Adam Olsufyev

Adam Vasilyevich Olsufiev (January 27, 1721 – July 8, 1784) was a figure in the Russian Enlightenment, a lover of literature, the patron of opera and theaters, Cabinet Minister and State Secretary of Empress Catherine II. He ended his career as a senator with the rank of Actual Privy Councilor. Grandfather of Count Vasily Olsufiev. Biography Came from the Olsufievs. The son of Ober-Hofmeister Vasily Dmitrievich and his wife Eva Ivanovna, née Golender, who was Swedish by birth. At baptism, he received the name Vasily, but at the behest of Emperor Peter I, who wished to be godfather, but who was late to his baptism, was named by a name uncommon among the Russians, Adam. Therefore, Adam Vasily had two names, but on all acts and documents he was signed by Adam. At the age of seven, he lost his father and remained in the arms of his mother, who soon after the death of her husband remarried Colonel Wenzel. Wenzel took up his education and on February 17, 1732, identified him in the then-newly opened Gentry Cadet Corps. Here Adam Vasilyevich spent seven years, and managed to attract attention with his remarkable talents and ability to languages; therefore, when the War with Turkey began in 1735 and Field Marshal Count Minikh turned to the Corps with a request to give him a young man who knows languages, the choice of superiors immediately fell on young Olsufiev. He was released from the Corps with the promotion from corporal to commissioner on assignments in the army Carabinier Regiment and was appointed to be a member of Minikh circle to conduct his foreign correspondence. At the end of hostilities, during which he was inseparably at the field marshal, Olsufiev joined the diplomatic service and was appointed secretary of the Russian embassy in Copenhagen under envoy Baron Johann Korf. Olsufiev's overseas stay was very long; he became so settled in Denmark that he married a Danish woman, who, however, soon died, leaving him no offspring. Returning to Russia and soon marrying Maria Vasilyevna Saltykova, Olsufyev expelled from the Copenhagen mission and entered the service in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs to Chancellor Bestuzhev.