The Hermitage and the Rodina magazine continue their joint project, within the framework of which we acquaint our readers with little-known rarities from the storerooms of the main Russian museum.

I.V. Grigoriev. Portrait of N.M. Kamensky. Illustration in the publication of the Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich "Russian Portraits of the 18th and 19th Centuries". Photo: State Hermitage

At the beginning of 1810, the St. Petersburg jeweler Pavel Tenner received an order from officers who had taken part in the war with Sweden in 1808 and 1809: they wished to jointly erect a monument to General Kamensky, their favorite commander.

Jeweler and Inventor

Paul-Magnus Tenner, Baltic German, was born in Dorpat and moved from Livonia to the capital of the empire in 1803; five years later he was listed as a court silversmith. As L.K. Kuznetsova, the author of a historical study on St. Petersburg jewelers, on the way to this honorary title Pavel Tenner was not too picky about the means: he did not hesitate to put his brands on other people's works. It is undeniable, however, that he was a first-class craftsman; after the consecration of the Kazan Cathedral (15.09.1811), the robe of the miraculous icon of the Kazan Mother of God, executed by Tenner from gold and precious stones, aroused universal admiration.

“You don’t know what to be more surprised about,” a contemporary admitted, “whether the high cost of precious stones or the unusually delicate and noble taste of the artist who set them up, Mr. Tenner, a German who is highly valued by the whole of Petersburg and even abroad for his talents and wonderful artistic taste ".

The monument to General Kamensky, which emerged from the walls of Tenner's workshop, is also distinguished by its "excellent taste". However, he owes his artistic merit not only and not so much to an impeccable performance as to an excellent design. The composer of the allegorical composition in honor of Kamensky - the inventor, as they said at the time - was Franz Ivanovich Hattenberger, in the recent past (1803-1806) director of the Imperial Porcelain Factory.

Jean François Xavier Gattenberger, professor of technology at the University of Geneva, a talented artist and sculptor, moved to Russia in 1780. For some time he served at the F. Gardner porcelain manufactory near Moscow. Gattenberger's talents and knowledge were noticed in St. Petersburg; they were appreciated at court. In 1803, Hattenberger accepted an offer to head the Imperial Porcelain Factory. The period of his management of the IPE was short-lived, but extremely fruitful. Under the direct influence of Hattenberger, Russian porcelain was enriched with empire motifs and forms, in an alloy of which with the national theme, the phenomenon of Alexander's classicism arose later.

The monument to General Kamensky is also endowed with striking features of the Empire style: it is a triumphal pillar crowned with a bust of the commander and established on a pedestal with allegorical figures and trophies.

Suvorov's confession

The life of Count Nikolai Kamensky is indeed a series of triumphs. The youngest son of Lieutenant General, later Field Marshal Count M.F. Kamensky Nikolai Kamensky was promoted to officer by the personal command of Catherine the Great in the third year of his life. In the twenty-third year, he received the baptism of fire, and with it the first general's rank in the Swiss campaign of Suvorov. Kamensky junior was brave, decisive and charismatic: his subordinates adored him. Suvorov, despite his strained relationship with Kamensky the elder, testified in a letter to him: "Your young son is an old general."

Count Nikolai Kamensky fought with honor and glory in the campaigns of 1805 and 1807; his popularity was extraordinary: everyone saw in him a rising star and enthusiastically retold the answer, full of fiery indignation, given by Nikolai Kamensky to the French general Augustin Beliard, who demanded from him the surrender of Konigsberg: "You see a Russian uniform on me and dare to demand surrender!"

In the Swedish campaign of 1808, General Kamensky Jr. played one of the leading roles. The terms of the armistice concluded in Olkjoki on November 7 allowed him to rightfully say to his comrades-in-arms when leaving for St. Petersburg to improve their health: "We conquered Finland - save it!"

