Galitzine

The Galitzine , more exactly the Golitsyn (), are one of largest and the noblest princely houses of Russia. Since the extinction of the family Korecki at the XVIIe century, Galitzine protested their dynastic seniority in the Lithuanian house of Gediminas (the “Gediminides”).

Origins

The family goes down from Yuriy Patrikeevich, a Lithuanian prince who emigrated at the court of Vasily Ier and which married his/her sister. His/her children and its grandchildren, such as Vassian Patrikeyev, were regarded as the Russian first boyars. One of them, Prince Mikhail Bulgakov, was called Galitsa for an iron glove which it carried to the Bataille of Orsha (in 1514). Its great-grandson Prince Vasily Galitzine (deceased in 1619) was active during the Period of Disorders and came as ambassador in Poland to offer the crown of Russia to the Prince Wladislaw.

Vasily Vasilievich Galitzine

Prince Vasily Vasilievich (1643-1714) was probably more the Russian great man of State of the 17th century. He spent his first days to the court of the Tsar Alexis where he reached gradually the row of Boyard. In 1676 it was sent in Ukraine to give to the step the Tatars of the Crimea and it took share in the countryside of Chigirin.

The revolution of May in 1682 placed Galitzine at the head of the Posolsky Prikaz, or Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and during the regency of Sophia, sister of Pierre Large the, of which he became the close friend, he was the principal Minister for the State (1682-1689) and the guard of large the joint, a title only granted to 2 Russians before him, Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin and Artamon Matveev. In the interior matters its influence was unimportant, but its foreign politics was characterized by the Traîté from Nerchinsk (in 1689), which fixed the Russo-Chinese border along the Fleuve Love, and by peace with Poland (in 1683), by which Russia finally recovered Kiev. By the terms of the same treaty, it inserted Russia in the great league against the Porte, but its two forwardings against the the Crimea (in 1687 and 1689), the first Crimean War, were failures and made it extremely unpopular.

It was only with the greatest difficulty which Sophia could obtain that the young Pierre tsar decorated the Commander-in-chief beaten as if it had returned victorious. In the civil war between Sophia and Pierre (August-September 1689), Galitzine supported without enthusiasm its mistress and shared her ruin. Its life was saved thanks to supplications of his/her Boris cousin, but it was private of its row of boyard, its fields were confiscated and it was banished successively with Kargopol, Mezen and Kholmogory, where it mourrut on April 21st 1714.

Galitzine was abnormally well educated. He was a large friend from abroad, who generally referred to him like large Galitzine. He exposed some drastic measurements of reform to them, such as the abolition of serfdom, the promotion of the religious tolerance, and the development of the industrial companies. As Galitzine was eager to avoid all forms of violence and repression, its program was more careful and more realistic than that of Pierre the Large one. The political upheavals prevented it from carrying out these plans.

Boris Alexeevich Galitzine

The political adversary of Vasily was his/her cousin the Prince Boris Alexeevich (1654-1714), a Chambellan of the court since 1676. He was the chief of the supports of the young Pierre tsar when, in 1689, Pierre resisted the usurpations of his older sister Sophia, and the chief of the faithful council which meets in the monastery of the Trinity during the crisis. It was Galitzine which suggested seeking refuge in this powerful fortress and which demolished the boyars thus opposite party.

In 1690 it created for itself a Boyar and it divided it with Naryshkin, the uncle of Pierre, in load of the interior matters. After the death of the tsarina Natalia, the mother of Pierre, in 1694, his influence increased even further. It accompanied Pierre with the White Mer (1694-1695); it took share with the countryside of Azov (1695); and it was one of the triumviri which directed Russia during the first foreign round of Pierre (1697-1698). The Rebellion of Astrakhan (in 1706), which affected all the districts under its government, shook the confidence of Pierre in him, and deteriorated its position considerably. In 1707 it was replaced in the provinces of the Volga by Andrei Matveev. One year before its death it entered to the monastery.

Galitzine was a typical representative of the Russian company of the end of the XVIIe leaning century towards the occidentalism. With many regards it was very in advance over its time. He was highly educated, controlled the Latin , attended the company of the scholars and had children carefully educated according to the best European models. However this eminent character higher was drunkard usual, coarse savage which imposed hospitality on rich person foreign, and which was not ashamed of being useful in the dishes as the desire took it, and of sending them to his wife at his place. It was its carefree intoxication which finally ruined it according to Pierre the Large one, in spite of its priceless preceding services.

