Nikolay Raevsky
[7] Not long after his father's death, the Empress arranged for Raevsky's mother to marry a wealthy landowner, Lev Davydov, who proved to be a generous stepfather.
When the war with Persia erupted in 1796, Raevsky, under command of Count Valerian Zubov, took part in the taking of Derbent and in other engagements.
After Paul's murder, and Alexander I's assumption of the throne, Raevsky rejoined the army and was promoted to the rank of Major General.
[13] During the Battle of Borodino, he protected the right wing of the Russian Army, better known as the Raevsky Redoubt, winning the Order of St. George of the 3rd degree.
For his feats of arms he was promoted to the rank of General (October 8, 1813) and received the Austrian Military Order of Maria Theresa of the 3rd degree.
[20] Boltyshka was a large estate near the banks of the Dnieper River in Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine; the land was fertile and there were over ten thousand serfs to cultivate it.
[5] Pushkin would form close friendships with Raevsky's sons, his sons-in-law, and his half-brother, Vasily Davydov – all members of the Southern Society that helped plot the Decembrist Revolt of 1825.
[24] While Raevsky's daughter Maria's youthful frolics inspired Pushkin to write some of the most famous lines in Russian literature ("Eugene Onegin", I-XXXIII).
[25] Raevsky's eldest daughter, Ekaterina, married the wealthy young General Mikhail Fyodorovich Orlov, also a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars.
[26] Once interested in discussion of liberal reforms, western democracy, and the teachings of the Enlightenment philosophers, by 1825 Raevsky had abandoned his youthful idealism, rejecting the notion that Russia could be anything other than an absolute monarchy.
[27] Both of Raevsky's sons and his son-in-law, Mikhail Orlov, withdrew from the Southern Society long before the Decembrist Revolt occurred, and took no part in the uprising.
[29] Against her father's wishes, Maria fought for the right to accompany her husband to Siberia, and managed to personally persuade the Emperor to allow her to share Prince Volkonsky's exile.
[34] Raevsky died at Boltyshka four years after the Decembrist Revolt, a broken and embittered man, of pneumonia contracted while travelling to petition the Emperor for leniency on his daughter's behalf.
