Sergei Vitte

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (Серге́й Ю́льевич Ви́тте, ; 29 June 1849 – 13 March 1915), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the emperor as head of government.

Neither liberal nor conservative, he attracted foreign capital to boost Russia's industrialization.

Witte's strategy was to avoid the danger of wars.

Witte served under the final two emperors of Russia, Alexander III ((r.

He finished Gymnasium I in Kishinev and began studying Physico-Mathematical Sciences at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa in 1866 and graduated at the top of his class in 1870.

After completing his studies he devoted some time to journalism in close relations with the Slavophiles and Mikhail Katkov.

Witte had initially planned to pursue a career in academia with the intention of becoming a professor in theoretical mathematics.

His relatives took a dim view of that career path, as it was considered unsuitable for a noble or aristocrat at the time.

He was instead persuaded by Count Vladimir Pavlovich Machabelovy, Minister of Ways and Communication, to pursue a career in the Russian railroads.

At the direction of the count, Witte undertook six months of training in a variety of positions on the Odessa Railways to gain a practical understanding of Ukrainian railways operations.

At the end of that period, he was appointed as chief of the traffic office.

After a wreck on the Odessa Railways in late 1875 cost many lives, Witte was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison.

However, while he was still contesting the case in court, Witte directed the Odessa Railways and achieved extraordinary efforts towards the transport of troops and war materials in the Russo-Turkish War and attracted the attention of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, who commuted his prison sentence to two weeks.

Witte had devised a novel system of double-shift operations in his efforts to overcome delays on the railways.

In 1879, Witte accepted a post in St. Petersburg, where he would meet his future wife.

He moved to Kiev the following year.

1881 – 1894)) and Nicholas II ((r.

In 1883, he published a paper on "Principles of Railway Tariffs for Cargo Transportation" in which he also discussed social issues and the role of the monarchy.

Witte gained popularity in the government.

In 1886, he was appointed manager of the privately-held Southwestern Railways, based in Kiev, and was noted for increasing its efficiency and profitability.

Around then, he met Tsar Alexander III, but he conflicted with the tsar's aides by warning of the danger in their practice of using two powerful freight locomotives to achieve high speeds for the royal train.

Orlando Figes has described Witte as the 'great reforming finance minister of the 1890s', 'one of Nicholas's most enlightened ministers', and as the architect of Russia's new parliamentary order in 1905.

Witte's father, Julius Christoph Heinrich Georg Witte, was from a Lutheran Baltic German family.

He converted to Russian Orthodoxy upon his marriage with Yekaterina Fadeyeva.

His father was made a member of the knighthood in Pskov but moved as a civil servant to Saratov and Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia).

Sergei was raised on the estate of his mother's parents.

His grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, and his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki.

Sergei had two brothers (Alexander and Boris) and two sisters (Olga and Sophia).

Helena Blavatsky, noted as a mystic, was their first cousin.

Witte studied at a Tiflis gymnasium, but he took more interest in music, fencing and riding than in academics.

As finance minister from 1892- 1903, Witte presided over extensive industrialization and achieved government monopoly control over an expanded system of railroad lines.

1894 – 1917)). During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), he had risen to a position in which he controlled all the traffic passing to the front along the lines of the Odessa Railways.

Following months of civil unrest and outbreaks of violence in what became known as the 1905 Russian Revolution, Witte framed the 17th the October Manifesto and the accompanying government communication to establish constitutional government.

However, he was not convinced it would solve Russia's problems with the Tsarist autocracy.

On 20 October 1905 Witte was appointed as the first chairman of the Council of Ministers (effectively prime minister).

Assisted by his Council, he designed Russia's first constitution.

But within a few months Witte fell into disgrace as a reformer because of continuing court opposition to these changes.

He resigned before the First Duma assembled on 10 May 1906.

Witte was fully confident that he had resolved the main problem: providing political stability to the regime, but according to him, the "peasant problem" would further determine the character of the Duma's activity.

He is widely considered to have been one of the key figures in Russian politics at the end of 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century.