Alexander von Benckendorff

Count Alexander von Benckendorff, ( _ru. граф Александр Христофорович Бенкендорф, "Aleksandr Khristoforovich Benkendorf", OldStyleDate|4 July|1781|23 June or 1783 - OldStyleDate|5 October|1844|23 September) was a Russian Lieutenant General and statesman, Adjutant General of the Svita and a commander in Patriotic War of 1812 best remembered for having established the Gendarmes in Russia.

Alexander von Benckendorff was born to a Baltic German family in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia). His brother Konstantin von Benkendorff was a general and diplomat, and his sister Dorothea von Lieven was a socialite and political force famous at London and Paris. During Napoleon's invasion of Russia, Beckendorff led the Velizh offensive, taking prisoner three French generals as a result. When Moscow was liberated, he became the commander of its garrison. In the foreign campaigns, he defeated a French contingent at Tempelberg and was one of the first Russians to enter Berlin. He further distinguished himself at Leipzig and cleared the Netherlands from the French. After the Britons and Prussians arrived to succeed him, his unit proceeded to take Louvain and Mechelen, liberating 600 imprisoned Englishmen on the way.

In 1821 he attempted to warn Alexander I of the Decembrist clandestine organisations, but the Tsar ignored his note. After the 1825 Decembrist Revolt, he sat on the investigation committee and lobbied for the creation of the Corps of Gendarmes and the secret police of Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery. He was the first Chief of Gendarmes and Executive Director of the Third Section (1826-1844). Under his management, the Third Section established a strict censorship over literature and theater plays. He directed the bias in Russian historiography, having said that "Russia's past was admirable, its present is more than magnificent and as for its future — it is beyond anything that the boldest mind can imagine." [http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10102921]

Yet by temperament, he was the very opposite of a proto-Dzerzhinsky or a proto-Beria; he suffered from a bizarre tendency to forget his own name, and periodically had to be reminded of it by consulting his own visiting card [http://www.mk.by/archiv/05.10.2004/rub5.php] . After the mid 1830s, his family seat was the Gothic Revival manor, Schloss Fall (now Keila-Joa) near Tallinn [http://www.baltische-ritterschaften.de/forum/?de=true&language=de&message=.74.1] .

Further reading

* Ronald Hingley, "The Russian Secret Police: Muscovite, Imperial, and Soviet Political Security Operations" (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970). ISBN 0-671-20886-1
* R. J. Stove, "The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims" (Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003). ISBN 1-893554-66-X
* Judith Lissauer Cromwell, "Dorothea Lieven: A Russian Princess in London and Paris" (McFarland and Co., 2007) ISBN 0-7864-2651-9

Benckendorff's Notes

In 2001, a Moscow publisher came out with "Zapiski Zapiski Benkendorfa: 1812 God: Otechestvennaia Voina; 1813 God: Osvobozhdenie Niderlandov" (Yaziki Slav'anskix Kul'Tur, Moscow, 2001). ISBN 5-7859-0228-1. (The title translates to Benkendorff's notes: 1812: The Patriotic war; 1813: Liberation of the Netherlands). This book reproduces two sections of Benckendorff's private notes which had previously not seen publication since 1903, along with commentary, some associated regimental history and letters.

According to the book cited above, Benckendorff kept personal notes/diaries throughout his life. One additional source for his notes, in this case from the late 1830s, can be found in volume 91 of the journal "Istoricheskij Vestnik" (alternate spelling: "Istoricheskii Vestnik") for 1903.

Links

* [http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/cocoon/baltlex/Blatt_bsb00000601,00041.html?prozent= Baltic nobility genealogy handbook] Alexander von Benckendorff
* http://www.mois.ee/english/harju/keilajoa.shtml - overview of Keila-Joa (in German: Schloss Fall) manor in Estonian Manors Portal