Grabbe, Nikolai Pavlovich

The son of Adjutant General Pavel Khristoforovich Grabbe , was born in 1832 and in 1850 was released from the Page Corps to the Cavalier Guard regiment ; in 1858 he moved to the Caucasus as lieutenant colonel, with the appointment of being under Prince A. I. Baryatinsky . Sent to the sovereign with a report on the capture of Gunib (1859), he was promoted to colonel, granted an aide-adjutant, and transferred back to the Cavalier Guard regiment. But a few months later Grabbe returned to the Caucasus, to the Crimean infantry regiment , and in 1860 he was appointed commander of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment . In the first expedition with part of his regiment to the valley of the river. Hable, the passionate Grabbe, nearly died, finding himself in the very middle of a duel battle with the Shapsugs, whom he skillfully led with his dragoons into the Plastun ambush. When the Shapsugs appeared the next day with a ransom for the bodies of their dead relatives, Grabbe gave them without a ransom, saying: “You fought nicely, and the Russians are used to respecting courage in their enemies.”

In January 1861, Nikolai Pavlovich Grabbe again participated with his dragoons on an expedition to the valley of the river. Shabja, and when the detachment moved back, again brought the Shapsugs into an ambush and again took personal part in hand-to-hand combat. Awarded for these matters the Order of St. Stanislav of the 2nd degree with swords and a golden saber with the inscription “For courage” , in 1863 Grabbe was appointed the head of the Pshekh detachment, with whom he cleared the mountainous belt between the rivers Pshekh and Bela from the rebellious mountaineers to populate her Cossacks. At the same time, he had to twice transfer troops across the ridge at an altitude of 11,000 feet (~ 3,350 m), among deep snow and only with the food that could fit on the shoulders of a soldier. This movement, one of the most daring and difficult, thanks to the ordering of Grabbe, was made brilliantly, without frostbite, sick and backward. Awarded the rank of Major General for him, Grabbe was then appointed the head of the Malo-Labinsky detachment, with whom for the third time he crossed the ridge in the upper Zelenchuk, where even mountaineers did not always go. Awarded for this campaign a golden saber with diamonds and the inscription "For three times crossing the Caucasus ridge", Grabbe was enlisted in the retinue of His Imperial Majesty and in the same 1864 was appointed commander of the Life Guards Horse Regiment , which he commanded until 1869.

In 1876 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed to be at the disposal of the commander of the Kharkov Military District and in the same year enlisted.

Nikolai Pavlovich Grabbe died in 1896.

Nikolai Pavlovich Grabbe was married to Countess Alexandra Fedorovna Orlova-Denisova (02.24.1837-1892), the godson of Emperor Nicholas I and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna ^[1] , maid of honor of the courtyard (03.23.1858), daughter of Fedor Vasilyevich Orlov-Denisov and Elisaveta Aleksis Nikitina (1817-1898).

Their wedding took place before the final relocation of Count Grabbe to St. Petersburg, and, as V. A. Insarsky wrote, “when this relocation was finally completed, in the Italian opera one could admire the young couple of a handsome general, with a youthful and handsome appearance, and an equally pretty person female, obviously just dressed in ladies' outfits ” ^[2] . This marriage was not happy. Nikolai Pavlovich squandered not only his fortune, but also his wife’s dowry.

Their children: Alexander (commander of His Majesty’s own convoy) and Mikhail (ataman of the Don Cossack Army), Nikolai (1863-1913) (adjutant of Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich, Honorary Member of the Moscow Council of Children's Shelters), Maria (1869-1948), marriage to the Duke N. N. Leuchtenberg .

• Grabbe, Nikolai Pavlovich, Count // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.