Mikhail Katkov

Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov (Russian: Михаи́л Ники́форович Катко́в; 13 February 1818 – 1 August 1887) was a conservative Russian journalist influential during the reign of tsar Alexander III. He was a proponent of Russian nationalism, an important figure in the creation of a feeling of national identity and purpose. After the Crimean War (1856) and the Polish insurrection of 1863, Katkov abandoned his liberal Anglophile views and rejected the early reforms of tsar Alexander II. Instead he promoted a strong Russian state supported by an enthusiastic Russian people with a unified national outlook. His ideas were based on Western ideas (as opposed to Slavophile ideas). His literary magazine Russkii Vestnik (:The Russian Messenger") and newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti ("Moscow News") were successful and influential media for promoting his views.

Katkov was born of a Russian government official and a Georgian noblewoman (Tulayeva). On finishing his course at the Moscow University, Katkov devoted himself to literature and philosophy. He showed so little individuality that during the reign of Nicholas I, he never came into disagreeable contact with the authorities. With the liberal reaction and strong reform movement that characterised the earlier years of Alexander II's reign (1855-1881) that he thoroughly sympathised, and for some time, he warmly advocated the introduction of liberal institutions of the British type, but when he perceived that the agitation was assuming a socialistic and nihilist tinge, and in some quarters of the liberal camp, indulgence was being shown to Polish national aspirations, he gradually modified his attitude until he came to be regarded by the Russian liberals as a renegade.

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