Stolypin was born in Dresden, Saxony, on 14 April 1862. His family was prominent in the Russian aristocracy, and Stolypin was related on his father's side to the poet Mikhail Lermontov. His father was Arkady Dmitrievich Stolypin (1821-1899), a Russian landowner, descendant of a great noble family, a general in the Russian artillery and later Commandant of the Kremlin Palace. His mother was Natalia Mikhailovna Stolypina (née Gorchakova; 1827-1889), the daughter of a Russian foreign