Peter III Fedorovich (born Karl Peter Ulrich, German Karl Peter Ulrich). Born on February 10 (21), 1728 in Kiel - died on July 6 (17), 1762 in Ropsha. Russian Emperor (1762), the first representative of the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov dynasty on the Russian throne. Sovereign Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (1745). Grandson of Peter I.
Karl Peter, the future Emperor Peter III, was born on February 10 (21 according to the new style) 1728 in Kiel (Holstein-Gottorp).
Father - Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp.
Mother - Anna Petrovna Romanova, daughter.
In the marriage contract concluded by his parents back under Peter I in 1724, they renounced any claims to Russian throne. But the king reserved the right to appoint as his successor “one of the princes born by Divine blessing from this marriage.”
In addition, Karl Friedrich, being the nephew of the Swedish king Charles XII, had rights to the throne of Sweden.
Shortly after Peter's birth, his mother died, catching a cold during a fireworks display in honor of her son's birth. The boy grew up in the provincial surroundings of a tiny North German duchy. The father loved his son, but all his thoughts were aimed at returning Schleswig, which Denmark occupied at the beginning of the 18th century. Without having any military force, nor financial capabilities, Karl Friedrich pinned his hopes on either Sweden or Russia. Marriage to Anna Petrovna was a legal confirmation of Karl Friedrich's Russian orientation. But after accession to the throne Russian Empire Anna Ioannovna, this course has become impossible. The new empress sought not only to deprive her cousin Elizaveta Petrovna of the rights to the inheritance, but also to assign it to the Miloslavsky line. Growing up in Kiel, the grandson of Peter the Great was a constant threat to the dynastic plans of the childless Empress Anna Ioannovna, who repeated with hatred: “The little devil still lives.”
In 1732, by a demarche of the Russian and Austrian governments, with the consent of Denmark, Duke Karl Friedrich was asked to renounce the rights to Schleswig for a huge ransom. Karl Friedrich categorically rejected this proposal. The father placed all hopes for restoring the territorial integrity of his duchy on his son, instilling in him the idea of revenge. From an early age, Karl Friedrich raised his son in a military way - in the Prussian way.
When Karl Peter was 10 years old, he was awarded the rank of second lieutenant, which made a huge impression on the boy; he loved military parades.
At the age of eleven he lost his father. After his death, he was brought up in the house of his paternal cousin, Bishop Adolf of Eitinsky, later King Adolf Fredrik of Sweden. His teachers O.F. Brummer and F.V. Berkhgolts were not distinguished by high moral qualities and more than once cruelly punished the child. The Crown Prince of the Swedish Crown was repeatedly flogged and subjected to other sophisticated and humiliating punishments.
The teachers cared little about his education: by the age of thirteen he only spoke a little French.
Peter grew up fearful, nervous, impressionable, loved music and painting and at the same time adored everything military - however, he was afraid of cannon fire (this fear remained with him throughout his life). All his ambitious dreams were connected with military pleasures. He was not in good health; on the contrary, he was sickly and frail. By character, Peter was not evil; he often behaved simple-mindedly. Already in childhood he became addicted to wine.
Elizabeth Petrovna, who became Empress in 1741, wanted to secure the throne through her father and ordered her nephew to be brought to Russia. In December, soon after the accession of Empress Elizabeth to the throne, Major von Korff (husband of Countess Maria Karlovna Skavronskaya, cousin Empress) and with him G. von Korff, the Russian envoy to the Danish court, to take the young duke to Russia.
Three days after the Duke's departure, they learned about this in Kiel; he was traveling incognito, under the name of the young Count Duker. At the last station before Berlin they stopped and sent the quartermaster to the local Russian envoy (minister) von Brakel, and began to wait for him at the post station. But the night before, Brakel died in Berlin. This accelerated their further journey to St. Petersburg. In Keslin, in Pomerania, the postmaster recognized the young duke. Therefore, they drove all night to quickly leave the Prussian borders.
On February 5 (16), 1742, Karl Peter Ulrich arrived safely in Russia, to the Winter Palace. There was a large crowd of people to see the grandson of Peter the Great. On February 10 (21), the 14th anniversary of his birth was celebrated.
At the end of February 1742, Elizaveta Petrovna went with her nephew to Moscow for her coronation. Karl Peter Ulrich was present at the coronation in the Assumption Cathedral on April 25 (May 6), 1742 on a special arranged place, next to Her Majesty. After his coronation, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Preobrazhensky Guard and wore the uniform of this regiment every day. Also colonel of the First Life Cuirassier Regiment.
At their first meeting, Elizabeth was amazed at her nephew’s ignorance and was upset appearance: thin, sickly, with an unhealthy complexion Academician Jacob Shtelin became his tutor and teacher, who considered his student quite capable, but lazy. The professor noticed his inclinations and tastes and organized his first classes based on them. He read picture books with him, especially those depicting fortresses, siege weapons, and engineering weapons; made various mathematical models in small form and arranged them on a large table complete experiments. From time to time he brought ancient Russian coins and, while explaining them, told ancient Russian history, and about the medals of Peter I recent history states. Twice a week I read newspapers to him and quietly explained to him the basis of the history of European states, while entertaining him with the land maps of these states and showing their position on the globe.
In November 1742, Karl Peter Ulrich converted to Orthodoxy under the name Peter Fedorovich. His official title included the words “Grandson of Peter the Great.”
Peter III (documentary)
Height of Peter III: 170 centimeters.
Personal life of Peter III:
In 1745, Peter married Princess Ekaterina Alekseevna (née Sophia Frederica Augusta) of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future empress.
The heir's wedding was celebrated on a special scale. Peter and Catherine were granted possession of palaces - Oranienbaum near St. Petersburg and Lyubertsy near Moscow.
After the Holstein heir Brummer and Berchholtz were removed from the throne, his upbringing was entrusted to the military general Vasily Repnin, who turned a blind eye to his duties and did not prevent the young man from devoting all his time to playing toy soldiers. The heir's training in Russia lasted only three years - after the wedding of Peter and Catherine, Shtelin was relieved of his duties, but forever retained Peter's favor and trust.
The Grand Duke's immersion in military fun caused increasing irritation of the Empress. In 1747, she replaced Repnin with the Choglokovs, Nikolai Naumovich and Maria Simonovna, in whom she saw an example of a married couple who sincerely loved each other. In accordance with the instructions drawn up by Chancellor Bestuzhev, Choglokov tried to limit his ward’s access to games and replaced his favorite servants for this.
Peter's relationship with his wife did not work out from the very beginning. Catherine noted in her memoirs that her husband “bought himself German books, but what books? Some of them consisted of Lutheran prayer books, and the other - of the stories and trials of some highwaymen who were hanged and wheeled.”
It is believed that until the early 1750s there was no marital relationship between husband and wife at all, but then Peter underwent some kind of operation (presumably circumcision to eliminate phimosis), after which in 1754 Catherine gave birth to his son Paul. At the same time, the Grand Duke’s letter to his wife, dated December 1746, suggests that the relationship between them took place immediately after the wedding: “Madam, I ask you this night not to bother yourself at all to sleep with me, since it is too late to deceive me , the bed has become too narrow, after a two-week separation from you, this afternoon your unfortunate husband, whom you never honored with this name. Peter".
Historians cast great doubt on the paternity of Peter, calling S. A. Poniatovsky the most likely father. However, Peter officially recognized the child as his own.
The infant heir, the future Russian Emperor Paul I, was immediately taken away from his parents after birth, and Empress Elizaveta Petrovna herself took up his upbringing. Pyotr Fedorovich was never interested in his son and was quite satisfied with the empress’s permission to see Paul once a week. Peter increasingly moved away from his wife; Elizaveta Vorontsova, E.R.’s sister, became his favorite. Dashkova.
Elizaveta Vorontsova - mistress of Peter III
Nevertheless, Catherine noted that for some reason the Grand Duke always had an involuntary trust in her, all the more strange since she did not strive for spiritual intimacy with her husband. In difficult situations, financial or economic, he often turned to his wife for help, calling her ironically “Madame la Ressource” (“Lady Help”).
Peter never hid his hobbies for other women from his wife. But Catherine did not at all feel humiliated by this state of affairs, having by that time a huge number of lovers. For the Grand Duke, his wife’s hobbies were also no secret.
After Choglokov’s death in 1754, General Brockdorff, who arrived incognito from Holstein and encouraged the militaristic habits of the heir, de facto became the manager of the “small court.” In the early 1750s, he was allowed to write out a small detachment of Holstein soldiers (by 1758 their number was about one and a half thousand). Peter and Brockdorff spent all their free time doing military exercises and maneuvers with them. Some time later (by 1759-1760), these Holstein soldiers formed the garrison of the amusing fortress of Peterstadt, built at the residence of the Grand Duke Oranienbaum.
Peter's other hobby was playing the violin.
During the years spent in Russia, Peter never made any attempt to better know the country, its people and history; he neglected Russian customs, behaved inappropriately during church services, and did not observe fasts and other rituals. When in 1751 the Grand Duke learned that his uncle had become the king of Sweden, he said: “They dragged me to this damned Russia, where I must consider myself a state prisoner, whereas if they had left me free, now I would be sitting on the throne civilized people."
Elizaveta Petrovna did not allow Peter to participate in resolving political issues, and the only position in which he could somehow prove himself was the position of director of the gentry corps. Meanwhile, the Grand Duke openly criticized the activities of the government, and during Seven Years' War publicly expressed sympathy for the Prussian king Frederick II.
The defiant behavior of Peter Fedorovich was well known not only at court, but also in wider layers of Russian society, where the Grand Duke enjoyed neither authority nor popularity.
Personality of Peter III
Jacob Staehlin wrote about Peter III: “He is quite witty, especially in disputes, which was developed and supported in him from his youth by the grumpiness of his chief marshal Brümmer... By nature he judges quite well, but his attachment to sensual pleasures frustrated him more than it developed him judgments, and therefore he did not like deep thinking. Memory is excellent down to the last detail. He willingly read travel descriptions and military books. As soon as a catalog of new books came out, he read it and noted for himself many books that made up a decent library. He ordered his late parent’s library from Kiel and bought Melling’s engineering and military library for a thousand rubles.”
In addition, Shtelin wrote: “Being a Grand Duke and not having room for a library in his St. Petersburg palace, he ordered it to be transported to Oranienbaum and kept a librarian with it. Having become emperor, he instructed State Councilor Shtelin, as his chief librarian, to build a library on the mezzanine of his new winter palace in St. Petersburg, for which four large rooms were assigned and two for the librarian himself. For this, in the first case, he assigned 3,000 rubles, and then 2,000 rubles annually, but demanded that not a single Latin book be included in it, because pedantic teaching and coercion had disgusted him with Latin from an early age...
He was not a hypocrite, but he also did not like any jokes about faith and the word of God. He was somewhat inattentive during external worship, often forgetting the usual bows and crosses and talking to the ladies-in-waiting and other persons around him.
The Empress did not like such actions very much. She expressed her disappointment to Chancellor Count Bestuzhev, who, on her behalf, on similar and many other occasions, instructed me to give the Grand Duke serious instructions. This was carried out with all care, usually on Monday, regarding such indecency of his actions, both in church and at court or at other public meetings. He was not offended by such remarks, because he was convinced that I wished him well and always advised him how to please Her Majesty as much as possible and thus create his own happiness...
Alien to all prejudices and superstitions. Thoughts regarding faith were more Protestant than Russian; therefore, from an early age, I often received admonitions not to show such thoughts and to show more attention and respect for worship and the rites of faith.”
Shtelin noted that Peter “always had with him a German Bible and a Kiel prayer book, in which he knew by heart some of the best spiritual songs.” At the same time: “I was afraid of thunderstorms. In words he was not at all afraid of death, but in reality he was afraid of any danger. He often boasted that he would not be left behind in any battle, and that if a bullet hit him, he was sure that it was intended for him,” wrote Shtelin.
