Prince Nikolai Grigoryevich Repnin-Volkonsky (; 1778 – ) was a general in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

Life

He was the son of General Prince Grigory Semyonovich Volkonsky of the

Volkonsky The House of Volkonsky, also spelled Volkonski or Wolkonsky and later times Wlodkowski is an ancient Russian princely family, part of the Russian nobility. History The family claims descent from the Rurik dynasty, in particular from the Princ ...

noble family, but the adoptive son of his maternal grandfather

Nicholas Repnin Prince Nikolai or Nicholas Vasilyevich Repnin (; – ) was a Russian statesman and general from the Repnin princely family who played a key role in the dissolution of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; the leading figure in the Repnin Sejm, ...

. He joined the

Russian Imperial Guard The Russian Imperial Guard, officially known as the Leib Guard ( ''Leyb-gvardiya'', from German ''Leib'' "body"; cf. Life Guards / Bodyguard), were combined Imperial Russian Army forces units serving as counterintelligence for preventing sabot ...

before taking up a colonelcy in the

Chevalier Guard Regiment The Chevalier Guard Regiment () was a Russian heavy cavalry guard regiment, created in 1800 by the reformation of the Chevalier Guard corps, itself created in 1764 by Catherine the Great. As other Russian heavy cavalry guard regiments (the Life ...

during the campaign against the French. He was captured at the

Battle of Austerlitz The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV French Republican calendar, FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near t ...

(this being depicted in François Gérard's painting ''

'') and only freed after the

Peace of Tilsit The Treaties of Tilsit (), also collectively known as the Peace of Tilsit (; ), were two peace treaties signed by French Emperor Napoleon in the town of Tilsit in July 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland, at the end of the War of ...

. He was promoted to major general and was made ambassador to the

Kingdom of Westphalia The Kingdom of Westphalia was a client state of First French Empire, France in present-day Germany that existed from 1807 to 1813. While formally independent, it was ruled by Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte. It was named after Westphalia, ...

in 1809 and to Spain in 1810. In 1809, he was elected an honorary member of the

Göttingen Academy of Sciences Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, the population of Göttingen was 124,548. Overview The ...

. He returned to Russia in 1811, and a year later, was put in command of a cavalry regiment in the army department commanded by

Peter Wittgenstein Louis Adolf Peter, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Ludwigsburg-Berleburg (; ; ''Pyotr Christianovitch Wittgenstein''; – 11 June 1843), better known as Peter Wittgenstein in English, was a prince of the German dynasty of Sayn-Wittgenstein ...

. In October 1813, after the

Battle of Leipzig The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of the Nations, was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. The Coalition armies of Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, led by Tsar Alexander I, Karl von Schwarzenberg, and G ...

, he became military governor in

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

, until being replaced by the Prussian General Government in November 1814. During this period he worked to stabilise and rebuilt Saxony and attempted to turn its capital

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

into the centre of German art, commissioning the external staircase to

Brühl's Terrace Brühl's Terrace () is a historic architectural ensemble in Dresden, Germany. Nicknamed "The Balcony of Europe", the terrace stretches high above the bank of the river Elbe, and is located north of the recently rebuilt Neumarkt Square and the F ...

and opening the

Großer Garten The Großer Garten (English: Great Garden) is a Baroque style park in central Dresden. It is rectangular in shape and covers about 1.8 km2. Originally established in 1676 on the orders of John George III, Elector of Saxony, it has been a pu ...

to the public. He also put up a monument on the Räcknitzhöhe near Dresden to the wounding of Jean-Victor Moreau. He took part in the

Hundred Days The Hundred Days ( ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII o ...

campaign and the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

. In 1816, he became governor of the Province of Poltava, and in 1835, a member of the

State Council State Council may refer to: Government * State Council of the People's Republic of China, the national cabinet and chief administrative authority of China, headed by the Premier * State Council of the Republic of Korea, the national cabinet of S ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Repnin-Volkonsky, Nikolai Military personnel of the Russian Empire Imperial Russian Army generals 1778 births 1845 deaths Russian diplomats Ambassadors of the Russian Empire to Spain