Golitzin Gallitzin, or Galitzin, a princely Russian family, numerous members of which have distinguished themselves as soldiers, statesmen, or authors. Their origin is traced to Gedemin, prince of Lithuania and the ancestor of the Jagi-ellos.-Mikhail commanded in 1514 a Russian army against the Poles under Prince Ostrog-ski, was defeated, taken, and held in captivity for 38 years, together with his brother Dimi-tri, who died in the last year of their detention. Released by King Sigismund Augustus, Mikhail was received with distinction by the czar, but retired to a convent, where he died. -Vasili defended Novgorod against the first pseudo-Demetrius, but soon followed the example of Basmanoff in espousing the cause of the pretender (1605); murdered the son and widow of Boris Godunoff, his late master; was rewarded by the usurper, but conspired against him, and contributed to his fall and violent death (see Demetrius); took part also in the conspiracy which overthrew his successor, Basil Shuiski, and was a chief member of the deputation which offered the throne of Moscow to Ladislas, the son of Sigismund III. of Poland. Offended by the conditions of the offer, the Polish king held the Russian envoys in arrest at Kiev, where Vasili died before the termination of the war between the two states.-Vasili, surnamed the Great, born in 1633, received a classical education, fought against the Turks, Crimean Tartars, and Cossacks, and was made attaman of the latter; was active in bringing about the great reforms of Czar Feodor Alexeyevitch; was treated after the death of that czar with particular distinction by his sister, the princess regent Sophia; concluded in 1686 a favorable treaty with Poland; commanded in a new expedition against the Tartars of the Crimea; promoted the ambitious designs of Sophia against her brother Peter the Great, and fell with her.

He was banished first to Yarensk in the government of Vologda, and then to a dreary district in the government of Archangel, where he died.-Mikhail, born in 1674, served in the guards of Peter the Great, and accompanied that monarch on his various campaigns; distinguished himself at the taking of Schlusselburg; won a victory over the Swedes at Dobry in Lithuania (1708); defeated the re-enforcements of Charles XII. under Gen. Lo-wenhaupt at Liesna; fought in the battle of Poltava (1709), and a few days after compelled the remnants of the Swedish army to surrender; accompanied the czar on his disastrous expedition to the Pruth (1711); and was sent as commander general to Finland, where he was victorious on land and sea, and remained till the peace of Nystadt (1721). He was made field marshal by Catharine I., was also distinguished during the reign of Peter II., and died in Moscow in December, 1730.-Alexandee, son of the preceding, born in November, 1718, served under Prince Eugene on the Rhine (1733), fought in the seven years' war, commanded a Russian army on the Dniester in 1768, took Khotin, and died in 1783.-Dimitri, born in 1721, was ambassador to the court of Vienna, became by his will the founder of a magnificent hospital in Moscow, and died in 1793.-Dimitri, born about 1735, was sent as ambassador to France in 1763, and in 1773 to the Hague; wrote on natural sciences, and died in 1803. Among his works are a Description de la Tau-ride (1788), and a Traite de la mineralogie (1792).-Amalia, wife of the preceding, born in Berlin, Aug. 28, 1748, lived for a time in separation from her husband near the Hague, and subsequently at Munster in Westphalia, where she became the centre of a circle of pietistic writers, being herself remarkable for literary accomplishments as well as personal attractions.

She contributed not only to the peculiar religious development of her son Demetrius (see Gallitzin, Demeteius Augus-tixe), but also to the conversion of Count Friedrich von Stolberg to Catholicism. She died Aug. 24, 1806.-Sergei fought against the Turks, under Potemkin, against the Poles in 1794, and against the Austrians in Galicia in 1809, commanding the troops which assisted the Poles to drive back the archduke Ferdinand, when he died.-Emanuil, born in Paris in 1804, entered the Russian army, distinguished himself at the taking of Varna, returned to France, travelled through Russia and other countries, wrote, translated, and edited in French a number of works on Russia and its literature, especially descriptions of travels, and died at Paris in 1853.