Leslie (Russian nobility) explained

Surname:	Leslie
Native Name Lang:	Лесли
Coat Of Arms:	RU_COA_LESLIE.jpg
Caption:	Arms of family Leslie
Country:	Russian Empire
Estates:	,
Parent House:	Leslie baronets

The Leslie family is the name of Russian noble family of Scottish origin.

History

Descendants of Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul, who was a Scottish soldier in Swedish and General in Russian service. In 1654 he wrested Smolensk from the Poles and became the Tsar's governor/voivode there. Auchintoul fought for the Montrosians in the English Civil War. He was the son of William Leslie, third laird of Crichie, a branch of the Balquhain Leslies.^[1] He was commander of Russian forces during the Siege of Smolensk (1654), one of the first great events of the Russo-Polish War (1654–67).^[2]

Descendants

• Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul, General and voivode of Smolensk, owner of manor had three sons, Colonel^[3] Alexander, Yakov-John and Colonel Fedor-Theodore (?-1695), commander of .
  • John Leslie of Balquhain, son of General Alexander Leslie, was a Scottish cavalry colonel in Russian service killed in the storming of Igolwitz castle on 30 August 1655,^[4] he married a daughter of Colonel Crawford in Muscovy, though there are at least three Crawfords with that rank in the Russian service, so it's not entirely clear who is meant.^[5]

Family had several generals during Great Northern War, War of the Polish Succession and Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739).

• Leslie, Dmitri Egorovich, (1748—1815) — major general, chief of .
• , (1758—1826) - commander of Smolensk Zemskoe Narodnoe Opolcheniye in 1812.^[6]
• Leslie, Yuri Federovich, (? — 1737) — major general, under command of Generalfeldmarschall Peter Lacy in Siege of Danzig (1734).

Notes and References

1. W. Barnhill and P. Dukes, 'North-east Scots in Muscovy in the seventeenth century' in Northern Scotland, vol. 1, no. 1, 1972
2. http://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/diariesofpatrickgordon.shtml Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries 1635-1699
3. D. Fedosov, The Caledonian Connection, Aberdeen, 1996
4. https://archive.org/stream/historicalrecord03lesluoft/historicalrecord03lesluoft_djvu.txt Historical records of the Family of Leslie from 1067 to 1868/69, Printed by R. Clark, Einburgh, 1869
5. D. Fedosov in the Caledonian Connection in Aberdeen, 1996 and Dukes in "Aberdeen and North-east Scotland: some archival and other sources", in The Study of Russian History from British Archival Sources, 1986, p. 54.
6. http://adjudant.ru/1812militia/smolensk1812-12.htm Smolensk Noble Opolcheniye 1812