Kurakin, Boris Alexandrovich

Prince Boris-Leonty Alexandrovich Kurakin (1733-1764) - Russian statesman, coffer , senator .

The son of the Chief Stahlmeister, Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin and Alexandra Ivanovna , nee Panina. Nothing is known of his childhood and youth; in 1761 - lieutenant general ; in 1762, he was the hofmeister.

Having established a commission on November 29, 1762 to resolve the issue of monastery estates, Catherine II appointed to this commission from secular persons: Count Senator Ivan Vorontsov , Prince Sergey Gagarin , Chief Prosecutor of St. Synod of Prince Kozlovsky , Teplov and Prince B. A. Kurakin. Upon the establishment of the College of Economy on May 12, 1763, Prince Kurakin was appointed its president. This was a very important appointment: the College of Savings was to collect over one and a half million revenues, that is, almost a tenth of the then total budget of Russia.

By a decree of March 30, 1764, the Chamber College was also entrusted with his management; Kurakin was also made a senator. We learn from the empress’s papers that she was dissatisfied with the “silent situation” of such an important college as the Chamber College and her appointment as president Kurakin hoped to revive her. The absence of a higher government agency that would manage the state’s finances as a whole was a very significant gap in the Russian state system throughout the eighteenth century, and the attempt to create such a department, initiated by the union of the Chamber College and the College of Economy, is extremely remarkable. And prince B.A. Kurakin, in this regard, belonged, without a doubt, to the main role. The State Archive contains two remarkable reports submitted by him to the Empress on issues of state economy; after them, he was appointed president of the Chamber College and one of his reports served as the basis for a personal decree dated March 30, 1764, which outlines the unsatisfactory position of the Chamber College at this time and the range of tasks and responsibilities that its activities should determine in order for this activity to receive true state significance.

The Chamber College at that time acted according to the regulations of 1731, which significantly narrowed its tasks in comparison with how Peter the Great outlined them. Prince Kurakin proposed to return in general to what Peter had set as the task of the college. He argued that the Chamber Chamber should not only be aware of revenues, but should manage, open and create new sources of income, improving, mainly, the situation of those classes that mainly generate income. Empress Catherine highly appreciated the activities of Kurakin.

Having received news in St. Petersburg about his serious illness, she sent him the following rescript on November 21, 1764, in which she attributed the last two phrases with her own hand :

Prince Boris Alexandrovich! I am immensely sorry that you are ill and wish to hear about your relief. I recommend that in order to leave all your labors put on you, because you, as I hear, do not leave them in illness. Do not bother yourself with anything for which you will not be completely ripe. I hear that you are not taking medicine, perhaps at least take care of me; I need your health.

Successor Prince By the presidency of the Chamber College, A. A. Kurakin completely mastered the ideas of Kurakin, and the order from the collegium for the deputy to the Commission to compose a draft new code was a repetition of the reports of Prince. Kurakina.

Printed Letters B. A. Kurakina to the son of Prince For A. B. Kurakin, for 1763 and 1764, they depict Prince B. A. Kurakin to us as a man who is very warm-hearted, serious and strictly devoted to his work.