Reign of Peter III
On Christmas Day, December 25, 1761 (January 5, 1762), at three o'clock in the afternoon, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna died. Peter ascended the throne of the Russian Empire. Imitating Frederick II, Peter was not crowned, but planned to be crowned after the campaign against Denmark. As a result, Peter III was posthumously crowned Paul I in 1796.
Peter III did not have a clear political program of action, but he had his own vision of politics, and, imitating his grandfather Peter I, planned to carry out a number of reforms. On January 17, 1762, Peter III, at a meeting of the Senate, announced his plans for the future: “The nobles will continue to serve of their own free will, as much and where they wish, and when war time If it happens, then they must all appear on the same basis as in Livonia they deal with the nobles.”
Several months in power revealed the contradictory nature of Peter III. Almost all contemporaries noted such character traits of the emperor as a thirst for activity, tirelessness, kindness and gullibility.
Among the most important reforms of Peter III:
Abolition of the Secret Chancellery (Chancery of Secret Investigative Affairs; Manifesto of February 16, 1762);
- the beginning of the process of secularization of church lands;
- encouragement of commercial and industrial activities through the creation of the State Bank and the issuance of banknotes (Nominal Decree of May 25);
- adoption of a decree on freedom of foreign trade (Decree of March 28); it also contains a requirement careful attitude to forests as one of the most important resources of Russia;
- a decree that allowed the establishment of factories for the production of sailing fabric in Siberia;
- a decree that qualified the murder of peasants by landowners as “tyrant torture” and provided for lifelong exile for this;
- stopped the persecution of the Old Believers.
Peter III is also credited with the intention to carry out the reform of the Russian Orthodox Church according to the Protestant model (In the Manifesto of Catherine II on the occasion of her accession to the throne dated June 28 (July 9), 1762, Peter was blamed for this: “Our Greek Church is already extremely exposed to its last danger of change ancient Orthodoxy in Russia and the adoption of a heterodox law").
Legislative acts adopted during the short reign of Peter III largely became the foundation for the subsequent reign of Catherine II.
The most important document of the reign of Peter Fedorovich - “Manifesto on the freedom of the nobility” (Manifesto of February 18 (March 1), 1762), thanks to which the nobility became the exclusive privileged class of the Russian Empire.
The nobility, having been forced by Peter I to compulsory and universal conscription to serve the state all their lives, and under Anna Ioannovna, having received the right to retire after 25 years of service, now received the right not to serve at all. And the privileges initially granted to the nobility, as a serving class, not only remained, but also expanded. In addition to being exempt from service, nobles received the right to virtually unhindered exit from the country. One of the consequences of the Manifesto was that the nobles could now freely dispose of their land holdings, regardless of their attitude to service (the Manifesto passed over in silence the rights of the nobility to their estates; while the previous legislative acts of Peter I, Anna Ioannovna and Elizaveta Petrovna regarding noble service, linked official duties and landownership rights).
The nobility became as free as a privileged class could be free in a feudal country.
Under Peter III, a broad amnesty was carried out for persons who had been subjected to exile and other punishments in previous years. Among those returned were the favorite of Empress Anna Ioannovna E.I. Biron and Field Marshal B.K. Minich, close to Peter III.
The reign of Peter III was marked by the strengthening of serfdom. The landowners were given the opportunity to arbitrarily resettle the peasants who belonged to them from one district to another; serious bureaucratic restrictions arose on the transition of serfs to the merchant class; During the six months of Peter's reign, about 13 thousand people were distributed from state peasants to serfs (in fact, there were more: only men were included in the audit lists in 1762). During these six months, peasant riots arose several times and were suppressed by punitive detachments.
The legislative activity of the government of Peter III was extraordinary. During the 186-day reign, judging by the official “Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire,” 192 documents were adopted: manifestos, personal and Senate decrees, resolutions, etc.
Peter III was much more interested in internal affairs in the war with Denmark: the emperor decided, in alliance with Prussia, to oppose Denmark in order to return Schleswig, which it had taken from his native Holstein, and he himself intended to go on a campaign at the head of the guard.
Immediately upon his accession to the throne, Peter Fedorovich returned to the court most of the disgraced nobles of the previous reign, who had languished in exile (except for the hated Bestuzhev-Ryumin). Among them was Count Burchard Christopher Minich, a veteran palace coups and a master engineer of his time. The Emperor's Holstein relatives were summoned to Russia: Princes Georg Ludwig of Holstein-Gottorp and Peter August Friedrich of Holstein-Beck. Both were promoted to field marshal general in the prospect of war with Denmark; Peter August Friedrich was also appointed governor-general of the capital. Alexander Vilboa was appointed Feldzeichmeister General. These people, as well as the former teacher Jacob Shtelin, who was appointed personal librarian, formed the emperor's inner circle.
Bernhard Wilhelm von der Goltz arrived in St. Petersburg to negotiate a separate peace with Prussia. Peter III valued the opinion of the Prussian envoy so much that he soon began to “run the whole foreign policy Russia."
Among the negative aspects of the reign of Peter III, the main one is his actual annulment of the results of the Seven Years' War. Once in power, Peter III, who did not hide his admiration for Frederick II, immediately stopped military operations against Prussia and concluded the Peace of St. Petersburg with the Prussian king on extremely unfavorable terms for Russia, returning conquered East Prussia (which by that time had already been in power for four years). integral part Russian Empire) and abandoning all acquisitions during the Seven Years' War, which was practically won by Russia. All the sacrifices, all the heroism of the Russian soldiers were crossed out in one fell swoop, which looked like a real betrayal of the interests of the fatherland and high treason.
Russia's exit from the war once again saved Prussia from complete defeat. The peace concluded on April 24 was interpreted by the ill-wishers of Peter III as a true national humiliation, since the long and costly war, by the grace of this admirer of Prussia, ended in literally nothing: Russia did not derive any benefits from its victories. However, this did not prevent Catherine II from continuing what Peter III had started, and the Prussian lands were finally liberated from the control of Russian troops and given to Prussia by her. Catherine II concluded a new treaty of alliance with Frederick II in 1764. However, Catherine’s role in ending the Seven Years’ War is usually not advertised.
Despite the progressive nature of many legislative measures and unprecedented privileges for the nobility, Peter’s poorly thought-out foreign policy actions, as well as his harsh actions towards the church, the introduction of Prussian orders in the army not only did not add to his authority, but deprived him of any social support. In court circles, his policy only generated uncertainty about the future.
Finally, the intention to withdraw the guard from St. Petersburg and send it on an incomprehensible and unpopular Danish campaign served as the “last straw”, a powerful catalyst for the conspiracy that arose in the guard against Peter III in favor of Ekaterina Alekseevna.
Death of Peter III
The origins of the conspiracy date back to 1756, that is, to the time of the beginning of the Seven Years' War and the deterioration of Elizabeth Petrovna's health. The all-powerful Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, knowing full well about the pro-Prussian sentiments of the heir and realizing that under the new sovereign he was threatened with at least Siberia, hatched plans to neutralize Peter Fedorovich upon his accession to the throne, declaring Catherine an equal co-ruler. However, Alexei Petrovich fell into disgrace in 1758, hastening to implement his plan (the chancellor’s intentions remained undisclosed; he managed to destroy dangerous papers). The Empress herself had no illusions about her successor to the throne and later thought about replacing her nephew with her great-nephew Paul.
Over the next three years, Catherine, who also came under suspicion in 1758 and almost ended up in a monastery, did not take any noticeable political actions, except that she persistently multiplied and strengthened her personal connections in high society.
In the ranks of the guard, a conspiracy against Pyotr Fedorovich took shape in the last months of Elizaveta Petrovna’s life, thanks to the activities of three Orlov brothers, officers of the Izmailovsky regiment brothers Roslavlev and Lasunsky, Preobrazhensky soldiers Passek and Bredikhin and others. Among the highest dignitaries of the Empire, the most enterprising conspirators were N. I. Panin, teacher of the young Pavel Petrovich, M. N. Volkonsky and K. G. Razumovsky, Ukrainian hetman, president of the Academy of Sciences, favorite of his Izmailovsky regiment.
Elizaveta Petrovna died without deciding to change anything in the fate of the throne. Catherine did not consider it possible to carry out a coup immediately after the death of the Empress: she was five months pregnant (in April 1762 she gave birth to her son Alexei). In addition, Catherine had political reasons not to rush things; she wanted to attract as many supporters as possible to her side for complete triumph. Knowing well the character of her husband, she rightly believed that Peter would soon turn the entire metropolitan society against himself.
To carry out the coup, Catherine preferred to wait for an opportune moment.
Peter III's position in society was precarious, but Catherine's position at court was also precarious. Peter III openly said that he was going to divorce his wife in order to marry his favorite Elizaveta Vorontsova. He treated his wife rudely, and on June 9, during a gala dinner on the occasion of the conclusion of peace with Prussia, a public scandal occurred. The Emperor, in the presence of the court, diplomats and foreign princes, shouted “folle” (fool) to his wife across the table. Catherine began to cry. The reason for the insult was Catherine’s reluctance to drink while standing the toast proclaimed by Peter III. The hostility between the spouses reached its climax. On the evening of the same day, he gave the order to arrest her, and only the intervention of Field Marshal Georg of Holstein-Gottorp, the emperor's uncle, saved Catherine.
By May 1762, the change of mood in the capital became so obvious that the emperor was advised from all sides to take measures to prevent a disaster, there were denunciations of a possible conspiracy, but Pyotr Fedorovich did not understand the seriousness of his situation. In May, the court, led by the emperor, as usual, left the city, to Oranienbaum. There was a calm in the capital, which greatly contributed to the final preparations of the conspirators.
The Danish campaign was planned for June. The emperor decided to postpone the march of the troops in order to celebrate his name day. On the morning of June 28 (July 9), 1762, on the eve of Peter's Day, Emperor Peter III and his retinue set off from Oranienbaum, his country residence, to Peterhof, where a gala dinner was to take place in honor of the emperor's name day.
The day before, a rumor spread throughout St. Petersburg that Catherine was being held under arrest. Violent unrest began in the guard; one of the participants in the conspiracy, Captain Passek, was arrested. The Orlov brothers feared that the conspiracy was in danger of being exposed.
In Peterhof, Peter III was supposed to be met by his wife, who, in the duty of the empress, was the organizer of the celebrations, but by the time the court arrived, she had disappeared. Through a short time it became known that Catherine fled to St. Petersburg early in the morning in a carriage with Alexei Orlov - he arrived in Peterhof to see Catherine with the news that events had taken a critical turn and there was no longer any time to delay).
In the capital, the Guard, the Senate and the Synod, and the population swore allegiance to the “Empress and Autocrat of All Russia” in a short time. The guard moved towards Peterhof.
Peter's further actions show an extreme degree of confusion. Rejecting Minich's advice to immediately head to Kronstadt and fight, relying on the fleet and the army loyal to him stationed in East Prussia, he was going to defend himself in Peterhof in a toy fortress built for maneuvers, with the help of a detachment of Holsteins. However, having learned about the approach of the guard led by Catherine, Peter abandoned this thought and sailed to Kronstadt with the entire court, ladies, etc. But by that time Kronstadt had already sworn allegiance to Catherine. After this, Peter completely lost heart and, again rejecting Minich’s advice to go to the East Prussian army, returned to Oranienbaum, where he signed his abdication of the throne.
The circumstances of the death of Peter III have not yet been fully clarified.
The deposed emperor on June 29 (July 10), 1762, almost immediately after the coup, accompanied by a guard of guards led by A.G. Orlov was sent to Ropsha, 30 versts from St. Petersburg, where a week later, on July 6 (17), 1762, he died. By official version The cause of death was an attack of hemorrhoidal colic, aggravated by prolonged alcohol consumption and diarrhea. During the autopsy, which was carried out by order of Catherine, it was discovered that Peter III had severe cardiac dysfunction, inflammation of the intestines and signs of apoplexy.
However, according to another version, Peter’s death is considered violent and Alexei Orlov is called the murderer. This version is based on Orlov’s letter to Catherine from Ropsha, which was not preserved in the original. This letter has reached us in a copy taken by F.V. Rostopchin. The original letter was allegedly destroyed by Emperor Paul I in the first days of his reign. Recent historical and linguistic studies refute the authenticity of the document and name Rostopchin himself as the author of the forgery.
