Matvey Dmitriev-Mamonov
12 June] 1863 at Vassilyevskoye manor, today within the city borders of Moscow) - was a Russian figure of public life and writer, organiser and chief of the Mamonov regiment during the Napoleonic wars, major general (1813), and founder of the pre-Decembrist Russian Order of Chivalry.
Throughout the years 1811 to 1812 he published a cycle of poems in Nevsorov's journal "Friend of the Youth" ("Друг юношества"), influenced by the poetry of Bobrov and Derzhavin.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1812 he made a speech before the members of the Moscow nobility which left an epic impression.
Away with rimes, quill pen into the portfolio, and down with my dapper dress-coat, I wear a bearskin, I am a Mamonov cossack.
Though the regiment had no part in any battles, it was used to keep up law and order during the army's retreat from Moscow and the crossing of the Moskva River at the Dorogomilovsky gate.
Even before the final deployment of the regiment he fought a duel with one of his staff officers, probably Tolbuchin", Prince Vyazemsky observed.
The regiment leader in his youthful inexperience failed to uphold the discipline among his men (already at the deployment of the regiment at Yaroslavl his cossacks had been nicknamed "Mamay" boys" instead of "Mamonov’s boys", and due to rioting an inquiry had been opened at Serpukhov); clashes with the Austrian allies and the local population occurred; a German village was burned down.
After his return from abroad in 1817 he retired to his manor near Moscow, where he lived until 1823 in perfect seclusion, only seldom venturing into town: "During some years he saw not even one of his servants.
[3] In the opinion of contemporary historians the count showed signs of mental disturbance already in 1817, such as a proclivity to a secluded lifestyle, growing a beard, and wearing "Russian garb".
Contemporaries and memorialists agree, that the count was of highly egocentric, proud, and irascible temperament, at all times emphasised his ancient noble lineage, and never thought it necessary to exercise restraint in writing to superiors.
Emphasising his own independence he erected on his estate at Dubrovitsy, 35 versts from Moscow, at the confluence of the Desna and Pakhra rivers, a true fortress with ordnance and a detachment of troops levied from his serfs.
In his open contempt for the Romanovs and their claim to the Russian throne, which he considered void, he kept in his home the banner of Prince D.M.
Pozharsky and the bloodstained shirt of the tsarevich Dimitri Ivanovich - the ultimate symbol of the Rurik dynasty.
The awareness of their Rurikid lineage was already in the 1850s present in the mind of one of the members of the Dmitriev family (a younger branch), the publicist M.A.
[5] In 1823 the count's valet died, and a new one was employed, the freedman, citizen Nikanor Afanassjev, a former serf of Prince P.M. Volkonsky, the Chief of the General Staff and one of the leaders of the political police, who had already been the recipient of Gribovsky's denunciation in 1822.
In that denunciation he informed him on the unexpected reactivation of the Russian Order of Chivalry "long since deemed defunct" and openly named Mamonov.
According to the son of the teacher of Russian literature in the Mamonov household, P. Kicheyev - the new valet rather than fulfilling his role as servant spied upon the count.
Golitsyn’s threat to put him under trusteeship, with a furious letter, notably stating: …You are not empowered to put me under trusteeship and will not dare to do so, for I am neither under age nor insane, as I do not hesitate to submit serfs living in my house to corporal punishment, when in my opinion they deserve it: for the right to flog one’s serfs is immanent to Russian private and public law as handed down to us by our forebears.
According to all accounts Dmitriev-Mamonov was an ordinary snob, eccentric and frondeur, but the government was apprehensive that the combined influence of his money, of his ties to conspirators in secret societies and Orlov’s options, who after all was in command of a division, might be sufficient to trigger an insurgency or even a coup d’état.
During the Decembrist riots of 1825 the count, held hitherto in Moscow under arrest as suspect but not as insane, refused the oath of allegiance to tsar Nicholas I.
Dmitriev-Mamonov, reports, that for the first time he was treated harshly and cruelly, proof of which are the straight jackets and strappings which I found thirty years ago with which he was tied to his bed,[7] whereas P. Kischeyev states, that the treatment began by pouring cold water over his head which of course drove the count raving mad.
"Treatment" and abuse by the turnkeys did not remain without effect: People, who met the count during the 1840-1860 period, remember him as a lunatic suffering from delusions of persecution and grandeur.
