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 ...
Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn (russian: Василий Васильевич Голицын,
tr. ; 1643–1714) was a Russian
aristocrat
The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Ro ...
and statesman of the 17th century. He belonged to the
Golitsyn as well as
Romodanovsky Muscovite noble families and his main political opponent was his cousin Prince
Boris Alexeyevich Golitsyn
Prince Boris Alexeyevich Golitsyn (surname sometimes transcribed Galitzin, rus, Голи́цын, Golitsyn, ɡɐˈlʲitsɨn; 1654–1714) was a Russian politician of the noble Golitsyn family. His chief political opponent was his own cousin Pr ...
.
Life
Golitsyn spent his early days at the court of
Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich (reigned 1645-1676), where he gradually rose to the rank of
boyar
A boyar or bolyar was a member of the highest rank of the Feudalism, feudal nobility in many Eastern European states, including Kievan Rus', Bulgarian Empire, Bulgaria, Russian nobility, Russia, Boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia, Wallachia and ...
. In 1676 he was sent to
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
to restrain the
Crimean Tatars and took part in the
Chigirin campaign of the
Russo-Turkish War of 1676-1681. Personal experience of the inconveniences and dangers of the prevailing system of preferment - the so-called ''
mestnichestvo'', or rank priority, which had paralyzed the Russian armies for centuries - induced him to propose its abolition, which Tsar
Feodor III carried out in 1678.
The
May revolution of 1682 placed Vasily Golitsyn at the head of the
Posolsky Prikaz
A prikaz (russian: прика́з, ''prikaz''; , plural: ) was an administrative, judicial, territorial, or executive office functioning on behalf of palace, civil, military, or church authorities in Muscovy and in Russia from the 15th to the 18 ...
, or
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...
, and during the regency (1682-1689) of
Sophia
Sophia means "wisdom" in Greek. It may refer to:
*Sophia (wisdom)
*Sophia (Gnosticism)
*Sophia (given name)
Places
*Niulakita or Sophia, an island of Tuvalu
*Sophia, Georgetown, a ward of Georgetown, Guyana
*Sophia, North Carolina, an unincorpor ...
(the half-sister of
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
) whose intimate friend he became, he served as the principal minister of state (1682–1689) and as keeper of the great seal, a title bestowed upon only two Russians before him,
Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin (1605-1680) and
Artamon Matveyev (1625-1682). In home affairs his influence was insignificant, but his foreign policy was distinguished by the
Treaty of Nerchinsk
The Treaty of Nerchinsk () of 1689 was the first treaty between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing dynasty of China. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Range and kept the area between the Argun River ...
(1689), which set the Russo-Chinese border north of the
Amur River
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
, and by the
Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686
A Treaty of Perpetual Peace (also "Treaty of Eternal Peace" or simply Perpetual Peace, russian: Вечный мир, , pl, Pokój wieczysty, in Polish tradition Grzymułtowski Peace, pl, Pokój Grzymułtowskiego) between the Tsardom of Russia ...
with Poland, whereby Russia at last definitively recovered
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
. By the terms of the same treaty, Russia acceded to the grand league against the
Porte
Porte may refer to:
*Sublime Porte, the central government of the Ottoman empire
*Porte, Piedmont, a municipality in the Piedmont region of Italy
*John Cyril Porte, British/Irish aviator
*Richie Porte, Australian professional cyclist who competes ...
, but Golitsyn's two expeditions against the
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
(
Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689) proved unsuccessful and made him extremely unpopular.
Only with the utmost difficulty could Sophia get the young tsar Peter to decorate the defeated
commander-in-chief as if he had returned a victor. In the political contest between Sophia and Peter of August–September 1689, Golitsyn half-heartedly supported his mistress and shared her ruin. Peter spared his life - owing to the supplications of his cousin Boris - but deprived him of his boyardom, confiscated his estates and banished him successively to
Kargopol, to
Mezen and to
Kholmogory, where he died on 21 April 1714.
Golitsyn was unusually well educated. He was a great friend of foreigners, who generally alluded to him as "the great Golitsyn".
He expounded to them some drastic reform measures, such as the abolition of serfdom, the promotion of religious toleration, and the development of industrial enterprises. As Golitsyn was eager to avoid all forms of violence and repression, his program was more cautious and "realistic" than that of Peter the Great. Political upheavals prevented him from executing any of these plans.
Source
* Derek Wilson (2010) Peter the Great, p. 8, 13,37.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Golitsyn, Vasily Vasilyevich
1643 births
1714 deaths
Russian princes
Vasily
Romodanovsky family
17th-century Russian people
18th-century people from the Russian Empire