Count Kamensky spent the 1809 campaign as commander of the Uleoborg corps located in the vicinity of the Swedish city of Umeå; the general arrived with the troops on June 23, when peace negotiations were already underway in Friedrichsgam. However, hostilities did not stop, and the Swedes, hoping to conclude peace on favorable terms for themselves, made a desperate attempt to defeat Kamensky's corps. The victories won by the count on August 7 and 8 at Sevara and Ratan thwarted this plan.

The successes of Kamensky the younger in Sweden earned him a reputation as the most talented of Russian generals; On February 4, 1810, the sovereign appointed him commander-in-chief of the Moldavian army instead of Prince Peter Bagration, believing that Count Nikolai Kamensky would achieve a victorious end in a protracted war with Turkey sooner than he ...

Triumph and disaster

The main plot of the monument to General Kamensky is undoubtedly his victories in the war with Sweden: bas-relief images of the battles of Sevara, Kuortan, Oroways and Ratan are placed on the pedestal, and at the foot of the monument there is an allegorical composition representing a two-headed eagle triumphant over the Swedish lion. However, among the trophies stacked at the pedestal of the column, we unexpectedly find a Turkish banner with a crescent-shaped pommel. Perhaps it expresses the confidence of the associates of Count Kamensky that victories await their commander in Moldova too ...

Indeed, General Kamensky soon took Silistria, Razgrad and Bazardzhik; the sovereign bestowed the order of St. Vladimir I class. However, this triumph was followed by disaster. The assault on Ruschuk, undertaken by Count Kamensky, was repulsed, and our troops suffered heavy losses: 363 officers and more than 8000 privates remained lying on the walls and in the ditches of the Turkish fortress. In assessing the reasons for this failure, military historians are unanimous: it was the result of the commander-in-chief's self-confidence. An uninterrupted succession of successes and a brilliant career rise, ensured to a large extent by the incomparable qualities of a Russian soldier, turned the head of the young military leader. Count Kamensky became intolerant of other people's opinions, and his extreme irascibility pushed him to completely impermissible acts ...

However, the brilliant victory won by General Kamensky on August 26, 1810 at Batin - a victory that had very beneficial consequences for us - smoothed out the heavy impression of the Ruschuk tragedy. The Emperor honored the winner of the highest award - the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. But this triumph was the last for Count Nikolai Kamensky.

In February 1811 he developed a severe and debilitating fever. On March 12, the commander handed over command to Count Alexander Lanzheron and set off for Odessa. Even on the road, his mind went out of hand; he lost his hearing ...

Infantry general, Count Nikolai Mikhailovich Kamensky, Jr., died in Odessa on May 4, 1811, at the age of 35. He was buried in the family estate of Saburovo in the Oryol province, next to his father.

Five years after the death of the count, on July 11, 1816, the masterpiece of F.I. Hattenberger, P. Tenner, I.-W. Ludwig entered the Imperial Hermitage.

Their family was lost in obscurity in the last century, the estate was sold into the wrong hands and was rebuilt several times. Even the graves of these people were leveled to the ground. And two hundred years ago the surname of the counts Kamensky thundered, they were considered the first rich men of Russia, were part of the inner circle of three emperors, among them were generals and field marshals. During their lifetime, terrible stories began to be told about them, which later inspired Herzen and Leskov. The Kamenskys were strange and terrible people; the fact that the place of their burial has disappeared from human memory has its own justice.

Source of information: magazine "CARAVAN ISTORIY", February 2000.

Field Marshal Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky was small in stature, lean, broad in the shoulders, pleasant in face, and "in conversation, according to his biographer Bantysh-Kamensky, he was impatient and strange, sometimes very affectionate." According to legend, Mikhail Fedotovich had a second of his children, even when they were already in the ranks of generals. Having defeated the Turks near Sakuls, the count betrayed both Sakuls themselves and the nearby town of Gangur to fire and sword: all residents, including women and children, were massacred.

Catherine the Great called him crazy and tried not to allow him to command: having accepted the army after the death of Prince Potemkin (whom the empress loved all her life), Kamensky accused the deceased of embezzling state money and left his post only by order of the empress herself.

