Fyodor Ushakov, one of the very best naval commanders Russia ever had, just like Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov was widely touted as “invincible”. Attesting to this is the unheard of before fact where Fyodor Ushakov’s fleet, by twice outnumbered by the Turks, lost a hundred times less men. Without losing a single ship, Ushakov routed the Turkish navy 
sinking more than 50 enemy ships and restoring Russia’s dominion on the Black Sea. 

Fyodor Ushakov was born into a family of country gentlemen in central Russia in 1745. After finishing the naval Cadet Corps in 1766, the gifted young warrant officer was given the plum job of commanding the yacht of Empress Catherine II. The appointment promised brilliant career opportunities for Ushakov at the royal court but he still asked to be sent to the Navy. Shortly after Fyodor Ushakov, already a Captain Second Rank, got an appointment to the Black Sea Fleet where he immediately busied himself with building up the navy and training the naval staff. His arrival coinciding with a cholera epidemic, Ushakov promptly ordered his unit into a special encampment with stringent hygienic controls and thus managed to check the spread of the deadly disease. Fyodor Ushakov always cared much for his men’s physical and moral condition.

Back in those days European and other navies, above all the British, consisted of a motley assemblage of sailors forced into slave laboring on the ships and only very rarely allowed to step ashore. There was a small cadre of women allowed on board to entertain the sailors and tend to the wounded during the war. Forced to live in such inhuman conditions, the sailors often went berserk much to the amusement of their commanders who rationalized that the more furious their crews were the better they would fight. Ushakov flatly disagreed. He made sure no woman was allowed on aboard but arranged for special settlements to be built for his sailors ashore so that the people could live a normal family life. Each time the sailors went out to sea their families received all the help they needed.  Ushakov also worked hard to keep his men away from the usual debauchery of the port cities. He tempered his kind attitude by no-nonsense exactingness though. He was even more demanding of his officers all this resulting in sailors readily fulfilling orders and the squadron fighting with clockwork precision. 

Back in those days Turkey was ruling supreme on the Black Sea. Ushakov and his squadron became the first to dent the Ottoman domination smashing the Turkish fleet off Fidonisy Island. Other grand victories followed and before long the once formidable Turkish navy all but ceased to exist. Several years later a rash of Napoleonic wars that engulfed Europe in the wake of the French Revolution forced Russian Emperor Pavel I to dispatch Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov to Northern Italy and Admiral Ushakov into the Mediterranean to take on the French who had fortified their positions on the Ionian islands. This time round Turkey and Russia were fighting hand in hand and Ushakov led a joint Russian-Turkish flotilla to engage the French troops who had dug themselves in on the Mediterranean islands. Several artful landing operations later the French were forced to vacate the islands and fall back.  In that naval campaign Fyodor Ushakov distinguished himself in the assault on the impregnable fortress on Corfu Island and its subsequent capture in 1799. Getting word of that momentous victory Alexander Suvorov, now a Generalissimo, wished he had fought in that battle even as a midshipman. Shortly after capturing the Corfu Island and the Ionian Islands the Russian squadron commended by Admiral Ushakov drove the French out of Rome and Naples.  These victories led to the establishment of the so-called Seven-Island Republic – a Greek Orthodox state and a protectorate of the Russian Emperor Pavel I.

Fyodor Ushakov was a very religious man always ready to help those in need.  A bachelor and a Spartan in his everyday needs, he never missed a single church service. Playing flute was his only diversion and he was working hard to instill Christian values in the hearts and souls of his men.  The Europeans were quick to appreciate the well-mannered and neatly attired Russian sailors. And also their cold-blooded reserve and unbending perseverance.

Upon his retirement in 1807 Fyodor Ushakov settled down near a monastery where his uncle, a monk, was buried, and spent this ebbing years in daily prayers. 

In 2000 Admiral Fyodor Uhakov was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in a much deserved acknowledgement of this great warrior and a devout Christian…