Sergey Volkonsky was a grandson of Field Marshal
Nicholas Repnin, a leading statesman of
Catherine the Great's reign. The three brothers Sergey,
Nikita Volkonsky and
Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky, distinguished themselves during the
Napoleonic Wars. Princess
Zenaǐde Wolkonsky was his sister-in-law.
Serge Wolkonsky, a theatre director and critic, descended from his son Michail. Volkonsky was promoted Major General after the
Battle of Großbeeren and
Battle of Dennewitz. He was wounded in the
Battle of Eylau. Prince Volkonsky went to toil in the mines near
Irkutsk and spent 30 years as a political exile in
Siberia. His wife,
Maria Rayevskaya, followed him to Siberia. Their tribulations and hardships have been seen, in a later Russian tradition, as the stuff of high Romantic legend.
Nikolay Nekrasov described them in a long poem.
Oleg Strizhenov played the part of Volkonsky in the 1975 Soviet film
The Captivating Star of Happiness. On succeeding to the throne in 1856,
Alexander II allowed Volkonsky and other old Decembrists to return from Siberia. In the late 1850s, Sergey Volkonsky travelled in Europe, where he met
Alexander Herzen and other young liberals. Sergey and Maria spent the rest of their lives in the village of Voronki (
Little Russia), which was owned by their daughter. The memoirs of Sergey Volkonsky were published in 1902. File:P.F. Sokolov 031.jpg|
Pyotr Sokolov. Portrait of Sergey Volkonsky File:Бестужев Н. Волконский С.Г. с женой в камере в Петровской тюрьме.jpg|
Nikolay Bestuzhev. Volkonsky S. G. with his wife in Petrovsky prison (1830) ==References==