Gorchakov

The new document reflected Mr. Putin’s preoccupation with Russian history: its title, “Russia Gathers Its Strength,” is the name of an 1856 report written by the czarist statesman Aleksandr Gorchakov.

Gorchakov’s report laid out an imperial foreign policy of flexible alliances and relative isolation from European affairs that was driven largely by domestic considerations.

Prince Gorchakov did not want a radical solution involving a great European war, but he was too fond of ephemeral popularity to stem the current of popular excitement.

From that time he was practically minister of foreign affairs, for Prince Gorchakov was no longer capable of continued intellectual exertion, and lived mostly abroad.

M. de Giers was exactly what he wanted, and accordingly the tsar not only appointed him minister of foreign affairs on the retirement of Prince Gorchakov in 1882, but retained him to the end of his reign in 1894.