Everything about Rumyantsev totally explained
» For other uses, see Rumyantsev (disambiguation).
The
Rumyantsev family (
Румянцевы) were
Russian
counts prominent in Russian imperial politics in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The family claimed descent from the
boyar Rumyanets who broke his oath of allegiance and surrendered
Nizhny Novgorod to
Vasily I of Moscow in
1391.
Alexander Ivanovich Rumyantsev
The first Rumyantsev to gain prominence,
Alexander Ivanovich (1680 - 1749), enrolled in the Preobrazhensky regiment of guards in
1704. While he guarded the headquarters of
Peter the Great, the monarch noticed him "for his great height and smart face". Peter made Alexander Ivanovich his servant and later recommended him to
Peter Shafirov and
Peter Tolstoy. In the service of these two courtiers, Rumyantsev carried out various diplomatic errands in
Constantinople and in
Persia. In 1720 he married Countess Maria Matveyeva, daughter and heiress of Count
Andrey Matveyev.
After Peter I's daughter
Elizabeth Petrovna came to the throne in 1741, Rumyantsev became a count and went to govern
Malorossia, or Left-Bank
Ukraine. It was he who negotiated and signed the
Treaty of Åbo with
Sweden. He died in Ukraine on
March 4,
1749, leaving a son, Peter (see below), and a daughter, Daria, married to the
Austrian count
Wallenstein. His wife survived him by 40 years, and entertained
Saint Petersburg society with the stories of her acquaintance with
Louis XIV,
Madame de Maintenon, and the
Duke of Marlborough. When she died at the age of 90,
Gavrila Derzhavin wrote a remarkable ode glorifying her virtues.
Peter Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky
Alexander's son
Pyotr Alexandrovich, born on
January 4,
1725 in
Moscow, took his name from that of the ruling Emperor. As his mother spent much time in the company of Peter I, rumours suggested that the young Rumyantsev was the monarch's illegitimate son.
Pyotr Alexandrovich first saw military service under his nominal father in the
war with Sweden (1741 - 1743). He personally carried to the Empress the
peace treaty of Abo, concluded by his father in
1743. Thereupon he gained promotion to the rank of colonel. His first military glory dates from the great battles of the
Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763), those of
Gross-Jagersdorf (1757) and
Kunersdorf (1759). In
1761 he besieged and took the Polish fortress of
Kolberg, thus clearing for Russian armies the path to
Berlin.
Throughout the reign of
Catherine the Great, Rumyantsev served as supreme governor of
Ukraine. In this post, which his father had held with so much honesty, Rumyantsev made it his priority to eliminate any autonomy of the
hetmans and to fully incorporate the newly-conquered territories into the Russian Empire. Some accuse him of having promoted
serfdom in New Russia, but the choice of such a policy remained out of his control.
With the outbreak of the
Russo-Turkish war in
1768, Rumyantsev took command of the army sent to capture
Azov. He thoroughly defeated the Turks in the Battles of
Larga and
Kagula, crossed the
Danube and advanced to
Romania. For these dazzling victories he became
Field-Marshal and gained the
victory title Zadunaisky (meaning "Trans-Danubian"). When his forces approached
Shumla in
1774, the new Sultan
Abdul Hamid I started to panic and sued for peace, which Rumyanstev signed upon a military tambourine at the village of
Kuchuk-Kainarji.
At that point, Rumyantsev had undoubtedly become the most famous Russian commander. Other Catharinian generals, notably
Potemkin, allegedly regarded his fame with such jealousy that they wouldn't permit him to take the command again. In times of peace, Rumyantsev expressed his innovative views on the martial art in the
Instructions (1761),
Customs of Military Service (1770), and the
Thoughts (1777). These works provided a theoretical base for the re-organisation of the Russian army undertaken by Potemkin.
During the
Second Russo-Turkish War, Zadunaisky suspected Potemkin of deliberately curtailing supplies of his army and presently resigned his command. In the
Polish campaign of 1794 he once again won appointment as
commander-in-chief, but his rival
Suvorov actually led the armies into battle. On this occasion Rumyantsev didn't bother even to leave his Ukrainian manor at Tashan which he'd rebuilt into a fortress. He died there on
December 8,
1796, several months after Catherine's death.
Nikolay Petrovich Rumyantsev
As the story goes, old Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky grew enormously fat and avaricious, so that he pretended not to recognize his own sons when they came from the capital to ask for money. Neither of his children married, and the comital branch of the family went extinct upon their death.
Among these sons, only Count
Nikolay Petrovich (1754 - 1826) reached the highest offices of state. Maintaining friendly terms with the future
Alexander I and his mother
Maria Fyodorovna, he served as Minister of Commerce (1802 - 1811) and President of the
State Council (1810 - 1812). As foreign minister (appointed 1808), he advocated a closer alliance with
France. On receiving the news of
Napoleon's invasion of Russia (1812), he suffered a stroke and lost his hearing. When Napoleon entered Moscow, he advised the Emperor to dismiss
Kutuzov and to seek peace at any cost. Eventually Alexander lost all confidence in Nikolay Petrovich, who retired in 1814 just before the
Congress of Vienna. Nicholas Rumyantsev died on
3 January,
1826 in
St Petersburg.
During the years of his foreign service, Nikolay Petrovich amassed a huge collection of historic documents, rare
coins,
maps,
manuscripts, and
incunabula which formed a nucleus of the
Rumyantsev Museum
in
Moscow (subsequently transformed into the
State Russian Library). Showing a keen interest in Russian history, Rumyantsev produced the first printed publications of several old Russian chronicles and ancient literary monuments of the
Eastern Slavs. He also became a notable patron of the Russian voyages of exploration.
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