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BARON See also: Russian statesman, one of the ablest coadjutors of See also: Peter the See also: Great, was of obscure, and in all probability of Jewish, extraction
.
He first made himself useful by his extraordinary knowledge of See also: foreign See also: languages
.
He was the chief translator in the Russian Foreign Office for many years, subsequently accompanying Peter on his travels
.
Made a baron and raised to the See also: rank of See also: vice-chancellor, he displayed See also: diplomatic talents of the highest See also: order
.
During the unlucky See also: campaign of 1711, he succeeded against all expectations in concluding the See also: peace of the Pruth (see See also: TURKEY: See also: History)
.
Peter See also: left him in the hands of the See also: Turks as a hostage, and on the rupture of the peace he was imprisoned in the Seven Towers
.
Finally, however, with the aid of the See also: British and Dutch ambassadors, he defeated the See also: diplomacy of See also: Charles XII. of Sweden and his agents, and confirmed the
See also: good relations between See also: Russia and Turkey by the treaty of Adrianople (See also: June 5th, 1713)
.
On the institution of the colleges or departments of See also: state in 1718, Shafirov was appointed vice-president of the department of Foreign Affairs, and a senator
.
In 1723, however, he was deprived of all his offices and sentenced to See also: death
.
The capital See also: sentence was commuted on the See also: scaffold to banishment, first to See also: Siberia and then to Novgorod
.
Peculations and disorderly conduct in the senate were the offences charged against Shafirov, and with some See also: justice
.
On the death of Peter, Shafirov was released from prison and commissioned to write the See also: life of his See also: late master
.
He had previously (1717), in an See also: historical See also: tract on the war with Charles XII., in which Peter himself collaborated,'epitomized, in a high See also: panegyric See also: style, some of the greatest exploits of the See also: tsar-regenerator
.
The successful rivalry of his supplanter, Andrei Osterman, prevented Shafirov from holding any high office during the last fourteen years of his life
.
See B
.
M
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Solovev, History of Russia, vols. xiii.-xvi
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(Rus.) (Peters-See also: burg, 1895)
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(R
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