On December 10, 1698, 320 years ago, Peter the Great established the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, which became the highest state award of the Russian Empire for many centuries - until 1917.
Why was the order in honor of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called chosen as the highest award? To understand this choice of Peter the Great, it is necessary to plunge a little into the history of the beginning of our era, to dwell on the personality of the Apostle Andrew himself. As we know, the Apostle Andrew was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. He was the brother of the Apostle Peter, who is considered the "senior" among the disciples of Christ.
Like Peter, Andrew was a fisherman by profession, a native of Bethsaida on the northern shore of Lake Galilee. The Life of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called tells that, together with his brother Peter (Simon at birth), the Apostle Andrew moved from Bethsaida to Capernaum, where the brothers got their own house, and they continued to fish. Then Andrew became a disciple of John the Baptist, and from him came to Jesus.
After the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, his twelve disciples divided among themselves those countries where they were to carry the preaching of Christianity. Andrew received the Black Sea lands - Bithynia and Propontis with the cities of Byzantium and Chalcedon, Thrace and Macedonia, Thessaly, Hellas and Achaia, Scythia. Thus, the Apostle Andrew preached on the shores of the Black Sea, on the territory of modern Turkey, Greece, Georgia and Russia. There is still no clarity as to whether Andrew the First-Called was in Scythia. Already Eusebius of Caesarea in the first half of the 4th century spoke of Andrew's ministry in Scythia. This version was confirmed by a number of church historians, but there were also doubters. Subsequently N. M. Karamzin in his "History of the Russian State" also expressed doubt about the truth of the journey of St. Andrew the First-Called across Scythia.
But, in any case, the name of Andrew the First-Called became associated with patronage, firstly, the profession of a sailor (after all, Andrei himself was a fisherman by his original occupation), and secondly, with the patronage of the Russian state. By order of Vladimir Monomakh, Abbot of the Vydubitsky monastery Sylvester introduced into the "Tale of Bygone Years" a story about the journey of Andrew the First-Called from Crimea to Rome through Ladoga. Thus, the history of the appearance of the first Christians in Russia began to be associated with the name of Andrew the First-Called.
However, the official version was criticized and questioned by even church historians, not to mention secular ones. Even the Monk Joseph of Volokolamsk (1440-1515) in his "Enlightener" wrote that Andrew the First-Called did not preach in the Russian lands. Nevertheless, if the official tradition ascribed to Andrew the First-Called going to the Russian lands, he began to be considered the patron saint of Russian statehood.
Why did Peter the First take care of creating an award in honor of the apostle? After all, the famous St. Andrew's flag in honor of the Apostle Andrew was also developed under Peter the Great, and with his direct personal participation. Most likely, Peter the Great drew attention to the symbolism associated with Andrew the First-Called, studying Western experience - the flag with the oblique cross of the Apostle Andrew was already in use in Scotland by this time. But the creation of the order and the introduction of the flag was not blind borrowing - after all, Andrew the First-Called was honored as the patron saint of Russia long before Peter.
What was the order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called? First, it included a sign (cross), the key image of which was the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called himself, crucified on an oblique cross, and a silver eight-pointed star with the motto "For Faith and Faithfulness." The badge of the order was worn on a wide blue ribbon over the right shoulder, and a star was worn on the left side of the chest. In special cases, the badge of the order could be worn on the chest, on a golden figured chain.
Peter the Great took the new order very seriously. The first holder of the order was Fyodor Golovin. One of the most prominent statesmen of the era of Peter, Fyodor Golovin was an excellent diplomat, head of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, but was also responsible for the construction of Russian ships, training of naval personnel, and the activities of the Navigation School. The Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called was granted to him in 1699, immediately after the creation of the order and almost simultaneously with the conferment of the rank of admiral-general.
The Second Knight of the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called was not lucky. In 1700, the order was presented by Peter the Great to the hetman of the Zaporizhzhya Sich Ivan Mazepa. Of course, this figure cannot be compared with Fyodor Golovin, but Peter, presenting the order to the hetman, was guided by political considerations and tried to finally win the hetman to the side of Russia. But this plan did not work out for Peter - Mazepa still betrayed the tsar and in 1706 he was deprived of the order. In 1701, the order found a third cavalier - it was the Prussian ambassador to Russia Ludwig von Prinzen. With this award, Peter also pursued political goals, seeking to enlist the support of Prussia as one of the most powerful Central European countries.
Thus, of the first three holders of the order for real services to the country, only Admiral General Fyodor Golovin received it. On December 30, 1701 (January 10, 1702), the order was awarded to Field Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetev for the victory at Erestfer over the Swedish army. It was he who commanded the Russian troops that invaded Swedish Livonia.
The fifth holder of the order was again a man who did not make a real contribution to the strengthening of our state - in 1703 Peter presented the order to the Chancellor of Saxony, Count Beichling.
