Peter Hahn

Peter Hahn von Rottenstern (1799–1873), member of the Baltic German nobility, which also belonged to Russian nobility, remembered in the United States mainly as the father of Helena Blavatsky. Early life and marriage Born as the son of the Baltic-German Lieutenant-General Axel Heinrich Hahn von Rottenstern (d. 1815) and his wife, Christine Elizabeth von Pröbsting (d. 1799), daughter of Magnus Wilhelm von Pröbsting (1731–1788). He was the father of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. A captain of horse artillery, known as Peter von Hahn, whose family came originally from the petty nobility of Mecklenburg, married, in 1830, the 16-year-old Helena Fadeeva. She was the daughter of Princess Helena Dolgorukova (1789–1860) and Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeev (1789–1867), Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, and half his age. Vera, a younger sister of Helene Fadeev, would marry Julius Witte and become the parents to Count Sergei Yulievich Witte. Polish Campaign and birth of Helena Soon after the wedding, the young captain received orders to join his regiment for service in the notably ruthless campaign to put down the Polish insurrection of 1831. The girl-wife returned to her parents in Ekaterinoslav in the heart of Ukraine, and it was there that Helena was born on the night of August 12, 1831 (July 31, on the Russian Julian calendar).