POBEDONOSTSEV, CONSTANTINE PETROVICH (1827-1907), Russian jurist, state official, and writer on philo sophical and literary subjects. Born in Moscow in 1827, he studied at the School of Law in St. Petersburg, and entered the public service as an official in one of the Moscow departments of the senate. From 186o to 1865 he was professor of Russian civil law in Moscow University, and instructed the sons of Alexander II. in the theory of law and administration. In 1868 he became a senator in St. Petersburg, in 1872 a member of the council of the empire, and in 188o chief procurator of the Holy Synod. He was an uncompromising reactionary.
In the early years of the reign of Alexander II. (1855-1881), Pobedonostsev maintained, though keeping aloof from the Slavophils, that Occidental institutions were radically bad in them selves and totally inapplicable to Russia. Parliamentary methods of administration, modern judicial organization and procedure, trial by jury, freedom of the press, secular education—these were among the principal objects of his aversion. He subjected
all of them to a severe analysis in his Reflections of a Russian Statesman (English by R. C. Long, London, 1898). To these dangerous products of Occidental rationalism he opposed the autocratic power, and the traditional veneration for the ritual of the national Church. He therefore persecuted the dissenters, Stundists, Doukhobors and others, and insisted on severe measures of repression in education and in the press. In the sphere of practical politics he exercised considerable influence by inspiring and encouraging the Russification policy of Alexander III. (1881– 1894). After the death of Alexander III. he lost much of his influence. Pobedonostsev retired in 1905, and died on March 23, 1907.
For an account of Pobedonostsev's policy of repression see B. Pares, A History of Russia.