His Moscow house was filled with dwarfs and dwarfs, Kalmyks and Turkish women, the comedies of Voltaire and Marivaux were played in the home theater, and the countess's parrot sang Russian folk songs along with the hay girls. The Count was feared in the house like fire: he deeply despised people and was quick to kill. Kamensky showed off his connection with the courtyard girl to all of Moscow - returning from the army, he immediately left for the village to his mistress. What the countess felt at the same time did not bother him at all. Mikhail Fedotovich was cool, unceremonious, brilliantly educated and distinguished by a purely Russian penchant for foolishness: he loved to walk in a blue jacket with hare fur and yellow uniform pantaloons, having gathered his hair at the back of his head in a bun. He was absolutely unpredictable and could throw out anything he wanted, not paying any attention to the ranks and titles of the interlocutor. When he was appointed governor-general of Ryazan, a local landowner somehow asked to see him. She went into the room where the count was playing with his beloved greyhound, and half a dozen puppies immediately flew into the lady's face. That Mikhail Fedotovich de

lol with his serfs, and there is no need to say - he put them in stocks, put iron collars on them, often marked them to death.

Kamensky's career was cut short during the Napoleonic Wars. The count was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian army located in Prussia, Derzhavin accompanied him to the battlefield in verse: "Catherine's remaining sword, damask, braced in battles! .." There is no clarity about what happened next: some said that the count had lost his mind , while others believed that he was afraid of Napoleon's general genius. Mikhail Fedotovich ordered the troops to return to Russia, and then voluntarily resigned command and left for his village. There he lived, disgraced and excommunicated from the court - his end was unexpected and terrible.

Kamensky humiliated and tortured the serfs, turned them over as soldiers and sent them to hard labor; he pampered and teased only his mistress, whom he trusted infinitely. However, the girl did not like the old man: at night, a handsome young official who served in the provincial police would sneak into her room. If the count was gone, they could live happily ever after, and the lovers made a decision ... Now it was necessary to find someone who would decide to commit a crime.

This man was a courtyard, whose brother Kamensky spotted with salty rods. The murder plan was developed by the favorite herself. At home, the count was surrounded by guards, only an infinitely loyal valet could enter his office, and two huge wolfhounds were torn from their chains at the entrance to the bedroom. But he traveled without an escort, and his mistress knew all his daily plans - this circumstance played into the hands of the conspirators.

Count Kamensky went to Oryol in a field marshal's uniform and a cocked hat with a gold braid; a coachman and a footman were sitting on the box. The master freely stretched himself out in the cab and did not notice how one of his grooms jumped onto the box of the carriage. A sharply honed ax cut the Field Marshal's skull in two ...

the last concubine happily married her policeman, but the murderer did not manage to escape: the forest was surrounded by a whole division, and in October, when the first frosts hit, the courtyard, half dead from hunger and cold, surrendered. The executioner specially brought from Moscow gave him a hundred blows with a whip. He was a great master of his craft - after the last blow the unfortunate man died. In the same place where the count was hacked, his children installed a three-hundred-pound stone - at the end of the last century, the peasants split it into four parts and sold it to Oryol.

The field marshal had three sons. One of them, born of a mistress who killed the count, promised to become a brilliant military man. For a minor offense he was exiled to a distant fortress, and there he drowned, bathing in the river. From the count's legitimate children, the family estate and all the vices of his father were inherited by the eldest son Sergei: he rose to the rank of general and became famous for almost destroying the Russian army near Ruschuk. The main passion of Sergei Mikhailovich Kamensky was his serf theater, which stood on the Cathedral Square of the Eagle and absorbed all the attention and means of the count. During intermissions, the master personally flogged the artists who missed their remarks (their screams often reached the audience) and collected money for the entrance himself. The count was sitting at the box office in a general's uniform, with a St. George's cross around his neck; the jokers paid him for seats with copper coins (Kamensky had to count them for half an hour). At performances, he sat in the first row, in the second sat his mother and daughters, in the third - a serf mistress with a huge portrait of Sergei Kamensky on her chest. If she admitted any wrongdoing, instead of this portrait, another one was issued: on it the count was depicted from the back. If the master's anger turned out to be very strong, a guard of courtyard people was set up at the door of the favorite, who every quarter of an hour came to her with the words: "It's a sin, Akulina Vasilievna, you have made the father-master angry, pray

"The poor woman had a hard time: on such days she prayed around the clock and bowed down to the ground all night long.