Dmitriy Mikhailovich Galitzine

Large Galitzine had another cousin, Prince Dmitriy Mikhailovich (1665-1737), noticed for its noble attempt to transform Russia into Constitutional monarchy. It was sent by Pierre the Large one in 1697 in Italy to learn the military businesses; in 1704 it was affected with the command of an auxiliary body in Poland against Charles XII; from 1711 to 1718 he was governor of Belgorod. In 1718 it was indicated president of the Collège the Commercial lately founded and senator. In May 1723 it was implied in the disgrace of the vice-chancellor Shafirov and was private of all its functions and dignities, which it recovered only by the mediation of the empress.

After the death of Pierre the Large one, Galitzine became the recognized chief of the preserving old party which had never forgiven Pierre to move away Eudoxia and to marry plebeian the Martha Skavronskaya. But the reformists, represented by Alexander Menshikov and Peter Tolstoi, prevailed; and Galitzine remained in background until the fall of Menshikov, in 1727. During the last years of Pierre II (1728-1730), Galitzine was the most important Head of State in Russia and its high aristocratic theories had good game.

With died of Pierre II it conceived the idea to limit the Autocratie by subordinating it to the authority of a supreme private Conseil, of which he was president. It drew the forms of a constitution that Anna de Courland, the new empress of elected Russia, was forced to sign with Mittau before being authorized to reach Saint-Petersbourg. Anna did not waste time to repudiate this constitution, and never forgave with its authors.

Galitzine was left in peace, however, and lived most of the time in retirement, until 1736, when it was stopped suspected of being concerned by the conspiracy of his son-in-law Prince Constantine Cantimir. That, however, was only one simple pretext, because that was for its anti-monarchical feelings which it was really continued. A court, largely made up of its antagonists, condemned it to death, but the empress reduced the sentence to the life imprisonment with Schlisselbourg and to the Confiscation of all her fields. He died in his prison on April 14th, 1737, after 3 months of containment.

Other Galitzine notable

The brother of Dmitriy Mikhail (1674-1730) was a famous soldier, who is especially known for his governorship of Finland (1714-1721), where its hard rule remained for people whom it conquered like the Plus great Anger (in Swedish: Stora ofreden ).

And the son of Mikhaïl Alexander (1718-1783) was a diplomat and a soldier, who in the same way rose to be Feld-maréchal and governor of Saint-Petersbourg.

Another son of Mikhaïl, Dmitriy Mikhailovich (1721-1793), was the Russian ambassador with Vienna during the reign of Catherine Large the. Mainly recognized for its splendid Galitzine Hospital that it opened in Moscow, he was also a large friend and a patron of Mozart.

The Prince ''' Dmitry Dmitrievich Galitzine ''' (1770-1840), so known like the Apostle of Alleghanies , was the first priest Roman catholic ordered in America; a congregation in Pennsylvania bears its name. It is currently being studied for possible a Sainteté, its title current is Serviteur of God.

The Prince Dmitriy Vladimirovich (1771-1844) bravely fought during the Napoleonean wars, was promoted with the rank of general Lieutenant and controlled Moscow during 25 years.

Prince Alexander Nikolaevich (1773-1844) was a reactionary, Minister for Education in the government of Alexandre Ier. He carried out a survey into the participation Maçonnique in rising Décembriste of 1825 and was useful like chair Council of State of 1838 to 1841.

Prince Nikolai Borisovich (1794-1866) was a violoncellist amateur who commissioned Beethoven to write his last String quartets, sometimes called the '' Quatuors Galitzine ''.

Prince Lev Sergeyevich (June 24th 1845 - January 8th 1916 (June 12th, 1845 - December 26th, 1915)) was one of the founders of the wine making in the Crimea. In its criméen field of Novyi Svet it built the first Russian factory of wines from champagne. In 1889 the production of this viticultural establishment gained the Gold medal with the exposure of Paris in the category “Sparkling wine”. He became the land-surveyor of the imperial vines with Abrau-Dyurso in 1891.

The Prince Boris Borisovich (1862-1916) was an eminent physicist who invented the electromagnetic first Sismographe in 1906.

The Prince ''' Nikolai Dmitrievich Galitzine ''' (1850-1925) was the last Prime Minister Tsariste of Russia, at the time of the Révolution of February.

The Prince Yuri Sergeyevich Galitzine (born in 1935) is a Russian physicist noticed for his research on the nuclear concept of Hiver.

External bonds

Genealogy of the family Galitzine
Site of the Princess Irene Galitzine
Galitzine Museum of Moscow

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