Mikhail Kamensky

For people with the same surname, see Kamensky.

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Fedotovich and the family name is Kamensky.

Count Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky (Russian: Михаи́л Федо́тович Каме́нский; 19 May 1738 – 12 August 1809) was a Russian nobleman, a noted Field Marshal who distinguished himself in the Catherinian wars and the Napoleonic campaigns.

Portrait Count Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky by an unknown painter, end of the 18th century. Suvorov's Museum, Saint Petersburg

Comital coat of arms of the Kamensky family, granted to Mikhail Fedotovich on 5 April 1797 by Emperor Paul I of Russia

Biography

Mikhail Kamensky served as a volunteer in the French army in 1758-1759. He then took part in the Seven Years' War. In 1783, Kamensky was appointed Governor General of Ryazan and Tambov guberniyas. During the war with Turkey, in 1788, he defeated the Turks at the Moldavian settlement of Gangur. In the previous war with the Turks, he had helped Alexander Suvorov, who had earned a reputation as one of Russia's great generals, to win the victory at Kozludzha, which ended the war. When prince Potemkin fell ill and entrusted his command of the army to Mikhail Kakhovsky, Kamensky refused to subordinate himself, referring to his seniority. For this, he was discharged from military service.

On 5 April 1797, Emperor Paul I granted Kamensky the title of Count in the Russian Empire and made him retire. In 1806, Nicholas I of Russia appointed him commander-in-chief of the Russian army in Prussia, which had been fighting the French armies of Napoleon. After six days of being in command, on the eve of the battle of Pułtusk, he transferred the command to Friedrich Wilhelm Graf von Buxhoeveden under pretence of illness and left for his estate near Oryol.

Death

Kamensky was notorious for his maltreatment of his serfs, and he was killed by one of them on 12 August 1809, at the age of 71. His death occasioned a sentimental poem by Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century.

Descendants

He was married to Princess Anna Pavlovna Shcherbatova (1749-1826), the daughter of Prince Pavel Nikolaevich Shcherbatov (1722-1781) and his wife, Princess Maria Feodorovna Golitsyna (1709-1769). He was the father of two Russian Generals: Sergei Mikhailovich Kamensky and Nikolai Mikhailovich Kamensky. Through his son Sergei, British actress and Academy Awards winner, Helen Mirren, DBE and her cousin, Tania Mallet, an actress, model and former Bond girl are also among his direct descendants.

References

• This article includes content derived from the Russian Biographical Dictionary, 1896–1918.