GOLOVKIN, GAVRIIL IVANOVICH, COUNT (166o , Russian statesman, was attached (1677), while still a lad, to the court of the tsarevitch Peter, afterwards Peter the Great, with whose mother Natalia he was connected, and vigilantly guarded him during the regency of Sophia. He accompanied the young tsar abroad on his first foreign tour, and worked by his side in the dockyards of Saardam. In 1706 he took over the direction of foreign affairs, and was created the first Russian grand-chancellor on the field of Poltava (17o9). Golovkin held this office for 25 years. Under Catherine I. he became a member of the supreme privy council; the empress also entrusted him with her last will whereby she appointed the young Peter II. her succes sor and Golovkin one of his guardians. On the death of Peter II. in 173o he declared in favour of Anne, duchess of Courland, in opposition to the aristocratic Dolgorukis and Golitsyns, and his determined support of the autocracy wrecked the proposed con stitution, which would have converted Russia into a limited mon archy. Under Anne he was a member of the first cabinet formed in Russia. He was one of the wealthiest, and at the same time one of the stingiest, magnates of his day. His ignorance of any language but his own made his intercourse with foreign ministers very inconvenient.
See R. N Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great