The count spent hundreds of thousands of rubles a year on the theater: staging some performances cost him tens of thousands. At the same time, dirt and disorder reigned in the estate, the owner ate on greasy tablecloths and drank from cracked glasses. Sergei Kamensky inherited seven thousand souls from his father - and spent all his fortune on the theater. When he died, his family had nothing to bury him ...

But the youngest son of Mikhail Fedotovich was known as an extraordinary man. Nikolai Kamensky was handsome, kind and brave; he distinguished himself during the Italian campaign of Suvorov, and later became famous for the conquest of Finland. The count could choose a bride from any St. Petersburg house, and fell in love with the daughter of a German housekeeper - according to rumors, this love brought him to the grave. He met her at the house of his mother's relatives, the Shcherbatov princes; they noticed that the brilliant young general was not indifferent to the homeless woman, and urgently gave her in marriage to a seedy army officer. Learning about this, Kamensky fell into hopeless despair ... His mother tried to make him forget his grief and chose for Nikolai the most noble and richest bride in Moscow, Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya. The young lady was not distinguished by her beauty, but she was famous for her intelligence, ardent imagination and gentle heart. It was rumored, however, that Peter III, who was killed by the Orlov brothers, cursed her father before his death (and the fact that the deceived and betrayed by Alexei Orlov Princess Tarakanova did not forgive the count, Muscovites did not doubt). But this did not affect the fate of the count himself: he lived a long and successful life and died in his bed. The guilt of the father was taken over by his beloved daughter: in every groom the princess saw only a dowry hunter. She fell in love with the handsome and clever Kamensky at first sight, but refused him, obeying some unaccountable impulse.

this refusal finally unsettled the young general, and he went into the army to heal his mental wounds with service. Dear Nikolai Kamensky began to delirium, lost his hearing and by the end of the journey almost lost his mind. The count died without regaining consciousness. An autopsy revealed traces of poison ... Orlova was so shocked by the death of the rejected groom that she forever refused to marry. Anna Alekseevna outlived him by thirty years. According to the testimony of her friends, until her last days she talked about Count Nicholas with the ardor and passion of a twenty-year-old girl in love.

In the old days, Muscovites were sure that the curse also gravitates over the Kamenskys - the old count was too hot-tempered and cruel, with this he brought trouble on himself and his offspring. They also said that Nikolai Kamensky had the opportunity to rid his family of him, but he did not use it. When Kamensky, killed by the refusal of the bride, got into the carriage, the holy fool came up to him and held out a handkerchief: "Take it for good luck!" Nikolai Kamensky smiled, took the handkerchief and immediately gave it to his adjutant.

It was Count Arseny Andreyevich Zakrevsky, the future Minister of Internal Affairs and Moscow Governor-General. He made a brilliant career, and Nikolai Kamensky - his family said that he gave his happiness to a friend - never crossed the threshold of his father's house again. Twenty-two years after his death, the mansion was sold. The Kamenskys rescued 87 thousand rubles for him, but this did not save them from ruin. Later, the building was adapted for an educational building, pigs and cows were kept in the park; Bekhterev and Vavilov, who taught at the Zootechnical Institute, brought him fame. Here the divisibility of the gene was discovered, but here the geneticists were pulverized - the Kamenskys' house did not bring happiness to anyone. Now it stands empty, in the scaffolding and construction waste, and is waiting for new owners: those who will settle under this roof, it is better not to think about the fate of the Kamensky Counts ..

