Eduard de Stoeckl

Eduard was born in 1804 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, where his father, Andreas von Stoeckl, was serving as an Austrian diplomat. His mother was Maria Pisani (daughter of Nicolas Pisani, Russian dragoman in Constantinople).{{cite book |last1=Testa |first1=Marie de |last2=Gautier |first2=Antoine |title=Drogmans et diplomates européens auprès de la porte ottomane |date=2003 |publisher=Isis |isbn=978-975-428-258-0 |page=463 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QEtpAAAAMAAJ |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=fr}}

Image:Alaska purchase.jpg on March 30, 1867. L-R: Robert S. Chew, William H. Seward, William Hunter, Mr. Bodisco, Eduard de Stoeckl, Charles Sumner and Frederick W. Seward.]]

From 1844 to 1854, he served as secretary of the Russian Legation at Washington and, from 1849 to 1851, chargé d'affaires of the Russian embassy in Washington, and in 1854 held the post of minister, vacant after death of Aleksandr Bodisko.{{cite book |last1=States |first1=United |title=The Statutes at Large and Treaties of the United States of America from ... |date=1855 |publisher=Dennis |page=1107 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Statutes_at_Large_and_Treaties_of_th/Hh43AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1107 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}

Stoeckl established close friendly relations with many American officials and politicians, including the senator and the future Secretary of State William H. Seward, with whom he would later negotiate the Alaska purchase.

Stoeckl advocated the sale of Alaska (then known as Russian America) to the United States, asserting that this would prevent the United Kingdom from seizing the territory in case of war between the two countries and would allow Russia to concentrate its resources on Eastern Siberia, particularly the Amur River area. He also insisted that by doing so, Russia would avoid any future conflict with the United States, viewing further U.S. expansion in North America as inevitable.{{cite book |last1=Emmerson |first1=Charles |title=The Future History of the Arctic |date=2 March 2010 |publisher=PublicAffairs |isbn=978-1-58648-636-5 |page=67 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Future_History_of_the_Arctic/bsAiBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA67 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}

Stoeckl signed the Alaska Treaty in March 1867.{{cite news |last1=Gershkovich |first1=Evan |title=150 Years After Sale of Alaska, Some Russians Have Second Thoughts |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/world/europe/alaska-russia-sale-150.html |access-date=3 January 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=30 March 2017}} For successfully carrying out the negotiation, Tsar Alexander II rewarded him with US$25,000 and an annual pension of $6,000.{{cite book |last1=Cooper |first1=William J. |title=We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860-April 1861 |date=11 September 2012 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-307-96088-7 |page=254 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/We_Have_the_War_Upon_Us/Ui3ZW-FEGQ8C&pg=PA254 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}

Due to declining health, Stoeckl resigned in 1869 and was made a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle on 20 April 1869. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, they came to London and lived in the Claridge Hotel on Brook Street, London. He spent the final years of his life in France at 59 Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris where he died in 1892.{{cite news |last1=Stoeckel |first1=Herbert J. |title=How America Got Its Biggest Bargain |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/hartford-courant-how-america-got-its-big/137975975/ |access-date=3 January 2024 |work=Hartford Courant |date=6 Nov 1949 |language=en}}

File:Agnes, Baroness de Stoeckl.jpg

Like his predecessor as Minister to the United States, Stoeckl married an American woman, Eliza Wetmore Howard (1826–1913), a daughter of lawyer John Howard and Mary Stoddard ({{nee}} Dwight) Howard of Springfield, Massachusetts,{{cite book |last1=Chapin |first1=Charles Wells |title=Sketches of the Old Inhabitants and Other Citizens of Old Springfield of the Present Century: And Its Historic Mansions of "ye Olden Tyme" |date=1893 |publisher=Press of Springfield Print. and Binding Company |page=230 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_of_the_Old_Inhabitants_and_Othe/tZ7DxtElwBoC&pg=PA230 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}} on 2 January 1856.{{cite book |last1=Andrews |first1=Charles McLean |title=The Ancestors and Descendants of Ezekiel Williams of Wethersfield 1608-1907 |date=1907 |publisher=Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company Print] priv. print. |page=65 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Ancestors_and_Descendants_of_Ezekiel/54hbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA65 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Russell |first1=William Howard |title=William Howard Russell's Civil War: Private Diary and Letters, 1861-1862 |date=1 September 2008 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-3200-0 |page=29 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/William_Howard_Russell_s_Civil_War/0fPpjI6DVK0C&pg=PA29 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}} Together, they were the parents of:

• Alexandre de Stoeckl (1862–1926), who married heiress Agnes Barron, a daughter of Capt. William Barron and Fanny Louisa Lonergan, in 1892.{{cite news |title=The marriage of Baron Alexandre de Stoeckl with Miss Agnes Barron |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-morning-post-marriage-of-alexandre-d/137974899/ |access-date=3 January 2024 |work=The Morning Post |date=2 Jul 1892 |language=en}} He was attaché to the Russian Embassy in London, equerry to Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich, and chamberlain to Emperor Nicholas II.

Stoeckl died in Paris on 26 January 1892. His widow lived at 3 Rue de Logelbach in Paris.{{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Henry |title=The Letters of Henry Adams |date=1982 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-52686-0 |pages=499, 578 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Letters_of_Henry_Adams/_srf4EL4DwAC&pg=PA855 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}

Through his son, he was posthumously a grandfather of Zoia de Stoeckl (b. 1893), who married Alfons Aleksander Koziełł-Poklewski (a grandson of Alfons Koziełł-Poklewski), a member of the Polish nobility. Zoia was a friend of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent.{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Celia |title=HRH The Duke of Kent: A Life of Service |date=19 October 2015 |publisher=eBook Versions |isbn=978-1-84396-351-6 |page=315 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/HRH_The_Duke_of_Kent/BBkvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT315 |access-date=3 January 2024 |language=en}}

Eduard de Stoeckl is a character in the historical novel Forty-Ninth by Boris Pronsky and Craig Britton.{{Cite book|title=Forty-Ninth|isbn=9798201386238|pages=88–91, 145–157}}

• Marie de Testa & Antoine Gautier, Le diplomate russe Eduard de Stoeckl (ca 1805-1892) et la cession de l'Alaska aux Etats-Unis, in Drogmans et diplomates européens auprès de la Porte ottomane, éditions ISIS, Istanbul, 2003, pp. 463–469.

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Category:1804 births

Category:1892 deaths

Category:Diplomats of the Russian Empire

Category:Russian colonization of North America

Category:Privy Councillor (Russian Empire)