Peter the Great himself became only the sixth holder of the order, having received it in 1703 for a concrete and real military feat - the capture of two Swedish warships at the mouth of the Neva. For the same event, his seventh cavalier, Alexander Menshikov, was also awarded the order. In total, during the long reign of Peter the First, 38 people were awarded the Order. Further, the awards were as follows: under Catherine I, 18 people were awarded the order, under Peter II - five people, under Anna Ioannovna - 24 people, under Elizabeth Petrovna - 83 people, under Peter III - 15 people, under Catherine II - 100 people. That is, as we can see, the number of those awarded was growing. But this is not surprising - the era of Catherine II, for example, really gave our country many outstanding names, was associated with numerous victories of the Russian Empire, strengthening its position in the world political arena.
Among the holders of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called were almost all the famous Russian generals and naval commanders of the 18th and 19th centuries - Peter Rumyantsev, Alexander Suvorov, Grigory Potemkin, Fedor Apraksin, Mikhail Kutuzov, Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, Peter Wittgenstein, Mikhail Miloradovich, Peter Bagration, Matvey Platov, Fabian Osten-Sacken, Alexander Tormasov.
It is interesting that in 1807, in honor of the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit, Napoleon Bonaparte was awarded the highest order of the Russian Empire, as well as several French military and statesmen at once - the brother of the Emperor Jerome Bonaparte, Marshals Joachim Murat and Louis Berthier, Prince Charles Talleyrand. Five years later, the holders of the highest Russian award will lead the invasion campaign of the French troops against the Russian Empire.
In 1815, the famous English commander, Duke Arthur Wellington, was awarded the Order for his participation in the wars against Napoleon. It is noteworthy that for the Patriotic War of 1812, only the only Russian commander, General Tormasov, received the order, but there were a lot of awards for the overseas campaign of the Russian army in 1813-1814. (Platov, Miloradovich, Barclay de Tolly, Wittgenstein, Osten-Saken).
In addition to military leaders, members of the Romanov imperial house were awarded the order according to the dynastic principle. There are many holders of the order among Russian statesmen - Chancellor Viktor Kochubei, Count Dmitry Guryev, Count Nikolai Mordvinov, and Count Stanislav Zamoysky. Under Alexander I, a number of foreign statesmen were awarded the order - not only Napoleon and his associates, but also Frederick William III - King of Prussia, Frederick VI - King of Denmark, William IV - King of Great Britain, Charles X - King of France, and so on.
Under Nicholas I, most of the awards were given to Russian and foreign statesmen and leaders of the Orthodox Church. Among the awardees - Moscow Governor-General Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, Count Pyotr Tolstoy, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galitsky Yevgeny, Prince Ivan Paskevich, Field Marshal Ivan Dibich-Zabalkansky, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Filaret, Actual Privy Councilor Dmitry Tatischevich Alexander, General of Infantry Alexei Ermolov and many others.
Under Alexander II, the highest award of the Russian Empire was received, for example, by the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, among many other statesmen of foreign countries. Even the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Aziz, who received it in 1871 (and a few years later, the Russian Empire again entered the war with Ottoman Turkey), was not spared the award.
The last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, also did not skimp on awards. During his reign, many Russian statesmen, monarchs and senior officials of a number of foreign countries received the order. For example, Augustus Wilhelm, Prince of Prussia, was awarded the highest award of the Russian Empire in January 1914, and soon the First World War began, in which the prince actively participated, fighting against Russia. By the way, two decades later he joined the NSDAP and remained a prominent figure in the Nazi movement, for which he was sentenced after the war by an American tribunal to three years in prison. In September 1916, the emperor of Japan Hirohito was awarded the award. Shortly before the February Revolution, on January 27, 1917, King Frederick IX of Denmark received the award.
Thus, we see that historically only extremely significant persons were awarded the order - state, political, military and religious leaders of Russia, as well as foreign states. The possibility of awarding an order to an ordinary person, even if he distinguished himself, defended his native country in battles or had any other merits, was excluded. This was the main feature of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.
The Soviet government eliminated the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, like other awards of the Russian Empire. The Soviet Union introduced its own orders and medals. However, in 1998, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called was restored as the highest state award of the Russian Federation.
Academician Dmitry Likhachev became the first holder of the revived order. Then the order was awarded to designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, Patriarch Alexy II, writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, ex-President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev, President of the PRC Xi Jinping, etc.
Among those awarded the modern Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, the most writers are Solzhenitsyn, Alieva, Gamzatov, Sergei Mikhalkov and Granin. The order was awarded to four scientists and designers - Likhachev, Kalashnikov, Shumakov and Petrovsky, three artists - Zykina, Arkhipova and Grigorovich, one religious figure - Alexy II, one military leader - Sergei Shoigu, one former head of the Soviet state - Mikhail Gorbachev, three foreign heads states - Heydar Aliyev, Nazarbayev and Xi Jinping.