A number of modern medical examinations, based on surviving documents and evidence, revealed that Peter III suffered from bipolar disorder with a mild depressive phase, suffered from hemorrhoids, which is why he could not sit in one place for a long time. Microcardia discovered at autopsy usually suggests a complex of congenital developmental disorders.
Initially, Peter III was buried without any honors on July 10 (21), 1762 in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, since only crowned heads were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the imperial tomb. The full Senate asked the Empress not to attend the funeral. According to some reports, Catherine nevertheless arrived at the Lavra incognito and paid her last debt to her husband.
In 1796, immediately after the death of Catherine, by order of Paul I, his remains were first transferred to the house church Winter Palace, and then to the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Peter III was reburied simultaneously with the burial of Catherine II.
At the same time, Emperor Paul personally performed the ceremony of coronation of the ashes of his father. The head slabs of the buried bear the same date of burial (December 18, 1796), which gives the impression that Peter III and Catherine II lived together for many years and died on the same day.
On June 13, 2014, the world's first monument to Peter III was erected in the German city of Kiel. The initiators of this action were the German historian Elena Palmer and the Kiel Royal Society (Kieler Zaren Verein). The sculptor of the composition was Alexander Taratynov.
Impostors under the name of Peter III
Peter III became the absolute record holder for the number of impostors who tried to take the place of the untimely deceased king. According to the latest data, in Russia alone there were about forty false Peter III.
In 1764, Anton Aslanbekov, a bankrupt Armenian merchant, played the role of false Peter. Detained with a false passport in the Kursk district, he declared himself emperor and tried to rouse the people in his defense. The impostor was punished with whips and sent to eternal settlement in Nerchinsk.
Soon after this, the name of the late emperor was appropriated by the fugitive recruit Ivan Evdokimov, who tried to raise an uprising in his favor among the peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod province, and Nikolai Kolchenko in the Chernigov region.
In 1765, a new impostor appeared in the Voronezh province, publicly declaring himself emperor. Later, arrested and interrogated, he called himself Gavrila Kremnevoy, a private in the Lant-militia Oryol Regiment. Having deserted after 14 years of service, he managed to get himself a horse and lure two serfs of the landowner Kologrivov to his side. At first, Kremnev declared himself “a captain in the imperial service” and promised that from now on, distilling would be prohibited, and the collection of capitation money and recruitment would be suspended for 12 years, but after some time, prompted by his accomplices, he decided to declare his “royal name.” For a short time, Kremnev was successful, the nearest villages greeted him with bread and salt and the ringing of bells, and a detachment of five thousand people gradually gathered around the impostor. However, the untrained and unorganized gang fled at the first shots. Kremnev was captured and sentenced to death, but was pardoned by Catherine and exiled to eternal settlement in Nerchinsk, where his traces were completely lost.
In the same year, shortly after Kremnev’s arrest, in Sloboda Ukraine, in the settlement of Kupyanka, Izyum district, a new impostor appears - Pyotr Fedorovich Chernyshev, a fugitive soldier of the Bryansk regiment. This impostor, unlike his predecessors, was captured, convicted and exiled to Nerchinsk, did not abandon his claims, spreading rumors that the “father-emperor,” who incognito inspected the soldier’s regiments, was mistakenly captured and beaten with whips. The peasants who believed him tried to organize an escape by bringing the “sovereign” a horse and providing him with money and provisions for the journey. The impostor got lost in the taiga, was caught and cruelly punished in front of his admirers, sent to Mangazeya for eternal work, but died on the way there.
In the Iset province, the Cossack Kamenshchikov, previously convicted of many crimes, was sentenced to have his nostrils cut out and eternal exile to work in Nerchinsk for spreading rumors that the emperor was alive, but imprisoned in the Trinity Fortress. At the trial, he showed as his accomplice the Cossack Konon Belyanin, who was allegedly preparing to act as emperor. Belyanin got off with whippings.
In 1768, a second lieutenant of the Shirvan army regiment, Josaphat Baturin, who was kept in the Shlisselburg fortress, in conversations with the soldiers on duty, assured that “Peter Fedorovich is alive, but in a foreign land,” and even with one of the guards he tried to convey a letter for the allegedly hiding monarch. By chance, this episode reached the authorities, and the prisoner was sentenced to eternal exile to Kamchatka, from where he later managed to escape, taking part in the famous enterprise of Moritz Benevsky.
In 1769, near Astrakhan, the fugitive soldier Mamykin was caught, publicly announcing that the emperor, who, of course, managed to escape, “will take over the kingdom again and will give benefits to the peasants.”
An extraordinary person turned out to be Fedot Bogomolov, a former serf who fled and joined the Volga Cossacks under the name Kazin. In March-June 1772 on the Volga, in the Tsaritsyn region, when his colleagues, due to the fact that Kazin-Bogomolov seemed too smart and intelligent to them, suggested that the emperor was hiding in front of them, Bogomolov easily agreed with his “imperial dignity.” Bogomolov, following his predecessors, was arrested and sentenced to have his nostrils pulled out, branded and eternal exile. On the way to Siberia he died.
In 1773, the robber ataman Georgy Ryabov, who had escaped from the Nerchinsk penal servitude, tried to impersonate the emperor. His supporters later joined the Pugachevites, declaring that their deceased chieftain and the leader of the peasant war were one and the same person. The captain of one of the battalions stationed in Orenburg, Nikolai Kretov, unsuccessfully tried to declare himself emperor.
Same year Don Cossack, whose name has not been preserved in history, decided to benefit financially from the widespread belief in the “hiding emperor.” His accomplice, posing as a secretary of state, traveled around the Tsaritsyn district of the Astrakhan province, taking oaths and preparing the people to receive the “father-tsar”, then the impostor himself appeared. The duo managed to profit enough at someone else's expense before the news reached the other Cossacks, and they decided to give everything a political aspect. A plan was developed to capture the town of Dubovka and arrest all the officers. The authorities became aware of the plot, and one of the high-ranking military men, accompanied by a small convoy, arrived at the hut where the impostor was located, hit him in the face and ordered his arrest along with his accomplice. The Cossacks present obeyed, but when the arrested were taken to Tsaritsyn for trial and execution, rumors immediately spread that the emperor was in custody, and muted unrest began. To avoid an attack, the prisoners were forced to be kept outside the city, under heavy escort. During the investigation, the prisoner died, that is, from the point of view of ordinary people, he again “disappeared without a trace.”
In 1773, the future leader of the peasant war, Emelyan Pugachev, the most famous of the false Peter III, skillfully turned this story to his advantage, asserting that he himself was the “emperor who disappeared from Tsaritsyn.”
In 1774, another candidate for emperor came across, a certain Metelka. In the same year, Foma Mosyagin, who also tried to try on the “role” of Peter III, was arrested and deported to Nerchinsk along with the other impostors.
In 1776, the peasant Sergeev paid for the same thing, gathering a gang around himself that was going to rob and burn the landowners' houses. Voronezh governor Ivan Potapov, who managed to defeat the peasant freemen with some difficulty, determined during the investigation that the conspiracy was extremely extensive - at least 96 people were involved in it to one degree or another.
In 1778, a drunken soldier of the Tsaritsyn 2nd battalion, Yakov Dmitriev, told everyone in the bathhouse that “in the Crimean steppes the former third emperor Peter Feodorovich is with the army, who was previously kept on guard, from where he was kidnapped by the Don Cossacks; under him, the Iron Forehead is leading that army, against whom there was already a battle on our side, where two divisions were defeated, and we are waiting for him like a father; and on the border Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev stands with the army and does not defend against it, but says that he does not want to defend from either side.” Dmitriev was interrogated under guard, and he stated that he heard this story “on the street from unknown people.” The Empress agreed with Prosecutor General A.A. Vyazemsky that there was nothing more than drunken recklessness and stupid chatter behind this, and the soldier punished by the batogs was accepted into his former service.
In 1780, after the suppression of the Pugachev rebellion, the Don Cossack Maxim Khanin in the lower reaches of the Volga again tried to raise the people, posing as “the miracle of Pugachev’s escape.” The number of his supporters began to grow rapidly, among them were peasants and rural priests, and panic began among the authorities. On the Ilovlya River, the challenger was captured and taken to Tsaritsyn. Astrakhan Governor-General I.V., who came specially to conduct the investigation. Jacobi subjected the prisoner to interrogation and torture, during which Khanin confessed that back in 1778 he had met in Tsaritsyn with his friend named Oruzheinikov, and this friend convinced him that Khanin was “exactly” like Pugachev-“Peter”. The impostor was shackled and sent to Saratov prison.
The scopal sect had its own Peter III - it was its founder, Kondraty Selivanov. Selivanov wisely neither confirmed nor denied rumors about his identity with the “hidden emperor.” A legend has been preserved that in 1797 he met with Paul I and when the emperor, not without irony, inquired, “Are you my father?” Selivanov allegedly replied, “I am not the father of sin; accept my work (castration), and I recognize you as my son.” What is thoroughly known is that Paul ordered that the osprey prophet be placed in a nursing home for the insane at the Obukhov hospital.
The Lost Emperor appeared abroad at least four times and enjoyed considerable success there. For the first time it appeared in 1766 in Montenegro, which at that time was being fought for independence against the Turks by the Venetian Republic. This man named Stefan, who came from nowhere and became a village healer, never declared himself emperor, but a certain captain Tanovich, who had previously been in St. Petersburg, “recognized” him as the missing emperor, and the elders who gathered for the council managed to find a portrait of Peter in one from Orthodox monasteries and came to the conclusion that the original is very similar to its image. A high-ranking delegation was sent to Stefan with requests to take power over the country, but he flatly refused until internal strife was stopped and peace was concluded between the tribes. Unusual demands finally convinced the Montenegrins of his “royal origin” and, despite the resistance of the Church and the machinations Russian general Dolgorukov, Stefan became the ruler of the country.
He never revealed his real name, leaving Yu.V. Dolgoruky has three versions to choose from - “Raicevic from Dalmatia, a Turk from Bosnia and finally a Turk from Ioannina.” Openly recognizing himself as Peter III, he, however, ordered to be called Stefan and went down in history as Stefan the Small, which is believed to come from the impostor’s signature - “Stephen, small with small ones, good with good, evil with evil.” Stefan turned out to be an intelligent and knowledgeable ruler. In the short time he remained in power, civil strife ceased. After short friction, friendly relations were established with Russia, and the country defended itself quite confidently against the onslaught from both the Venetians and the Turks. This could not please the conquerors, and Turkey and Venice made repeated attempts on Stephen’s life. Finally, one of the attempts succeeded and after five years of rule, Stefan Maly was stabbed to death in his sleep by his own doctor, Stanko Klasomunya, bribed by the Skadar Pasha. The impostor's belongings were sent to St. Petersburg, and his associates tried to receive a pension from Catherine for “valiant service to her husband.”
After the death of Stefan, a certain Stepan Zanovich tried to declare himself the ruler of Montenegro and Peter III, who once again “miraculously escaped from the hands of murderers,” but his attempt was unsuccessful. After leaving Montenegro, Zanovich corresponded with monarchs from 1773 and kept in touch with Voltaire and Rousseau. In 1785 in Amsterdam, the swindler was arrested and his veins were cut.
Count Mocenigo, who was at that time on the island of Zante in the Adriatic, wrote about another impostor in a report to the Doge of the Venetian Republic. This impostor operated in Turkish Albania, in the vicinity of the city of Arta.
The last impostor was arrested in 1797.
The image of Peter III in the cinema:
1934 - The Loose Empress (actor Sam Jaffe as Peter III)
1934 - The Rise of Catherine the Great (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.)
1963 - Catherine of Russia (Caterina di Russia) (Raoul Grassili)
(Peter-Ulrich) - Emperor of All Russia, son of Duke of Holstein-Hottorn Karl-Friedrich, son of the sister of Charles XII of Sweden, and Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great (born 1728); He was thus the grandson of two rival sovereigns and could, under certain conditions, be a contender for both the Russian and Swedish thrones.
