Ivan Liprandi
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Ivan Petrovich Liprandi (Иван Петрович Липранди, Giovanni Pietro de Liprandi; – ) was a Russian secret service officer, major general, and memoirist of Spanish and Italian descent. He was the elder brother of
Pavel Liprandi General Pavel Petrovich Liprandi (, ; 15 January 1796 – 27 August 1864) was a Russian military officer of Spanish-Italian descent who participated in the Crimean War."Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854–56", by Trevor Royle, pages 266–268 ...
. His father Pietro headed Russia's arms factories and organised those of Tsar Alexander, before returning from Russia to his native
Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...
. During the
Finnish War The Finnish War (; ; ) was fought between the Gustavian era, Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire from 21 February 1808 to 17 September 1809 as part of the Napoleonic Wars. As a result of the war, the eastern third of Sweden was established a ...
and
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 ...
, Ivan built a reputation as a remarkable duelist and
Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
. After the taking of Paris in 1814, he became interested in secret police methods and did some fieldwork with Vidocq. In the early 1820s, Liprandi served in
Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...
under Prince
Vorontsov The House of Vorontsov (), also Woroncow and de Woroncow-Wojtkowicz, is the name of a Russian noble family whose members attained the dignity of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire in 1744 and became Princes of the Russian Empire on 6 April 1845 ...
, helping infiltrate the
Danubian Principalities The Danubian Principalities (, ) was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) ...
with Russian spies. During this sojourn in
New Russia Novorossiya rus, Новороссия, Novorossiya, p=nəvɐˈrosʲːɪjə, a=Ru-Новороссия.ogg; , ; ; ; "New Russia". is a historical name, used during the era of the Russian Empire for an administrative area that would later becom ...
, he saw
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 ...
on a daily basis and was on friendly terms with him. The writer depicted him as Silvio in ''
The Shot The Shot was a game-winning jumpshot by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls during a 1989 playoff game between the Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). It took place on May 7, 1989, at Richfield Coliseu ...
'', an 1830 short story inspired by an anecdote told by Liprandi. After the
Decembrist Revolt The Decembrist revolt () was a failed coup d'état led by liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire. It took place in Saint Petersburg on , following the death of Emperor Alexander I. Alexander's brother and heir ...
, Liprandi was briefly arrested and had to leave military service (although some Decembrists considered him a government spy). He went on to serve as an 'official for special assignments', first for the
Minister of Internal Affairs An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
(from 1840), and then at the Government Office (from 1856). Liprandi played a prominent role in the suppression of the so-called
Petrashevsky Circle The Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s. It was organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Among the me ...
. On behalf of Minister of Interior
Lev Perovski Count Lev Alekseyevich von Perovski (, also transliterated as Perofsky, Perovskii, Perovskiy, Perovsky, Perowski, and Perowsky; also credited as L.A. Perovski) (9 September 1792 – 21 November 1856) was a Russian nobleman and mineralogist who a ...
, he observed the circle for a year and on 20 April 1849 gave the names of four people more or less involved in it, all of whom were arrested. The Commission of Inquiry invited Liprandi to express his opinion about the case, provided they noted that, in his own words, he had contributed to the guilty verdict against the four. In the early 1850s, Liprandi was asked to look into supposedly seditious activities of the
Old Believers Old Believers or Old Ritualists ( Russian: староверы, ''starovery'' or старообрядцы, ''staroobryadtsy'') is the common term for several religious groups, which maintain the old liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian ...
. After a prolonged study of different sects, Liprandi concluded that they were essentially harmless. In his later years, Liprandi wrote a history of Napoleon's Russian campaign, tracked down the surviving veterans of this war and provided some important materials for the novel ''
War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...
''. (
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...
sent him an inscribed copy of the first edition). His memoirs have been highly praised as the most detailed source of information about Pushkin's southern exile.


Main works

* ''Brief Review of the Patriotic War, from August 17 until September 2'' (St. Petersburg, 1858); * ''The Battle of Borodino'' (1861); * ''The Eastern Question and Bulgaria'' (Wiley, 1868); * ''Bulgaria'' (1877); * ''Looking at the theatre of war on the Danube, etc.'' (1878). * Numerous articles (on topics including the
Old Believers Old Believers or Old Ritualists ( Russian: староверы, ''starovery'' or старообрядцы, ''staroobryadtsy'') is the common term for several religious groups, which maintain the old liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian ...
) published in ''
Russkaya Starina ''Russkaia Starina'' (, , ) was a Russian history journal published monthly in St. Petersburg by amateur historian Mikhail Semevsky and his successors between 1870 and 1916. Its authors included Ivan Zabelin, Dmitry Ilovaysky, Nikolai Karlovi ...
'' and Bartenev's ''Russian Archive''.


Sources


Article on Liprandi
*Rogachev AB Liprandi Ivan Petrovich / / Russian writers, 1800–1917: Biographical Dictionary. М., 1994. M., 1994. Т. 3. T. 3. С. 362—364. S. 362–364.
Victor Taki, "From partisan war to the ethnography of European Turkey: the Balkan career of Ivan Liprandi, 1790–1880,"
Canadian Slavonic Papers 58. no 3 (2016) ''This article incorporates text from the Eleventh Encyclopædia Britannica (1890–1907).'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Liprandi 1790 births 1880 deaths People from the Russian Empire of Italian descent Secret service personnel of the Russian Empire Imperial Russian Army generals Russian Freemasons 19th-century memoirists from the Russian Empire