Alexander Alexandrovich Polovtsov was a Russian statesman, historian and Maecenas, the founder of the Russian Historian Society.
Background
Alexander was born to a medium noble family. His father had his family estate in the Luga uyezd of Saint St. Petersburg gubernia and served as a government bureaucrat working for the Governing Senate and later for the Ministry for the State Property.
Education
Polovtsov has graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence and started his work in the 1st department of the Governing Senate.
Career
Alexander"s mother came from a noble family of Tatischevs. Historian Sergey Tatischev was Polovtsov"s cousin. In 1861 Polovtsov marry Nadezhda Mikhaylovna Yunina (1843–1908), the only foster daughter of the first Chairman of the State Bank of the Russian Empire, Alexander von Stieglitz.
Since 1871 Polovtsov became a senator, since 1873 he was the Secretary of State and simultaneously the Stats-Secretary of the Emperor Alexander III of Russia.
Polovtsov was the initiator of the creation of the Russian Historical Society (created in 1865). He was the Secretary of the society in 1866-1879 and the Chairman of the society from 1879 until his death in 1909.
The society commissioned works of such historians as Sergey Solovyov, Nikolay Kostomarov, Vasily Klyuchevsky who set the foundation for the History of Russia. Under Polovtsov the society published 128 volumes of Sborniks of Russian Historical Society.
Polovtsov also prepared the 25 volumes of the Russian Biographical Dictionary that played an important role as the source of the biographical data on Russian people.
To correctly establish the notability Polovtsov refused to include biographies of living people. Polovtsov (together with his father-in-law Alexander von Stieglitz founded the Stieglitz Museum of Applied Arts. Alexander Alexandrovich Polovtsov, junior (1867—1944) — Diplomat;
Peter Alexandrovich Polovtsov, (1874—1964) — General.
Membership
Russian Academy of Sciences]
Since 1892 until his death in 1909 he was a member of the State Council.