Stroganov, Sergei Grigorevich

Stroganov, Sergei Grigor’evich 

Born Nov. 8 (19), 1794; died Mar. 28 (Apr. 9), 1882, in St. Petersburg. Russian state and military figure. Count.

Stroganov was one of Russia’s major landowners, with 1.5 million desiatinas of land (1 desiatina = 2.7 acres) and more than 90,000 serfs. He fought in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in foreign campaigns in 1813 and 1814, as well as in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29 and the Crimean War (1853–56). Between 1826 and 1847, Stroganov was instrumental in changing the system of secondary and higher education in Russia to conform to narrowly class-oriented, reactionary principles. In 1856 he became a member of the State Council, and in 1859 and 1860 he was governor-general of Moscow. During the period preceding the abolition of serfdom, Stroganov sided with the conservative landowning opposition. In the 1860’s and 1870’s he supported the reactionary reforms of D. A. Tolstoi in the field of public education.

Stroganov was a well-known patron of the arts, collector, and archaeologist. In 1825 he founded a free art school, the Stroganov School. Between 1837 and 1874 he was chairman of the Moscow Society of History and Russian Antiquities. He founded the Archaeological Commission in 1859 and was its president for life.