Samson Makintsev
| Samson Yakovlevich Makintsev Самсо́н Я́ковлевич Маки́нцев سامسونخان (Samson Khan) |
|
|---|---|
| Born | 1780 Caucasian line Russian Empire |
| Died | 1849 (aged 68-69) Persian Empire |
| Allegiance |
 Russian Empire Persian Empire
|
| Rank |
 Sergeant (Wachtmeister) General
|
| Unit | Infantry, Cavalry |
| Commands held |
Bogatyr battalion Russian battalion of the Persian army |
| Battles/wars | |
Samson Yakovlevich Makintsev (Russian: Самсо́н Я́ковлевич Маки́нцев), otherwise and better known as Samson Khan (Persian: سامسونخان); (1849 – 1776), was a general in Qajar Persia of Russian origin. Having deserted from the Imperial Russian Army, a sergeant of the Nizhny Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, he was one of the many defectors that changed sides in the era of the Russo-Persian Wars.
From at least the beginning of the 19th century, and probably earlier, a steady stream of deserters from the Imperial Russian armies in the Caucasus had fled to Iranian territory, sometimes surrendering to Iranian forces and themselves entering Iranian service. Iran's then commander-in-chief, crown-prince Abbas Mirza, was eager to acquire and retain the services of as many Russian deserters as possible, because their military training was a useful asset to his new regular army. At first, he merely utilised individual deserters to train his new regiments. As their numbers grew, he incorporated them into the Nizam regiments, then finally made them into a separate unit of their own.
One of the more notable deserters that enlisted in the Iranian service was Samson Yakovlevich Makintsev, a staff-trumpeter sergeant, who had deserted from the Nizhni-Novgorod Dragoon Regiment in 1802, just before the start of the first Russo-Persian War of the 19th century (1804–1813). He was born in 1780 in the Caucasian Line of Malorussian origin and was of the soldiers' children. He joined the Dragoon regiment in 1799, then 19 years old. According to the service record of Lieutenant General V.V. Grushenko’s Nizhni-Novgorod Dragoon Regiment for 1 January 1800, the following is written about him; "Samson Makantsov, son of Yakovlev. 19 years of age, height 2 arshins, 4 1/2 vershoks (162 cm). White face, light blond hair, grey eyes. Can read and write Russian. Unmarried. Taken into Major O.A. Kulikovskii’s squadron as a dragoon on 14 September 1799, from the soldiers’ children with the regiment who had attained adulthood." Him being from the "soldier's children" (soldatskie deti) meant that he was in fact part of a juridically defined social category as was stipulated in the Imperial Russian Petrine ranking system. According the ranking system, the soldies' children belonged to the military domain (voenmoe vedomstvo) and were therefore destined for life to the military service. The most probable assumption regarding him being literate – something very uncommon amongst the lower Russian ranks – was that he received his education at the special military schools, which he was allowed to enter as he was from the soldatskie deti.
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