Samuel Alexejewitsch Greigh

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Samuel Alexejewitsch Greigh (1883)

Samuel Alexejewitsch Greigh ( Russian : Самуи́л Алексе́евич Грейг; * December 9, 1827 in Nikolaew ; † March 9, 1887 in Berlin ) came from a Baltic knightly family of Scottish descent. He was in the service of the Russian Empire and was an important and highly decorated Russian statesman , general , finance minister and member of the State Council .

Life

At a young age, namely in June 1836, SA Greigh set the course for a military career . In 1840 he began his training in the imperial page corps and was appointed chamberlain in 1844 . In August 1845 he left the Page Corps and performed as a cornet in the cavalry bodyguard - Regiment one. He experienced his baptism of fire during the Hungarian Revolution in 1849. In November 1851 he was appointed personal adjutant to Alexander Sergejewitsch Menshikov , the commander of the troops in Finland and chief of the main naval staff. His next military engagements were in the Crimean War , the Battle of the Alma , Sevastopol and the Battle of Inkerman . On October 24, he was wounded in the head and had to go on convalescence leave. On November 15, 1854, he returned to Sevastopol and served again with Menshikov. In 1855 he served as an adjutant to General Admiral Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolajewitsch Romanow and accompanied him on several trips.

When he was promoted to colonel in 1856, his administrative use began, he was deployed in various commissions , drafted troop statutes, was in the war ministry and became vice director of the naval ministry in 1859, and in 1860 he became official director, with simultaneous admission to the admiralty . On October 17, 1860, he was promoted to major general . He was again used for special tasks in commissions and military bodies , including the committee for educational institutions, the committee for questions relating to the development and expansion of a tank fleet and the railway committee.

As lieutenant general , to which he was promoted on May 18, 1866, he took a leading position in the Ministry of Finance and was appointed chairman of the trade and manufacturing council and took over the management of the maritime department. In the absence of the finance minister, he temporarily headed the finance department. In 1870 he suggested building the Admiralty Garden in Saint Petersburg on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Peter the Great . Work began in July 1872, when he had chosen the botanist Eduard August von Regel as his advisor . On January 1, 1874, he was appointed a member of the Council of State and in March 1874 was promoted to general . At the same time he now occupied the post of chief financial controller and strove for a reform policy. On his initiative, the so-called "field control" was set up in 1877, which was entrusted with carrying out audits of the economic situation of the army and the field treasury, which meant that a type of financial controlling was used for the first time .

In 1876 he was elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences . On July 7, 1878, he was appointed finance minister, succeeding Michael von Reutern , who resigned in disagreement about the economic consequences of the Russo-Turkish war. As finance minister, he wanted to continue the active protectionism that he had previously adopted as chief financial controller. After another assassination attempt on Alexander II , considerable unrest occurred in February 1880, which led to the restructuring of the government apparatus. The first thing to do was to resign the Minister of Education, Dmitri Andreevich Tolstoy . Greigh was dismissed in October 1880, previously he had been made an honorary citizen of Sevastopol on March 28, 1880 . On March 14, 1881 he was as envoy to the Spanish and Portuguese kings - to deliver the diplomatic note that Alexander III. ascended the throne - was sent, this was his last official act. He died in Berlin on March 9, 1887 and was buried in the Smolensk Evangelical Cemetery in Saint Petersburg.

Orders and decorations

1. Russian:

2. Foreign:

Origin and family

Family coat of arms of the Baltic aristocratic Greig family

Samuel Alexejewitsch Greigh came from the noble family Greigh , which had been in Russian service since the middle of the 18th century, they were accepted into the Courland Knighthood . His grandfather was the Russian admiral Samuel Greigh (1736–1788), his father was Alexis Greigh (1775–1845), who also advanced to admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy . After his death in Berlin he was transferred to Russia and buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Smolensk in Petersburg.

Web links

Commons : Samuil Alekseyevich Greyg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Admiralty Garden in St. Petersburg - one of the best parks in town. On: Fehrplay.com [1]
personal data
SURNAME Greigh, Samuel Alexejewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Greigh, Samuel Alexejewitsch; Самуи́л Алексе́евич Грейг
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian Finance Minister
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Nikolaev
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1887
Place of death Berlin