GOLIATH, the name of the giant by slaying whom David achieved renown (1 Sam. xvii.). The Philistines had come up to make war against Saul and, as the rival camps lay opposite each other, this warrior came forth day by day to challenge to single combat. Only David ventured to respond, and armed with a sling and pebbles he overcame Goliath. The Philistines, seeing their champion killed, lost heart and were easily put to flight. The giant’s arms were placed in the sanctuary, and it was his famous sword which David took with him in his flight from Saul (1 Sam. xxi. 1-9). From another passage we learn that Goliath of Gath, “the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam,” was slain by a certain Elhanan of Bethlehem in one of David’s conflicts with the Philistines (2 Sam. xxi. 18-22)—the parallel 1 Chron. xx. 5, avoids the contradiction by reading the “brother of Goliath.” But this old popular story has probably preserved the more original tradition, and if Elhanan is the son of Dodo in the list of David’s mighty men (2 Sam. xxiii. 9, 24), the resemblance between the two names may have led to the transference. The narratives of David’s early life point to some exploit by means of which he gained the favour of Saul, Jonathan and Israel, but the absence of all reference to his achievement in the subsequent chapters (1 Sam. xxi. 11, xxix. 5) is evidence of the relatively late origin of a tradition which in course of time became one of the best-known incidents in David’s life (Ps. cxliv., LXX. title, the apocryphal Ps. cli., Ecclus. xlvii. 4).
See David; Samuel (Books) and especially Cheyne, Aids and Devout Study of Criticism, pp. 80 sqq., 125 sqq. In the old Egyptian romance of Sinuhit (ascribed to about 2000 B.C.), the story of the slaying of the Bedouin hero has several points of resemblance with that of David and Goliath. See L. B. Paton, Hist. of Syr. and Pal., p. 60; A. Jeremias, Das A. T. im Lichte d. alten Orients, 2nd ed. pp. 299, 491; A. R. S. Kennedy, Century Bible: Samuel, p. 122, argues that David’s Philistine adversary was originally nameless, in 1 Sam. xvii. he is named only in v. 4.
GOLITSUIN, BORIS ALEKSYEEVICH (1654–1714), Russian
statesman, came of a princely family, claiming descent from
Prince Gedimin of Lithuania. Earlier members of the family
were Mikhail (d. c. 1552), a famous soldier, and his great-grandson
Vasily Vasilevich (d. 1619), who was sent as ambassador to Poland
to offer the Russian crown to Prince Ladislaus. Boris became
court chamberlain in 1676. He was the young tsar Peter’s chief
supporter when, in 1689, Peter resisted the usurpations of his
elder sister Sophia, and the head of the loyal council which
assembled at the Troitsa monastery during the crisis of the struggle.
Golitsuin it was who suggested taking refuge in that strong
fortress and won over the boyars of the opposite party. In 1690
he was created a boyar and shared with Lev Naruishkin, Peter’s
uncle, the conduct of home affairs. After the death of the
tsaritsa Natalia, Peter’s mother, in 1694, his influence increased
still further. He accompanied Peter to the White Sea (1694–1695);
took part in the Azov campaign (1695); and was one of
the triumvirate who ruled Russia during Peter’s first foreign
tour (1697–1698). The Astrakhan rebellion (1706), which affected
all the districts under his government, shook Peter’s confidence
in him, and seriously impaired his position. In 1707 he was
superseded in the Volgan provinces by Andrei Matvyeev. A
year before his death he entered a monastery. Golitsuin was a
typical representative of Russian society of the end of the 17th
century in its transition from barbarism to civilization. In
many respects he was far in advance of his age. He was highly
educated, spoke Latin with graceful fluency, frequented the society
of scholars and had his children carefully educated according
to the best European models. Yet this eminent, this superior
personage was an habitual drunkard, an uncouth savage who
intruded upon the hospitality of wealthy foreigners, and was not
ashamed to seize upon any dish he took a fancy to, and send it
home to his wife. It was his reckless drunkenness which
ultimately ruined him in the estimation of Peter the Great,
despite his previous inestimable services.
