Orlov, Grigory Grigoryevich

The second son of the Novgorod governor Grigory Ivanovich Orlov (1685-1746) and his wife Lukerya Ivanovna Zinovieva . Born on October 6 ( 17 ), 1734 , in the Orlov family estate ^{[3] [4] [5]} in the village of Lyutkino . ^{[6] [7]} His childhood passed in Moscow. Received primary education at home. In 1749, a 15-year-old, he was recorded as a private soldier in the Life Guards Semyonovsky Regiment . In 1757 he was transferred to the army as an officer and took part in the Seven Years War . In the battle of Zorndorf, he received three injuries, but did not leave the battlefield. This made him very popular among officers. In 1759 he was transferred to serve in the capital in one of the artillery regiments.

In 1760, Grigory Grigorievich Orlov attracted the attention of the Field-General of the Field, Count P.I. Shuvalov , who took him as an adjutant. Tall, handsome and handsome, prone to revelry and courageous, risky adventures, Orlov soon made himself the reputation of Don Juan in St. Petersburg. His romance with Princess Kurakina, the lover of Count Shuvalov, entailed the dismissal of the adjutant and the transfer to the fusilier grenadier regiment, which only increased Orlov's popularity in St. Petersburg society. He became interested in Tsarevna Ekaterina Alekseevna (future Empress Catherine II ), wife of Peter III , and wished to meet him. Orlov’s bold, decisive character attracted the sympathy of the princess, who entrusted him with her fate. With her assistance, Orlov, who had just been promoted to captain, was appointed February 23 ( March 6 ), 1762 , by the tsalmeister (treasurer) of the Office of the Main Artillery and Fortification , which provided significant assistance to the palace coup in 1762 , as it placed him beyond suspicion of proximity to Empress and at the same time gave him the opportunity to dispose of the funds necessary to propagate the planned coup.

The success of the latter lifted Orlov to the top of honors and influence. On the day of Catherine II’s accession to the throne, on June 28 ( July 9 ), 1762 , of artillery, Captain Grigory Orlov was promoted to major general . On the same day he was awarded the title of Acting Chamberlain , the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky and a sword richly decorated with diamonds.

On the day of her coronation, September 22 ( October 3 ), 1762 , Empress Catherine II promoted to Major General Grigory Grigorievich Orlov as lieutenant general and appointed her adjutant general . In addition, by registered Highest Decree of September 22 ( October 3 ), 1762 , chamberlain Ivan , Lieutenant General Grigory, Major General, Guard Major Alexei , chamber junkers Fedor and Vladimir Grigoryevich Orlov were elevated, with their descendants, to the count of the Russian Empire dignity .

With a diploma of the Roman Emperor Franz I dated June 10 ( 21 ), 1763 , a full chamberlain, adjutant general, lieutenant general, Count of the Russian Empire Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov was elevated, with descending descendants, to the princely dignity of the Roman Empire , with the title of Grace . ^[8]

July 22 ( August 2 ) 1763 By the highest decree of Empress Catherine II, the Office of the Guardianship of Foreigners was established ^[9] , and Orlov was appointed its president, with whom he remained until his death. ^[10]

On March 25 ( April 5 ), 1764 he was appointed Life Guards of the Equestrian Regiment as lieutenant colonel with the rank of lieutenant general , and on December 30, 1764 ( January 10, 1765 ) he was promoted to general-general . March 25 ( April 5 ), 1765 was appointed chief of the Cavalry Guard .

On May 11 ( 22 ), 1765 , Orlov was appointed General Counselor for the Artillery Corps and Director General for the Corps of Engineers , and after a while he became the first person present in the Office of the Main Artillery and Fortification .

Orlov’s influence was especially intensified after the disclosure of the cunning conspiracy , aimed at cutting out the entire Orlov family. At one time, the empress was thinking about marriage with her favorite, but her plan caused great resistance in society, as a result of which the marriage did not take place.

Grigory Orlov was not an outstanding statesman. Most likely the Empress looked at him as pliable material, which was supposed to do as she needed. Orlov was appointed to all government posts not of his own free will, but he possessed a certain temperament, adventurism and resourcefulness, had a fairly accurate assessment of current events, and was a useful and sympathetic consultant during the early period of Catherine II’s reign. As president of the Free Economic Society , he was also his most prominent advocate in the great commission of 1767 , although he aimed primarily to please the empress.

September 21 ( October 2 ), 1771 , Grigory Orlov was sent to Moscow “with complete urine” to end the plague epidemic, which claimed up to a thousand people a day ^[11] , and really took measures that were quite reasonable at that time to end the epidemic. In particular, he established a monetary reward for those discharged from hospitals (married - 10 rubles each, single - 5 rubles each), which became a more effective measure against the concealment of patients than the most strict orders.

