Konstantin von Benckendorff


Konstantin von Benckendorff was a Baltic German general and diplomat.

Life and career

Konstantin von Benckendorff was born into Russia's distinctive Baltic nobility to a Baltic German family in Reval in today's Estonia, son of General Baron , who served as the military governor of Livonia, and wife Baroness Anna Juliane Charlotte Schilling von Canstatt, who held a high position at the Romanov Court as senior lady-in-waiting and best friend of Empress Maria Fyodorovna, and paternal grandson of Johann Michael von Benckendorff and wife Sophie von Löwenstern.
His brother Alexander von Benckendorff was also a general and statesman, and his sister Dorothea von Lieven was a political force famous at London, St. Petersburg, and Paris. His other sister Maria von Benckendorff married Ivan Georgievich Sevitsch.
Trained as a diplomat, he joined the army to take part in the concluding stages of the Napoleonic wars, specifically in the taking of Kassel, Fulda, Hanau, Rheims, and Soissons. After the war, Benckendorff returned to diplomacy.
Five years later, he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Baden and Stuttgart. With the outbreak of the Russo-Persian War he returned to Russia, captured Echmiadzin and routed the Kurds near Erivan. He then crossed the Araks River and defeated the Persian cavalry. Benckendorff died of a fever that swept through the Russian army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829.
He married on 1 September 1814 Natalia Alopaeus and had two children: Konstantin Alexander von Benckendorff, married in Potsdam on 20 June 1848 to Princess Louise Constantine Nathalie Johanne de Croy - the parents, among others, of Konstantin and Countess Marie, married to Pavel Matveyevich Golenischev-Kutuzov-Tolstoi.

Honours and awards