The extremely vivid personality, which was Prince Potemkin, whose biography, a brief description and description of the activity of which has been preserved in the works of his contemporaries, is of great interest to modern historians. Interestingly, in XVIII century Russia, his title was the longest after the imperial. It included a list of posts and awards received by the prince for the entire period of service to the Fatherland.
Childhood and youth
Grigory Alexandrovich, the future famous prince Potemkin-Tauride, was born on September 13 (24), 1739 in the village of Chizhovo, located near Smolensk. His father, Alexander Vasilievich, was the Peter's headquarters officer, who later rose to the rank of second major. When Potemkin Sr. turned 50, he fell in love with a young 20-year-old widow, Daria Vasilyevna Skuratova (nee Kondyreva), who gave birth to his son and five daughters.
It must be said that Alexander Vasilievich had a very difficult character, so it was decided to give little Grisha to his father's cousin, Grigory Matveyevich Kislovsky, who lived in Moscow and served as president of the Chamber College.
Education Potemkin began with a private school Litkin and continued at the gymnasium at Moscow University. Over the years of study, the young man showed remarkable abilities for sciences, and also demonstrated his literally phenomenal memory. In 1756, Gregory received a gold medal and, together with a whole group of equally successful students, was sent to St. Petersburg, where they were introduced to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.
Carier start
Despite the excellent performance, the future Prince Potemkin, whose biography is replete with information about sharp turns of fate, was expelled from the university for failure to attend classes. He had to enlist in the Guards Regiment, in which he took part in a coup d'etat in 1762. As a result, Emperor Peter III was removed from power, and his wife, Catherine II, ascended the Russian throne. For this Potemkin was granted four hundred serfs, 10 thousand rubles and the rank of lieutenant. Indefatigable energy and ambition all the time pushed him to changes in fate.
First, Grigory Alexandrovich served in the Horse Guards Regiment, and in 1763, by decree of Catherine II, he was identified as a chamber junker in the Synod, where he became close friends with the Orlov brothers. After 5 years, he was granted the chamberlain and reckoned with the Empress.
Activities of Prince Potemkin
For almost two decades, Grigory Alexandrovich participated in many national affairs and was the chief adviser to the empress. In 1774 he was awarded the title of Adjutant General, and then Lieutenant Colonel of the Life Guard. In addition, he was one of the members of the Council of State, as well as vice president of the military affairs collegium. During the uprising led by Emelyan Pugachev, Potemkin took an active part in organizing his suppression.
In 1775, he was granted the title of Count and was awarded the Order of St. George on the occasion of the conclusion of the Kyuchuk-Kainardzhiysky peace with the Ottoman Empire. In the same year, he managed to achieve the abolition of the main source of unrest in Ukraine - the Zaporozhye Sich.
The following year, German Emperor Joseph II granted him the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and Catherine II appointed Governor-General of the Astrakhan, Novorossiysk and Azov Provinces. Thus, he, in fact, became the ruler of all, without exception, southern Russian lands, starting from the Black Sea and ending with the Caspian. It was he who directed the construction of such Ukrainian cities as Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk) and Kherson. His Grace Prince Potemkin also had a hand in the development of the Kuban.
Travel to Crimea
Enumerate his services to the Russian Empire can be infinitely long. But I want to say separately that Prince Potemkin (the biography of this man is direct evidence that his life was entirely devoted to serving the Motherland), may have been unfairly agreed. This is the opinion of many historians who scrupulously examined all documents relating to the so-called Potemkin villages. The fact is that in 1787, Grigory Alexandrovich himself arranged for Catherine II a rather long trip to the Crimea in order to demonstrate to her all the power of Russia and her enormous influence in this region. Going on a journey, the empress invited to visit the peninsula of the Austrian monarch Joseph II and several European diplomats.
Arriving in the Black Sea region, they saw that roads had appeared on the site of the once deserted steppes and rare Tatar settlements, villages and towns had grown, and a merchant and navy stood at sea. It was rumored that the empress was struck by fake buildings and decorative settlements, which supposedly ordered to make the Most Serene Prince Potemkin-Tauride. By the way, he received this title after the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire in 1783. So, it was these fake buildings that were called “Potemkin villages”.
Myth or truth
As it turned out, for the first time this term appeared after the death of the prince and empress, namely in 1797-1800, when a biography of Potemkin was published in the Hamburg magazine Minerva, in several of its issues. It was written by the former Saxon diplomat in St. Petersburg Georg Adolf von Gelbig, one of the main ill-wishers of Catherine II and Grigory Alexandrovich. Here, all the activities of the prince was depicted exclusively from the negative side.
A little later, Gelbig's book was published, which was translated into several languages, including Russian. So Prince Potemkin, whose biography was distorted by a foreign diplomat, acted as a deceiver who built the fake "Potemkin villages." Apparently, in this legend, real events could interweave intricately with frank fiction and gossip that were circulating among representatives of European diplomatic circles and the Russian elite.
End of the way
Prince Potemkin, whose biography says that the life of the brightest for the most part was associated with military campaigns and other trips, in 1771, being near Silistraia, he picked up the so-called swamp fever. Then he could not fully recover, so the attacks continued to bother him more than once. In September 1791, he began negotiations with Turkish representatives - first in Galati, and then in Iasi. At that time he was already terminally ill.
On the way from Iasi, the prince became ill, and he asked to stop the carriage. He was carried out into the air, where he soon died. They say that before his death, he looked into the clear Moldavian sky and crossed himself. This happened on October 5, and the news of his death reached Catherine II only on the 12th. According to her secretary A.V. Khrapovitsky, the empress kept tears in her eyes. Her Majesty was shocked by the grief that befell her, for Prince Potemkin and Catherine II had very close ties: he was not only her adviser and lover, but also his best friend.