Upon returning from Moscow, the Empress honored him with an expression of her gratitude and, in memory of his exploits, erected a gate in Tsarskoye Selo with the inscription " Moscow saved Moscow from the troubles ."

Orlov was one of the earliest propagandists of the idea of ​​the Slavophil emancipation of Christians against the Ottoman yoke. In 1772, Orlov was sent to the Focsani Peace Congress (from 27.VII to 28.VIII) as the first Russian plenipotentiary, where he failed in his mission, partly due to the stubbornness of the Ottomans, and partly (according to Panin ) through fault own exuberant disposition. After the return of Grigory Orlov without permission to St. Petersburg, he was replaced by his younger brother - Alexei Orlov .

September 27 ( October 8 ), 1772 was dismissed for a year abroad to improve his health with the full salary, which he received at that time.

On October 4 ( 15 ), 1772 , the empress allowed him to accept a diploma sent to him from the Roman emperor for the princely dignity of the Roman Empire, deigning that he be called forever the Roman Empire as His Most Holy Prince.

On May 23 ( June 3 ), 1773 , in the Decree of Her Imperial Majesty it was said: “ Her Imperial Majesty, seeing her pleasure that General Feldzeichmeister Count Artyom Orlov, has recovered, and always wanting to use the Empire to use his natural talents, jealousy and zeal to Her Imperial Majesty and Fatherland, by personal Highest Decree given to him by the General-Feldzeichmeister, announced to deign that Her Imperial Majesty has a desire that he, Mr. General-Feldzeichmeister and cavalier in set foot in the dispatch of affairs, entrusted by Her Imperial Majesty . ”

October 15 ( 26 ), 1774 was dismissed for 2 years abroad to cure the disease.

April 25 ( May 6 ), 1780 was dismissed again for 2 years abroad.

On June 5 ( 16 ), 1777 , 43-year-old Grigory Orlov married his 18-year-old cousin Ekaterina Zinovieva , but the marriage was not long. The spouse died in Lausanne in June 1781 at the age of 22 from consumption, after which Orlov became insane and fell into childhood ^[12] .

Orlov died in his estate Neskuchnoe near Moscow on the night of April 13 ( 24 ), 1783 , a solemn funeral took place on April 17. Archbishop Plato and Krutitsky Bishop Ambrose were buried. Four Orlov brothers took out the coffin, accompanied by many noble people. They wanted to put the coffin with the body of Prince Orlov on the front bed, but the horse guards officers asked for permission to bring the coffin of their beloved commander to the place of his last refuge.

There is false information in the literature ^[13] that the remains of all the Orlovs were burnt by the Bolsheviks in Otrad in 1924. Although Otrada was indeed destroyed in 1924, the coffin with the body of Grigory Orlov was transferred to the Yuriev Monastery in Novgorod in 1832 and was buried on the north side of St. George's Cathedral near the western wall next to brothers Alexei and Fedor. However, nothing was preserved from these burials.

• Count of the Russian Empire (since 1762) and the brightest prince of the Russian Empire (since 1772),
• General-Anshef (1764),
• General-Feldzeichmeister (1765),
• over the fortifications the general director (1765),
• Her Imperial Majesty the Adjutant General (1762),
• Cavalry Guard Corps Chef (1765),
• senator
• virtual chamberlain (1762),
• Life Guards Cavalry Regiment Lieutenant Colonel (1764),
• Office of the Guardianship of Foreign President (1763),
• Russian orders:
  • Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (1763),
  • Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (June 28, 1762),
  • Order of St. Vladimir I degree,
  • Order of St. Anne Cavalier.

Gatchina Palace

Grigory Orlov is the founder of the Gatchina Palace and Park Ensemble , its main brainchild. Gatchina Manor was donated to him by Catherine II in 1765 , and on May 30, 1766, the construction of the Grand Gatchina Palace began according to the project of the Italian architect Antonio Rinaldi .

The palace was built in the Italian style and reproduced a luxurious Italian villa (the fact that Rinaldi went to England and the Gatchina palace was built on the model of English castles is a deep-rooted myth). The interior was not magnificent, in addition, Orlov’s financial difficulties most likely did not allow him to finish the palace in the form in which he had thought. But his decoration was done with great taste, and the layout met all modern requirements. A significant part of the decoration has survived to this day (the White Hall, Rinaldi Passage, the premises of the Small Enfilade - the residential half of the owner, as well as the Entrance Hall and corridors of the first floor). In the modern collection of the museum you can find individual pieces of furniture of the Oryol time. This is an ancient and modern sculpture, painting, porcelain, etc. There were also amenities in the palace - a luxurious bathhouse with local water supply: water from water tanks entered the baths through pipes.

