Fyodor Alexeyevich Golovin

Fyodor Golovin
Фёдор Головин
Head of the Posolsky Prikaz
In office 1700–1706
Preceded by	Lev Naryshkin
Succeeded by	Peter Shafirov
Personal details
Born	1650
Died	10 Aug [O.S. 30 July] 1706
Military service
Rank	Field marshal

Count Fyodor Alexeevich Golovin (Russian: Фёдор Алексеевич Головин; 1650 – 10 Aug [O.S. 30 July] 1706) was the last Russian boyar and the first Russian chancellor. In addition to his political roles, he held the military ranks of field marshal and general admiral (1700).

Biography

Golovin was descended from a family of Russian treasurers of Byzantine Greek descent.

Military career

Portrait in the Sytin Military Encyclopedia

During the regency of Sophia Alekseyevna, the sister of Peter the Great, Golovin was sent to the Amur to defend the new fortress of Albazin against the Qing Empire of China. In 1689, he served as the Tsardom of Russia's representative in signing the Treaty of Nerchinsk with the Qing Empire. Under the treaty, the Amur River territory, up to its tributary the Gorbitsa, was ceded back to China due to the Tsardom's inability to effectively defend it.

In Peter the Great's Grand Embassy to the West in 1697, Golovin occupied the second place, immediately after Franz Lefort. It was his duty to hire foreign sailors and obtain everything necessary for the construction and complete equipment of a fleet. On Lefort's death, in March 1699, he succeeded him as Field Marshal, and during that same year he was granted the title of the first Russian count and was also the first to be decorated with the newly instituted Russian Order of St. Andrew.

Foreign affairs

Monument to Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin in St. Petersburg, Vasilievsky Island.

The conduct of foreign affairs was entrusted to him in 1699, and from then until his death, he was the premier minister of the tsar. Golovin's first achievement as foreign minister was to add to the Treaty of Karlowitz, by which peace with the Ottoman Empire had only been secured for three years, through the forging of a new treaty at Constantinople, on 13 June 1700. In the treaty, the term of Russian-Ottoman peace was extended to thirty years, and the Azov district and a strip of territory extending into Kuban were seceded to Russia. Golovin also managed the activities of the new Russian diplomats at foreign courts with great skill.

Death

Golovin died on 10 Aug [O.S. 30 July] 1706, on the road from Moscow to Kiev. His remains were delivered to the Simonov monastery. Historian R. N. Bain claims his death was an irreparable loss to the tsar, who wrote that "Peter was filled with grief" at the news of his death.

Sources

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Golovin, Fedor Aleksyeevich". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 226.
• Bushkovitch, Paul, A Concise History of Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.