Nikolai Muravev

(or N. N. Karskii). Born July 14 (25), 1794, in St. Petersburg; died Oct. 18 (30), 1866, in the village of Skorniakovo, now Zadonsk Raion, Lipetsk Oblast. Russian general of the infantry (1853). Brother of the Decembrist A. N. Murav’ev.

Murav’ev was drafted into the army in 1811 with the rank of ensign and served in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in the foreign campaigns of the Russian Army of 1813–14. He was one of the organizers of the pre-Decembrist circles the Young Fraternity (1811–12) and the Holy Artel (1814–18) but later left the Decembrists. Murav’ev served in the Caucasus and fought in the wars between Russia and Iran in 1826–28 and between Russia and Turkey in 1828–29. He was sent on military diplomatic missions to Khiva and Bukhara in 1819–20 and to Egypt and Turkey in 1832–33 and aided in concluding the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi in 1833.

Murav’ev supported the emancipation of the peasants and protected exiled Decembrists; for this, as well as for his criticism of conditions in the army, he fell into disgrace and was discharged in 1836. He was returned to service in 1848 and fought in the campaign in Hungary in 1849. In 1854 he was appointed vicegerent of the Caucasus and commander in chief of the Detached Caucasian Corps. In the Crimean War of 1853–56, Murav’ev directed the siege and capture of the fortress of Kars. In 1856 he retired and became a member of the State Council. Murav’ev wrote memoirs, which were published in the journal Russkii arkhiv in 1885–95.