Fabian Steinheil

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.

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 Arseniy Zakrevskiy.

He remained in Finland and died in Helsinki 1831.

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