Korvin-Milevsky, Ippolit Oskarovich

Born on July 26 (August 6), 1848, in the Catholic noble family of Count Oscar Ippolitovich Korvin-Milevsky (1818-1906) ^[1] coat of arms of Korvin and his wife Veronika Ignatyevna Lanevskaya-Wolf (1823-1891) of the coat of arms “Two pipes” (from Bobruisk County ). The full name given at baptism into Catholicism was “Hippolytus-Jan”. Hippolytus's father received the title of count from the pope in 1876.

Hippolytus also had a sister, Maria (Maria-Olivia) Oskarovna Korvin-Milevskaya (1847-1934), who married Shimon Meishtovich, and brother Count Ignat Oskarovich Korvin-Milevsky (1846-1926), the owner (by inheritance) of a significant estate of Geraniona (Vilna province), art collector and famous philanthropist. Hippolytus also had a younger brother Oscar Oskarovich Corvin-Milevsky, who died in infancy ^[2] .

Count Ippolit Oskarovich Korvin-Milevsky himself, according to property calculations (which, as he himself notes in his memoirs, was traditional at the time), married in 1888 to Kazimir Alexandrovna Galynskaya, a Catholic noblewoman, daughter of Alexander Stanislavovich Galynsky, a former Klimovichsky district leader and wealthy landowner of the Mogilev province , and his wife Countess Kunegunda Plater ^[2] . The family did not have children, since Kazimira Galynskaya was childless. Hippolytus called his wife “native Belarusian,” since her family was from among the indigenous in the Mstislavsk Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Mogilev Province of the Russian Empire ^[2] .

Of his own genealogy, Hippolytus said that he knew his origin only from Dominic Korvin-Milevsky, a gentry from the middle of the 18th century from Sluchina ( Novogrudok Voivodeship ), whose ancestors probably came to the service of the Princes Radziwills in the Kingdom of Poland ^[2] . And he wrote about the origin of his mother that her family comes from Samuel Lanevsky-Wolf, a gentry Calvinist of the 18th century. from the Vitebsk Voivodeship ^[2] .

He spent his childhood, starting in 1856, in Paris , where from 1857 he was brought up in a private boarding house on parental funds, so he knew French very well ^[2] . His parents sent him to Paris to improve his health and hide from the Russian authorities, as the persecution of many disloyal Catholic nobles unfolded in his homeland. Later, in his memoirs, he noted that the decision of his parents to bring him up in a French boarding school was harmful, because he did not allow him to get local habits and ideas as a child, but imposed French on him. He acknowledged that French education often hindered understanding with the local Catholic nobles of Lithuania and Belarus, and ultimately led to the collapse of many of his political undertakings. He believed that children should be sent abroad to study only at the student time (at the age of 18-20), and children should receive their first upbringing and education at home to form the basis of the psyche in their native environment ^[2] .

In 1868 he graduated from the University of Derpt and had a French doctorate in law. In order to educate and broaden his horizons, he traveled to Africa ( Tunisia , Algeria , Egypt , etc.), which was fashionable among the nobles in those days ^[2] . He was fluent (except for his native Polish language) also Russian, Belarusian and Lithuanian.

He served in the Cassation Chamber of the Senate of the Russian Empire.

Since 1877 he lived in the family estate of Lazduny (villages Lazduny and Lugomovichi ) in Oshmyany district (Vilna province). Having received this estate from his father and in a short time turned it into a model farm. The estate of Lazduna had a beautiful manor and park ensemble. He was a capable agronomist and a member of the Council of the Vilnius Society of Agriculture. As a representative of the conservatively Catholic landowners of Belarus and Lithuania, he supported the so-called loyalists, the "ugodowy" direction in the local social movement of the Lithuanian-Belarusian provinces.

He founded the newspaper Kurier Litewski (Lithuanian Courier) in Vilna, from September 1 to December 1, 1905 he was its owner. Belonged to the liberal-conservative direction of the "local people" . He supported the idea of ​​constitutional restriction of the Russian autocracy, advocated the expansion of the rights of representative bodies of power, the introduction of zemstvos in Belarus and Lithuania. He emphasized the uniqueness of the interests of local, “regional Poles,” and was one of the leaders of the local population of the liberal-conservative trend.

In 1906, he was elected a deputy (1906-1909) from the Vilnius province to the State Council of the Russian Empire , was a member of the so-called "Center", however, on issues related to the revolutionary movement, radical agrarian reform, universal suffrage and others, he was in solidarity with the "right" .

Participated on June 17-18 (July 1-2), 1907 in Vilna at the congress of landowners of six "north-western" (Belarusian-Lithuanian) provinces, which decided to create the "Regional Party of Lithuania and Belarus" and approved the program of the new party. As a member of this party, he was one of three representatives of the faction of this party in the State Council of the Russian Empire.

In 1909, he was re-elected a deputy (1909-1910) from the Vilnius province to the State Council of the Russian Empire for a new term, was a member of the so-called "Center". In 1910, in protest of the political course of Peter Stolypin left the State Council of the Russian Empire.

Together with his brother, he provided financial support for the restoration of the Polish Theater in Vilnius ( Pogulianka Theater ). Since 1911, instead of the ideas of “regionalism,” he began to support the ideas of the Polish National Democratic Party and considered it necessary to spread the Polish language and culture among Belarusians in order to familiarize themselves with the values ​​of “Western civilization”. In 1913, he expressed in the press the idea that the Belarusian-language newspaper Nasha Niva was funded by the Russian government and therefore its activity was aimed at the Russification of the Lithuanian-Belarusian provinces, for which he was criticized by Janka Kupala ^[3] .

In 1915 he left for Paris. He appeared on the pages of the French press with the idea of ​​a federation of Poland and the Lithuanian-Belarusian territory. In 1918, he abandoned the ideas of the Polish National Democratic Party and became an adherent of the ideas of the so-called grouping. “The Vilnius Conservatives”, and in 1919 became the author of the official memorandum of the “Vilnius Conservatives” on the state union (federation) of Poland and the Lithuanian-Belarusian territory ^{[4] [2]} .

Since 1919, it was located in the family estate of Lazduna, which, like the territory of Western Belarus, by decision of the Riga Peace Treaty (1921) was part of interwar Poland. He sharply criticized the results of the Riga Peace Treaty, although Milevsky retained all his estates. He moved away from politics in 1919 and did not participate in the activities of the “Vilna Conservatives” anymore.

• Figures of Russia: 1906 / Ed. A.M. Champagne. - St. Petersburg, 1906. - 340 p. sect. pag. : ill .; p. 43