Pyotr Valuyev

Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Valuev¹ (Russian: Граф Пётр Алекса́ндрович Валу́ев; September 22, 1815 – January 27, 1890) was a Russian politician and writer.

Biography

Valuev was born in the Tsaritsyno District of Moscow on September 22, 1815.

Valuev served as Emperor Alexander II's Minister of Interior between April 23, 1861 to March 9, 1868, and as Minister of State Assets from February 17, 1872 to 1877.

In 1863, he drafted a secret decree, which later became known as the Valuev Circular that forbade the publication of religious, as well as educational books, along with those intended for the initial literacy instruction of the commoners, in the Ukrainian language. Only belles-lettres was allowed to be published.² In his secret instruction issued on 30 July, 1863, informing the minister of education of the ban, he wrote that the Ukrainian language, separate from Russian, "did not exist, does not exist, and cannot exist".³

The Valuev Circular is considered one of the most vivid manifestations of the chauvinist policy of the Russian autocracy, aimed at strengthening Russification, national, spiritual and political oppression of the Ukrainian people.⁴

In 1877, he was made Chairman of the Committee of Ministers. In 1880, his influence began to decline when he was eclipsed by his opponent, Count Loris-Melikov. Valuev was sent into retirement in October 1881 by the son of the recently assassinated Alexander II, , since as Minister of State Assets, he had held final responsibility for the so-called plundering of the Bashkir lands in the 1870s.