Grigory Gagarin
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n painter, Major General
Major General
Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...
and administrator.
Noble youth
Grigory Gagarin was born in Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
to the noble Rurikid
Rurik Dynasty
The Rurik dynasty or Rurikids was a dynasty founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year 862 AD...
princely Gagarin family
Gagarin family
thumb|right|250px|The Gagarin Coat of ArmsGagarin is a Rurikid princely family descending from sovereign rulers of Starodub-on-the-Klyazma.-Origins:...
. His father, Prince Grigory Ivanovich Gagarin (Saint Petersburg, 17 March 1782 - Tegernsee
Tegernsee
Tegernsee is a town in the Miesbach district of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the shore of Tegernsee lake, at an elevation of 747 m above sea level....
, 12 February 1837), was a Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
diplomat in France
France in the nineteenth century
The History of France from 1789 to 1914 extends from the French Revolution to World War I and includes:*French Revolution *French First Republic *First French Empire under Napoleon...
and later the ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to Italy
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
. His father married in Saint Petersburg in 1809 his mother Yekaterina Petrovna Sojmonova (Saint Petersburg, 23 May 1790 - Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, 27 February 1873). Thus until the age 13 the boy was with his family in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and then studied in the collegium Tolomei in Siena
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
. Grigory did not receive a formal artistic education, but took private lessons from the famous Russian painter Karl Briullov
Karl Briullov
Karl Pavlovich Bryullov , also transliterated Briullov or Briuloff and referred to by his friends as "The Great Karl", was a Russian painter...
who at that time lived in Italy.
In 1832 he returned to Saint Petersburg, became acquainted with Alexander Pushkin and illustrated his works The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (story)
"The Queen of Spades" is a short story by Alexander Pushkin about human avarice. Pushkin wrote the story in autumn 1833 in Boldino and it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in March 1834...
and The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan is an 1831 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, written after the Russian fairy tale edited by Vladimir Dahl...
. He also became close to the opposition Circle of Sixteen and Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov , a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. Lermontov is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest...
.
He worked as a Russian diplomat in Paris, Rome and Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
; stayed two years in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. In 1839, after his return to Russia, he – together with Russian writer Vladimir Sollogub – travelled from Saint Petersburg to Kazan. Sollogub wrote the novel Tarantas about this journey, and Gagarin illustrated it.
Caucasian War
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
in the Tengin Regiment in the Caucasian War
Caucasian War
The Caucasian War of 1817–1864, also known as the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an invasion of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire which ended with the annexation of the areas of the North Caucasus to Russia...
. According to D.A. Stolypin, they lived together in the same tent.
They took part in the operations against the Gortsy, the native people inhabiting the mountains of the Causasus, but also continued their creative work. There are known a few works of art labeled "Lermontoff delineavit, Gagarin pinxit" (Lermontov drew, Gagarin painted). In 1841 Lermontov was killed on a duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
, but Gagarin continued his military service.
In 1842 he took part in the General Chernyshyov expedition in Daghestan and served with the dragoon
Dragoon
The word dragoon originally meant mounted infantry, who were trained in horse riding as well as infantry fighting skills. However, usage altered over time and during the 18th century, dragoons evolved into conventional light cavalry units and personnel...
s until 1848. He received a few orders for bravery and the military ranges of Rittmeister
Rittmeister
Rotamaster was the military rank of a commissioned cavalry officer in charge of a squadron , the equivalent of O3 or Captain, in the German-speaking armies, Austro-Hungarian, Polish-Lithuanian, Russian and some other states.The exact name of this rank maintains a variety of spellings in different...
and Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
. He was married firstly to Anya Nikolaievna Dolgorukova (1823-1845), with whom he had an only daughter, Princess Yekaterina Grigoryevna Gagarina (1844-1920). On 29 August 1848 he married secondly Sofiya Andreievna Dashkova (7 July 1822 - 20 December 1908), Dame à portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Nicholas I, daughter of Andrei Vasiliyevich Dashkov and wife Anastasia Petrovna Dmitrieva-Mamonova and niece of Dmitri Vasiliyevich Dashkov, Minister of Justice.
In 1848-1855 he lived in Tiflis serving under Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov
Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov
Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov , was a Russian prince and field-marshal, renowned for his success in the Napoleonic wars, and most famous for his participation in the Caucasian War from 1844 to 1853....
. Among the military and administrative duties, Gagarin did a lot of works for the city. He built a theater there, fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
ed the Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral
Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral
The "Sioni" Cathedral of the Dormition is a Georgian Orthodox cathedral in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Following a medieval Georgian tradition of naming churches after particular places in the Holy Land, the Sioni Cathedral bears the name of Mount Zion at Jerusalem...
, and restored frescoes of the old Georgian cathedrals, including the Betania monastery
Betania monastery
The Betania Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God commonly known as Betania or Bethania is a medieval Georgian Orthodox monastery in eastern Georgia, southwest of Tbilisi, the nation’s capital...
. By this time were born the first children from his second marriage: Prince Grigory in 1850; Princess Mariya (Tiflis, 14 June 1851 - Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
, 2 August 1941), from whose marriage with Mikhail Nikolaievich Raievsky (1841-1893) she had beside seven other children Irina Mikhailovna Raievskaya, the morganatic wife of George, Duke of Mecklenburg; and Princess Anastasia in 1853.
Imperial Academy of Arts
In 1855 Grigory moved to Saint Petersburg to work under Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, who was the president of the Imperial Academy of ArtsImperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
. Here were born two other children: Prince Andrei in 1856; and Prince Alexander in 1858.
In 1858 Gagarin received the military rank of Major General. In 1859 he became the Vice President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and he remained there until 1872. His last daughter, Princess Nina, was born in 1861.
Some sources list him as the President of the Academy, probably considering the Grand Duchess to be only a formal head of the institution. As the Vice President of the Academy Gagarin supported the "Byzantine style
Byzantine architecture
Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to...
" (Russian Revival
Russian Revival
The Russian Revival style is the generic term for a number of different movements within Russian architecture that arose in second quarter of the 19th century and was an eclectic melding of pre-Peterine Russian architecture and elements of Byzantine architecture.The Russian Revival style arose...
). He built the "Museum of Early Christian Art" at the Academy. Gagarin also continued to support Lermontov's poetry, staging Lermontov's Demon in the royal Hermitage Theatre
Hermitage Theatre
The Hermitage Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of five Hermitage buildings lining the Palace Embankment of the Neva River.The palatial theatre was built between 1783 and 1787 at the behest of Catherine the Great to a Palladian design by Giacomo Quarenghi...
(1856).
Gagarin died in Châtellerault
Châtellerault
Châtellerault is a commune in the Vienne department in the Poitou-Charentes region in France.It is located to the north of Poitou, and the residents are called Châtelleraudais.-Geography:...
, France in 1893.