In 1741, after the death of Eleanor Ulrika, he was elected successor to her husband Frederick, who received the Swedish throne, and on November 15, 1742, he was declared heir to the Russian throne by his aunt Elizaveta Petrovna.
Weak physically and morally, P. Fedorovich was raised by Marshal Brümmer, who was more of a soldier than a teacher. “The barracks order of life, established by the latter for his pupil, in connection with strict and humiliating punishments, could not help but weaken P. Fedorovich’s health and interfered with the development in him of moral concepts and a sense of human dignity.
The young prince was taught a lot, but so ineptly that he received a complete aversion to science: Latin, for example, bothered him so much that later in St. Petersburg he forbade placing Latin books in his library. They taught him, moreover, preparing him mainly for the occupation of the Swedish throne and, therefore, raised him in the spirit of the Lutheran religion and Swedish patriotism - and the latter at that time was expressed, among other things, in hatred of Russia.
In 1742, after P. Fedorovich was appointed heir to the Russian throne, they began to teach him again, but in the Russian and Orthodox way. However, frequent illnesses and marriage to the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst (the future Catherine II) prevented the systematic implementation of education.
P. Fedorovich was not interested in Russia and superstitiously thought that he would find his death here; Academician Shtelin, his new teacher, despite all his efforts, could not instill in him love for his new fatherland, where he always felt like a stranger. Military affairs - the only thing that interested him - was for him not so much a subject of study as amusement, and his reverence for Frederick II turned into a desire to imitate him in small things.
The heir to the throne, already an adult, preferred fun to business, which became more and more strange every day and unpleasantly amazed everyone around him. “P. showed all the signs of arrested spiritual development,” says S. M. Solovyov, “he was an adult child.” The Empress was struck by the underdevelopment of the heir to the throne.
The question of the fate of the Russian throne seriously occupied Elizabeth and her courtiers, and they came to various combinations.
Some wanted the empress, bypassing her nephew, to transfer the throne to his son Pavel Petrovich, and appoint the leader as regent until he came of age. Princess Ekaterina Alekseevna, wife of P. Fedorovich.
That was Bestuzhev's opinion, Nick. Iv. Panina, Iv. Iv. Shuvalova.
Others were in favor of proclaiming Catherine heir to the throne.
Elizabeth died without having time to decide on anything, and on December 25, 1761, P. Fedorovich ascended the throne under the name of Emperor P. III. He began his activities with decrees that, under other conditions, could have won him popular favor.
This is the decree of February 18, 1762 on the freedom of the nobility, which removed compulsory service from the nobility and was, as it were, a direct predecessor of Catherine’s charter to the nobility of 1785. This decree could make the new government popular among the nobility; another decree on the destruction of the secret office in charge of political crimes should, it would seem, promote his popularity among the masses.
What happened, however, was different. Remaining a Lutheran at heart, P. III treated the clergy with disdain, closed home churches, and addressed the Synod with offensive decrees; by this he aroused the people against himself. Surrounded by the Holsteins, he began to remake the Russian army in the Prussian way and thereby armed the guard against himself, which at that time was almost exclusively noble in composition.
Prompted by his Prussian sympathies, P. III immediately after ascending the throne refused to participate in the Seven Years' War and at the same time from all Russian conquests in Prussia, and at the end of his reign he began a war with Denmark over Schleswig, which he wanted to acquire for Holsteins.
This incited the people against him, who remained indifferent when the nobility, represented by the guard, openly rebelled against P. III and proclaimed Catherine II empress (June 28, 1762). P. was removed to Ropsha, where he died on July 7; Details about this event are found in a letter to Catherine II by Alexei Orlov.
Wed. Bricker, “The History of Catherine the Great”, “Notes of Empress Catherine II” (L., 1888); "Memoirs of the princesse Daschcow" (L., 1840); "Notes of Shtelin" ("Reader. General History and Ancient Russia.", 1886, IV); Bilbasov, “The History of Catherine II” (vol. 1 and 12). M. P-v. (Brockhaus) Peter III Fedorovich - grandson of Peter the Great, son of his daughter Anna, Hertz of Holstein-Gottorp (born February 10, 1728), Emperor of All Russia (from December 25, 1761 to June 28, 1762 .). 14 l. from birth, P. was summoned from Holstein to Russia by Imperial Elizaveta Petrovna and declared Heir to the Throne. Aug 21 In 1745 his marriage to the prince took place. Sophia-Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, named Vel. Book Ekaterina Alekseevna (later Empress Catherine II). Imperial Elizabeth soon became disillusioned with P., because he clearly did not like Russia, surrounded himself with people from Holstein and did not at all display the abilities necessary for the future Emperor. countries.
All the time he was occupied by the military. fun with sky Holstein detachment troops trained in Prussian style. Charter of Friedrich V., sincerely. which P. openly showed himself to be an admirer.
Having appreciated her nephew, Elizabeth lost all hope of changing him for the better and by the end of her reign “had sincere hatred for him” (N.K. Schilder.
Imp. Paul I. S. 13). Choose a friend. She did not dare to inherit it, because those close to her inspired her that “it is not possible to change without rebellion and disastrous means, which was confirmed by all oaths for 20 years” (ibid., p. 14), and after her death P. III was proclaimed Imperator without any hindrance. It started short-lived, but original. period 6 months. Board P. From measures relating to internal. policies were implemented: a) 18 Feb. In 1762, a manifesto on noble freedom was published: every nobleman can serve or not serve at his own discretion; b) 21 Feb. 1762 - manifesto on the abolition of secrets. office and a ban on uttering the terrible “word and deed” that has weighed on Russia for so many years.
To the extent that these two acts should have evoked the gratitude of contemporaries and posterity, so much has remained. P. III's activities caused a strong the murmur of the people and prepared the success of the state. coup on June 28, 1762. These measures deprived him of support from two important. support of the state authorities: churches and troops. 16 Feb. a decree was promulgated on the establishment of a college of economy, to which the management of all bishops was to pass. and monastery estates, and the clergy and monasteries should have been issued according to approval. states content already from this board.
This decree deprived the clergy of enormous material. funds, aroused strong displeasure among him.
In addition, the Emperor issued an order to close houses. churches, and then, calling the archbishop.
Dmitry Sechenov of Novgorod, the leading member of the Holy Synod, personally ordered him that all images, except for the images of the Savior and the Mother of God, should be removed from the churches and that priests should be ordered to shave their beards and priestly cassocks should be replaced by pastoral ones. frock coats.
In folk The consciousness began to penetrate the masses that the Emperor was not Russian, and that the throne was occupied by a “German” and a “Luthor.” The white clergy was moreover irritated by the command to take into the military. priestly service and deacon. sons.
Having lost the support of the clergy, P. equally aroused displeasure in the army.
Even during the reign of Imperial Elizabeth, Holsteins appeared in Oranienbaum. troops, and P. was provided in full. freedom to demonstrate one’s exercisirmeister talents and prepare for the transformation of Rus. armies against Prussian sample.
With the accession to the throne, P. set to work with his characteristic unreasonable enthusiasm.
The label company was dissolved; in the guard, the previous uniform given to it by Peter V. has been changed to Prussian. and Prussians were introduced. exercises, which the troops trained from morning to evening. Started daily. shift parades in the presence of the Emperor. A decree followed on the renaming of cavalry and infantry. pp. by the names of the bosses. Appeared in St. Petersburg, among others, Holstein. relatives, Uncle Gos-rya, Ave. George, who acquired primary importance in the guard, was made a sergeant-major and, not having any merits or talents behind him, aroused the general public against himself. hatred.
Preference is generally given to the Holstein. officers and soldiers, insulted all of Russia. army: not only the guard was humiliated, but in its person the feeling of the people was trampled. pride.
As if in order to finally arouse the Russians against themselves. society opinion, P. III and ext. made politics anti-national.
By the time of the death of Imperial Elizabeth, Prussia was exhausted in unequal conditions. struggle, and Friedrich V. had to prepare for the complete and inevitable. the ruin of your ambitions. plans.
P. III immediately upon his accession to the throne, neglecting Russia's allies and existing treaties, made peace with Prussia and not only returned to it without any reward all the conquests gained by the Russians. blood, but also ours abroad. He placed the army at the disposal of Frederick.
In addition, he began to intensively prepare for war with Denmark in order to recapture Schleswig for his beloved Holstein.
Thus, Russia was threatened by a new war, which did not promise the Empire any benefits. In vain did Friedrich V. warn his friend against the evil. hobbies and pointed out the need to quickly be crowned to strengthen the position.
The Emperor replied that he had given so much work to his ill-wishers that they had no time to engage in conspiracy and that he was completely calm.
Meanwhile, the conspiracy matured, and at the head of the movement aimed at the overthrow of P. III, by the force of events, Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna stood up, insulted as a woman, worried about the fate and future of the Empire, from which she did not separate herself, and her son, to whom The Emperor showed contempt. dislike and to which he did not pay any attention.
To the guard. There were already many in the regiments who sympathized with the coup and expressed their readiness to the Emperor to defend the rights of her and the Heir to the throne, but most. The Orlov brothers were active figures.
After 3 days celebrations which marked the conclusion of peace with Prussia, P. III with the great. yard moved on June 12 to Oranienbaum.
After spending several days alone in the city, Catherine went to Peterhof on June 17, leaving Tsescha with Mr. Panin in St. Petersburg. in Letn. palace
In Oranienbaum, P. III continued his former revelry. life. In the mornings there were Holstein shift parades. troops, interrupted by outbreaks of unreasonable anger, and then drinking began, during which the Emperor quite definitely said that he had decided to get rid of Catherine and marry his favorite Elizaveta Vorontsova.
Random. events hastened the denouement.
The Imperial's support, the guard, received an order to set out on a campaign against Denmark: not wanting to leave the Imperial defenseless, her followers began to divulge that her life and that of her successor were in danger; at the same time, on June 27, one of the Vidn. participants in the conspiracy, cap. Life Guards Preobrazh. Shelf Passek.
Assuming that the conspiracy had been discovered, they decided not to delay any longer.
On the night of June 28, Catherine was awakened by Alexei Orlov, who had arrived in Peterhof, and brought to St. Petersburg, to the Izmail barracks. p., who swore allegiance to her. From there, annexing Semenovsk. p., Catherine arrived in Kazansk. the cathedral, where she was proclaimed autocratic Empress; then she went to Zimn. the palace, to which the Preobrazhensky and K. Guards regiments soon concentrated, and here the Senate and Synod swore allegiance to her. At the head of 14 thousand. Imperial troops around 10 p.m. moved to Oranienbaum, dressed in the Preobrazh uniform. p-ka. Meanwhile, that morning, at the very time when Catherine was proclaimed the autocratic All-Russian Empress in Kazansk. cathedral, P. III in Oranienbaum did the usual. Holstein parade troops, and at 10 a.m. he went with his retinue to Peterhof, intending to dine with the Imperial in Monplaisir.
Having learned here about what happened in St. Petersburg. state coup, P. in despair did not know what to do; At first he wanted with his Holstein. army to move against Catherine, but, realizing the recklessness of this enterprise, at 10 p.m. went to Kronstadt on a yacht, hoping to rely on the fortress.
But here the adm. was in charge in the name of Empress Catherine. Talyzin, who did not allow P. to land on the shore under the threat of opening fire. Having finally lost his presence of mind, P. after several chimeric. projects (for example, Minich’s project: sail to Revel, transfer there to a military ship and go to Pomerania, from where to go with the army to St. Petersburg) decided to return to Oranienbaum and enter into negotiations with the Imperial. When P.'s proposal to share power with him was left unanswered by Catherine, he signed an abdication of the throne, asking only to be released to Holstein, but was sent to live in the countryside. palace in Ropsha. Golshtinsk. the troops were disarmed.
