Background
Alexey Borisovich Lobanov-Rostovsky was born on December 18, 1824 in Voronezh, Russian Federation. Descended from the legendary prince Rurik.
Diplomat Foreign Minister genealogist statesman
Alexey Borisovich Lobanov-Rostovsky was born on December 18, 1824 in Voronezh, Russian Federation. Descended from the legendary prince Rurik.
Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky was educated at Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.
At the age of twenty, Alexey Borisovich entered the diplomatic service and became minister at Constantinople in 1859. At the close of the Russo-Turkish war in 1878, he was selected by Alexander II as ambassador to Constantinople, and for more than a year he carried out with great ability the policy of his government, which aimed at re-establishing tranquility in the Eastern Question after the disturbances produced by the reckless action of his predecessor, Count Ignatiev. In 1879 he was transferred to London, and in 1882 to Vienna.
In East Asia he was not less active. By the Yamagata-Lobanov Agreement, Japan was compelled to give up her conquests in Northeast China, so as not to interfere with the future actions of St. Petersburg in Manchuria and financial and political schemes for increasing czarist influence in that part of the world were vigorously supported. All this activity did not produce much general apprehension, probably because there was a widespread conviction that he desired to maintain peace, and that his great ability and strength of character would enable him to control the dangerous forces which he boldly set in motion. However this may be, before he had time to mature his schemes, and when he had been the director of Russian policy for only eighteen months, he died suddenly of heart disease when travelling with the emperor on August 30, 1896.
Prince Lobanov-Rostovskiy was a grand aristocrat of the Russian type, proud of being descended from the independent princes of Rostov, and at the same time an amiable man of wide culture, deeply versed in Russian history and genealogy, and perhaps the first authority of his time in all that related to the reign of Tsar Paul I (1754-1801). His extensive collection of coins, particularly those minted by the Russians during their occupation of Königsberg in 1758-1761, was acquired by the Russian Museum.