Michael Speransky

An Enlightened path towards conservatism: critical junctures and changing elite perceptions in early nineteenth-century Russia

“…91 Utterly displeased about the treaty, the conservative Moscow nobility was 'deeply hurt at the sight of the orthodox tsar friendly with the "usurper" and tyrant of Europe, whom the Russian church had recently anathemized'. 92 Instead of expressing their criticism openly to the monarch, Mikhail Speranskii's ill-timed, Western-inspired reforms proved to be the ideal excuse to blame the man for everything that went wrong in Russia.…”

The Rise and Fall of the European Union: Temporalities and Teleologies

“…Nevertheless, an incomplete civil code was achieved only in the 1870s and even as a formal constitution was adopted in 1876 it was immediately suspended until 1908. 49 The development of the "treaty port" system in Shanghai and other commercial centres in China was another technique of guaranteeing that European principles of law and the conflicts of law would be applied to legal relationships, one party of which would be European. The very extensive literature on the European extraterritoriality in China highlights, however, its very localized nature.…”

“…Controversially, he had signed up to it at the Treaties of Tilsit. But the 1810 Tariff, which Speransky pushed for to alleviate the economic pressure of the Continental system by reopening free trade (grain exports) with Britain, 49 had been instrumental in instigating the war. Similarly, with the Ottoman Empire there was a direct link between search for peace and political economy.…”

“…All born of the womb of the same mother, our fathers, different in origin and in blood, are foreigners, and all of them differ visibly in then epidermis; this dissimilarity carries an obligation of atonement of the greatest significance. 49 The political institutions designed by Bolívar sought to conduct with a "… steady hand and an infinitely delicate touch to guide this heterogeneous society, whose complex contrivance is dislocated, is divided, is dissolved at the slightest disturbance." 50 It might seem paradoxical but Bolívar's fundamental principle is equality, alongside the division of powers and the representative system: "We need equality in order to recast as a whole … the race of men, political opinions and public practices."…”