“I saw him in private three or four times in my life”: Personal state sadness in the diaries of M. A. Korf, 1839–1849

Abstract

The personal diary of a prominent Russian statesman, M. A. Korf, is a rare example of a fusion of personal and state interests, in particular, of a deeply personal experience of sociopolitical events. Most of the entries relate to incidents in the highest institutions of the Nicholas I’s regime (the imperial family, the State Council, the ministries and special committees). These events seem to be the main life interest of the author and provoke his strongest emotional response, often expressed melancholically: with sadness and distress. Korf reacts no less emotionally to foreign policy events, in particular, the revolution of 1848 in France; as well as, in his opinion, his own overly slow career growth. At the same time, traditional reasons for sadness, such as illnesses and deaths of colleagues and acquaintances, arouse in him nothing but cold curiosity. The image of the author in his diaries appears twofold: the individual features of an educated nobleman of the mid-19thcentury merge with an approach inherent to the elite of the 18thcentury, namely, forming the image of a God-like monarch and the corresponding attitude towards him. Various forms of sadness expressed by Korf in his diariesvividly describe the model of the power hierarchy established by Nicholas I. The emperor is the very centre of this model: he is the source of major joys and sorrows for senior officials and courtiers, and their sadness increases in direct proportion to their distance from the emperor.