its most uniform distribution between the individual categories of the peasant population.

Even more, however, than the welfare of the peasantry, they paid attention to the development of Russian trade and industry, which was expressed mainly in his activities, as the chairman of the commission on commerce. Arising at the end of the cityThe commission on commerce, apparently, immediately adopted a combat shade, and the new institution took an opposition position in relation to the commercial college, where the protectionist traditions of the Peter's time were held and where the adviser to the named Bacon Backet, according to contemporaries, continued to work, the actual creator of the prohibitive tariff of G.

widely set his tasks, requiring the opinion of the merchants itself, the commission of Commerce consistently receded from the principle of strict protectionism, trying, at the same time, by other means not only to say the active support of Russian trade, but also to create a predominant position in the foreign trade of Russia for radical Russian merchants.

In this regard, the commission tried to give a broader interpretation shortly before the issued decree on the opening of the Arkhangelogor port and put forward the issue of abolishing restrictive orders regarding the ports of Revelsky and Narva. Trade with Khiva and Bukhara was restored, and trading with China, which had previously been the privilege of the government, was declared free, which, according to Mardfeld, was to unprofitably affect the participation of the Dutch in this trade.

The merchants traveling to Siberia were exempted from wrapping money and received passports free of charge. At the same time, a number of state -owned industrial enterprises were given to private concessions and permits for private use, and the private conduct of industrial affairs to the state monopoly was clearly expressed. Measures were taken to develop and streamline shipbuilding in Russia.

The charter proposed by the commission on the loading vessels of the Lichters was adopted and published, as the regulations of April G., in close contact with the activities of the commission on commerce, apparently stood the personal activities of Osterman, as the director of mail. The postal tract network that developed during the time of its postal control went towards the more free development of Russian foreign trade, artificially tightened before that time to St.

Petersburg. A direct postal message was installed between St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk through Ladoga, Lodeynoye Field, Vytegra, Kargopol and Kholmogora instead of the Old, Circular for Moscow and Yaroslavl. A direct return to the Petrine traditions of strengthening the state power of Russia can be seen in the participation of Osterman in the commission about the fleet, the purpose of which was the streamlining of the fleet, somewhat forgotten during Peter II.

By concluding an overview of Osterman's activities on internal policy, one can add another feature that characterizes, as it seems, quite definitely his state program. This is his apparently non -sensitive attitude to the preservation of regional characteristics and local privileges in the general state system. He passed the preparatory school during the years of the difficult struggle of Russia for dominance on the Baltic Sea, he definitely spoke out for a closer formal unification of newly acquired areas with the rest of the state.

So, there is a news that, with the reign of Anna Ioannovna, he spoke out against the destruction of a reservation made by Peter the Great with the obligation to maintain Livonia privileges, "how much they agree with the image of the reign established in Russia", which the Liflanders themselves bother at that time, and which they managed to achieve through Levenwold and Yaguzhinsky.

In the same G., taking a significant part in the affairs of domestic policy, Osterman had an even stronger and at the same time direct impact on the course and direction of our foreign policy. Gradually entering the course of affairs during the Northern War, taking more and more active participation in the relations of Russia with foreign powers in the last years of the Petrine reign, Osterman after the death of Peter the Great becomes little by little by the true inspirer of Russian politics.

His “opinions are not in the decree” usually receive the significance of government resolutions, and from its marks on the fields of embassy relations - often even without editorial changes - rescripts and instructions are drawn up that determine the further activities of representatives of Russia in various European courtyards. To highlight the degree of personal participation of Osterman in each individual case can be, nevertheless, it is usually very difficult.

Having maneuvered among various parties, Osterman was often forced to hide his own program and wait a convenient moment when, after a number of concessions and compromises with his views, he could finally conduct them openly. In the opinions he submitted to him, he usually does not so much offer a ready-made decision as he tries to bring to him, giving an exhaustive and, apparently, but only apparently an impartial presentation of this issue.

He also holds the same manner in his letters-instructions to Russian representatives in foreign courtyards, giving them more visible independence and imperceptibly fascinating them, at the same time, to his own political system.A full outline of Osterman’s activity in the diplomatic field can only be given by writing an exhaustive outline of the history of Russia's foreign policy for the second quarter of the 18th century in its entire volume.

We limit ourselves to only the indication of those main points in this story that are to one degree or another related to Osterman’s personal activity, and note his views on various next issues in this area. The first case of the manifestation of Osterman’s independent activity in foreign policy matters can be considered his participation in the meetings of the Aland Congress, participating in which, as the second authorized person, he apparently used Peter's great trust than the first authorized, gr.

Bruce; He often joined separate negotiations with representatives of Sweden and to a large extent managed to hold all the conditions that were proposed from Russia to the final text of the draft contract. In his reports with the Aland Congress, Osterman was the first to clearly formulate the need to bring closer between the winner of Russia and the defeated Sweden after the latter lost its primitive significance in northern Europe, but it could still be useful, as a secondary power, due to the further next tasks of Russia on the Baltic Sea, as well as more and more clarified Anglo-Russian rivalry.

The Aland Congress did not, as you know, led to the desired results, and the irritation of most European powers against Russia in the last years of the Northern War often created a difficult situation for it and sometimes weakened the importance of its military successes.

Thanks to Osterman’s activities in Sweden in the last years of the reign of Peter the Great, Osterman's participation in certain issues of foreign policy seems uneven. It can be assumed that his activity during this time concentrated mainly on European relations of Russia.