Patrick Gordon

Patrick Gordon (born March 31, 1635, Auchleuchries, Aberdeen, Scot.—died Nov. 29 [Dec. 9, New Style], 1699, Moscow, Russia) was a Scottish soldier of fortune who became a general in the Russian army and a close friend of Peter I the Great of Russia (reigned 1682–1725).

Having left Scotland, which was torn by religious and political strife, Gordon went to Danzig (now Gdańsk) in Poland and studied at the Jesuit College at Braniewo (Braunsberg) for two years (1651–53). When a Polish-Swedish war broke out in 1655, he became a mercenary and fought on different occasions for both sides.

In 1661 Gordon entered the Russian army as a major, and, after suppressing the Moscow riots of 1663, he was promoted to the rank of colonel. In 1666 Tsar Alexis sent him as an envoy to England, but he failed to complete his mission satisfactorily and lost the tsar’s favour. Despite his efforts to leave the Russian service, his position improved with succeeding regimes, particularly after he heroically defended Chigirin (located in Ukraine), which was besieged by the Turks in 1678.

After Sophia Alekseyevna became regent for Peter I and Ivan V (1682), Gordon again went on a diplomatic mission to England (1686–87). Upon his return he warned Sophia and her chief adviser, Prince Vasily Golitsyn, against joining an anti-Turk European alliance and waging war against the Turks’ vassals, the Crimean Tatars. He was overruled, however, and in 1687 he joined Golitsyn in his first unsuccessful Crimean expedition. Promoted to the rank of general, Gordon served as quartermaster general in the second Crimean campaign (1689) and supplied Golitsyn with strategic advice. But when that campaign also failed and a political crisis developed, Gordon, commanding troops trained in the western European style, helped Peter I overthrow Sophia (1689).

Subsequently, Gordon became a close collaborator of the young tsar, entertaining him, teaching him ballistic science, and also supervising the war-game maneuvers of Peter’s specially trained troops. As a reward, Peter made Gordon a rear admiral (1694) and his chief military counselor. In 1698, when the streltsy (household troops) rebelled, hoping to restore Sophia to the throne while Peter was traveling in western Europe, Gordon crushed them in June of that year.