Vasily Lukich Dolgorukov

Who was Vasily Lukich Dolgorukov?

Prince Vasiliy Lukich Dolgorukov was a Russian diplomat and minister who was the most powerful man in the country in the later years of Peter II's reign.

A male-line descendant of the legendary prince Rurik, Dolgorukov was one of the first batch of young Russians whom Peter the Great sent abroad to be educated. From 1687 to 1700 he resided in Paris, where he learned thoroughly the principal European languages, acquired the superficial elegance of the court of Versailles, and associated with the Jesuits, whose moral system he is said to have appropriated.

On his return home he entered the diplomatic service. From 1706 to 1707 he represented Russia in Poland; and from 1707 to 1720 he was appointed minister in Copenhagen. There, he succeeded in persuading King Frederick IV to join the second coalition against Charles XII in the Treaty of Copenhagen. At the end of 1720 he was transferred to Versailles, in order to seek the mediation of France in the projected negotiations with Sweden and obtain the recognition of Peter's imperial title by the French court. In 1724 he represented Russia in Warsaw and in 1726 in Stockholm, the object of the latter mission being to detach Sweden from the Hanoverian alliance, in which he did not succeed.