The legendary founder of the Engelhardt dynasty, Carl Bernhard von Engelhardt, served as a knight in the Third Crusade, which was launched to liberate the Holy Sepulchre. During that campaign, he is said to have received the surname Engelhardt for saving the life of the French kingPhilip II Augustus in the Siege of Acre. The documented origins of the family lie in Switzerland, where Heinrich von Engelhardt is mentioned in the years 1383–1390 as a citizen and councillor in Zurich. In the early fifteenth century, Georg von Engelhardt lived in Livonia. From him descend all the nobles and barons of the Engelhardt family in the Russian Empire. The first Engelhardt to become a Russian subject was Werner von Engelhardt, who had previously served in the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He converted to the Russian State religion, accepting Orthodoxy and taking the baptismal name, Yeremey Kasparovich Engelgardt. He died before 1672. His son Sigismund was a Muscovite noble and stolnik and a lieutenant in the Smolensk gentry. Other sons of Werner were Georg and Johann, who also served as stolniks. The noble family of Engelhardt is recorded in Book VI of the genealogy of the province of Smolensk, and its coat of arms is included in Part VI of the General Armorial. The baronial line of Engelhardt is recorded in Part V of the genealogy books of the provinces of Yaroslava, Ekaterinoslavskaya, and Kursk. While most of the Baltic branches of the family remained predominantly Lutheran and Germanised, the other branches that lived in Russia became highly Russified and many family members had since converted to Orthodoxy.
Accomplishments
The house of Engelhardt has produced many distinguished and well known charitable works — the building of churches and hospitals, large donations to universities, public libraries and observatories, free land for the construction of railways and other public purposes, and the liberation of serfs. The Engelhardt name has been attached to a scientific institute in Moscow, the observatory of Kazan University, the gold medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the main railway station in Smolensk, a crater on the moon, an asteroid, and a star in the constellation Cygnus.
The Potemkin nieces
Elena Aleksandrovna, the sister of Grigory Potemkin, was married to Vasily Andreyevich Engelhardt. Their six daughters, being nieces of Potemkin, were imperial favorites and featured prominently in the court of Catherine II and the subsequent reign. Potemkin doted on his nieces and bequeathed to them some of his great wealth. The six Potemkin nieces were:
Barbara Engelhardt, who married Prince Sergey Feodorovich Golitsyn.
Anna Sofia Engelhardt, who married Mikhail Mikhailovich Zhukov, Governor of Astrakhan.
Nadejda Engelhardt, whose first marriage in 1775 was to Colonel Pavel Alekseevich Izmailov and second to Peter Shepelev.
Catherine Engelhardt, whose first marriage was to Count Paul Martynovich Skavronsky and second to Count Giulio Litta.
Tatiana Engelhardt, whose first marriage was to Count Mikhail Sergeevich Potemkin, her mother's and her uncle's cousin, and second in 1793 to Prince Nikolai Borisovich Yusupov.
Notable Engelhardts
William Karpovich Engelhardt : general, and Lieutenant Governor of Vyborg.
Nikolai Fedorovich Engelhardt, brother of Valerian F. Engelhardt: Lieutenant General, and Commander of the 15th Infantry Division in the Sevastopol campaign of 1854–55.
Baron Gustav Moritz Constantin : professor and Dean of the Theological Faculty of the University of Dorpat.
