Michael von Reutern

Michael Graf^[2] von Reutern (Russian: Михаил Христофорович Рейтерн, romanized: Mikhail Khristoforovich Reytern; 24 September [O.S. 12 September] 1820 – 23 August [O.S. 11 August] 1890) was a Russian statesman of Baltic German origin who served as the finance minister from 1862 to 1878.^[3]

Graf Michael von Reutern
Finance Minister of Russia
In office 23 January [O.S. 11] 1862 – 7 July [O.S. 25 June] 1878
Monarch	Alexander II
Preceded by	Aleksandr Knyazhevich
Succeeded by	Samuil Greig
Chairman of the Committee of Ministers
In office 1881–1886
Monarch	Alexander III
Preceded by	Pyotr Aleksandrovich Valuyev
Succeeded by	Nikolai von Bunge
Personal details
Born	Michael von Reutern 24 September [O.S. 12 September] 1820 Porechye, Smolensk Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	23 August [O.S. 11 August] 1890 (aged 69) Tsarskoye Selo, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Resting place	Groß-Essern Manor, Courland Governorate (in present-day Ezere [lv], Latvia)

Coat of arms of the Middendorff family [de], in the Baltic Coat of arms book by Carl Arvid von Klingspor in 1882.^[1]

Life

Reutern was born on 24 September [O.S. 12 September] 1820 in Porechye of Smolensk Governorate in Russia. He came from the Baltic German noble family of Reutern [de]; his father Christoph Adam von Reutern (1782–1833) was a lieutenant-general in the Imperial Russian Army and his mother Charlotte Elisabeth von Helffreich was a noblewoman. He was the nephew of the famous painter Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern. The Reuterns were of Holsteinish descent, originating in Lübeck. The family was originally called Reuter, they got their name when Johann Reuter (1635–1698), a merchant, was raised to in the Swedish nobility in 1691.

Reutern graduated from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum in 1837. He started his career as a civil servant in the ministry of finance in 1840; he was transferred to the Ministry of Justice in 1843, where he remained until 1854. In 1862, he was appointed finance minister under the liberal reformist tsar, Alexander II, and introduced a system of public accounting. Reutern's period in office was also marked by the promotion of private credit institutions and attempts to stabilise the ruble. He succeeded in reforming taxation and customs laws, by abolishing the spirits lease and the introduction of an excise tax on brandy. Government revenues rose significantly, the chronic budget deficit was removed in 1867, and budgetary surpluses were achieved from 1873. On trade policy, Reutern pragmatically supported reducing some tariffs and duties on manufacturing goods in 1863 and 1868.

The Russo-Turkish War reversed some of the measures that had led to Reutern's successes, and he resigned in 1878.