Artemy Volynsky

Artemy Petrovich Volynsky was a Russian statesman and diplomat. His career started as a soldier but was rapidly upgraded to ambassador to Safavid Iran, and later as Governor of Astrakhan during the reign of Peter the Great. He was later accused of corruption and stripped of nearly all his powers, before Catherine I of Russia sent him to govern the vast Governorate of Kazan. Anna of Russia appointed Volynsky one of her three chief ministers in 1738. After beating the noted poet Vasily Trediakovsky, Volynsky was arrested on charges of conspiracy and misconduct. Volynsky's archenemy Ernst Johann von Biron had him sentenced to death and beheaded on 27 June 1740.