Shein, Aleksei


Shein, Aleksei Semenovich


Born 1662; died Feb. 12, 1700. Military leader and state figure of Russia; great-grandson ofM. B. Shein.

A. S. Shein received the rank of boyar in 1682 and that of blizhnii, or privy, boyar in 1695. He served as voevoda (military governor) in Kursk in 1683 and 1684. Shein was one of the military commanders who fought in the Crimean campaigns of 1687 and 1689 and in the Azov Campaign of 1695. He was commander in chief of the land forces in the Azov Campaign of 1696 and was granted the title generalissimo.

During the period of the Great Embassy, Shein was appointed by Peter I as commander in chief of the Russian Army and head of three military prikazy (offices). Shein defeated large Crimean Tatar and Nogai forces in 1697 and suppressed the uprising of the strel’tsy (semiprofessional musketeers) in 1698.
