AKSAKOFF, iik-sii'ketf, IVAN SERGEYEVICH (1823-86). A Russian writer and leader of the Panslavists, born in the Government of Ufa. Ile studied in the school of jurisprudence and graduated in 1842, afterward entering the Mos cow division of the Senate. In 1848 he entered the service of the ministry of the into; for, as a "specially commissioned officer." He left this service in 1852 for journalistic work, becoming editor of the Moscow Sbornik (Miscellany),which was suppressed, the editor being put under special surveillance and forbidden ever to be the editor of a paper again. He was eommissioned by the Geographical Society to study the fairs of Ukrayna, and his report received the medal of the Geographical Society, the Academy of Sci ence also recognizing its value by awarding to its author one-half of the Demidoff prize. In 1855-50 lie was in Bessarabia, in command of the Serpukhoff detachment of the Moscow levy dur ing the Crimean War. lie established the Drum, a weekly paper published from 1861 to 1865, and the 1/0qcra, a daily paper. which was estab lished in 1867. This latter sheet. was suppressed three times by the Government within hventy t wo months, these suppressions aggregating thirteen months of that period. During its sup pression, 1 he 1/oak rich was published in its place. ostensibly under another editor. Aksakoff was the leader of the Panslavist party in Ttussia, and, as a chairman of the Slavic Philanthropic Society, worked incessantly in the interest. of a united state of all the Slavic nations. During the Russo-Turkish War he became the recognized leader of all those influences that brought about the War of Liberation of the Balkan Slays, and his speeches in support of this cause had a world-wide circulation. On July 4, 1878, during
a session of the Slavic Philanthropic Society, he made an impassioned speech, in which he ar raigned the Russian diplomats, charging them with vacilhition and treacherous submission in the presence of the other members of the Berlin Congress there sitting. He called upon the Em peror to fulfill his promises of "carrying this sacred undertaking to its very end," and demand ed the rescue "of Russian glory, honor, and con science that were being buried at the Congress." The Moscow Slavic Committee was suppressed, and Aksakotl was banished from Moscow, but was permitted to return in December of that year. From 1880 until his death he published the weekly Pus in the interests of the Slavophil party. In December, 1885, he made a bitter attack on Russian diplomacy in Bulgaria. with the result that an official reprimand was issued against his paper for "discussing current events in a tone inconsistent with true patriotism." Aksakoff replied in an even more pointed article, in which he defined true patriotism. He took the rebuke very much to heart, however, and his death on February S, ISSG, is supposed to have been hastened by the effect which the reprimand produced upon him. He was the best known poet of the Slavophil cause. His complete works were published posthumously.