Frederick Heyden
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count Frederick Maurice van Heyden (Finnish: Fredrik Mauri van Heyden; Russian: Fyodor Logginovich Heiden or Geiden; Dutch: Frederik Maurits, Graaf van Heyden; German: Friedrich Moritz, Reichsgraf van Heyden) (1821–1900) was a general of infantry in Russian service. He served as the Governor-General of Finland 1881–1898.
count van Heyden's 17-year office in Finland encompassed the entire reign of Alexander III (who appointed him at the start of his own reign, to succeed the courtly and diplomatic Count Nicolas Adlerberg), and four first years of reign of Nicholas II.
count van Heyden originated from a paternally Dutch family that settled to Latvia-Estonia in late 18th century, because of Napoleon's occupation of the Netherlands. His father was admiral count Lodewijk van Heyden, Governor-General of Riga, and mother was lady Anne-Marie Akeleye from a Norwegian family.
Youngest son of his family, count van Heyden advanced through military career, and switched his religion from Protestantism to Eastern Orthodox.
He married 1854 countess Elisabeth Zubov (1833-1894) whose father Nicholas Zubov was Steward of imperial court, and mother was countess Alexandra Remond de Modene.
As actually very usual with persons who adopted themselves a new nationality, count van Heyden became eagerly Russian.
In his position in Finland, the slavophile van Heyden saw his task to russificate the country. However, his reputation among the Finns is not very bad, because of his subtle methods - his successor, general Bobrikov, enjoys a really contrasting fame of a russifying tyrant.
Count van Heyden supported use of Finnish as language of administration, university and military. In appointments to all sorts of public offices (government, administration, justice, military) he favored persons who had learned well the Russian language and resided longer times there.
count van Heyden furthered trade between Finland and Russia, and had customs formalities reduced.
His one interest was to clarify the legal position of Finland - to make clear definitions what belonged to decision-making of the imperial government, what to autonomous and local governments in Finland.
