Platon Shirinskii-Shikhmatov

Shirinskii-Shikhmatov, Platon Aleksandrovich

 

Born Nov. 18 (29), 1790, in the village of Dernovo, Viaz’ma District, Smolensk Province; died May 5 (17), 1853, in St. Petersburg. Russian state figure. Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1828). Prince.

Shirinskii-Shikhmatov graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps (Naval Cadet School) in 1807. While serving in the navy, he took part in the war against France from 1812 to 1814. He was made head of a division of the Engineering Department of the Ministry of War in 1820. Shirinskii-Shikhmatov became friends with A. S. Shishkov, who appointed him director of an office of the Ministry of Public Education; he became assistant minister of public education in 1842 and minister in 1850. He tried to deny persons of nonnoble origin access to secondary and higher education, and he persecuted progressive professors and students. Under Shirinskii-Shikhmatov, reaction in the area of education reached its apogee.