Prince Ivan Obolensky
Knyaz Ivan Mikhailovich Obolensky, or Prince John Obolenski (1853 – 28 February 1910), was an Imperial Russian Lieutenant-General. In 1901 he was awarded the rank of equestrian. On January 14, 1902, he was appointed governor of Kharkov. He gained fame for his decisive suppression of large-scale peasant riots in Valkovsky district, for which he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree. The militant organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party made an attempt on his life: on July 29, 1902, in the Tivoli Garden, Foma Kachura shot several times, but missed, and Obolensky was only slightly wounded.He served as the Governor-General of Finland from 18 August 1904 to 18 November 1905. His predecessor Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov was assassinated in June 1904. He was a member of a Rurikid princely family, whose ancestors once ruled one of the Upper Principalities. His mother was the Romanian-born aristocrat Olga Sturdza, daughter of Alexandru Sturdza (from a non-princely branch, 3rd cousin once removed of the Russian statesman Alexandru Sturdza), grand-treasurer of the Principality of Moldova, by Elena Ghika. His father was Knyaz (Prince) Mikhail Aleksandrovich Obolensky (1821–1886). His term of office saw revolutionary
turmoil in both Russia and the Grand Duchy of Finland. The Russian revolution of 1905 resulted in a general strike in Finland and the replacement of the feudal Diet of Finland with the modern Parliament of Finland.
The Preobrazhensky Life-Guards Regiment was a regiment of the Imperial Guard of the Imperial Russian Army from 1683 to 1917. The Preobrazhensky Regiment was one of the oldest infantry regiments in Imperial Russia, along with the Semyonovsky Regiment. The young Tsar Peter I of Russia (born 1672, r. 1682–1725) developed the regiment from 1683 onwards on the basis of his poteshnye voiska ("toy forces"), during the military games he conducted in the village of Preobrazhenskoye (now a district in Moscow). The Preobrazhensky Company of Peter's forces officially formed in 1687; it had expanded to become a regiment by the 1690s. The Preobrazhensky Regiment distinguished itself during the Great Northern War of 1700–1721, the Patriotic War of 1812, and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The regiment operated as the body-guard of the Grand Duchess Yekaterina Alekseevna as well as the main supporter of her bloodless 1762 coup against her husband Emperor Peter III; having become Empress Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) she declared the Preobrazhensky highest in the order of military precedence from 14 July 1762. The regiment formed part of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Guards Infantry Division stationed on the Fontanka in Saint Petersburg. It was disbanded shortly before the October Revolution in 1917 by its last commander.
The House of Obolensky is the name of a princely Russian family of the Rurik dynasty. The family of aristocrats mostly fled Russia in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. Their name is said to derive from the town of Obolensk in the Upper Oka Principalities near Moscow. The Obolensky coat of arms is composed of the emblems of Kiev and Chernigov. Cadet branches of the family include the Repnin, Lykov, Leperovich, Dolgorukov and Shcherbatov families. The ancestor is considered to be the grandson of Mikhail of Chernigov, who was killed in 1246 in the Golden Horde - Prince Konstantin Yuryevich (XIII tribe from Rurik), who received as an inheritance from his father the volost along the Protva River, where the city of Obolensk later arose. The family of princes Obolensky represents one of the most remarkable branches of Rurik's offspring. In the 15th and 16th centuries, no other clan produced, in comparison, so many famous figures, both in the administrative and, especially, in the military fields. His representatives contributed to the Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich the Dark to
defeat the sedition of Shemyaka, and thereby save for Russia such a major royal figure as John III Vasilyevich, who, like his son Vasily Ioannovich, owed no little to the labors and exploits of the Obolensky princes in the final unification and dispensation Moscow State. In the same way, during the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible, we see a lot of remarkable military leaders from the family of the Obolensky princes, until the scourge of this Sovereign touched its best members and destroyed most of them with undeserved persecutions and executions. - After this, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the family, as if tired of excessive activity, did not single out almost a single outstanding personality from its midst, and only in the 19th century and now, as if rested, it again appears in the field government activities.
Awards: Sash and star of the Imperial Order of Saint Prince Vladimir, Insignia and star of the Imperial Order of Saint Anna and Star the Imperial Order of Saint Stanislaus.
