Count Sergey Semyonovich Uvarov was statesman, member of the State Council, senator, Minister of National Education (1834–1849), President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and Chairman of the Main Directorate of Censorship. He was an acquaintance of Alexander Pushkin.

In his youth, when engaged in literary activities, Uvarov was one of the founders of “Arzamas”. It was through this organization that Uvarov met Pushkin. On September 27, 1832, during a lecture by Ivan Davydov at Moscow University, Uvarov introduced the poet to a group of students, saying, “And here is art itself.” The relationship between Pushkin and Uvarov was complex. Pushkin even wrote a satirical poem about Uvarov titled “On the Recovery of Lucullus” (1835). Other notable figures Uvarov knew included the poet’s uncle Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, Konstantin Batyushkov, Turgenev brothers, Pyotr Vyazemsky, and Vasily Zhukovsky.

Uvarov’s career in public service began in 1832 when he was appointed as a deputy minister, later becoming Minister of National Education. Senator Kastor Nikiforovich Lebedev described Uvarov as follows,

The famous triad “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality” was featured on Uvarov’s coat of arms as the motto. His contemporaries, not without acrimony, called him “the Minister of Depreciation of Education”, after he introduced a new censorship regulation.