Pierre de Polética (1778–1849), Russian diplomat, was born in Vasilkov, Ukraine, and educated in the cadet corps in Saint Petersburg from age four to eighteen, graduating in 1796 as a lieutenant. Two years later he joined the Collegium for External Affairs as a translator, and in 1799 he became an official in the vice-chancellor’s administration. Polética was named a clerk with the Russian legation to Stockholm in 1802 and was secretary for the Russian legation at Naples in 1805. He visited TJ at Monticello toward the end of his stint from 1809–11 as counselor to the Russian embassy in Washington, and he subsequently served at embassies in Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, and London. Returning to the United States as minister plenipotentiary, 1819–22, Polética helped negotiate the Alaskan boundary between Russia and Great Britain, cosigning the final treaties in Saint Petersburg in 1824 and 1825. He was elected a foreign member of the American Philosophical Society in 1822, and he published Aperçu de la Situation Intérieure des États-Unis d’Amérique et de leurs rapports politiques avec l’Europe (London, 1826; translated into English as A Sketch of the Internal Condition of the United States of America, and of their Political Relations with Europe [Baltimore, 1826]). Polética was named head of the fifth department of the Russian senate in 1832 and became a privy councillor before he retired in 1843. He died during a visit to Frankfurt (Mykhaylo Huculak, When Russia was in America: The Alaska Boundary Treaty Negotiations, 1824–25, and the role of Pierre de Poletica [1971], esp. 89–103; Richard A. Pierce, Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary [1990], 402–3; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 18 Jan. 1822 [MS in PPAmP]).