Avtonom Mikhailovich Golovin

Avtonom Michajlowitsch Golowin ( Russian Автоном Михайлович Головин ; * October 7, 1667 , † July 3, 1720 ) was a general of the infantry in the Russian army and one of the confidants of Peter the Great .

Avtonom Golovin

Life

When Peter I was a boy, Avtonom Golowin served him as a palace servant. Later in life, Peter made him one of his generals because of his loyalty to him, even though he had almost no military experience. The tsar promoted Avtonom to the rank of colonel of the Preobrazhensk body guard regiment and asked him to take part in his Azov campaigns. In 1696, Golovin commanded a division and took an active role in the capture of the Azov fortress.

Upon his return from abroad as part of the Grand Embassy in 1698, Peter began preparations for war with Sweden . Adam Adamowitsch Weide , Awtonom Golowin and Anikita Iwanowitsch Repnin became commanders of the newly established regiments according to Western standards. He himself received the rank of general of the infantry in 1699 and formed eight infantry regiments and one dragoon regiment as part of a division . He criticized the foreign officers and considered them incompetent. During the Battle of Narva , the Russian army was defeated by Charles XII. defeated. The division that Golovin commanded in this battle consisted only of recruits. She was one of the first to flee the battlefield. Field Marshal Charles Eugène de Croy and all foreign officers in the Russian army, including Golovin, were taken prisoner in Sweden. Golowin was brought to Stockholm and stayed there for the next 18 years. The tsar was only able to exchange it in 1718. In 1719 and 1720 Golovin helped structure the Russian army. Avtonom Golovin died in 1720.

literature

• Военная энциклопедия Сытина. Part 8, p. 378 f.
• С. В. Волков: Генералитет Российской империи. Энциклопедический словарь генералов и адмиралов от Петра I до Николая II. Том II: Л — Я. Moscow 2009, ISBN 978-5-9524-4166-8 , p. 375.
• Родословная Головиных, владельцев села Новоспасского, собранная П. К (азанским), [Moscow] 1847, pp. 169–172. ( Digitized version in the Russian State Library )