Elena von Nesselrode Dimitri von Nesselrode Marie von Nesselrode
Parent(s)
Count Wilhelm Karl von Nesselrode (father) Louise Gontard (mother)
Karl Robert Reichsgraf[1] von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, also known as Charles de Nesselrode (Russian: Карл Васильевич Нессельроде, romanized: Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode; 14 December 1780 – 23 March 1862), was a Russian diplomat of German noble descent. For 40 years (1816–1856), Nesselrode guided Russian policy as foreign minister. He was also a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance.
Karl was born at sea[3][4]
near Lisbon, Portugal into the prominent Uradel German House of Nesselrode, which originated in the Bergisches Land near the Rhine. His father Count Wilhelm Karl von Nesselrode (1724 - 1810), a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, served at the time as the ambassador to Portugal for the German-born Russian empress. His mother was Louise Gontard (1746-1785), whose family belonged to Huguenot noble families from Dauphiné that fled from France to Germany in 1700. In deference to his mother's Protestantism he was baptized in the chapel of the British Embassy, thus becoming a member of the Church of England.[5]
Biography
After his father became the Russian ambassador to the Prussian court about 1787, Nesselrode's education in a Berlingymnasium re-inforced his Germanic roots. Even though Nesselrode would work for the Russians for the next few decades of his life, he could neither read nor write Russian and spoke it only brokenly.
In 1788, at the age of 8, he officially entered the Imperial Russian Navy. With his father's influence, he secured the position of naval aide-de-camp to Emperor Paul (r. 1796–1801).
He then transferred to the Imperial Russian Army, and entered diplomatic service under Paul I's son and successor, Emperor Alexander I. He was attached to the Russian embassy at Berlin, and transferred thence to The Hague.
In August 1806 Nesselrode received a commission to travel in southern Germany to report on the French troops there; he was then attached as diplomatic secretary to General Mikhail Kamensky, and then to (ethnic German) generals Friedrich Wilhelm von Buxhoeveden and Levin August von Bennigsen in succession.
He was present at the inconclusive Battle of Eylau in January 1807, fought by Count von Bennigsen, and assisted at the negotiations of the Peace of Tilsit (July 1807), for which he was commended by Spanish BonapartistDiego Fernandez de Velasco, 13th Duke of Frías (who in 1811 would die in exile in Paris). During negotiations he was seated at the table with Napoleon I.
Following the Congress of Erfurt in 1808, Nesselrode was secretly accredited by Alexander to serve as his unofficial channel of information between himself and Talleyrand.
Nesselrode became State Secretary in 1814 and was the head of Russia's official delegation to the Congress of Vienna, but for the most part Alexander I acted as his own foreign minister. In 1816, Nesselrode became Russian foreign minister, sharing the position with Count Ioannis Kapodistrias until the latter's retirement in 1822.
Nesselrode is credited as the person who first coined the name "Tournament of Shadows", which was the Russian name for the long rivalry that existed between the Russian Empire and the British Empire beginning in the late 18th and lasting well into the 19th centuries, caused primarily by border tension in Central Asia and India.[7]
Nesselrode's efforts to expand Russia's influence in the Balkans and Mediterranean led to conflicts with the Ottoman Empire, Britain, France, and the Kingdom of Sardinia, which all became allies opposing Russia in the Crimean War (1853–1856). Britain and France, unhappy with Russia's growing influence, determined to support Turkey and so restrict Russia.
Nesselrode's autobiography was published posthumously in 1866.
Foods named in his honour but devised by his chef M. Jean Mouy[10] using chestnut puree[11] are-
Nesselrode Pudding (Pouding à la Nesselrode), a thick custard cream with sweet puree of chestnut, raisins, candied fruit, currants, cherry liquor and whipped cream molded and served chilled as a bombe with maraschino custard sauce.[12]
^Regarding personal names: Reichsgraf is a title, usually translated as 'Imperial Count', not a first or middle name. The female form is Reichsgräfin. Titles using the prefix Reichs- were not created after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire.
^
Golovin, Ivan Gavrilovich (1854). "Menshikoff, Orloff, Nesselrode". The Nations of Russia and Turkey and Their Destiny. London: Trübner. p. 149. Retrieved 21 March 2019. Charles Albert, Count Nesselrode, was born in 1770, on board an English vessel in sight of Lisbon.
^
Compare:
Golovin, Ivan Gavrilovich (1854). "Menshikoff, Orloff, Nesselrode". The Nations of Russia and Turkey and Their Destiny. London: Trübner. p. 149. Retrieved 21 March 2019. His parents were Germans in the Russian service, and as there was no Protestant minister in the vessel, he was baptized according to the Anglican rite. England therefore, may claim the honour of reckoning him among her citizens.
^ abcdefghijklmnopq1824/diploamtic Code /treaty with russia in: Diplomatic Code of the United States of America: Embracing a Collection of ... Door Jonathan Elliot
^p.76 Loohuizen, Ria On Chestnuts: The Trees and Their Seeds Prospect, 2006
Cowles, Loyal. "The Failure to Restrain Russia: Canning, Nesselrode, and the Greek Question, 1825–1827." International History Review 12.4 (1990): 688-720.
Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. The foreign ministers of Alexander I: political attitudes and the conduct of Russian diplomacy, 1801–1825 (University of California Press, 1969)
Ingle, Harold N. Nesselrode and the Russian rapprochement with Britain, 1836–1844 (University of California Press, 1976)
Jelavich, Barbara. St. Petersburg and Moscow: Tsarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974 (1974)
Schroeder, Paul W. The transformation of European politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)
