Did Stolypin say: “In Russia, they like to start reforms only because it is easier to hide the inability to rule”?

Nowadays, a quote is quite popular, which is attributed to one of the main reformers in Russian history. We checked whether Stolypin pronounced a similar maxim.

Information that Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin is the author of the given phrase, reports such sources as "Russian newspaper", "Kommersant", "Moscow Economic Journal" And an authoritative portal "History.rf". It is found on official sites Moscow State University, Moscow City Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk State University, and also Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Moreover, it is not entirely consistent with the image of Stolypin, which was remembered by the descendants primarily as a bold and initiative reformer.

If we trace the path of the phrase in question on the Internet, then a somewhat unexpected result awaits us: almost the first time it appears on websites no earlier than the beginning of the 2010s, immediately with a reference to Stolypin. So, the Russian -speaking newspaper The Dallas Telegraph Included Aphorism in the selection of “statements of great people about Russia, Russian people, Russian and Russian” of August 16, 2011, and this is one of his earliest references on the network. And only a couple of years later the phrase gained popularity and became very often Mentioned in the World Wide Web. However, there is one sharply distinguished exception: the statement is found on the site "Collection of great aphorisms"Which, according to the appropriate mark, was last updated on October 14, 2004.

Things are a little better in print publications. One of the first, if not the first, aphorism is given by public figure Shamil Abdurashitov in his book "Power and the people are parallel worlds" (2005). At the same time, Abdurashitov could borrow the entire selection given by him just on the aforementioned site “A Collection of Great Aphorisms” - even relatively rare statements coincide in two sources. The quote is also given in the book of Vladimir Bolshakov "Island Russia" (2009) and political journal "Zinoviev" (January 2010)-in both cases earlier than on the vast majority of websites that have survived to this day.

It is important to note that in no case the quote of Stolypin is not accompanied by the mention of the context, the circumstances in which it was born, is just naked aphorism. But what about the works of politics and biographical books? The statement cannot be found in full meeting of the speeches of a figure in the State Duma and the State Councilnor in correspondencenor in memories His children, not in other publications with archival materials. From all this, we can conclude that “Stolypin’s quote” was not born earlier than the line of the XX - XXI centuries and was widespread due to the hit in one of the countless collections of aphorisms. Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin, apparently, did not utter anything like this, or his thought was distorted beyond recognition.

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?