P. III, according to Frederick W., “allowed himself to be overthrown from the throne, like a child who is sent to bed.” On July 6, the former Emperor suddenly and, apparently, died violently in Ropsha from “severe colic,” as was said in the manifesto on this occasion. (Military enc.) Peter III Fedorovich (Karl-Peter Ulrich), Duke of Holstein, imp. All-Russian; R. 10 Feb 1728, † July 6, 1762 (Polovtsov)
Peter III (Pyotr Fedorovich, born Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp; February 21, Kiel - July 17, Ropsha) - Russian Emperor in -, the first representative of the Holstein-Gottorp (Oldenburg) branch of the Romanovs on the Russian throne. Since 1745 - sovereign Duke of Holstein.
After a six-month reign, he was overthrown as a result of a palace coup that brought his wife, Catherine II, to the throne, and soon lost his life. The personality and activities of Peter III were assessed unanimously negatively by historians for a long time, but then a more balanced approach emerged, noting a number of the emperor’s public services. During the reign of Catherine, many impostors impersonated Pyotr Fedorovich (about forty cases were recorded), the most famous of whom was Emelyan Pugachev.
Childhood, education and upbringing
Peter grew up fearful, nervous, impressionable, loved music and painting and at the same time adored everything military (however, he was afraid of cannon fire; this fear remained with him throughout his life). All his ambitious dreams were connected with military pleasures. He was not in good health, rather the opposite: he was sickly and frail. By character, Peter was not evil; often behaved innocently. Peter's penchant for lies and absurd fantasies is also noted. According to some reports, already in childhood he became addicted to wine.
Heir
At the first meeting, Elizabeth was struck by her nephew’s ignorance and upset by his appearance: thin, sickly, with an unhealthy complexion. His tutor and teacher was academician Jacob Shtelin, who considered his student quite capable, but lazy, at the same time noting in him such traits as cowardice, cruelty towards animals, and a tendency to boast. The heir's training in Russia lasted only three years - after the wedding of Peter and Catherine, Shtelin was relieved of his duties (however, he forever retained Peter's favor and trust). Neither during his studies, nor subsequently, Pyotr Fedorovich never really learned to speak and write in Russian. The Grand Duke's mentor in Orthodoxy was Simon of Todor, who also became a teacher of the law for Catherine.
The heir's wedding was celebrated on a special scale - so that before the ten-day celebrations, “all the fairy tales of the East faded.” Peter and Catherine were granted possession of Oranienbaum near St. Petersburg and Lyubertsy near Moscow.
Peter's relationship with his wife did not work out from the very beginning: she was intellectually more developed, and he, on the contrary, was infantile. Catherine noted in her memoirs:
(In the same place, Catherine mentions, not without pride, that she read the “History of Germany” in eight large volumes in four months. Elsewhere in her memoirs, Catherine writes about her enthusiastic reading of Madame de Sevigne and Voltaire. All memories are from about the same time.)
The Grand Duke's mind was still occupied with children's games and military exercises, and he was not at all interested in women. It is believed that until the early 1750s there was no marital relationship between husband and wife, but then Peter underwent some kind of operation (presumably circumcision to eliminate phimosis), after which in 1754 Catherine gave birth to his son Paul (the future Emperor Paul I) . However, the inconsistency of this version is evidenced by a letter from the Grand Duke to his wife, dated December 1746:
The infant heir, the future Russian Emperor Paul I, was immediately taken away from his parents after birth, and Empress Elizaveta Petrovna herself took up his upbringing. However, Pyotr Fedorovich was never interested in his son and was quite satisfied with the empress’s permission to see Paul once a week. Peter was increasingly moving away from his wife; Elizaveta Vorontsova (sister of E.R. Dashkova) became his favorite. Nevertheless, Catherine noted that for some reason the Grand Duke always had an involuntary trust in her, all the more strange since she did not strive for spiritual intimacy with her husband. In difficult situations, financial or economic, he often turned to his wife for help, calling her ironically "Madame la Resource"(“Mistress Help”).
Peter never hid his hobbies for other women from his wife; Catherine felt humiliated by this state of affairs. In 1756, she had an affair with Stanisław August Poniatowski, then the Polish envoy to the Russian court. For the Grand Duke, his wife’s passion was also no secret. There is information that Peter and Catherine more than once hosted dinners together with Poniatovsky and Elizaveta Vorontsova; they took place in the chambers of the Grand Duchess. Afterwards, leaving with his favorite to his half, Peter joked: “Well, children, now you don’t need us anymore.” “Both couples lived in very close good relations" The grand ducal couple had another child in 1757, Anna (she died of smallpox in 1759). Historians cast great doubt on the paternity of Peter, calling S. A. Poniatovsky the most likely father. However, Peter officially recognized the child as his own.
In the early 1750s, Peter was allowed to order a small detachment of Holstein soldiers (by 1758 their number was about one and a half thousand), and he spent all his free time engaging in military exercises and maneuvers with them. Some time later (by 1759-1760), these Holstein soldiers formed the garrison of the amusement fortress Peterstadt, built at the residence of the Grand Duke Oranienbaum. Peter's other hobby was playing the violin.
During the years spent in Russia, Peter never made any attempt to get to know the country, its people and history better; he neglected Russian customs, behaved inappropriately during church services, and did not observe fasts and other rituals.
It is noted that Peter III was energetically engaged in state affairs (“In the morning he was in his office, where he heard reports<…>, then hurried to the Senate or collegium.<…>In the Senate, he took on the most important matters himself energetically and assertively." His policy was quite consistent; he, in imitation of his grandfather Peter I, proposed to carry out a series of reforms.
The most important affairs of Peter III include the abolition of the Secret Chancellery (Chancellery of Secret Investigative Affairs; Manifesto of February 16, 1762), the beginning of the process of secularization of church lands, the encouragement of commercial and industrial activities through the creation of the State Bank and the issuance of banknotes (Name Decree of May 25), adoption of a decree on freedom of foreign trade (Decree of March 28); it also contains a requirement to respect forests as one of the most important resources of Russia. Among other measures, researchers note a decree that allowed the establishment of factories for the production of sailing fabric in Siberia, as well as a decree that qualified the murder of peasants by landowners as “tyrant torture” and provided for lifelong exile for this. He also stopped the persecution of Old Believers. Peter III is also credited with the intention to carry out a reform of the Russian Orthodox Church along the Protestant model (In the Manifesto of Catherine II on the occasion of her accession to the throne dated June 28, 1762, Peter was blamed for this: “Our Greek Church is already extremely exposed to its last danger, the change of ancient Orthodoxy in Russia and the adoption of a law of other faiths").
Legislative acts adopted during the short reign of Peter III largely became the foundation for the subsequent reign of Catherine II.
The most important document of the reign of Pyotr Fedorovich is the “Manifesto on the Freedom of the Nobility” (Manifesto of February 18, 1762), thanks to which the nobility became an exclusive privileged class of the Russian Empire. The nobility, having been forced by Peter I to compulsory and universal conscription to serve the state all their lives, and under Anna Ioannovna, having received the right to retire after 25 years of service, now received the right not to serve at all. And the privileges initially granted to the nobility as a service class not only remained, but also expanded. In addition to being exempt from service, nobles received the right to virtually unhindered exit from the country. One of the consequences of the Manifesto was that the nobles could now freely dispose of their land holdings, regardless of their attitude to service (the Manifesto passed over in silence the rights of the nobility to their estates; while the previous legislative acts of Peter I, Anna Ioannovna and Elizaveta Petrovna regarding noble service, linked official duties and landownership rights). The nobility became as free as a privileged class could be free in a feudal country.
The reign of Peter III was marked by the strengthening of serfdom. The landowners were given the opportunity to arbitrarily resettle the peasants who belonged to them from one district to another; serious bureaucratic restrictions arose on the transition of serfs to the merchant class; During the six months of Peter's reign, about 13 thousand people were distributed from state peasants to serfs (in fact, there were more of them: only men were included in the audit lists in 1762). During these six months, peasant riots arose several times and were suppressed by punitive detachments. Noteworthy is the Manifesto of Peter III of June 19 regarding the riots in the Tver and Cannes districts: “We intend to inviolably preserve the landowners on their estates and possessions, and to maintain the peasants in due obedience to them.” The riots were caused by a rumor spreading about the granting of “liberty to the peasantry”, a response to the rumors and a legislative act, which was not accidentally given the status of a manifesto.
The legislative activity of the government of Peter III was extraordinary. During the 186-day reign, judging by the official “Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire,” 192 documents were adopted: manifestos, personal and Senate decrees, resolutions, etc. (These do not include decrees on awards and ranks, monetary payments and regarding specific private issues).
However, some researchers stipulate that measures useful for the country were taken “by the way”; for the emperor himself they were not urgent or important. In addition, many of these decrees and manifestos did not appear suddenly: they were prepared under Elizabeth by the “Commission for the Drawing up of a New Code”, and were adopted at the suggestion of Roman Vorontsov, Peter Shuvalov, Dmitry Volkov and other Elizabethan dignitaries who remained at the throne of Peter Fedorovich.
Peter III was much more interested in internal affairs in the war with Denmark: out of Holstein patriotism, the emperor decided, in alliance with Prussia, to oppose Denmark (yesterday's ally of Russia), with the goal of returning Schleswig, which it had taken from his native Holstein, and he himself intended to go on a campaign at the head of the guard.
| Romanov Dynasty (before Peter III) | |||||||
|
| Nikita Ivanovich |
Immediately upon his accession to the throne, Peter Fedorovich returned to the court most of the disgraced nobles of the previous reign, who had languished in exile (except for the hated Bestuzhev-Ryumin). Among them was Count Burchard Christopher Minich, a veteran of palace coups. The emperor's Holstein relatives were summoned to Russia: princes Georg Ludwig of Holstein-Gottorp and Peter August Friedrich of Holstein-Beck. Both were promoted to field marshal general in the prospect of war with Denmark; Peter August Friedrich was also appointed governor-general of the capital. Alexander Vilboa was appointed Feldzeichmeister General. These people, as well as the former educator Jacob Staehlin, appointed personal librarian, formed the emperor's inner circle.
Once in power, Peter III immediately stopped military operations against Prussia and concluded the St. Petersburg Peace Treaty with Frederick II on conditions extremely unfavorable for Russia, returning the conquered East Prussia (which had already been an integral part of the Russian Empire for four years); and abandoning all acquisitions during the actually won Seven Years' War. Russia's exit from the war once again saved Prussia from complete defeat (see also “The Miracle of the House of Brandenburg”). Peter III easily sacrificed the interests of Russia for the sake of his German duchy and friendship with his idol Frederick. The peace concluded on April 24 caused bewilderment and indignation in society; it was naturally regarded as a betrayal and national humiliation. The long and costly war ended in nothing; Russia did not derive any benefits from its victories.
Despite the progressive nature of many legislative measures and unprecedented privileges for the nobility, Peter’s poorly thought-out foreign policy actions, as well as his harsh actions towards the church, the introduction of Prussian orders in the army not only did not add to his authority, but deprived him of any social support; in court circles, his policy only generated uncertainty about the future.
| Society felt prank and caprice in the actions of the government, a lack of unity of thought and a definite direction. The breakdown of the government mechanism was obvious to everyone. All this caused a friendly murmur, which poured down from the highest spheres and became popular. Tongues were loosened, as if not feeling the fear of the policeman; on the streets they openly and loudly expressed dissatisfaction, blaming the sovereign without any fear. |
Finally, the intention to withdraw the guard from St. Petersburg and send it on an incomprehensible and unpopular Danish campaign served as a powerful catalyst for the conspiracy that arose in the guard in favor of Ekaterina Alekseevna.
Palace coup
The first beginnings of the conspiracy date back to 1756, that is, to the time of the beginning of the Seven Years' War and the deterioration of Elizabeth Petrovna's health. The all-powerful Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, knowing full well about the pro-Prussian sentiments of the heir and realizing that under the new sovereign he was threatened by at least Siberia, hatched plans to neutralize Peter Fedorovich upon his accession to the throne, declaring Catherine an equal co-ruler. However, Alexei Petrovich fell into disgrace in 1758, hastening to implement his plan (the chancellor’s intentions remained undisclosed; he managed to destroy dangerous papers). The Empress herself had no illusions about her successor to the throne and later thought about replacing her nephew with her great-nephew Paul:
| During illness<…>Elisaveta Petrovna I heard that<…>Everyone is afraid of her heir; that he is not loved or respected by anyone; that the empress herself complains about who should entrust the throne; that there is an inclination in her to remove an incapable heir, from whom she herself had annoyance, and to take his seven-year-old son and entrust management to me [that is, Catherine]. |
Over the next three years, Catherine, who also came under suspicion in 1758 and almost ended up in a monastery, did not take any noticeable political actions, except that she persistently multiplied and strengthened her personal connections in high society.
