Fabian Steinheil

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Count Fabian Gotthard von Steinheil (1762 - February 23, 1831) (Фаддей Федорович Штвйнгель, Faddei Fjodorovitš Šteingel) was a Baltic German-born soldier of the Russian Empire who was Governor-General of Finland between 1810 and 1824.

Fabian Steinheil was born in Estonia and became a lieutenant in the Russian army in 1782. He took part in the war in Finland in 1788 and in 1791-92 he worked with construction of fortifications in Old Finland, after which he served in military cartography.

He became a Major General in 1789 and took part in the campaigns in Prussia in 1806-1807 and Poland in 1805-1807. He became a Lieutenant General in 1807 and commanded the Russian troops on Åland in 1809 during the Finnish War.

In 1810 he was appointed as the Governor-General of Finland, to succeed Prince Michael Andrew Barclay de Tolly. He was well regarded by the Finnish population and was made a count in 1812. In 1813 he took part in the war against Napoleon as the commander of an army in Courland and Livonia, and was succeeded as Governor-General by the influential Count Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt. However, due to Armfelt's fragile health, Steinheil soon returned to the post of Governor-General which he held to 1824, being then succeeded by Count Arseni Zakrevski.

He remained in Finland and died in Helsinki 1831.

Preceded by
Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly
Governors of Grand Duchy of Finland
18101813
Succeeded by
Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt
Preceded by
Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt
Governors of Grand Duchy of Finland
18141824
Succeeded by
Arseni Andreyevich Zakrevski