Fyodor Alexejewitsch Golovin

Fyodor Golovin

Count Feodor Alekseyevich Golovin ( Russian Фёдор Алексеевич Головин * 1650 , † July 30 ^{. Jul} / 10. August  1706 ^{. Greg} in Glukhov , today in the Ukraine ) was a Russian politician and diplomat , under Peter the Great Head of the Russian foreign policy, Admiral General (1699) and Field Marshal General (1700).

Origin and CV

Golovin comes from an old boyar family who came to Moscow from the Crimea as early as the 14th century and was very respected at the Tsar's court.

Golowin had been at the Tsar's court since 1676. In his first major diplomatic mission, he was appointed envoy for negotiations with China in 1686. Due to a previous military defeat of Russia, the border between Russia and China was defined in 1689 in the Treaty of Nerchinsk (a city east of Lake Baikal , 100 days' journey from the Chinese capital). This treaty was the first equal international treaty that China concluded with a European state. It regulated the trade and was a provisional end point of the bilateral trade relations between the two states for the next 150 years.

From the mid-1690s he held a number of administrative posts, but above all, as Commissioner General, he was responsible for the material and technical equipment of the Russian army . He took part in the Azov campaigns of 1695–1696 and commanded a small river flotilla. In 1697, Golowin was the second man behind François Le Fort at the head of the Russian embassy of Peters, with which the tsar visited foreign countries "incognito" (the so-called Great Embassy ). He was a close follower of Peter the Great and helped build a new Russian fleet and army . From 1699 until his death, he was instrumental in Russian foreign policy as an advisor to the Tsar; under him the first Russian embassies abroad were founded. On his advice, Peter the Great brought foreign specialists in various professions to Russia.

From 1698 to 1706 Golovin headed the Office for Military Seafaring and from 1699 to 1706 he was the head of the “Office for Embassy Affairs” (Russian: Posol'skij prikaz, from 1700- Posol'skaja kanzelarija) quasi “Foreign Minister” of the Russian state . Golovin's foreign policy was marked by great hostility towards Sweden. He saw only one possibility for the future development of the Russian state, which was to develop relations with the West and, above all, to trade with it. Since the Swedish territory at that time comprised the entire north-west of today's Russia and the Baltic States, it stood in the way of free access for the Russian state to the world's oceans. Thus, from the perspective of Golovin and Peter the Great, a war against Sweden was the only logical way to strengthen trade and modernize Russia. Golowin led secret negotiations with the Electorate of Saxony and Denmark , which formed an alliance against the Swedish King Charles XII. led. He also negotiated the Constantinople Peace Treaty in 1700 , which ended the Russo-Turkish war .

During the Great Northern War , Golovin took part in the siege of Narva in 1700 and led the siege of Nyenschanz (1703), although he proved to be a rather mediocre general. After that, the Tsar decided that from now on Golovin only had to deal with diplomatic matters. He traveled to the court of August the Strong in Dresden , where in 1704 he negotiated the Russian-Polish assistance agreement (August the Strong was also King of Poland). He died while traveling to Prussia , where he was supposed to negotiate a friendship treaty. His body was first buried temporarily, but six months later it was exhumed and brought to Moscow, where it was finally buried in a monastery.

education and Science

Golovin was considered an educated man. He mastered Latin and English and was interested in science: after his death in 1715 in Amsterdam, his work The Heavenly Globe was published. He was involved in the editing of the first printed Russian newspaper News about military and other matters that happened in the Muscovite State and other surrounding countries and which are worth knowing and remembering (Russian: Ведомости о военных и иных делах, достойных и памяти, случившихся в Московском государстве и во иных окрестных странах), which appeared for the first time in 1702.

literature

• Головин. In: Малый энциклопедический словарь. Volume 1 / II: Гальваночромīя - Кившенко. Изданіе 2е внов 'переработанное и значител'но дополненное. Изданіе Брокгауз – Ефрон, Санкт Петербург 1907.
• Головин. In: Большая Российская энциклопедия. Volume 7: Восьмеричный путь - Германцы. Научное издательство "Большая Российская энциклопедия", Москва 2006, ISBN 5-85270-335-4 , pp. 335–336.

Web links

Commons : Fyodor Alexeyevich Golovin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Keyword Golovin Fyodor Alexejewitsch in the Russian history project chronos (Russian)