mother, and that his name was Kirill, because the grandfather was Kirilluitch.[1]
Rakhmétof belonged to a family which has been known since the thirteenth century; that is, it is one of the most ancient, not only in Russia, but anywhere in Europe. In the number of the Tartar prisoners, tribal chiefs who were massacred in Tver, according to the words of the chroniclers, on account of their intention of converting the people to Mohammedanism (an intention which they probably did not have), but simply out of brutality, was a certain Rakhmet. The young son of this Rakhmet by a Russian wife, who was the niece of a nobleman of Tver—that is, the oberhōf-marshal or field-marshal—whom Rakhmet married by force, was saved on his mother's account, and he was baptized Mikhaïl instead of Latuif. From this Latuif-Mikhaïl Rakhmétovitch sprang a good many Rakhmétofs. In Tver they were boyars; in Moscow they were crown-officers;[2] in Petersburg, during the last century, they were generals-in-chief; of course not all of them: the family branched out very widely, so that there would not have been enough positions of general-in-chief to give them all. Our Rakhmétof's great-great-grandfather was a friend of Ivan Ivanovitch Shuválof's,[3] and he put him on his feet again after his failure, which was caused by his friendship for Muennich.
His great-grandfather was a contemporary of Rumiantsof; he served till he reached the rank of general-in-chief, and he was killed at the battle near Novo. His grandfather escorted Alexander to Tilsit, and would have risen higher than any of them, but he early ruined his career by his friendship with Speransky. His father served without any success, and without any failures; at the age of forty he resigned with the rank of general-lieutenant, and made his home at one of his estates which were scattered about over the sources of the Medvyedítsa River.[4] The estates were, however, not very large, all in all, probably about two thousand five hundred souls (serfs), and during the leisure which came to him in his country retirement, he had eight children; our Rakhmétof was the next to the youngest; he had one younger
- ↑ The ending vitch, contracted into uitch, itch, is equivalent to son in English, or Mac in Scotch. Kirill Kirilluitch therefore means, Cyril the son of Cyril.
- ↑ Okólnitchi.
- ↑ Shuválof was the minister and lover of the Empress Elizabeth, and founded the University of Moscow.
- ↑ The Medvyedítsa River rises in the province of Saratof, between the Don and the Volga.