See S. Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), vol. xiv. (Moscow, 1858); R. N. Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)
GOLITSUIN, DMITRY MIKHAILOVICH (1665–1737),
Russian statesman, was sent in 1697 to Italy to learn “military
affairs”; in 1704 he was appointed to the command of an
auxiliary corps in Poland against Charles XII.; from 1711 to
1718 he was governor of Byelogorod. In 1718 he was appointed
president of the newly erected Kammer Kollegium and a senator.
In May 1723 he was implicated in the disgrace of the vice-chancellor
Shafirov and was deprived of all his offices and
dignities, which he only recovered through the mediation of the
empress Catherine I. After the death of Peter the Great,
Golitsuin became the recognized head of the old Conservative
party which had never forgiven Peter for putting away Eudoxia
and marrying the plebeian Martha Skavronskaya. But the
reformers, as represented by Alexander Menshikov and Peter
Tolstoi, prevailed; and Golitsuin remained in the background
till the fall of Menshikov, 1727. During the last years of Peter II.
(1728–1730), Golitsuin was the most prominent statesman in
Russia and his high aristocratic theories had full play. On the
death of Peter II. he conceived the idea of limiting the autocracy
by subordinating it to the authority of the supreme privy council,
of which he was president. He drew up a form of constitution
which Anne of Courland, the newly elected Russian empress,
was forced to sign at Mittau before being permitted to proceed to
St Petersburg. Anne lost no time in repudiating this constitution,
and never forgave its authors. Golitsuin was left in peace, however,
and lived for the most part in retirement, till 1736, when he
was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the conspiracy
of his son-in-law Prince Constantine Cantimir. This, however,
was a mere pretext, it was for his anti-monarchical sentiments
that he was really prosecuted. A court, largely composed of
his antagonists, condemned him to death, but the empress
reduced the sentence to lifelong imprisonment in Schlüsselburg
and confiscation of all his estates. He died in his prison on the
14th of April 1737, after three months of confinement.
See R. N. Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great (London, 1897). (R. N. B.)
GOLITSUIN, VASILY VASILEVICH (1643–1714), Russian
statesman, spent his early days at the court of Tsar Alexius
where he gradually rose to the rank of boyar. In 1676 he was
sent to the Ukraine to keep in order the Crimean Tatars and
took part in the Chigirin campaign. Personal experience of the
inconveniences and dangers of the prevailing system of preferment,
the so-called myestnichestvo, or rank priority, which had
paralysed the Russian armies for centuries, induced him to propose
its abolition, which was accomplished by Tsar Theodore III.
(1678). The May revolution of 1682 placed Golitsuin at the
head of the Posolsky Prikaz, or ministry of foreign affairs, and
during the regency of Sophia, sister of Peter the Great, whose
lover he became, he was the principal minister of state (1682–1689)
and “keeper of the great seal,” a title bestowed upon
only two Russians before him, Athonasy Orduin-Nashchokin
and Artamon Matvyeev. In home affairs his influence was
insignificant, but his foreign policy was distinguished by the
peace with Poland in 1683, whereby Russia at last recovered
Kiev. By the terms of the same treaty, he acceded to the
grand league against the Porte, but his two expeditions against
the Crimea (1687 and 1689), “the First Crimean War,” were
unsuccessful and made him extremely unpopular. Only with the
utmost difficulty could Sophia get the young tsar Peter to
decorate the defeated commander-in-chief as if he had returned
a victor. In the civil war between Sophia and Peter (August–September
1689), Golitsuin half-heartedly supported his mistress
and shared her ruin. His life was spared owing to the supplications
of his cousin Boris, but he was deprived of his boyardom,
his estates were confiscated and he was banished successively to
Kargopol, Mezen and Kologora, where he died on the 21st of
April 1714. Golitsuin was unusually well educated. He understood
German and Greek as well as his mother-tongue, and could
express himself fluently in Latin. He was a great friend of
foreigners, who generally alluded to him as “the great Golitsuin.”
His brother Mikhail (1674–1730) was a celebrated soldier, who is best known for his governorship of Finland (1714–1721), where his admirable qualities earned the remembrance of the people whom he had conquered. And Mikhail’s son Alexander (1718–1783)
