Alexander of Courland (german: Alexander von Kurland) (18 October 1658 – 28 June 1686), nicknamed "Alexander the One-armed", was a
Baltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...
and the brother of Duke
Frederick (II) Casimir of
Courland
Courland (; lv, Kurzeme; liv, Kurāmō; German and Scandinavian languages: ''Kurland''; la, Curonia/; russian: Курляндия; Estonian: ''Kuramaa''; lt, Kuršas; pl, Kurlandia) is one of the Historical Latvian Lands in western Latvia. ...
. He was the youngest son of Jakob Kettler (1610–1682), Duke of Courland and his wife Luise Charlotte von Brandenburg (1617–1676), eldest daughter of Prince elector Georg Wilhelm von Brandenburg.
He was a member of the Kettler dynasty.
Alexander served as an ''
Oberst
''Oberst'' () is a senior field officer rank in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countries, equivalent to colonel. It is currently used by both the ground and air forces of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway. The Swedish ...
'' in a regiment of the
Brandenburg-Prussian Army. On 26 July 1686, he was mortally wounded in the second siege of
Buda
Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...
during the
Ottoman wars
A series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and various European states took place from the Late Middle Ages up through the early 20th century. The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars, waged in Anatolia in ...
and died shortly afterwards near
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.
References
1658 births
1686 deaths
People from the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia
Baltic-German people
German princes
Prussian Army personnel
17th-century Latvian people
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