Moscow scenes in the memoirs of B. N. Chicherin and the creation of a “black legend” about the Moscow governor-general V. A. Dolgorukov

This article is devoted to the fi gure of Moscow Governor-General Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukov, who received extremely diff erent assessments from his contemporaries. The authors believe that Boris Nikolaevich Chicherin, who wrote memoirs at the time of Dolgorukov’s resignation from the post of Moscow governorgeneral in 1891, deliberately mythologised the image of this politician, presenting him as a symbol of the traditions of governance in Russia going back in time. Chicherin contrasted the Russian intellectuals of the 1840s and 1850s, who grouped around Moscow University with T. N. Granovsky as their main representative, with the people of bureaucratic St. Petersburg of the Nikolay’s era. They left rich memories about the Moscow society and infl uenced the active Moscow merchants, whose active work for the benefit of the city Chicherin directly observed. According to Chicherin, the Union of Scribes and Merchants developed a local initiative and contributed to the formation of new relations between the people of Moscow society and people in power. Chicherin considered his work as chairman of Moscow City Duma as the fi rst attempt to make the values of Moscow society tangible in dialogues with representatives of the St. Petersburg authorities. Chicherin understood that he had lost in the course of a real historical process. However, Chicherin considered that what he did for Moscow city government in the 1880s to be important as Granovsky’s contribution to the formation of ideas about civil consciousness among Muscovites in the 1840s. Chicherin considered his liberalism as a development of the traditions of Granovsky’s liberalism. It is these questions that he paid close attention to in his memoirs.