Famous generals:

• Kamensky, Mikhail Fedotovich (1738-1809), field marshal
• Kamensky, Sergei Mikhailovich ("Kamensky 1st"; 1771-1835), General of Infantry
• Kamensky, Nikolai Mikhailovich ("Kamensky 2nd"; 1776-1811), General of Infantry

Counts Kamensky

Counts Kamensky, according to the official version, descend from the Tver branch of the ancient Ratshich-Akinfovich family, and were written by the Kamensky “old exit”, in contrast to the Kamensky (Kaminsky) who left Poland. The pedigree of the Kamenskys in the Velvet Book was brought only to the 16th century, probably because at the time of its compilation, the Kamenskys served on the Bezhetsk Upper, far from Moscow and were late in providing information.

Kamensky nobles

Kamensky nobles come from the Polish gentry. Yarosh Kamensky owned villages in Poland, which his grandson, Ivan Kamensky, (1696) shared with his brother Peter. Their descendants owned lands in Poland in the Orsha district, and Luka, Vasily and Martyn Kamensky and their descendants, by the decree of Paul I, according to the report of the Governing Senate on September 11, 1797, were approved in the ancient nobility.

Description of coats of arms

Coat of arms of the Kamenskys 1785

Count's coat of arms. Part V. No. 9.

In the shield with a purple field in the middle there is a small golden shield with the image of a black two-headed Crowned Eagle, on whose chest in a red field is seen a warrior galloping on a white horse, striking a snake with a spear, and in his paws he holds a scepter and orb.

Above the shield there is a silver crescent with its horns facing downward and a silver cross. In the lower half of the shield across the river diagonally to the lower left corner, there is a bridge made of several pontoons, with boards selected between some of them.

The shield is covered with an count's crown, on the surface of which a helmet is placed, surmounted by a count's crown with one ostrich feather. The basting on the shield is purple, lined with silver. On the right side of the shield, the placed soldier holds the shield with one hand, and with the other a sword lowered with its end down, and on the left side, an overturned Turkish

Field Marshal Generals in Russian History Rubtsov Yuri Viktorovich

Count Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky (1738-1809)

In war, as in war: you can't do without victims. But even the strongest ecstasy of victory is not able to overshadow the noble warrior's compassion for the defeated enemy.

This happened during the second Russian-Turkish war of 1787-1791. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe Moldavian village of Gancourt, the division of M.F. Kamensky was attacked by the forces of Mehmet-Girey, the son of the Crimean Khan, an ally of the Ottoman Empire. The outcome of the case was decided by the masterful maneuver of the general-in-chief. With a combined blow to the flank and rear, he overturned the enemy, the Tatars fled. The Russian cavalry rushed to pursue them. In the battle, Mehmet-Girey fell along with a hundred soldiers, in addition, the Russians captured prisoners and considerable trophies, including artillery and six banners.

As soon as the roar of shots and the ringing of damask steel died down, Kamensky ordered to find the remains of the commander on the battlefield and hand over to the enemy. Appealing, as they say now, to universal human values, in a letter to the Crimean Khan, he noted that he was sending the body of his son for burial according to the Muslim rite and was doing it "not as a Russian general, but as a father whose children may suffer the same fate."

Truly human nature is inexhaustible and unexplored, and life is unique! You are convinced of this once again, observing the path of Field Marshal Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky. Examples of genuine nobility coexisted in his behavior with excessive obsequiousness to the powers that be and a passion for intrigue, straightforwardness with cruelty, courtesy with malice. True, he got to his lot not only pies and donuts. But first things first.

Army biography of Mikhail Kamensky began with the release in 1756 from the Land Gentry Corps. During the Seven Years War, he managed to study the Prussian army well both in battles (he participated in the campaigns of 1760 and 1761) and theoretically (in 1765 he served as a military agent under Frederick II). But he nevertheless gained military glory in battles with the Turks during the war of 1768-1774.

By the beginning of hostilities, 30-year-old Mikhail Fedotovich was already a major general. "The ardent, tough temper of Kamensky, the quick-witted mind, exemplary courage," wrote the historian Bantysh-Kamensky, "even at that time brought him out of the circle of ordinary people." In the 1st Army of Prince A.M. Golitsyn, he received under his command a brigade of five infantry regiments. The first real case fell out almost immediately, as soon as the army crossed the Dniester and on April 19, 1769 approached the Khotyn fortress. It was defended by the 40 thousandth corps of Karaman Pasha, in turn covered by fortress guns. The Russians, having Kamensky's brigade in the vanguard, attacked the enemy and, in spite of heavy fire, put them to flight. Part of the infantry corps of the Turks disappeared behind the fortress gates, thereby strengthening the Khotin garrison.

