Vasily Golitsyn (born 1643)

Golitsyn spent his early days at the court of Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich (reigned 1645-1676), where he gradually rose to the rank of boyar.

Personal experience of the inconveniences and dangers of the prevailing system of preferment - the so-called mestnichestvo, or rank priority, which had paralyzed the Russian armies for centuries - induced him to propose its abolition, which Tsar Feodor III carried out in 1678.

[1] Only with the utmost difficulty could Sophia get the young tsar Peter to decorate the defeated commander-in-chief as if he had returned a victor.

Peter spared his life - owing to the supplications of his cousin Boris - but deprived him of his boyardom, confiscated his estates and banished him successively to Kargopol, to Mezen and to Kholmogory, where he died on 21 April 1714.

[1] He expounded to them some drastic reform measures, such as the abolition of serfdom, the promotion of religious toleration, and the development of industrial enterprises.