SHAFIROV, PETER PAVLOVICH, BARON (1670-1739)

This article appears in Volume V24, Page 760 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SCY-SHA

SHAFIROV, PETER PAVLOVICH, BARON (1670-1739) , Russian statesman, one of the ablest coadjutors of Peter the

Great

GREAT

, was of obscure, and in all probability of Jewish, extraction. He first made himself useful by his extraordinary knowledge of foreign languages. He was the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

translator in the Russian Foreign Office for many years, subsequently accompanying Peter on his travels. Made a baron and raised to the rank of vice-

chancellor

CHANCELLOR (M. Eng. and Anglo-Fr. canceler, chanceler, Fr. chancelier, Lat. cancellarius)

, he displayed diplomatic talents of the highest order. During the unlucky campaign of 1711, he succeeded against all expectations in concluding the peace of the Pruth (see TURKEY: History). Peter left him in the hands of the Turks as a

hostage

HOSTAGE (through Fr. ostage, modern otage, from
Late
- LATE
Lat. obsidaticum, the state of being an obses or hostage; Med. Lat. ostaticum, ostagium)

, and on the rupture of the peace he was imprisoned in the Seven Towers. Finally, however, with the aid of the British and Dutch ambassadors, he defeated the diplomacy of Charles XII. of Sweden and his agents, and confirmed the good relations between Russia and Turkey by the treaty of Adrianople (June 5th, 1713). On the institution of the colleges or departments of state in 1718, Shafirov was appointed vice-president of the department of Foreign Affairs, and a senator. In 1723, however, he was deprived of all his offices and sentenced to death. The

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

sentence was commuted on the

scaffold

to banishment, first to

Siberia

SIBERIA

and then to

Novgorod

NOVGOROD
NOVGOROD (formerly known as V elikiy-Novgorod,
Great
- GREAT
Novgorod)

. Peculations and disorderly conduct in the senate were the offences charged against Shafirov, and with some justice. On the death of Peter, Shafirov was released from prison and commissioned to write the life of his

late

LATE

master. He had previously (1717), in an historical

tract

TRACT (from Lat. tractare, to treat of a matter, through Provencal tractat and Ital. trattato)

on the war with Charles XII., in which Peter himself collaborated,'epitomized, in a high panegyric style, some of the greatest exploits of the tsar-regenerator. The successful rivalry of his supplanter, Andrei Osterman, prevented Shafirov from holding any high office during the last fourteen years of his life.
See B. M. Solovev, History of Russia, vols. xiii.-xvi. (Rus.) (Peters-burg, 1895). (R. N. B.)

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