In the ranks of the guard, a conspiracy against Pyotr Fedorovich took shape in the last months of Elizaveta Petrovna’s life, thanks to the activities of three Orlov brothers, officers of the Izmailovsky regiment brothers Roslavlev and Lasunsky, Preobrazhensky soldiers Passek and Bredikhin and others. Among the highest dignitaries of the Empire, the most enterprising conspirators were N. I. Panin, teacher of the young Pavel Petrovich, M. N. Volkonsky and K. G. Razumovsky, Little Russian hetman, president of the Academy of Sciences, favorite of his Izmailovsky regiment.
Elizaveta Petrovna died without deciding to change anything in the fate of the throne. Catherine did not consider it possible to carry out a coup immediately after the death of the Empress: she was five months pregnant (from Grigory Orlov; in April 1762 she gave birth to a son, Alexei). In addition, Catherine had political reasons not to rush things; she wanted to attract as many supporters as possible to her side for complete triumph. Knowing well the character of her husband, she rightly believed that Peter would soon turn the entire metropolitan society against himself. To carry out the coup, Catherine preferred to wait for an opportune moment.
Peter III's position in society was precarious, but Catherine's position at court was also precarious. Peter III openly said that he was going to divorce his wife in order to marry his favorite Elizaveta Vorontsova. He treated his wife rudely, and on April 30, during a gala dinner on the occasion of the conclusion of peace with Prussia, a public scandal occurred. The Emperor, in the presence of the court, diplomats and foreign princes, shouted to his wife across the table "foll"(stupid); Catherine began to cry. The reason for the insult was Catherine’s reluctance to drink while standing the toast proclaimed by Peter III. The hostility between the spouses reached its climax. On the evening of the same day, he gave the order to arrest her, and only the intervention of Field Marshal Georg of Holstein-Gottorp, the emperor's uncle, saved Catherine.
Peterhof. Cascade "Golden Mountain". 19th century photolithography
By May 1762, the change of mood in the capital became so obvious that the emperor was advised from all sides to take measures to prevent a disaster, there were denunciations of a possible conspiracy, but Pyotr Fedorovich did not understand the seriousness of his situation. In May, the court, led by the emperor, as usual, left the city, to Oranienbaum. There was a calm in the capital, which greatly contributed to the final preparations of the conspirators.
The Danish campaign was planned for June. The emperor decided to postpone the march of the troops in order to celebrate his name day. On the morning of June 28, 1762, on the eve of Peter's Day, Emperor Peter III and his retinue set off from Oranienbaum, his country residence, to Peterhof, where a gala dinner was to take place in honor of the emperor's name day. The day before, a rumor spread throughout St. Petersburg that Catherine was being held under arrest. A great turmoil began in the guard; one of the participants in the conspiracy, Captain Passek, was arrested; the Orlov brothers feared that a conspiracy was in danger of being discovered.
In Peterhof, Peter III was supposed to be met by his wife, who, in the duty of the empress, was the organizer of the celebrations, but by the time the court arrived, she had disappeared. After a short time, it became known that Catherine fled to St. Petersburg early in the morning in a carriage with Alexei Orlov (he arrived in Peterhof to see Catherine with the news that events had taken a critical turn and it was no longer possible to delay). In the capital, the Guard, the Senate and the Synod, and the population swore allegiance to the “Empress and Autocrat of All Russia” in a short time.
The guard moved towards Peterhof.
Peter's further actions show an extreme degree of confusion. Rejecting Minich's advice to immediately head to Kronstadt and fight, relying on the fleet and the army loyal to him stationed in East Prussia, he was going to defend himself in Peterhof in a toy fortress built for maneuvers, with the help of a detachment of Holsteins. However, having learned about the approach of the guard led by Catherine, Peter abandoned this thought and sailed to Kronstadt with the entire court, ladies, etc. But by that time Kronstadt had already sworn allegiance to Catherine. After this, Peter completely lost heart and, again rejecting Minich’s advice to go to the East Prussian army, returned to Oranienbaum, where he signed his abdication of the throne.
| Somewhere they got wine, and a general drinking session began. The rioting guards were clearly planning to inflict reprisals on their former emperor. Panin forcibly assembled a battalion of reliable soldiers to surround the pavilion. Peter III was hard to watch. He sat powerless and limp, crying constantly. Seizing a moment, he rushed to Panin and, catching his hand for a kiss, whispered: “I ask one thing - leave Lizaveta [Vorontsova] with me, in the name of the Merciful Lord!” . |
The events of June 28, 1762 have significant differences from previous palace coups; firstly, the coup went beyond the “walls of the palace” and even beyond the boundaries of the guards barracks, gaining unprecedented widespread support from various layers of the capital’s population, and secondly, the guard became an independent political force, and not a protective force, but a revolutionary one, which overthrew the legitimate emperor and supported the usurpation of power by Catherine.
Death
Palace in Ropsha, built during the reign of Catherine II
The circumstances of the death of Peter III have not yet been fully clarified.
The deposed emperor immediately after the coup, accompanied by a guard of guards led by A.G. Orlov, was sent to Ropsha, 30 miles from St. Petersburg, where he died a week later. According to the official (and most probable) version, the cause of death was an attack of hemorrhoidal colic, worsened by prolonged alcohol consumption, and accompanied by diarrhea. During the autopsy (which was carried out by order of Catherine), it was discovered that Peter III had severe cardiac dysfunction, inflammation of the intestines, and there were signs of apoplexy.
However, the generally accepted version considers Peter’s death to be violent and names Alexei Orlov as the killer. This version is based on Orlov’s letter to Catherine from Ropsha, which was not preserved in the original. This letter has reached us in a copy taken by F.V. Rostopchin; the original letter was allegedly destroyed by Emperor Paul I in the first days of his reign. Recent historical and linguistic studies disprove the authenticity of the document (the original, apparently, never existed, and the real author of the fake is Rostopchin).
Already today, a number of medical examinations have been carried out on the basis of surviving documents and evidence. Experts believe that Peter III suffered from manic-depressive psychosis in a weak stage (cyclothymia) with a mild depressive phase; suffered from hemorrhoids, which made him unable to sit in one place for a long time; A “small heart” found at autopsy usually suggests dysfunction of other organs and makes circulatory problems more likely, that is, creates a risk of heart attack or stroke.
Funeral
Chimes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral
Initially, Peter III was buried without any honors in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, since only crowned heads were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the imperial tomb. The full Senate asked the Empress not to attend the funeral.
But, according to some reports, Catherine decided in her own way; She arrived at the Lavra incognito and paid her last debt to her husband. In , immediately after the death of Catherine, by order of Paul I, his remains were transferred first to the house church of the Winter Palace, and then to the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Peter III was reburied simultaneously with the burial of Catherine II; At the same time, Emperor Paul personally performed the ceremony of coronation of the ashes of his father.
The head slabs of the buried bear the same date of burial (December 18, 1796), which gives the impression that Peter III and Catherine II lived together for many years and died on the same day.
Life after death
Impostors have not been a new thing in the world community since the time of the False Nero, who appeared almost immediately after the death of his “prototype.” False tsars and false princes of the Time of Troubles are also known in Russia, but among all other domestic rulers and members of their families, Peter III is the absolute record holder for the number of impostors who tried to take the place of the untimely deceased tsar. During Pushkin's time there were rumors about five; According to the latest data, in Russia alone there were about forty false Peter III.
Soon after, the name of the late emperor was appropriated by a fugitive recruit Ivan Evdokimov, who tried to raise an uprising in his favor among the peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod province and a Ukrainian Nikolay Kolchenko in Chernihiv region /
In the same year, shortly after Kremnev’s arrest, in Slobodskaya Ukraine, in the settlement of Kupyanka, Izyum district, a new impostor appears. This time it turned out to be Pyotr Fedorovich Chernyshev, a fugitive soldier of the Bryansk regiment. This impostor, unlike his predecessors, turned out to be smart and articulate. Soon captured, convicted and exiled to Nerchinsk, he did not abandon his claims there either, spreading rumors that the “father-emperor,” who incognito inspected the soldier’s regiments, was mistakenly captured and beaten with whips. The peasants who believed him tried to organize an escape by bringing the “sovereign” a horse and providing him with money and provisions for the journey. However, the impostor was unlucky. He got lost in the taiga, was caught and cruelly punished in front of his admirers, sent to Mangazeya for eternal work, but died on the way there.
An extraordinary person turned out to be Fedot Bogomolov, a former serf who fled and joined the Volga Cossacks under the name Kazin. Strictly speaking, he himself did not impersonate the former emperor, but in March-June 1772 on the Volga, in the Tsaritsyn region, when his colleagues, due to the fact that Kazin-Bogomolov seemed to them too smart and intelligent, assumed that in front of them Emperor in hiding, Bogomolov easily agreed with his “imperial dignity.” Bogomolov, following his predecessors, was arrested and sentenced to have his nostrils pulled out, branded and eternal exile. On the way to Siberia he died.
In the same year, a certain Don Cossack, whose name has not been preserved in history, decided to benefit financially from the widespread belief in the “hiding emperor.” Perhaps, of all the applicants, this was the only one who spoke in advance with a purely fraudulent purpose. His accomplice, posing as a secretary of state, traveled around the Tsaritsyn province, taking oaths and preparing the people to receive the “father-tsar”, then the impostor himself appeared. The couple managed to profit enough at someone else’s expense before the news reached other Cossacks and they decided to give everything a political aspect. A plan was developed to capture the town of Dubrovka and arrest all the officers. However, the authorities became aware of the plot and one of the high-ranking military men showed sufficient determination to completely suppress the plot. Accompanied by a small escort, he entered the hut where the impostor was, hit him in the face and ordered his arrest along with his accomplice (“Secretary of State”). The Cossacks present obeyed, but when the arrested were taken to Tsaritsyn for trial and execution, rumors immediately spread that the emperor was in custody and muted unrest began. To avoid an attack, the prisoners were forced to be kept outside the city, under heavy escort. During the investigation, the prisoner died, that is, from the point of view of ordinary people, he again “disappeared without a trace.” In 1774, the future leader of the peasant war Emelyan Pugachev, the most famous of the false Peter III, skillfully turned this story to his advantage, assuring that he himself was the “emperor who disappeared from Tsaritsyn” - and this attracted many to his side. .
The Lost Emperor appeared abroad at least four times and enjoyed considerable success there. For the first time it emerged in 1766 in Montenegro, which at that time was fighting for independence against the Turks and the Venetian Republic. Strictly speaking, this man, who came from nowhere and became a village healer, never declared himself emperor, but a certain captain Tanovich, who had previously been in St. Petersburg, “recognized” him as the missing emperor, and the elders who gathered for the council managed to find a portrait of Peter in one from Orthodox monasteries and came to the conclusion that the original is very similar to its image. A high-ranking delegation was sent to Stefan (that was the name of the stranger) with requests to take power over the country, but he flatly refused until internal strife was stopped and peace was concluded between the tribes. Such unusual demands finally convinced the Montenegrins of his “royal origin” and, despite the resistance of the clergy and the machinations of the Russian general Dolgorukov, Stefan became the ruler of the country. He never revealed his real name, giving Yu. V. Dolgoruky, who was seeking the truth, three versions to choose from - “Raicevic from Dalmatia, a Turk from Bosnia and finally a Turk from Ioannina.” Openly recognizing himself as Peter III, he, however, ordered to call himself Stefan and went down in history as Stefan the Small, which is believed to come from the impostor’s signature - “ Stefan, small with small, good with good, evil with evil" Stefan turned out to be an intelligent and knowledgeable ruler. During the short time that he remained in power, civil strife ceased; after short friction, good neighborly relations with Russia were established and the country defended itself quite confidently against the onslaught from both the Venetians and the Turks. This could not please the conquerors, and Turkey and Venice made repeated attempts on Stephen’s life. Finally, one of the attempts was successful: after five years of rule, Stefan Maly was stabbed to death in his sleep by his own doctor, a Greek by nationality, Stanko Klasomunya, bribed by the Skadar Pasha. The impostor’s belongings were sent to St. Petersburg, and his associates even tried to obtain a pension from Catherine for “valiant service to her husband.”
