Aleksey Arakcheyev

Count Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev or Arakcheev (Russian: граф Алексей Андреевич Аракчеев; b. October 4 [O.S.

[2] In 1783, with the help of General Peter Ivanovich Melissino, Arakcheyev enrolled in the Shlyakhetny artillery school in Saint-Petersburg.

[3] In 1792 Saltykov recommended Arakcheyev to Tsesarevich Paul, son of Tsarina Catherine the Great and heir to the throne, who was searching for a capable artillery officer.

A year later, after an officer, Colonel Lehn, committed suicide, he was temporarily retired with the rank of lieutenant-general.

[5] After the lessons learned at the Battle of Austerlitz, where Russian artillery had performed poorly, Arakcheyev devised the "System of 1805".

During the Finnish War of 1808–9, Alexander ordered the army to invade Sweden across the frozen Gulf of Bothnia; only Arakcheyev was willing to undertake this task.

[12] By 1810, Arakcheyev had resigned as War Minister and was sitting on the board of the Council of State as chairman in military science.

I am the friend of the tsar and complaints about me can be made only to God.Starting in 1816, he organized military-agricultural colonies, an idea initially conceived by Alexander I.

[14] He also forced the resignation of Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky[15] After Alexander I was succeeded by Nicholas I, Arakcheyev was dismissed from all positions in the government, including his seat in the State Council and Inspector of Artillery and Infantry.

Furthermore, after Arakcheyev's death, the tsar requisitioned his land and property due to the inability to find legal heirs.

During his absence from their estate, she bore a son who had red hair and blue eyes, and resembled neither her nor Arakcheyev.

a derogatory term for a military state, denoting "the atmosphere of reactionary repression closing over Russian society".

For instance, in 1950, Joseph Stalin described the situation fostered by Ivan Meshchaninov in the Soviet Institute of Language and Thought as "Arakcheevshchina".

Tolstoy portrays him as rude, abrupt, ungrammatical, with 'scowling brows, dull eyes, and an overhanging red nose'.