At the turn of the 1760-1770s. The creation of the " English Garden " began. The work was led by the Sparrow brothers (Sparrow), John and Charles. After John's death, James Geket (Gaket) was invited. The work was completed in the late 1790s, already under the new owner, Emperor Paul I.

In the 1760-1780s, a new road was built connecting Gatchina with Tsarskoye Selo and making Gatchina a transit point on the way from St. Petersburg to the southern provinces of Russia.

Grigory Orlov and Ligovo

In 1765, Catherine the Second granted her favorite Count Grigory Orlov Ligovo Manor with the villages of Ligovo , Ivanovskaya, Novaya, Staroe Panovo, Novoye Panovo, Novoye Koyrovo and Sosnovka. The estate lands were located between the cottages of Alexandrino and Novoznamenka and stretched from the Gulf of Finland to the Ligovsky Canal. The estate was crossed by the Peterhof road with a regular ensemble of "seaside cottages."

The manor was located a mile away from the Peterhof road , not far from Ligovsky pond with a stone water mill. What Ligovo was like under Count Orlov can be seen from the detailed plan of 1777 : on the west bank of the pond, south of the dam, there were a manor with a pier and outbuildings. The manor house, where Orlov received Catherine, was located on the opposite bank. It was a symmetrical complex of a small main building and two long outbuildings on each side.

Orlov didn’t have children in a legal marriage, but outside the marriage he survived a son and several "pupils":

• Bobrinsky Alexey Grigorievich (1762-1813), illegitimate son of G. G. Orlov and Empress Catherine II, the ancestor of the count family Bobrinsky .
• Tradition endowed him with an illegitimate daughter, Natalia Alekseeva (married to General F.F. Buksgevden ). If this is true, then the mother of Natalia is unknown, and Catherine II could not be her, since Alekseeva was born in 1758 ^[14] . But Elena Kurakina , who gave birth to her between her sons Nikolai (born 1756) and Alexei (born 1759), could well have become Natalia's mother.
• Another pupil, Elizaveta Alekseeva (? .09.1760 - 08/05/1844 ^[15] ) is the wife of the famous German poet Klinger .

• The Slutty Empress ( 1934 )
• " Emelyan Pugachev " ( 1978 ) - Anatoly Azo
• “ Royal Hunt ” ( 1990 ) - Alexander Goloborodko
• Favorite (2005) - Alexander Polyakov
• The Musketeers of Catherine (2007) - Roman Ageev
• Catherine (2014) - Sergey Strelnikov
• The Great ( 2015 ) - Pavel Trubiner
• “ Catherine. Takeoff "( 2016 ) - Sergey Marin

• Malecka, A. “Did Orlov buy the Orlov”, Gems & Jewelery: The Gemmological Association of Great Britain, 23 (6), 2014, 10-12.
• Nefedov A. "Joy" of the Counts Orlov // Monuments of the Fatherland. Moscow region. No. 31. - M. , 1994.
• Palmer E. Peter III. Der Prinz von Holstein. - Sutton, Germany, 2005. - ISBN 3-89702-788-7 .
• Gatchina under Grigory Orlov. 1765-1783 // The Gatchina Palace and Park in documents, letters and memoirs. XVIII century / Comp. A. N. Spashchansky, A. N. Farafonova, S. Yu. Yavushkina. - SPb. : Publishing house of Sergei Khodov, 2006. - S. 18-95. - 288 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-98456-027-6 .
• Burlakov A.V. Favorite grove of Count Orlov // Legends were Old Gatchina . - Gatchina: Printing house "Latona", 2006. - S. 22-27. - 89 p. - 500 copies.
• Rodionova T.F. G. G. Orlov - owner of Gatchina // Gatchina: Pages of history. - 2. - S. 8-11.
• Pervushina E.V. Grigory Orlov // Gatchina. - SPb. : Parity, 2009 .-- S. 186-199. - 320 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-93437-346-8 .
• Spashchansky A.N. Grigory Orlov and Gatchina. - SPb. : Kolo, 2010 .-- 256 s. - 1200 copies. - ISBN 978-5-901841-67-9 .
• Razumovskaya E.A. Orlov brothers. - R. n / a. : Phoenix, 2011 .-- 221 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-222-17557-6 .

• Letter from G. G. Orlov J.-J. Russo. 1766
• Where were Grigory Orlov’s study and bedroom in the Gatchina Palace?
• Grigory Orlov and Gatchina: the story of the favorite of the Empress and his suburban estate
• "History of Ligovo near Petersburg" (site)