Peter Ivelich
Peter Ivanovich Ivelich was a Serbian-born soldier in the Russian Empire who achieved the rank of Major General during the Napoleonic Wars.Biography
Peter Ivelich was born in 1772 to a Serbian family in Risan, Venetian Albania. The family immigrated to Russia when he was a boy. He entered service as a lieutenant in the Russian Army in 1788, and was promoted to captain three months later. He served in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787 and continued to rise through the ranks, reaching colonel by the year 1800. He was the nephew of Count Marko Ivelich.
Ivelich fought the French in Prussia during the War of the Fourth Coalition and then against the Swedes in the Finnish War of 1808, during which he was promoted to Major General and was awarded the Order of St. George for bravery. He participated in the Patriotic War of 1812 and served in multiple major battles, including Borodino, at which he was severely wounded.
From 1813 to 1815 he was on leave to recuperate from his wounds, and was dismissed from service later that year. The emperor then granted him and his family a large plot of land with serfs in the Tobolsk Governorate.
