Girs, Alexander Karlovich

Alexander Gears came from nobles ; Born May 29, 1815 in Radzivilov, where his father, Karl Karlovich (1777-1835), was a postmaster.

By his mother, he was the nephew of Count F.P. Litke . His younger brother Nikolai Karlovich was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A.K. Girs was educated at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum , which he graduated on October 31, 1835 with a silver medal and the title of titular adviser. On December 11 of the same year, he joined the State Chancellery, and in January 1838 he was transferred to the newly formed Ministry of State Property. Here he was entrusted with the commission of the special cadastre commission in March 1838.

These activities determined his future activities: he devoted his whole life to the study and development of economic and economic issues.

In May 1842, Girs was transferred to the economic department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as an official of special assignments of the VI class; here, various assignments began to be assigned to him, mainly in urban management and improvement.

So he was sent in June 1842 to revise the cities of the Yaroslavl province and to find sources of increasing urban income; in October 1843 he was entrusted with the compilation of inventory descriptions of Yaroslavl, Rostov, Rybinsk, and Uglich, but in January 1844 he was called to Petersburg, having only completed the description of Yaroslavl; in April of the same year, he participated with HA Milyutin in drafting the social structure of St. Petersburg, in July he collected information on the grain trade in Rybinsk, in August he was sent along the Belarusian highway to Mogilev to take measures to suppress the following between cattle in the capital, plague infection.

In February 1845, he collected information in Novgorod in order to provide food for the Pskov province, who had suffered from a crop failure, and studied fair trade in Rostov the Great, in May he took part in drafting the rights and conditions of the urban estate, wage-workers and workers, and was a member of the commission for outline of projects on accession of magistrates and town halls to county courts; in February 1846 he met in a commission of experts to find a way to make alcohol lighting mixtures unfit for use, and in March in a commission for the introduction of public administration in St. Petersburg under the new Regulation. On March 15, 1846, Mr .. G. was appointed official of special assignments of the V class at the Ministry, with secondment to the economic department.

In May 1846, he participated in the drafting of the Police Judicial Charter for workers and hired servants, and from September to November 1847 in the interim commission for examining the premises of laborers and researching the relations of workers to their owners and employers.

In subsequent years, he traveled to the cities. Kherson (April 1847), Odessa (April 1847), Voronezh (January 1848), Penza Province. (May 1851) - to review the actions of the commission on the delimitation and economic distribution of urban land, and to collect information about urban real estate, he took part in various commissions for the improvement of St. Petersburg, and c. commissions: on the revision of the rules on candle collecting from Jews (September 1848 - November 1849), for the drafting of the law on water supply (February 1854), for the drafting of transformations of provincial and district institutions (October 1859), to resolve issues in the case of the Karaites (February 1860), on the revision of the guild position (May 1853).

From July 26, 1854 to June 15, 1856 he was in Saratov, where he was appointed chairman of the judicial commission in the case of the murder of Christian boys there, in which some Jews were suspected; moreover, he was entrusted with the task of investigating all the omissions and unlawful actions committed in this case by the Saratov city police.

September 7, 1854 promoted to full state councilors; March 22, 1857 was appointed a member of the Council of the Minister of Internal Affairs. On the occasion of a complete breakdown in the money turnover of the city of Odessa, in January 1858 he took over all the affairs in the economic department concerning the organization of the Odessa municipal economy and putting its budget in order; the result of his work was the introduction in December 1858 to the State Council of the assumptions of the Minister of Internal Affairs on the budget structure of the mountains. Odessa. On May 1, 1858, he was appointed a member established under the economic department of a special committee to consider draft charters of joint-stock companies and partnerships.

From November 20, 1858 to January 28, 1859 he was on a business trip to the Estland province , to collect detailed information about the situation of the Krenholm manufactory and the settlement that is with it, as well as to draw up agreements with the Board of the Society of this manufactory on the correct arrangement of the new settlement in the police, public and litigation.

During the reign of Alexander II (1859), he participated in the Editorial Commissions of the Main Committee on Peasant Affairs as a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was one of the prominent figures in peasant reform. He was a member of the administrative department of the commissions and assumed editorial duties along with two other members.

His participation in the reform was not limited to work in the Editorial Commissions: on May 1, 1859, he was sent abroad to study the structure of rural communities in Germany and then drafted a note “On the Management of Rural Societies in Police Relations] on the Latest Legislation of the German State”; also performed verification work to determine the upper and lower sizes of allotments for the Astrakhan province.

He worked hard on the financial reforms of Alexander II, in particular on the abolition of drinking and the introduction of the excise system: since December 1860 he was a member of the commission on drafting a draft law on the transformation of the existing repayable drinking tax system and on the establishment of a new excise system since 1863. and for his labors it was promoted to secret adviser on January 1, 1862.

