Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin

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Prince Nikolai Repnin

Nicholas Repnin ( Russian Николай Васильевич Репнин ;. Scientific transliteration Nikolaj Vasiljevic Repnine ; born March 11, jul. / 22. March  1734 greg. In Saint Petersburg , † May 12 jul. / 24. May  1801 greg. In Riga ) was a Russian prince , field marshal general of the imperial army and diplomat from the Repnin family , who played a key role in the fall of the statehood of Poland-Lithuania in the 18th century.

Rule in Poland

Nikolai Repnin served under the orders of his father, Prince Vasili Repnin , in the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748 and lived abroad for some time. Later he took part in the Seven Years War . Tsar Peter III sent him as ambassador to Berlin in 1763 after Russia returned the conquered territories to Prussia. In the same year, after the tsar's assassination, Catherine the Great Repnin was transferred to Warsaw as Minister Plenipotentiary.

Due to the high influence of Russia in the Polish Sejm , he became a de facto ruler in Poland, which he effectively implemented in the Russian sense. He had special instructions to form a pro-Russian party of dissidents (non-Catholics) who should have the same rights as Catholics in Poland . Very large parts of the population of Poland-Lithuania were Uniate and Russian Orthodox with considerable legal disadvantages.

Repnine supported the formation of two Protestant confederations (in Sluck and Toruń ), as well as the Catholic, of Karol Stanislaw Radziwill cited Radom Confederation . He carried out the instructions conscientiously, sometimes with force, when he forced the Sejm ( Repnin-Sejm ) to bless them all in the years 1767–1768 . For this he had some of the sharpest opponents of his policy deported to Kaluga in advance , including Józef Andrzej Załuski and Wacław Rzewuski . The immediate result was the Confederation of Bar , which partially destroyed Repnin's work, but ultimately only accelerated the downfall of Poland-Lithuania.

Military career

When the Russo-Ottoman War broke out in 1768–1774 , Repnin left Poland with great enthusiasm to fight the Ottomans. He was given command of several divisions that were active in Bessarabia and Wallachia and in 1770 prevented a large Ottoman army from crossing the Prut . He distinguished himself in the battles on the Larga and Cahul , took Ismajil and Kilija .

In 1771 he was given command of the whole of Wallachia and defeated the Ottomans near Bucharest . A dispute with the Commander-in-Chief Rumyantsev soon forced him to resign. However, he soon participated again in the acts of war, for example in the capture of Silistra and in the negotiations that led to the signing of the Peace of Küçük Kaynarca .

Between 1775 and 1776 Repnin was the Russian ambassador to Constantinople .

When the War of the Bavarian Succession broke out, he led an army of 30,000 men to Breslau and forced the Austrians to conclude the Treaty of Teschen with Prussia, during which he was present as a Russian representative.

During the renewed Russo-Ottoman War , Repnin was the most successful of the Russian military leaders after Suvorov . He defeated the Ottomans at Saltscha, captured the whole camp of Hassan Pasha and locked him in Ismail. An attempted dismantling of the fortress by Repnin was forbidden by Potemkin in 1789. After Potemkin's death in 1791, Repnin succeeded him as Commander in Chief and immediately defeated the Grand Vizier of the Ottomans in the Battle of Măcin . This defeat forced the Ottomans to sign the Galați Armistice on July 31, 1791.

The last years of life

After the Second Partition of Poland , Repnin became governor general of the Lithuanian provinces, where he led the Russian forces in the suppression of the Kościuszko uprising . Tsar Paul I elevated him to the rank of field marshal in 1796 and sent him on diplomatic missions to Berlin and Vienna in order to turn Prussia away from France and to forge a Russian-Prussian-Austrian triad against the Jacobins . However, Repnin was unsuccessful and was retired upon his return. Nevertheless, he was in 1796 by King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Of Prussia with the Black Eagle Award

Repnin had an illegitimate son, the poet Iwan Pnin, and rumors lingered that the Polish statesman Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was also the result of his liaison with Isabella Fleming . In addition, Repnin had three legitimate daughters who, however, could not continue his family line. After Repnin's death on May 24, 1801, the princely family of the Repnins in the name-bearer tribe died out. However, Tsar Alexander I allowed Repnin's grandson, Prince Nikolai Volkonsky , to use his grandfather's name and include it in his family coat of arms.

Web links

Commons : Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Repnin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Ritter : Frederick the Great. University of California Press, 1974, ISBN 978-0-520-02775-6 , p. 189. limited preview in Google Book search
  2. ^ Giacomo Casanova : History of My Life. JHU Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-8018-5666-2 , limited preview in Google Book Search
  3. Saulius A. Suziedelis: Historical Dictionary of Lithuania . Scarecrow Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-8108-7536-4 , p. 243.
  4. ^ HM Scott: The Emergence of the Eastern Powers, 1756-1775. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-521-79269-1 , p. 182. Limited preview in Google Book Search
  5. Philipp Strahl: History of the Russian State: From Empress Elisabeth's accession to the throne to the celebration of the peace of Kainardsche (1742–1775). Volume 5. Friedrich Perthes, 1853
  6. ^ Giacomo Casanova: The Story of My Life. Penguin Books, 2001, ISBN 978-0-14-043915-1 , p. 528. Limited preview in Google Book Search
  7. see also: List of Field Marshals of the Russian Empire
  8. ^ Leopold von Zedlitz-Neukirch : New Prussian Adelslexikon . Volume 2. p. 98.