Prince Boris Vladimirovich Golitsyn (; 6 January 1769, Moscow - 6 January 1813,

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

) was a Russian aristocrat from the Moscow branch of the

House of Golitsyn The House of Golitsyn (, ) is the second largest and noblest Princely house in Russia.Jean-Marie Thiébaud , A great princely family of Russia, the Galitzines. Genealogy and historical notes , Paris, 1997. Among its members were warlords, lan ...

, who fought in the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

and rose to the rank of lieutenant general.

Life

Boris was the son of Vladimir Borisovich Golitsyn and his wife Natalya Petrovna. She was known as a learned woman, a gambler, and a good dancer and served

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

. Natalya was the inspiration for the lead character in

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is conside ...

's '' The Queen of Spades''. His younger siblings were Sophie Vladimirovna Stroganova, countess Ekaterina Vladimirovna Apraksina and prince

Dmitry Golitsyn Prince Dmitry Vladimirovich Golitsyn (; 29 October 177127 March 1844, Paris) was an Imperial Russian cavalry general prominent during the Napoleonic Wars, statesman and military writer. Biography He was born in the Golitsyn family of Knyaz Vl ...

. He joined up as a sergeant in the

Semyonovsky Regiment The Semyonovsky Lifeguard Regiment (, ) was one of the two oldest guard regiments of the Imperial Russian Army. The other one was the Preobrazhensky Regiment. In 2013, it was recreated for the Russian Armed Forces as a rifle regiment, its name ...

of Russia's

Imperial Guard An imperial guard or palace guard is a special group of troops (or a member thereof) of an empire, typically closely associated directly with the emperor and/or empress. Usually these troops embody a more elite status than other imperial force ...

in 1781 aged 12. Between 1782 and 1786 he studied at the Protestant faculty in

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

to perfect his

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

and

German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

skills. He admired

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

and

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

and wrote the latter a letter in German when he was only 17. He also keenly studied music and dance, gaining him the nickname "Boris-Vestris" after the French dancer

Auguste Vestris Marie-Jean-Augustin Vestris, known as Auguste Vestris (27 March 1760 – 5 December 1842), was a French dancer. He was born in Paris, the illegitimate son of Gaétan Vestris and Marie Allard. His father was a Florentine dancer who had joined ...

. He continued his education as a sub-lieutenant at the

École militaire École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

in Paris during the last years of the

Ancien Regime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for "ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Socié ...

; he did not meet Napoleon Bonaparte who left the school in October 1785. Two weeks after the

Storming of the Bastille The Storming of the Bastille ( ), which occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, was an act of political violence by revolutionary insurgents who attempted to storm and seize control of the medieval armoury, fortress, and political prison k ...

a written order came to the Golitsyns to patrol in the city as guards. The correspondence of the elder of the Golitsyn brothers attests to his deep interest in analyzing and comprehending the events of the French Revolution. Boris made critical remarks on the proposals of Dubois-Crancé in the Assembly.Rzewski V.S. & V.A. Chudinov Russian "members" of the French revolution // French Yearbook 2010: Sources of the history of the French revolution of the XVIII century and the era of Napoleon. M.C. 6-45. In 1791 Catherine the Great had ordered the whole family to leave Paris and get back to Moscow, but they first visited Rome, where the brothers were portrayed by

Hugh Douglas Hamilton Hugh Douglas Hamilton RHA ( – 10 February 1808) was an Irish portrait-painter. He spent considerable periods in London and Rome before returning to Dublin in the early 1790s. Until the mid- 1770s, he worked mostly in pastel. His style ...

Dmitry Golytsin by Hugh Douglas Hamilton

Boris became very hostile to the turn of events and joined the Swedish army to fight against Revolutionary France. In 1794 he fought in Poland (then on the eve of its Third Partition), receiving the

Order of St George Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * ...

fourth class on 1 January 1795 for brave deeds in the attack on the fortress at

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

during the

Battle of Praga The Battle of Praga or the Second Battle of Warsaw of 1794, also known in Russian and German as the storming of Praga () and in Polish as the defense of Praga (), was a Imperial Russia, Russian assault on Praga, the easternmost community of Wars ...

on 24 October 1794 (

Old Style Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries betwe ...

) - during that battle, he had fought alongside his brother Dmitry. He was made a colonel in 1796 then major general in 1798 commanding the St Petersburg Grenadier Regiment. On 31 December 1799, he rose to his final rank of lieutenant general before resigning on 24 March the following year. He rejoined the army in 1801 and was put in command of the Pavlovsky Grenadier Regiment in the Guards on 20 May 1802. He was made inspector of

Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...

's infantry regiments on 11 October 1803 and fought in the battles of 1805. He was badly wounded 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 ...

and resigned on health grounds on 7 September 1806. As well as being a skilled musician and dancer, he also tried writing in his youth, publishing 'Aurora' and 'Diogenes and Glyceria' in ''The Literary Almanac'' in 1788 when only twenty years old. He also made the first Russian translations of works by

Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and hack writer. A prolific author of various literature, he is regarded among the most versatile writers of the Georgian e ...

and François de La Rochefoucauld. He was a friend of

Gavrila Derzhavin Gavriil (Gavrila) Romanovich Derzhavin (, ; 14 July 1743 – 20 July 1816) was one of the most highly esteemed Russian poets before Alexander Pushkin, as well as a statesman. Although his works are traditionally considered literary classicis ...

and with him founded a literary society in 1811 called ''La Causerie des amateurs des mots russes'' to study archaisms in Russian. That society was strongly criticized by backers of

Nikolay Karamzin Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin () was a Russian historian, writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for his fundamental ''History of the Russian State'', a 12-volume national history. Early life Karamzin was born in the small village of ...

. He rejoined the army yet again during the

French invasion of Russia The French invasion of Russia, also known as the Russian campaign (), the Second Polish War, and in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (), was initiated by Napoleon with the aim of compelling the Russian Empire to comply with the Continenta ...

in 1812, fighting at the battle of Smolensk and being wounded at the

Battle of Borodino The Battle of Borodino ( ) or Battle of Moscow (), in popular literature also known as the Battle of the Generals, took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. ...

. He refused to be evacuated and died at Vilnius on 6 January 1813. His body was later moved to his family state at Viaziomy Castle near Moscow. In 1936 it was reburied in the family chapel of Moscow's

Donskoy Monastery Donskoy Monastery () is a major monastery in Moscow, founded in 1591 in commemoration of Moscow's deliverance from the threat of an invasion by the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey. Commanding a highway to the Crimea, the monastery was intended to def ...

References

External links

Généalogie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Golitsyn, Boris Vladimirovitch 1769 births 1813 deaths Military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars Russian military personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars Russian commanders of the Napoleonic Wars Translators to Russian Translators from English Translators from French Russian military personnel killed in the Napoleonic Wars Boris Vladimirovich Scholars from the Russian Empire