Taking the fortress was unthinkable without siege artillery. Waiting for guns and in search of forage, Golitsyn retreated beyond the Dniester. This delay caused displeasure in Petersburg, and P.A. was to replace the commander-in-chief. Rumyantsev. But Golitsyn managed to end his participation in the campaign on a high note, which, paradoxically, was the fervor of the Supreme Vizier. On August 29, deluded by the seeming slowness of the Russians, he attacked them ( see the essay on A.M. Golitsyn).

In this battle, Kamensky had a chance to distinguish himself. Having made a swift march, he promptly transferred the brigade to the left flank at the disposal of General N.I. Saltykov, thanks to which at the critical moment of the battle it was possible to turn the tide in our favor. Having lost at least seven thousand killed, the Turks fled in disarray. Ten days later, Khotin was occupied by the Russians.

The next, in 1770, Kamensky, commanding the same brigade, distinguished himself during the successful assault on Bender, personally leading the attack of the gamekeepers. Directly during the assault, he was instructed to lead the attack on the left flank of the Russian troops. The award for skillful actions was the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

The order of the next, 3rd degree, and the rank of lieutenant-general Mikhail Fedotovich was awarded for the campaign of 1773, defeating the Turkish corps on the island in front of the Zhurzha fortress. But, perhaps, the most successful for his entire military path was the campaign of 1774. Unfortunately, the personal triumph of the commander did not automatically mean the triumph of the entire army, and the main reason here is Kamensky's exorbitant ambition, his unwillingness to share glory with anyone.

For the first time his corps operated together with the detachment of General A.V. Suvorov. Army commander P.A. Rumyantsev, while retaining the possibility of independent action for each of the military leaders, nevertheless granted the right of the final decision, according to seniority, to Kamensky. On June 2, Mikhail Fedotovich took the Bazardzhik fortress and headed for the Shumla fortress. Marching in the vanguard with 8 thousand bayonets, Suvorov near the village of Kozludzhi collided with a 40-thousand-strong Turkish corps moving towards. Acting according to his commandment - eye, onslaught, speed, the future generalissimo on his own, without waiting for Kamensky's corps, got involved in the battle and utterly defeated the enemy ( see the essay on A.V. Suvorov)... A latent conflict arose: Kamensky, staying away from this brilliant victory, deliberately did not take advantage of its fruits and suspended his movement towards Shumla. Meanwhile, the fortress, essentially left without a garrison, could have been taken relatively easily and thus put a spectacular end to the war.

Rumyantsev was enraged by this act of the subordinate general. "Not during days and hours, but also moments in such a position of the road," he reasonably remarked, making a stern reprimand to Kamensky. And the wounded Suvorov, saying he was sick, asked for leave. “The two heroes ... did not love each other,” the historian wrote about them. - One was jealous of the glory of a younger comrade, the other, feeling his superiority, weighed down subordination. "

Having got rid of a competitor, Kamensky nevertheless moved to Shumla, repelled a sortie from the Turks and cut off any communication between the Grand Vizier and Adrianople. But he did not manage to take the fortress: on July 10, 1774, the Kuchuk-Kainardzhiyskiy peace was signed. Catherine II did not take seriously the conflict between her generals described above and awarded the Kamensk Order of St. George, 2nd degree. But I probably remembered about him a few years later, during the next war with Turkey.

General-in-chief Kamensky was entrusted with a corps in the army of Field Marshal Rumyantsev, but Mikhail Fedotovich considered service under the command of the favorite of the Empress G.A. Potemkin. The subtle intrigue he had started against the commander, to his horror, was exposed precisely to those to whom such servility was shown - Potemkin. Kamensky fell badly in the eyes of Catherine.

