Ivan Chernyshyov

Count Ivan Grigoryevich Chernyshyov (1726 – 1797) (Also spelled: Tchernyshov and Chernyshev; Russian: Иван Григорьевич Чернышёв) was a Russian Field Marshal and General Admiral, prominent during the reign of Empress Catherine the Great.

Count Ivan Tchernyshov.

Life and career

He started his career serving under his more illustrious brother Zakhar Chernyshyov at the Russian missions in Copenhagen (1741) and Berlin (1742–45). In 1749 he was commanded to resign from diplomatic service and marry Countess Elizabeth Yefimovskaya, a cousin of Empress Elizabeth.

All three Chernyshov brothers backed Catherine in the coup that placed her on the Russian throne in 1762, after the assassination of her husband, Peter III.[1] They were handsomely rewarded for their loyalty.[2]

Catherine II first appointed Ivan Chernyshov to serve in the Governing Senate. In 1768, Chernyshov was awarded the role of Chief Plenipotentiary in London.[3][4] On his return to Russia two years later, he was made Vice-President of the Admiralty; a position he retained until 1796.[5] Being on friendly terms with Nikita Panin, the tutor and closest adviser to the future Emperor Paul, he was promoted to the rank of Navy Field Marshal upon the latter's ascension to the throne.[6] By that time, Chernyshov's health was giving out and he had been living abroad for five years.

Family

Two of the Field Marshal’s grandchildren were tied to the Decembrist plot to overthrow Tsar Nicholas I in 1825.[7] His grandson, Zakhar Grigoryevich Chernyshov, was an active participant in the uprising.[8] Zakhar’s sister, Alexandra ("Alexandrine") Chernysheva, was married to the author of the Decembrist constitution, Nikita Muravyov.[9][10]

Chernyshov's niece, Natalya Petrovna Galitzine, better known at the Russian court as "Princesse Moustache", was romanticized by Pushkin under the name of The Queen of Spades in his eponymous story from 1834.[11]

Footnotes
Aleksandrino, Count Chernyshov's estate
  1. Dashkova, Ekaterina and FitzLyon, Kyril. The memoirs of Princess Dashkova, page 304. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995,
  2. Dashkova, Ekaterina and FitzLyon, Kyril. The memoirs of Princess Dashkova, page 304. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995,
  3. Solovyev, Sergei and Hill, William H. The Rule of Catherine the Great: The Legislative Commission (1767-1768) and Foreign Affairs (1766-1768), page 191. Academic International Press, 1986
  4. Hayden, Peter. Russian Parks and Gardens, page 166. Frances Lincoln Ltd., 2006
  5. Longley, David. The Longman Companion to Imperial Russia, 1689-1917, page 37. Longman, 2000
  6. Wieczynski, Joseph L. The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, page 18. Academic International Press, 1976
  7. Sutherland, Christine. The Princess of Siberia: The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984
  8. Murrell, Kathleen Berton. Discovering the Moscow Countryside, page 335. I.B.Tauris, 2001
  9. Murrell, Kathleen Berton. Discovering the Moscow Countryside, page 335. I.B.Tauris, 2001
  10. Sutherland, Christine. The Princess of Siberia: The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984
  11. Binyon, T.J. Pushkin: A Biography, page 699. New York: Harper Collins, 2002
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