Buturlin, Aleksandr Borisovich

Born June 18, 1694; died Aug. 31, 1767, in Moscow. Russian field marshal (1756) and count (1760).

Buturlin graduated from the Naval Academy (1720), was an orderly of Peter I, and carried out secret missions for him. He participated in the Persian campaign of 1722-23 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1735-39. Buturlin’s advancement is associated with the reign of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, whose favorite he was. In 1760 and 1761, as commander in chief of the Russian Army in the Seven Years’ War of 1756-63, he acted very indecisively. He was recalled and appointed governor-general of Moscow, a post he had held before the war from the beginning of the 1740’s.