Fabricius, Mikhail Platonovich

Orthodox. From the nobility of the Kiev province. The son of Major Platon Maksimovich Fabrizius. Landowner of Radomysl Uyezd (2667 dessiatins at the village of Vyshevichi ) ^[1] .

He graduated from the Vladimir Kiev Cadet Corps and the Alexander Military School (1867), from where he transferred to the Nikolaev Engineering School ^[2] . At the end of the last July 12, 1868 he was released as second lieutenant in the 3rd reserve engineer battalion.

Ranks: lieutenant (1871), staff captain (1873), captain (1877), lieutenant colonel (1881), colonel (1885), major general (1894).

In 1874 he graduated from the Nikolaev Engineering Academy in the 1st category. In 1876-1883 he was a bau-adjutant of the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow. He was engaged in the reconstruction of a number of Kremlin buildings. For the coronation celebrations of 1883, he prepared a project for the illumination and electric lighting of the Kremlin ^[3] , and also compiled a monograph “The Kremlin in Moscow: Essays and Pictures of the Past and Present”, luxuriously designed, with many zincographies and photo engravings . The book was then translated into French.

July 15, 1883 went into reserve with the rank of lieutenant colonel and moved to Kiev ; February 12, 1885 he returned to service and was appointed headquarters officer for special assignments at the district engineering department of the Kiev military district , and on August 30 of the same year he received the rank of colonel . He was elected the vowel of the Kiev City Duma , proposed a number of projects for the improvement of the city. In 1884, he acquired the estate on Institutskaya street (d. 16), where he built a mansion in the pseudo-Moorish style (according to his own project). Two years later, he acquired a neighboring plot on which a four-story apartment building was built. In 1899, both plots were bought by the Kiev builder Lev Ginzburg and built the famous twelve-story building on the site of the apartment building .

On September 10, 1894, he was promoted to major general with admission to the reserve of the Engineering Corps, and on September 16 of the same year he was appointed special assignment officer under the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty , and on December 6, 1902 was appointed to be a member of the Cabinet. In 1895-1905 he was sent several times to the Sayan Territory and the Nerchinsky Mountain District to conduct geological exploration and establish the possibility of producing a jade monolith . In 1900 he made maps of France from colored stones for the Russian department of the World Exhibition in Paris . In addition, since 1902 he was a member of the Advisory Technical Committee on the construction part under the Cabinet. In 1905 he retired.

In 1904 he was elected vowel of the St. Petersburg City Council , from which he dropped out by lot on January 1, 1907. In 1910 he returned to Kiev. Since 1909 he was a full member of the Kiev club of Russian nationalists .

He was a famous collector of painting, which he began to collect during his service in Moscow, often visiting Sukharevka . He was a full member of the Imperial Society for the Promotion of Arts . The poet Umanov-Kaplunovsky gave the following portrait of Fabricius collector:

He lived in St. Petersburg on Troitskaya Street and there, in a vast apartment, the treasures of art that he collected were placed. Literally all the walls and piers from the ceiling were hung with paintings.
He constantly eagerly took part in exhibitions, showing the masterpieces of his museum both at the portrait exhibition, which was in the building of the Academy of Sciences in 1901, and in 1905 at the exhibition of Russian historical portraits in the Tauride Palace, and at the first ceramic exhibition in St. Petersburg captivated connoisseurs with turquoise products - earrings, wrists, rings, brooches, belts, necklaces and other jewelry, beautifully laid out in a window made of Karelian birch ^[4] .

In 1906, a catalog of his collection was released in St. Petersburg - "Pictures of the collection of M. P. Fabricius" (Tableaux collection M. de Fabricius). It included 231 paintings by the Russian school (including works by Borovikovsky , Venetsianov , P. A. Fedotov , L. I. Solomatkin , K. A. Zelentsov , P. P. Vereshchagin , S. K. Zaryanko and A. A . Ivanova ) and 72 paintings of Western European artists, mainly old masters (among them D. Velazquez , Hobbema , D. Teniers Jr. and Caravaggio ). In addition to painting, he had a collection of jewelry, a collection of valuable jade samples exported from the Sayan Territory, as well as a "one-of-a-kind old collection of Russian stylish turquoise jewelry dating back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries." Part of the collection of paintings was sold at auction, another part was donated to the Rumyantsev Museum by the daughter of Mikhail Platonovich. In 1917, the “M.P. Fabricius Hall” was closed in the museum, closed in 1922. After the liquidation of the Rumyantsev Museum, paintings from the collection of Fabricius were transferred to the Tretyakov Gallery , the Museum of Old Moscow and a number of provincial museums.

He died in 1915. He was buried at Askold's grave .

He was married to the daughter of the Moscow merchant of the 2nd guild Eugenia Alexandrovna Schmit. Their only daughter:

• Ksenia (1887-1942), married to a naval officer A.P. Matveev, died in besieged Leningrad ^[5] . Their son is the Soviet composer M.A. Matveev .

• Order of St. Anne , 3rd art. (1882)
• Order of St. Stanislav , 2nd art. (1883)
• Order of St. Vladimir 4th art. (1893)
• Order of St. Stanislav 1st Art. (April 5, 1898)
• Order of St. Anne 1st Art. (April 6, 1903)
• The highest favor (June 12, 1903)

Foreign:

• Persian Order of Leo and Sun 3rd century (1878)
• Bukhara Order of the Noble Bukhara , golden, 3rd art.

• The Kremlin in Moscow: essays and pictures of the past and present. - Moscow, 1883.
• On the construction of the Poltava railway: a note on the significance of Kiev-Polt. g. d. continuing to the station Lozovoi. - Kiev, 1889.
• Sayan Territory. A brief geographical sketch of the region and a description of the ways and means of communication in it // Izvestia Russian Geographical Society , 1899, vol. 35, no. one.

• A list of senior colonels . Done on September 1, 1893 - St. Petersburg. , 1893. - S. 245.
• Lists to officials of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. - SPb., 1898-1905.
• Petersburg City Council, 1846-1918. - St. Petersburg: Faces of Russia, 2005 .-- S. 486.
• Polunina N. M. Who is who in collecting old Russia: a new biographical dictionary. - M .: RIPOL classic, 2003 .-- S. 426.
• Kalchenko T.V. Kiev Club of Russian Nationalists: A Historical Encyclopedia. - K .: Kievsky Vedomosti, 2008 .-- S. 328.
• Fabricius, Mikhail Platonovich // Moscow Encyclopedia. / Ch. ed. S.O. Schmidt . - M. , 2007-2014. - T. Volume I. Faces of Moscow : [in 6 books].
• Short biography on the website of the Rumyantsev Museum