S. Yu. Witte. Comp. Lukoyanov I.V.

Sergey Yulievich Witte played one of the defining roles in the fate of Russia. It is to him that the state owes the economic rise of the late XIX - early XX centuries. It was he, possessing a pragmatic mind and practical experience, that stabilized Russian finances and provided a powerful influx of foreign capital. His star hour came when, in the midst of a revolutionary cataclysm, he managed to save the monarchy, breaking the resistance of the emperor and insisting on signing the manifest on October 17, granting the main freedom to Russian citizens, including the right to choose parliament - the State Duma. He was the opponent of the war with Japan, he could not prevent it, but he managed to conclude the world on acceptable conditions. The story ordered Witte it turned out to be obscured by the brilliant and tragic figure of his successor Peter Arkadyevich Stolypin. Meanwhile, in political and economically, Stolypin continued Witte's case and relied on his development.

The story of Witte is a dramatic story of a person who is alien to the court elite, who made a rapid career exclusively thanks to his talents, who provided huge services to his Fatherland, rejected by the emperor and his environment and discarded into political nothingness. Having warned of this non -existence from entering the World War, he died two years before the disaster of February 1917, which he foresaw.

The numerous testimonies of the associates and opponents of Witte, who are included in this book, represent us not only a strong and contradictory personality, but also no less contradictory era of the last two Russian emperors when the fate of the country was decided.