But, slipping on the floor, the commander seemed to rehabilitate himself on the battlefield. For the victory at Gankur, with the description of which this story began, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st degree. However, after 1789 he was recalled from the active army. And three years later, he finally compromised himself in the eyes of the empress, and again because of painful ambition.

Appointed shortly before the death of Potemkin, which followed on October 5, 1791, in his subordination, Kamensky made, according to Catherine, "strange things." Literally over the body of the deceased, he, who remained the eldest among the generals, gathered a council of war and announced the assumption of the duties of the commander-in-chief. However, a few days later, General-in-Chief M.V. Kakhovsky, to whom Potemkin managed to transfer his powers in writing. The conflict that arose between the generals was resolved by Catherine, who found Kamensky's actions arbitrary and incompatible with the law and the possibility of continuing military service. In private letters, her assessments were even more harsh: "Crazy Kamensky is playing pranks, a meeting of generals for the sake of judging who to command, proves the collector's recklessness, and after this act it is hardly possible to have a power of attorney to him." The celebration of the soon concluded Yassy Peace took place without a military leader who fell into disgrace.

Five years later, another mother Ekaterina left for the world, which allowed Mikhail Fedotovich to interrupt the village seclusion. Emperor Paul I, who took the throne, initially favored him. He remembered how thirty years ago Kamensky presented then to the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich an essay in which he enthusiastically spoke about such amiable military orders in the army of his idol Frederick the Great, and called him himself to choose a military path, to become the successor of the glorious military deeds of his great great-grandfather Peter I. And now it responded to Kamensky with a waterfall of awards and honors: he became a general-field marshal and a knight of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, received the title of count, was appointed chief of the Ryazan musketeer regiment. But a year later Pavel lost interest in the newly-made field marshal, dismissed him "for poor health" and sent him back to the village.

With the accession of Alexander I, Kamensky was returned to the court and in 1802 was appointed governor-general of St. Petersburg. A few years later, he once again had a chance to experience a drastic change of fate. In 1806, on the eve of the war with Napoleon, patriotic circles, with the support of Count A.A. Arakcheev, imposed on the aged Field Marshal Alexander I as the commander-in-chief of the Russian army. His popularity in society and at court instantly rose to unprecedented heights, in the capital he was literally accepted as the savior of Russia. It is not entirely clear what such belief in his military genius was based on: after all, even from the first Russian-Turkish war, it was known that, with undoubted courage and energy, he did not have a bright commander's talent, in fact he did not have experience in managing large formations and showed an inability to independent operations. And only his frantic ambition, which did not change even at the age of 68, can explain his consent to once again become the head of the active army.

Sober self-esteem, apparently, began to come to the aged field marshal on his way to the theater of war. He arrived at the main apartment only on December 7, that is, a whole month after receiving the imperial rescript on his appointment as commander-in-chief. He complained of old age, loss of vision. He issued a number of vague orders, which largely predetermined the defeat of the Russian army in the very first battle at Pultusk (the territory of modern Poland). Moreover, on the eve of the battle, without the permission of the emperor, he left the army, citing a certain wound, the inability to ride a horse, and, consequently, to command the army. General L.L. Bennigsen, to whom he surrendered the army, other commanders urged the field marshal not to change his official duty, but in vain.

Frustrated by the defeat, Alexander I first recognized Kamensky as “escaping from the army” and intended to bring him to justice. But then, apparently taking into account his considerable years and the loss, as many believed, "ability of consideration", allowed to retire to his estate.

Still, this man was original. Even the death of Kamensky turned out to be completely unusual for people of his circle and position. The field marshal fell at the hands of a serf. But revenge for the unfair punishment from the landowner was not the reason for this. In the face of the old soldier, the killer eliminated his brother's rival, who was favored by the courtyard girl Kamensky.

Well, at least in a soldier's way, one of the last Catherine's eagles, whom G.R. It was not for nothing that Derzhavin called "bulat, braced in battles, which remained Catherine's sword, a stone in both name and spirit."