Mikhail Muravyov was the son of
General Count Nicholas Muravyov (
governor of
Grodno), and grandson of Count
Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov-Vilensky, who became notorious for his drastic measures in stamping out the
Polish insurrection of 1863 in the
Lithuanian provinces. He was educated at a
secondary school at
Poltava, and was for a short time at
Heidelberg University. In 1864, he entered the
chancellery of the
minister of foreign affairs at
St.Petersburg, and was soon afterwards attached to the Russian
legation at
Stuttgart, where he attracted the notice of Queen
Olga of Württemberg. He was transferred to
Berlin, then to
Stockholm, and back again to Berlin. In 1877, he was second secretary at
The Hague. During the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, he was a delegate of the
Red Cross Society in charge of an
ambulance train provided by Queen Olga of Württemberg. After the war, he was successively first secretary in
Paris,
chancellor of the
embassy in Berlin, and then minister in
Copenhagen. In
Denmark, he was brought much into contact with the
imperial family, and, on the death of Prince
Lobanov-Rostovsky in 1896, he was appointed by
Tsar Nicholas II to be his minister of foreign affairs. The next three and a half years were a critical time for
European
diplomacy. The
revolt of Crete against
Ottoman rule and events leading to the
Boxer Rebellion in
China were disturbing factors. Count Muravyov's policy regarding Crete was vacillating; in China, his hands were forced by
Germany's action at
Kiaochow. He misled
Britain concerning the Russian
leases of
Port Arthur and
Talienwan from China; he told the British ambassador that these would be open ports, and afterwards significantly modified this pledge. When Tsar Nicholas II inaugurated the
Peace Conference at The Hague in 1899, Count Muravyov extricated his country from a situation of some embarrassment in China; but when, subsequently, Russian agents in
Manchuria and
Peking connived at the agitation which culminated in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, relations between Muravyov and the tsar became strained. Muravyov died suddenly on June 21, 1900, after a stormy interview with
Sergei Witte and
Aleksey Kuropatkin in which Witte laid considerable blame on Muravyov for the crisis in China (Muravyov had insisted on taking Port Arthur against Witte's advice); because there was a wound on his left temple when he died, there was a rumor that he had committed suicide, but "the official government announcement asserted that, after rising late, he had merely slipped in his study and grazed his temple on the sharp side of a bureau." He was awarded
Order of the White Eagle and a number of other decorations. == Notes ==