Alexander von Benckendorff was born into the of the
Baltic German nobility in
Reval (present-day Tallinn, Estonia), son of General Baron (12 January 1749, Friedrichsham – 10 June 1823,
Kolga), who served as the military governor of
Livonia, and of his wife Baroness Anna Juliane Charlotte Schilling von Canstatt (31 July 1744,
Thalheim – 11 March 1797,
Riga), who held a high position at the
Romanov court as senior lady-in-waiting and best friend of Empress
Maria Fyodorovna (the second wife of the Emperor
Paul). His paternal grandparents were Johann Michael von Benckendorff and his wife Sophie von Löwenstern. Alexander von Benckendorff's younger brother
Konstantin von Benckendorff (1785–1828) became a general and diplomat, and his sister
Dorothea von Lieven (1785–1857) a socialite and political force in London and Paris. His other sister, Maria von Benckendorff (1784–1841), married Ivan Georgievitch Sevitsch. Having received his education at a
Jesuit boarding school, Benckendorff started military service in 1798 in the
Semyonovsky Life-Guards Regiment. Benckendorff then served as
aide-de-camp to the czar. In 1803, while bearing the rank of
Colonel he arrived in the
Septinsular Republic. He was tasked with raising the nucleus of the
Greek Legion, becoming the first commander of the unit. He then became the commander of the Souliote Legion component of the Greek Legion until his return to Russia in March 1805. Benckendorff had developed an amiable relationship with his
Souliot subordinates, requesting the czar to be sent back to his previous unit. His request was denied, but Benckendorff remained a
philhellene until the end of his life. During
Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, Benckendorff led the
Velizh offensive, taking three French generals prisoner and more than 6000 lower ranks. When the Grande Armée left Moscow (October 1812), he became the commander of its garrison. In the foreign campaigns following, he defeated a French contingent at
Tempelberg and became one of the first Russians to enter Berlin. He further distinguished himself at the
Battle of Leipzig. On 2 November 1813 he arrived at
Bad Bentheim. In 22 November he crossed the
IJssel with a
vanguard regiment from
Bashkortostan (under Prince Fyodor Fyodorovich Gagarin). On 27 November he left Harderwijk to cross the
Zuiderzee by boat. He consulted
Krayenhoff. On 2 December he was received the townhall by
William I of the Netherlands, the provisional king. Benckendorff passed
Loevestein when he went to Tilburg and Breda. After British and Prussian forces arrived to succeed him, his unit proceeded to take
Louvain and
Mechelen, liberating 300 imprisoned Englishmen captured in Spain. On 1 February they surrounded Brussels. It seems he went to Düsseldorf alone. In his rôle as Chief Censor, he became involved in the tragic death (1837) of
Alexander Pushkin in an unnecessary duel, an involvement that for long made him an
unmentionable in Russian historiography. Yet by temperament, he was the very opposite of a proto-
Dzerzhinsky or a proto-
Beria. He suffered from a bizarre tendency to forget his own name, and periodically had to be reminded of it by consulting his own
visiting card. From the mid-1830s, his family seat was the
Gothic Revival manor, Schloss Fall (now
Keila-Joa) near Tallinn in present-day Estonia. He died in
Hiiumaa. In 1817 Alexander von Benckendorff married Elisaveta Andreyevna Donets-Zacharzhevskaya (11 September 1788 – Berlin, 7 December 1857). The couple had three daughters: • Countess Anna Alexandrovna Benckendorff (11 September 1818 –
Lengyel, 19 November 1900), married to
Count Rudolf Appony de Nagy-Appony • Countess Maria Alexandrovna Benckendorff (Saint Petersburg, 24 May 1820 –
Rome, 4 November 1880) married in Saint Petersburg on 12 January 1838 as his first wife Prince (Saint Petersburg, 28 March 1808 –
Menton (Nice), 7 May 1882) • Countess Sophia Alexandrovna Benckendorff (Keila-Joa, 2 August 1825 – Paris, 5 March 1875), married to and to Prince . ==Benckendorff's notes==