Honours
On 15 October 1800, Bagration was granted the hereditary title of a Prince of the Russian Empire (Kniaz Bagration) by the Emperor Paul I. He was also appointed as a Knight of the Orders of St Andrew (1810), of St. Alexander Nevsky (1807), of the St Vladimir, 1st class (1809), of the St Anna, 1st class (1800), the St George 2nd class (1805) and as a Commander of Justice of the Order of St John of Malta (1800). He was further honoured with a gold sword of honour for bravery (1808). Bagration's foreign awards also included the Prussian Orders of the Red Eagle (1807) and the Black Eagle (1807), the Austrian Military Order of Maria Theresa, 2nd class (1799) and the Sardinian Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, 1st Class (1799).
Tsar Nicholas I had a monument erected in his honour on the battlefield of Borodino. The general's remains were transferred to the place where he had fallen and remain there to this day. The grave was blown up during World War II (reputedly, the local museum authorities only were able to save shreds of bone and cloth from the grave) but has since then been restored.
Joseph Stalin chose Bagration as the name of the Soviet offensive launched on 22 June 1944 that defeated the German Army Group Centre and drove the forces of Nazi Germany out of what is now Belarus. After the war, the Soviet Union annexed northern East Prussia, and the until-then German town of Preußisch Eylau —the scene of the 1807 battle—was renamed Bagrationovsk in his memory. In Moscow, the Bagration Bridge, which commemorates the 850th year of the city is named in his honour.
Read more about this topic: Pyotr Bagration
Famous quotes containing the word honours:
“If a novel reveals true and vivid relationships, it is a moral work, no matter what the relationships consist in. If the novelist honours the relationship in itself, it will be a great novel.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais’d by breath of Kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing’s a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn’d to that dirt from whence he sprung.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)