Alexander Benckendorff

Count Alexander Carl Wilhelm Christoph von Benckendorff, (Russian: граф Александр Христофорович Бенкендорф, Aleksandr Khristoforovich Benkendorf, 4 July [O.S. 23 June] 1781 or 1783  – 5 October [O.S. 11 September or 23 September] 1844), was a Russian Cavalry General and statesman, Adjutant General of Tsar Alexander I, a commander of partisan (Kossak irregular) units during the War of 1812-13. However, he is most frequently remembered for his later role, under Tsar Nicholas I, as the founding head of the Gendarmes and the Secret Police in Imperial Russia.

Alexander von Benckendorff was born into Russia's distinctive Baltic nobility to a Baltic German family in Reval (now Tallinn) in today's Estonia, son of General Baron Christoph von Benckendorff () (Friedrichsham, 12 January 1749 - 10 June 1823), who served as the military governor of Livonia, and wife Baroness Anna Juliane Charlotte Schilling von Canstatt (Thalheim, 31 July 1744 - 11 March 1797), who held a high position at the Romanov Court as senior lady-in-waiting and best friend of Empress Maria Fyodorovna, and paternal grandson of Johann Michael von Benckendorff and wife Sophie von Löwenstern. His brother Konstantin von Benkendorff was a general and diplomat, and his sister Dorothea von Lieven a socialite and political force in London and Paris. His other sister Maria von Benckendorff (Saint Petersburg, 1784 - ?) married Ivan Georgiecitch Sevitsch.

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