On January 26, 1862 he was appointed a member of the Council of the Minister of Finance (the minister was his comrade Lyceum M. X. Reiter ), on February 26 he was an assistant to the chairman of the commission, the Highest established to improve taxes and duties (he was a member since October 1859), in which, with his direct participation, the provisions on the tax on real estate in cities and on sugar beet excise, charters on the gold industry, stamp duty, the transformation of regular duty, etc .; some of them were carried out only partly, while others did not receive approval at all, but they also benefited from the mass of material collected and developed.

These include his note: “On salt regalia and salt excise duty in the most important states of Europe” (St. Petersburg 1860) and his compiled “Report of the indirect charges department. No. 5. On State Salt Income ”(St. Petersburg, 1861). As a member of the Council of the Minister of Finance, Girs was a member of a number of committees and commissions: to review the recruitment charter (February 1862), to discuss the rules for admitting foreigners to Russian citizenship (October 1862), to review the customs tariff (October 1867 .), to develop provisions on personal military service (November 1870), a special meeting chaired by the Minister of War to discuss the same issue (April 1875), a committee to discuss the application of the common city position to the cities of the Baltic provinces June 1870, and was chairman of the commissions: to revise the rules on official advantages and the Pension Charter (December 1866), to draw up assumptions about the registration of persons subject to military service (February 1874), to draw up draft regulations on the management of Turkestan edge (April 1874); on the issue of imposing zemsky collection of coal mines (October 1875).

In 1864 he was on a business trip to review the state-owned Iletsk and private Perm salt mines, in order to find out the convenience and possibility of applying the draft state revenue from salt prepared by the tax commission to these fields, and in 1874 he went abroad to study issues on the procedure for conducting public censuses in the most important states of Europe.

From 1864 to 1875 he was a representative of the Ministry of Finance on the board of the St. Petersburg Private Commercial Bank .

On January 1, 1874, he was ordered to attend the Governing Senate , with the resignation of the assistant chairman of the commission to review the system of taxes and fees. On January 1, 1879, he was appointed as a fellow Minister of Finance (he has repeatedly corrected this position since 1865), with the production of active privy councilors and with the retention of the rank of senator.

After the end of the Russian-Turkish war, the Minister of Finance had a concern to put our finances in order. To restore equilibrium in the budget, it was necessary to introduce new taxes. This matter, which required a mature discussion and at the same time a special hurry, was entrusted by S. A. Greig to Girs. Already during the discussion in the State Council of murals for 1879, the minister announced that by reducing it without deficit he owed much of the work and energy of his comrade.

The service of Gears was awarded the following higher orders: Stanislav 1 tbsp. (June 1858), St. Anna 1 tbsp. (April 1864), St. Vladimir 2 tbsp. (March 1866), White Eagle (April 1870), St. Alexander Nevsky (May 1873, for his work on the commission on personal military service), St. Alexander Nevsky with diamonds (December 1876). Reinforced labor undermined the health of G. In the spring of 1880, he fell ill; He went to Wiesbaden for treatment, but to no avail.

Upon returning to Russia, Alexander Karlovich Girs died July 24, 1880 in the estate of Mikhailovsky, near the town of Luga. He was buried in the Novodevichy Convent in the city of St. Petersburg .

A. K. Girs devoted his few spare minutes to the study of the science of state economy and its application to Russia.

Many of his official works are in the nature of scientific research on economic issues. January 18, 1849 G. was elected Secretary of the Imp. Geographical society and brought great benefits to society through their work; On March 27, 1851, he resigned from this position, according to a society historian, “tired of the activity of the vice-chairman who didn’t know peace and relaxation,” MH Muravyov .

But his activity in society did not stop: he was a member of the commission for the publication of the translation of the "Asia" of Ritter (1852), the council of the company (1859-1864), and the audit commission; in addition, he participated in the commission of the Company for collecting statistical data in archives (at the end of the 40s) and in the compilation by the Company of instructions for collecting economic and statistical information.

From his works, apart from the aforementioned, the following articles were published: “On land ownership and its gradual change” (“Library for reading” 1835, v. 12), “Recent schools and disputes in political economy” (ibid, 1838, vol. 31, signed by A. G.) Gears also collaborated in the Journal of the Minister. Int. Affairs. "

As a man, Gears, with his kind heart, his meek, but at the same time honest and sober outlook on life, made a conciliatory act on everyone who knew him and left a good memory. ^{[ neutrality? ]}

• N. Alexandrovich. Girs, Alexander Karlovich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.
• Girs, Alexander Karlovich // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.