Feoktistov, Evgenii Mikhailovich

Feoktistov, Evgenii Mikhailovich 

Born 1828 in Moscow; died June 16 (28), 1898, in St. Petersburg. Russian state figure, man of letters, and memorialist.

Feoktistov was the son of an officer. After graduating from Moscow University in 1851, he worked on the magazines Sovremennik and Moskovskie vedomosti. From 1871 to 1873 he edited Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia. His ideology evolved from moderate liberalism in the 1850’s and 1860’s to conservatism in the 1870’s and 1880’s. From 1883 to 1896, Feoktistov was head of the Main Administration for Matters of the Press and worked with the minister of internal affairs, D. A. Tolstoi. A persecutor of the democratic and the moderately liberal press, he was instrumental in shutting down Otechestvennye zapiski and Golos.

Feoktistov’s memoirs, rich in factual information on the history of Russian literature, social thought, and domestic policy, were published posthumously in 1929 under the title Behind the Scenes of Politics and Literature, 1848–1896.