Stroganov, Pavel Aleksandrovich

Born June 7 (18), 1772, in Paris; died June 10 (22), 1817, near Copenhagen. Russian state and military figure. Lieutenant general (1814). Count.

During the French Revolution, Stroganov attended meetings of the Jacobin Club, for which Empress Catherine II recalled him to Russia and exiled him to one of his villages. In 1796 he was permitted to move to St. Petersburg. He formed a friendship with the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Alexander I, during whose reign he helped create the Unofficial Committee. From 1802 he was a senator, and in the period 1802–07, deputy minister of the interior. After Alexander I abandoned his liberal course, Stroganov retired from political life. In 1807 he entered military service. During the wars with France in 1807, Sweden in 1808 and 1809, and the Ottoman Empire in 1809 and 1810, he served as regimental commander. During the Patriotic War of 1812 he commanded a combined grenadier division, which distinguished itself at the battle of Borodino; he subsequently commanded the III Corps in fighting near Krasnyi and, in 1813 and 1814, commanded a division. Stroganov retired in 1814.