Grigory Orlov

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For people with the same surname, see Orlov.
His Serene Highness Prince

Grigory Orlov
Count Grigory Orlov, by Fyodor Rokotov
Coat of arms
Tenure1761 – 1772
Full name
Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov
Other titlesCount
Known forOverthrowing Peter III
Born(1734-10-17)October 17, 1734
Bezhetsky Uyezd, Tver Governorate, Russian Empire
DiedApril 24, 1783(1783-04-24) (aged 48)
Moscow, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire
BuriedYuriev Monastery
NationalityRussian
Residence
List of residences:

– Estates in

governorates
– Ropsha manor (since 1764)
– Gatchina manor with villages (since 1765)
– Lode Castle
(since 1771)

Order of St. Vladimir 1st class (1782)
Military service
Allegiance Russian Empire
Branch/service
Years of service1749 – 1783
RankGeneral-in-chief
CommandsIzmailovsky Life Guards Regiment
Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment
Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment
Life Guard Horse Regiment
Battles/warsBattle of Zorndorf
(Seven Years' War)
А. I. Chorny (Chernov). Portrait of Count G. G. Orlov.
Hermitage Museum

Prince Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (

General-in-Chief.[1]

He patronised

landscape garden.[1]

He became a leader of the 1762 coup which overthrew Catherine's husband Peter III of Russia and installed Catherine as empress. For some years he was virtually co-ruler with her, but his repeated infidelities and the enmity of Catherine's other advisers led to his fall from power.

Overthrow of Peter

Orlov was the son of Gregory

dethronement and death of her husband, Emperor Peter III (1762).[2][1]

After the event, Empress Catherine raised him to the rank of count and made him

Bobriki, and from whom descends the line of the Count Bobrinsky. Orlov's influence became paramount after the discovery of the Khitrovo plot (led by Fyodor Alekseevich Khitrovo) to murder the whole Orlov family. At one time, the Empress thought of marrying her favorite, but the plan was frustrated by her influential advisor Nikita Panin.[2]

Years of power

Orlov's charter granting him the status of Count

Orlov had a quick wit, a fairly accurate appreciation of current events, and was a useful and sympathetic counselor during the earlier portion of Catherine's reign. He entered with enthusiasm, from both patriotic and economic motives, into the question of the improvement of the condition of the

Ivan VI Antonovich from the Shlisselburg Fortress (1764).[1] As the president of the Free Economic Society, he was also their most prominent advocate in the great commission of 1767, though he aimed primarily at pleasing the empress, who affected great liberality in her earlier years.[2] He promoted smallpox inoculation and was one of the first in Russia to inoculate against smallpox together with Empress Catherine II in 1768.[1]

He was one of the earliest

Focşani, but he failed in his mission, owing partly to the obstinacy of the Ottomans, and partly (according to Panin) to his own outrageous insolence.[2] In 1771 in Moscow he stopped the spread of the plague epidemic, which caused a "Plague Riot" in the city, stopped looting, opened hospitals and orphanages.[1]

Fall

Meanwhile, Orlov's enemies, led by Panin, were attempting to break up the relationship between Orlov and Catherine. They informed the empress that Orlov had seduced his 13-year-old relative. A handsome young officer, Alexander Vasilchikov, was installed as her new lover.[3]

To rekindle Catherine's affection, Grigory presented to her one of the greatest diamonds of the world, known ever since as the Orlov Diamond.[4] By the time he returned — without permission — to his Marble Palace at Saint Petersburg, Orlov found himself superseded in the empress's favor by the younger Grigory Potemkin. When Potemkin, in 1774, superseded Vasilchikov as the queen's lover, Orlov became of no account at court and went abroad for some years. He returned to Russia a few months prior to his death in Moscow in 1783.

Later years and death

In 1777, at the age of 43, he married his 18-year-old relative,

Lausanne, Switzerland. Her tomb, from which her body was removed in 1910, still remains in Cathedrale Notre-Dame
in Lausanne.

For some time before his death, he had a serious

mental illness, probably a form of dementia, which progressed towards complete mental collapse. After his death, the Empress Catherine wrote, "Although I have long been prepared for this sad event, it has nevertheless shaken me to the depths of my being. People may console me, I may even repeat to myself all those things which it is customary to say on such occasions—my only answer is strangled tears. I suffer intolerably."[5]

In popular culture

From 2020 to 2023,

An Almost Entirely Untrue Story, with Lee portraying Grigory "Grigor" Dymov (a composite character with Grigory Potemkin), the childhood best friend of Peter who grows close with his widow Catherine after both witness him accidentally drown in the third season, growing estranged from his wife Georgina and lover Marial in favor of caring for Catherine and hers and Peter's son Paul
, and Dhawan portraying Count Orlo, an advisor of Catherine's with whom she initially plans a coup against Peter in the first two seasons, before Catherine and Peter reconcile and Catherine unknowingly kills Orlo in the third season premiere, shooting him while hunting in the forest with Peter.

Notes

  1. Old Style
    it would be 6 October to 13 April of the same years.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Fedyunina 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d Bain 1911.
  3. ^ June Head, Catherine: The Portrait of An Empress, Viking Press, New York, 1935, pp.312-13.
  4. ^ Malecka, Anna " Did Orlov buy the Orlov ?", Gems and Jewellery, July 2014, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 10–12.
  5. ^ Kaus, Gina (trans June Head), Catherine: The Portrait of An Empress, Viking Press, New York, 1935, p.314.

Sources

  • Fedyunina, T. N. (2023). "ОРЛОВ ГРИГОРИЙ ГРИГОРЬЕВИЧ". Great Russian Encyclopedia. Electronic version. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Orlov s.v. Gregory (Grigorii) Grigorievich Orlov, Count". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 293.

External links

Media related to Grigoriy Orlov at Wikimedia Commons

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