Note 51 — Chapter VI

Serghéi Uvárov (1786-1855) was both Minister of Education and President of the Academy of Sciences. He used his power to tighten the censorship and suppressed The Moscow Telegraph, edited by Polevoi, which was the most independent of Russian journals; in this way he “stole fire from mankind.” The reference to Púshkin is malicious: what Púshkin wrote about Uvárov in that poem was the reverse of complimentary. “Lucullus” was Count Sheremétyev and Uvárov was his heir.