After the death of Stephen, a certain Zenovich tried to declare himself the ruler of Montenegro and Peter III, who once again “miraculously escaped from the hands of murderers,” but his attempt was unsuccessful. Count Mocenigo, who was at that time on the island of Zante in the Adriatic, wrote about another impostor in a report to the Doge of the Venetian Republic. This impostor operated in Turkish Albania, in the vicinity of the city of Arta. How his epic ended is unknown.
The last foreign impostor, appearing in 1773, traveled all over Europe, corresponded with monarchs, and kept in touch with Voltaire and Rousseau. In 1785, in Amsterdam, the swindler was finally arrested and his veins were opened.
The last Russian “Peter III” was arrested in 1797, after which the ghost of Peter III finally disappeared from the historical scene.
Notes
- Biographies of cavalry guards: N. Yu. Trubetskoy
- Iskul S.N. Year 1762. - St. Petersburg: Information and Publishing Agency "Lik", 2001, p. 43.
- Peskov A. M. Paul I. The author refers to:
Kamensky A. B. The life and fate of Empress Catherine the Great. - M., 1997.
Naumov V. P. An amazing autocrat: the mysteries of his life and reign. - M., 1993.
Ivanov O. A. The mystery of Alexei Orlov's letters from Ropsha // Moscow magazine. - 1995. - № 9. - VIVOS VOCO: N. Y. Eidelman, “YOUR 18TH CENTURY...” (Chapter 6)
- Integrated lesson on the course of Russian history and literature in the 8th... :: Festival “Open Lesson”
- Murmansk MBNEWS.RU - Polar truth number 123 from 08.24.06
- SHIELD and SWORD | A long time ago
- http://www.rustrana.ru/article.php?nid=22182 (inaccessible link - story)
- Alexey Golovnin. The word is infallible. Magazine "Samizdat" (2007). - Application of methods of structural hermeneutics to the text “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” Archived from the original on August 22, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2008.
- Count Benevsky. Part four. Runaway Noah's Ark
- http://window.edu.ru/window_catalog/files/r42450/r2gl12.pdf
- :: Russian torture. Political investigation in Russia of the 18th century - Anisimov Evgeniy - Page: 6 - Read - Download for free txt fb2:: (inaccessible link - story)
- Sergey Kravchenko. Crooked Empire. My day is my year!┘
- Pugachev on the Volga | History of Tsaritsyn | History of Volgograd
- Selivanov Kondraty
- How Stephen the Small came to save Montenegro and afterwards | Spectator, The | Find Articles at BNET (unavailable link)
- Stepan (Stefan) Maly. Impostor. Pretended to be Peter III in Montenegro. Books from the 100 Hundred Greats series
- Doubles, impostors or historical figures who lived twice
References
- Klyuchevsky V. O. Historical portraits. - M.: “Pravda”, 1990. - ISBN 5-253-00034-8
Historical figures, especially when it comes to their native country, are always studied with interest. The reigning persons who stood at the helm of power in Russia exerted their influence on the development of the country. Some of the kings ruled for many years, others for a short time, but all the personalities were noticeable and interesting. Emperor Peter 3 did not reign for long, died early, but left his mark on the history of the country.
Royal roots
The desire of Elizabeth Petrovna, who has reigned on the Russian throne since 1741, to strengthen the throne along the line led to her declaring her nephew as heir. She did not have her own children, but her older sister had a son who lived in the house of Adolf Frederick, the future king of Sweden.
Karl Peter, Elizabeth's nephew, was the son of Peter I's eldest daughter, Anna Petrovna. Immediately after giving birth, she fell ill and died soon after. When Karl Peter was 11 years old, he lost his father. Having lost his short biography, he began to live with his paternal uncle, Adolf Frederick. He did not receive proper upbringing and education, since the main method of educators was the “whip”.
He had to stand in the corner for a long time, sometimes on peas, and the boy’s knees swelled from this. All this left an imprint on his health: Karl Peter was a nervous child and was often sick. By character, Emperor Peter 3 grew up to be a simple-minded man, not evil, and was very fond of military affairs. But at the same time, historians note: when he was a teenager, he loved to drink wine.
Elizabeth's heir
And in 1741, she ascended the Russian throne. From that moment on, the life of Karl Peter Ulrich changed: in 1742 he became the heir of the Empress, and he was brought to Russia. He made a depressing impression on the empress: she saw in him a sickly and uneducated young man. Having converted to Orthodoxy, he was named Peter Fedorovich, and during the days of his reign his official name was Peter 3 Fedorovich.
For three years, educators and teachers worked with him. His main teacher was academician Jacob Shtelin. He believed that the future emperor was a capable young man, but very lazy. After all, during three years of study, he mastered the Russian language very poorly: he wrote and spoke illiterately, and did not study traditions. Pyotr Fedorovich loved to brag and was prone to cowardice - these qualities were noted by his teachers. His official title included the words: “Grandson of Peter the Great.”
Peter 3 Fedorovich - marriage
In 1745, the marriage of Pyotr Fedorovich took place. The princess became his wife. She also received her name after accepting Orthodoxy: her maiden name was Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst. This was the future Empress Catherine II.
A wedding gift from Elizaveta Petrovna was Oranienbaum, near St. Petersburg, and Lyubertsy, Moscow Region. But the marital relationship between the newlyweds does not work out. Although in all important economic and business matters, Pyotr Fedorovich always consulted with his wife and felt trust in her.
Life before the coronation
Peter 3, his short biography speaks of this, did not have a marital relationship with his wife. But later, after 1750, he moved surgery. As a result, they had a son, who in the future became Emperor Paul I. Elizaveta Petrovna was personally involved in raising her grandson, immediately taking him away from his parents.
Peter was pleased with this state of affairs and increasingly moved away from his wife. He was interested in other women and even had a favorite, Elizaveta Vorontsova. In turn, in order to avoid loneliness, she had a relationship with the Polish ambassador - Stanislav August Poniatowski. The couples were on friendly terms with each other.
Birth of a daughter
In 1757, Catherine’s daughter is born, and she is given the name Anna Petrovna. Peter 3, whose short biography proves this fact, officially recognized his daughter. But historians, of course, have doubts about his paternity. In 1759, at the age of two, the child fell ill and died of smallpox. Peter had no other children.
In 1958, Pyotr Fedorovich had a garrison of soldiers numbering up to one and a half thousand under his command. And all his free time he devoted himself to his favorite pastime: training soldiers. The reign of Peter 3 has not yet begun, but he has already aroused the hostility of the nobility and people. The reason for everything was undisguised sympathy for the King of Prussia, Frederick II. His regret that he became the heir of the Russian Tsar, and not the Swedish king, his reluctance to accept Russian culture, his poor Russian language - all together turned the masses against Peter.
Reign of Peter 3
After the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, at the end of 1761, Peter III was proclaimed emperor. But he had not yet been crowned. What policy did Peter Fedorovich begin to pursue? In his domestic policy, he was consistent and took as a model the policy of his grandfather, Peter I. Emperor Peter 3, in short, decided to become the same reformer. What he managed to do during his short reign laid the foundation for the reign of his wife, Catherine.
But he made a number of mistakes in foreign policy: he stopped the war with Prussia. And he returned those lands that the Russian army had already conquered to King Frederick. In the army, the emperor introduced the same Prussian rules, was going to carry out the secularization of the lands of the church and its reform, and was preparing for war with Denmark. With these actions of Peter 3 (a short biography proves this), he turned the church against himself.
Coup
Reluctance to see Peter on the throne was expressed before his ascension. Even under Elizaveta Petrovna, Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin began to prepare a conspiracy against the future emperor. But it so happened that the conspirator fell out of favor and did not finish his job. Against Peter, shortly before the death of Elizabeth, an opposition was formed, consisting of: N.I. Panin, M.N. Volkonsky, K.P. Razumovsky. They were joined by officers of two regiments: Preobrazhensky and Izmailovsky. Peter 3, in short, was not supposed to ascend to the throne; instead, they were going to elevate Catherine, his wife.
These plans could not be realized due to Catherine’s pregnancy and childbirth: she gave birth to a child from Grigory Orlov. In addition, she believed that the policies of Peter III would discredit him, but would give her more comrades. According to established tradition, Peter went to Oranienbaum in May. On June 28, 1762, he went to Peterhof, where Catherine was to meet him and organize celebrations in his honor.
But instead she hurried to St. Petersburg. Here she took the oath of allegiance from the Senate, the Synod, the guard and the masses. Then Kronstadt swore allegiance. Peter III returned to Oranienbaum, where he signed his abdication of the throne.
End of the reign of Peter III
He was then sent to Ropsha, where he died a week later. Or was deprived of his life. No one can prove or disprove this. Thus ended the reign of Peter III, which was very short and tragic. He ruled the country for only 186 days.
He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra: Peter was not crowned, and therefore he could not be buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. But the son, becoming emperor, corrected everything. He crowned the remains of his father and reburied them next to Catherine.
(Start)
Petr Fedorovich and Ekaterina Alekseevna. In 1742, Elizabeth declared the heir of her nephew, the grandson of Peter the Great (and the grandson of the sister of Charles XII of Sweden), Duke of Schleswig-Holstein Karl Peter Ulrich. For the Russian people, he was the same German prince as those from whom Russian society was freed in 1741 and who were so hateful to him. Elizabeth soon began to consider this choice, or, better to say, the necessity of this choice, as a serious misfortune. The fourteen-year-old orphaned Duke was transported from Holstein to Russia, found a second mother in Elizabeth, converted to Orthodoxy, and began to receive a Russian education instead of a German one. In 1745 they rushed to marry him. The issue of a bride was discussed at court for a very long time, because marriage was given political significance and they were afraid of making a mistake. Finally, Elizabeth settled on the person that, in contrast to Bestuzhev, the French-Prussian party pointed out, which Frederick of Prussia also pointed out - Princess Sophia-Augustus-Frederike of Anhalt-Zerbst. Her father was only a general in the Prussian service, commandant of Stetin; mother, in caring for a rather poor household, managed to lose her sense of tact and good character, acquiring a penchant for hoarding and gossip. The bride and her mother came to Russia, converted to Orthodoxy and were named Ekaterina Alekseevna; On August 25, 1745, the wedding of 17-year-old Peter and 16-year-old Catherine took place. But everyone noticed that the groom was cold towards the bride and was directly quarreling with his future mother-in-law. However, Catherine’s mother showed her quarrelsome character towards everyone and therefore was sent from Russia in the same 1745. The young couple remained as if alone in the large Elizabethan palace, being cut off from the German environment, from the environment of their childhood. Both husband and wife had to define their own identities and their relationships at court.
Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich (future Peter III) and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna (future Catherine II)
Pyotr Fedorovich was a weakly gifted man and physical forces, and mental, he lost his mother and father early and remained in the hands of Marshal Brümmer, who was more of a soldier than an educated man, more of a groom than a teacher. Peter's childhood passed in such a way that nothing good could be remembered. His upbringing was neglected, as was his education. Brümmer established such a routine of life for his pupil, which could not help but upset his health, which was already weak: for example, during long classes the boy had no exercise and did not eat until two o’clock in the afternoon. And at lunchtime, the sovereign duke often only watched from the corner as his servants ate lunch, which he himself was denied by the teachers. By feeding the boy poorly, he was not allowed to develop, which is why he became lethargic and weak. Moral education was neglected: kneeling on peas, decorating with donkey ears, blows of a whip and even beating with anything were a common means of pedagogical persuasion. A series of moral humiliations in front of the courtiers, rude shouts from Brummer and his impudent antics could not, of course, develop in the prince either sound moral concepts or a sense of human dignity. Mental education was also bad. Peter studied many languages, many subjects, but they taught him by force, not in accordance with his weak abilities, and he learned little and became disgusted with learning. Latin, which at that time was compulsory for everyone educated person, he was so fed up that he forbade placing Latin books in his library in St. Petersburg. When he came to Russia and Elizabeth met him, she was surprised at the poverty of his knowledge. They began to teach him again, this time in the Orthodox Russian way. But science was hampered by Peter’s illness (in 1743–1745 he was seriously ill three times), and then by his marriage. Having learned the Orthodox catechism hastily, Peter remained with the views of a German Protestant. Getting to know Russia from the lessons of Academician Shtelin, Peter was not interested in it, was bored by the lessons and remained a very ignorant and undeveloped person with German views and habits. He didn’t like Russia and thought superstitiously that he wouldn’t do well in Russia. He was only interested in “fun”: he loved to dance, play childish pranks and play soldiers. He was interested in military affairs to the highest degree, but he did not study it, but amused himself with it and, like a German, was in awe of King Frederick, whom he wanted to imitate always and in everything and was never able to do anything.
Marriage did not and could not bring him to his senses because he did not feel his strangeness and had a very good opinion of himself. He looked down on his wife, who was immeasurably taller than him. Since they stopped teaching him, he considered himself an adult and, of course, did not want to learn from his wife either her tact, or her restraint, or, finally, her efficiency. He didn’t want to know any business; on the contrary, he expanded his repertoire of amusements and strange antics: he spent hours slapping rooms with a coachman’s whip, he practiced the violin unsuccessfully, he gathered together palace footmen and played soldiers with them, he held inspections of toy soldiers, and organized toy games. fortresses, posted guards and performed toy military exercises; and once, in the eighth year of his marriage, he was judged by military law and hanged the rat that had eaten his starched soldier. All this was done with serious interest, and it was clear from everything that these games of toy soldiers occupied him extremely. He woke up his wife at night so that she would eat oysters with him or stand watch in his office. He described to her in detail the beauty of the woman who captivated him and demanded attention to such a conversation that was offensive to her. Treating Catherine tactlessly and insulting her, he had no tact towards strangers and allowed himself various vulgarities: for example, in church during services, behind his aunt’s back, he mimicked the priests, and when the ladies-in-waiting looked at him, he stuck his tongue out at them , but so that the aunt would not see it: he was still very afraid of his aunt. Sitting at the table, he mocked the servants, doused their dresses, pushed dishes onto his neighbors and tried to get drunk as quickly as possible. This is how the heir to the throne, an adult and the father of the family behaved (in 1754 his son Pavel was born). “Peter showed all the signs of arrested spiritual development,” says S. M. Solovyov, “he was an adult child.” Empress Elizabeth understood Peter's qualities and often cried, worrying about the future, but she did not dare change the order of succession to the throne, because Peter III was a direct descendant of Peter the Great.
However, they did not lose hope of getting Peter used to business. Shtelin continued to introduce him to state affairs theoretically, and in 1756 Peter was appointed a member of the Conference, established, as we have seen, for particularly important matters. At the same time, as Duke of Holstein, Peter every week “on Monday and Friday, with his Holstein ministers, held the council and managed the affairs of his duchy.” All these worries had some result. Peter became interested in affairs, but not in Russia, but in Holstein. It is unlikely that he got to know them well, but he adopted the Holstein views, wanting to win the Holstein lands from Denmark and was very busy with the Holstein soldiers and officers, whom he was allowed to bring to Russia since 1755. In the summer he lived with them in the camps in Oranienbaum, adopted their soldierly manners and foppery, learned from them to smoke, drink like a soldier and dream of Holstein conquests.
Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. Portrait by V. Eriksen
Peter's attitude towards Russia and Russian affairs was determined over time. He told his wife that “he was not born for Russia, that he was unsuitable for the Russians and the Russians were unsuitable for him, and he was convinced that he would die in Russia.” When the Swedish throne became vacant and Peter could not take it, although he had the right, he angrily said out loud: “They dragged me to this damned Russia, where I must consider myself a state prisoner, whereas if they had left me free, then now I would sit on the throne of a civilized people." When Peter was present at the Conference, he presented his opinions and in them revealed complete unfamiliarity with the political situation in Russia; He talked about Russian interests from the point of view of his love for the Prussian king. Thus, ignorance of Russia, contempt for it, the desire to leave it, Holstein sympathies and the absence of a mature personality distinguished the future Russian emperor. Chancellor Bestuzhev seriously thought about either completely removing Peter from power, or otherwise protecting the interests of Russia from his influence.
Peter's wife, Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, was a completely different kind of person. Growing up in the modest family of an insignificant prince, a strict Protestant and a father, Catherine received some education, enhanced by her own powers of observation and sensitivity. As a child, she traveled a lot around Germany, saw and heard a lot. Even then, with her liveliness and abilities, she attracted the attention of observant persons: in Brunswick, one canon who was engaged in predictions remarked to her mother: “On your daughter’s forehead I see at least three crowns.” When Catherine and her mother were called to Russia, the purpose of the trip was no secret to her, and the lively girl managed to take her first steps at the Russian court with great tact. Her father wrote a number of rules of prudent restraint and modesty for her guidance. Catherine added her own tact and remarkable practical sense to these rules and charmed Elizabeth, won the sympathy of the court, and then the people. Not more than 15 years old, she behaved better and smarter than her leader, her mother. When the mother quarreled and gossiped, the daughter tried to gain general location. She diligently studied the Russian language and Orthodox faith. Her brilliant abilities allowed her to make great progress in a short time, and at the baptism ceremony she read the creed so firmly that she surprised everyone. But news has been preserved that the change of religion for Catherine was not as easy and joyful as she showed to the empress and court. In pious embarrassment before this step, Catherine cried a lot and, they say, sought consolation from a Lutheran pastor. However, the lessons of the Orthodox teacher of the law did not stop there. “Ambition takes its toll,” one diplomat noted in this regard. And Catherine herself admitted that she was ambitious.
Catherine II after her arrival in Russia. Portrait by L. Caravaque, 1745
Not loving either her husband or Elizabeth, Catherine nevertheless behaved very well towards them. She tried to correct and cover up all her husband’s antics and did not complain about him to anyone. She treated Elizabeth with respect and seemed to seek her approval. In the court environment, she sought popularity, finding a kind word for everyone, trying to adapt to the morals of the court, trying to seem like a purely Russian pious woman. At a time when her husband remained a Holsteiner and despised Russians, Catherine wanted to stop being German and, after the death of her parents, renounced all rights to her Anhalt-Zerbst. Her intelligence and practical prudence forced those around her to see great strength in her and predict great court influence behind her. And indeed, over the years, Catherine occupied a prominent position at court; she was well known even among the masses. For everyone, she became more visible and prettier than her husband.
But Catherine's personal life was unenviable. Placed far from business and left for whole days by her husband, Catherine did not know what to do, because she had no company at all: she could not get close to the court ladies, because “she dared to see only maids in front of her,” in her own words; she could not get close to the circle of court men because it was inconvenient. All that remained was to read, and Catherine’s “reading” continued for the first eight years of her married life. At first she read novels: a chance conversation with the Swedish Count Gyllenborg, whom she knew back in Germany, directed her attention to serious books. She re-read many historical works, travels, classics and, finally, wonderful writers of French philosophy and journalistic literature of the 18th century. During these years, she received that mass of information with which she surprised her contemporaries, that philosophical liberal way of thinking that she brought with her to the throne. She considered herself a student of Voltaire, worshiped Montesquieu, studied the Encyclopedia and, thanks to constant thought, became an exceptional person in the Russian society of her time. The degree of her theoretical development and education reminds us of the strength of the practical development of Peter the Great. And both of them were self-taught.
In the second half of Elizabeth's reign, Grand Duchess Catherine was already a well-established and very prominent person at court. Much attention was paid to her by diplomats, because, as they find, “no one has so much firmness and determination” - qualities that give her many opportunities in the future. Catherine behaves more independently, is clearly at odds with her husband, and incurs Elizabeth’s displeasure. But Elizabeth’s most prominent “episode” people, Bestuzhev, Shuvalov, Razumovsky, now do not ignore the Grand Duchess, but try, on the contrary, to establish good, but kind, relations with her. careful relationship. Catherine herself enters into relations with diplomats and Russians statesmen , monitors the progress of affairs and even wants to influence them. The reason for this was Elizabeth’s illness: one could expect an imminent change on the throne. Everyone understood that Peter could not be a normal ruler and that his wife should play a big role with him. Elizabeth also understood this: fearing that Catherine would take any step in her favor against Peter, she began to treat her poorly and even downright hostile; Over time, Peter himself treats his wife the same way. Surrounded by suspicion and hostility and driven by ambition, Catherine understood the danger of her position and the possibility of enormous political success. Others also told her about this possibility: one of the envoys (Prussian) assured her that she would be an empress; The Shuvalovs and Razumovskys considered Catherine a contender for the throne; Bestuzhev, together with her, made plans to change the succession to the throne. Catherine herself had to prepare to act both for her personal protection and to achieve power after Elizabeth's death. She knew that her husband was attached to another woman (Eliz. Rom. Vorontsova) and wanted to replace his wife with her, in whom he saw a person dangerous to himself. And so, so that Elizabeth’s death does not take her by surprise and leave her defenseless in the hands of Peter, Catherine strives to acquire political friends for herself and form her own party. She secretly intervenes in political and court affairs, and corresponds with many prominent persons. The case of Bestuzhev and Apraksin (1757–1758) showed Elizabeth how great the importance of Grand Duchess Catherine was at court. Bestuzhev was accused of excessive respect for Catherine. Apraksin was constantly influenced by her letters. Bestuzhev's fall was due to his closeness to Catherine, and Catherine herself suffered the empress's disgrace at that moment. She was afraid that she would be expelled from Russia, and with remarkable dexterity she achieved reconciliation with Elizabeth. She began to ask Elizabeth for an audience to clarify the matter. And Catherine was given this audience at night. During Catherine’s conversation with Elizabeth, Catherine’s husband Peter and Ivan Iv were secretly behind the screens in the same room. Shuvalov, and Ekaterina guessed this. The conversation was crucial for her. Under Elizabeth, Catherine began to claim that she was not guilty of anything, and, to prove that she did not want anything, she asked the Empress to be released to Germany. She asked for this, being sure that they would do just the opposite. The result of the audience was that Catherine remained in Russia, although she was surrounded by surveillance. Now she had to play the game without allies and assistants, but she continued to play it with even more energy. If Elizabeth had not died so unexpectedly soon, then Peter III probably would not have had to ascend the throne, for the conspiracy already existed and Catherine already had a very strong party behind her. Catherine could not reconcile with her husband, she could not stand him; he saw in her an evil woman, too independent and hostile to him. “We need to crush the snake,” said the Holsteins surrounding Peter, conveying with this expression his thoughts about his wife. During Catherine’s illness, he even directly dreamed of her death.
Thus, in the last years of Elizabeth, the complete inability of her heir and the great importance and intelligence of his wife were revealed. The question of the fate of the throne occupied Elizabeth very much; according to Catherine, the empress “looked with trepidation at the hour of death and at what could happen after it.” But she did not dare to dismiss her nephew outright. The court environment also understood that Peter could not be the ruler of the state. Many wondered how to eliminate Peter and came up with various combinations. It could have been eliminated by transferring the rights to the young Pavel Petrovich, and his mother Ekaterina would have received a larger role. It would be possible to put Catherine in power directly. Without her, the issue could not be resolved in any case (no one thought about the former Emperor John at that time). Therefore, Catherine, in addition to her personal qualities and aspirations, received great importance and was the center of political combinations and the banner of the movement against Peter. It can be said that even before Elizabeth’s death, Catherine became a rival to her husband, and a dispute began between them about the Russian crown.