Diplomat Aleksandr Gavrilovich Golovkin: New Touches to Biographical Portrait

Abstract

Aleksandr Gavrilovich Golovkin (1688–1760) is a famous Russian diplomat of the first half of the XVIII century. His name is associated with a number of prominent pages in the history of bilateral relations of Russia with Prussia, France and most important – with the Republic of United Provinces, to which A. Golovkin was Ambassador Plenipotentiary for almost thirty years. However, today both Russian and foreign historiography is lacking substantial pieces of research dedicated to A. Golovkin. Up to the present moment biography, compiled by the diplomat himself in 1756 for a questionnaire of high-ranking state officials ordered by the Emperor’s decree, and a short section in the Memoireswritten by A. Golovkin’s grandson are the only scarce available pieces of information to build upon. The Ambassador perished in the Netherlands. Thus, family archive documents for a period encompassing more than two centuries ended up scattered among numerous private collections of his descendants settled abroad. The ambassador’s wife was Catherine Henriette von Dona of an ancient Saxon family. This article strives to enrich A. Golovkin’s biography with yet unknown facts about his family ties with aristocratic houses of Europe, in particular with the Orange-Nassau dynasty, as well as to show the diplomat’s status among high-ranking officials of Russia in the middle of the XVIII century, what property he owned and what contributed to his long and successful service in the system of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs foreign missions. The look into Ambassador A. Golovkin’s personality is, first of all, designed to encourage the interest of researchers in his invaluable legacy – diplomatic correspondence stored in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire.