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Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi or Betskoy () was a Russian school reformer who served as Catherine II's advisor on education and President of the Imperial Academy of Arts for thirty years (1764–94). Perhaps the crowning achievement of his long career was the establishment of Russia's first unified system of public education. == Life == Betskoy's parents were Prince Ivan Trubetskoy, a Russian Field Marshal, and his Swedish mistress, Baroness Wrede. His surname is the abbreviated form of his father's. He was born in Stockholm, where Trubetskoy was held captive throughout the Great Northern War, and went to Copenhagen to get a military education before joining a Danish cavalry regiment. It was in the Danish service that he sustained a fall from a horse which forced him to retire from the service. Field Marshal Trubetskoy, having no other sons but Betskoy, recalled him to Russia in 1729. At first he served as his father's aide-de-camp but later would be sent on diplomatic missions to various capitals of Europe. Betskoy was actively involved in a coup d'etat that brought Elizaveta Petrovna to the Russian throne. The grateful empress promoted him to General Major and asked him to attend Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein, whose daughter Catherine was selected as a bride for the Empress' nephew and heir, Grand Duke Peter. In truth, Betskoy had been on friendly terms with Johanna Elisabeth for two decades previous, their intimacy giving rise to rumours that Catherine was his biological daughter. After Johanna Elisabeth was expelled from Russia in 1747, Betskoy found it necessary to lay down his offices and settle in Paris, where he spent the following 15 years in commerce with the Encyclopédistes especially to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And to Denis Diderot, he was at least in correspondence with him. He was introduced to the highest echelons of the French aristocracy by his only sister Anastasia Ivanovna, Landgravine von Hesse-Homburg (her first husband was Prince Demetre Cantemir, ruler of Moldavia). Peter III of Russia recalled Betskoy to Russia and put him in charge of imperial palaces and gardens. Upon arriving to Saint Petersburg, Betskoy renewed his acquaintance with the sovereign's wife (and his own purported daughter), helping her depose Peter in 1762. His hopes to profit from his prominent share in the conspiracy were high. In her memoirs, Ekaterina Dashkova recalls an episode when Betskoy importuned the Empress with questions like "Was I not the one who incited the Guards? Was I not the one who threw money to the people?" Although Betskoy held no post of any consequence until 1764, when Catherine made him President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he went on to become a pillar of the Russian establishment. His position at Catherine's court is not easy to classify. Some historians define his post as a "personal secretary"; others regard Betskoy as an "unofficial education minister" to the Empress. He was one of the few people who enjoyed unlimited access to the Tsarina on daily basis for most of her reign. It was at his suggestion that Étienne Maurice Falconet was commissioned to sculpt the ''Bronze Horseman''; and it was he who engaged Georg von Veldten to design a magnificent iron fence for the Summer Garden. Betskoy's influence continued unabated until the late 1780s when Catherine's tolerance towards the ideas of the Enlightenment began to be eroded and Betskoy was declared "reverting to childhood" on account of his advanced age. Death overtook him in his ninety-second year, when he had long been incapacitated by blindness. Betskoy never married and left his estates to a natural daughter who enjoyed Catherine's particular favour; she married Jose de Ribas, a Spanish adventurer who founded the city of Odessa. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ivan Betskoy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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