Aleksey Fyodorovich, Prince Orlov

Aleksey Fyodorovich, Prince Orlov (born October 8 [October 19, New Style], 1786, Moscow, Russia—died May 9 [May 21], 1861, St. Petersburg) was a military officer and statesman who was an influential adviser to the Russian emperors Nicholas I (reigned 1825–55) and Alexander II (reigned 1855–81) in both domestic and foreign affairs.

Orlov was the nephew of Catherine II the Great’s lover Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov and the illegitimate son of Count Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov, who had helped Grigory place Catherine on the throne (1762). He was educated under Catherine’s general supervision. In 1804 he entered the army and, during the Napoleonic Wars, took part in all the Russian campaigns after 1805. But he opposed the radical ideas adopted by many Russian officers, including his brother General Mikhail Fyodorovich Orlov, and in 1825, having become the commander of a cavalry regiment, helped suppress the uprising of the Decembrist movement, which hoped to establish a constitutional regime. As a reward, Nicholas I made him a count.

Orlov fought in the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–29, attained the rank of lieutenant general, and led the Russian delegation that concluded the peace treaty of Adrianople (1829). He then participated in the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830–31. After becoming both commander in chief of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and ambassador to Turkey (1833), he concluded a defense alliance with Turkey (Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi; 1833) that improved Russia’s defenses on its southern frontier but also made Russia’s relations with France and Great Britain more tense.

Having become Nicholas’s trusted adviser, Orlov accompanied the emperor on his foreign tour in 1837 and, from 1839 to 1842, served on a secret committee that considered and recommended minor reforms for the peasantry. In 1844 he was appointed chief of the third department of the imperial chancellery; Orlov thus became responsible for the security police force and, by spending a great deal of time with the emperor, attained a high degree of influence over him and his policies.

In 1854, after the Crimean War began, Nicholas sent Orlov on an unsuccessful mission to Vienna to convince Austria to remain neutral. After the war, Orlov attended the peace conference and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1856). When he returned to Russia, the new emperor, Alexander II, made him a prince, named him president of both the state council and the council of ministers, and in 1858 appointed him chairman of a committee to investigate the problems of emancipating the serfs. Despite his great influence, the conservative Orlov was unable to prevent the emancipation, which was proclaimed several months before his death.