History of Russia
Heads of the stateTHE ROMANOVS
Empress Anna Ioannovna (1693-1740)
Reign
1730-1740.Parents: Tsar Ioann V Alexeyevich and Praskovia Fedorovna Saltykova.
Important events:
......1730-1740 Anna Ioannovna was the only purely Russian empress in Russian history. The unintellingent and lazy tsaritsa took virtually no role in the running of the state. She did not even sign the majority of official documents, preferring to leave them in her ministers.
......1740 The empress held parties and other forms of wild entertainment involving jesters, dwarves, idiots, Negroes, cripples and Kalmyks. Anna enjoyed watching comedies performed by Italian and German actors. She particularly liked fight scenes and organised similar contests between the court jesters.
Anna Ioannovna was born in Moscow on 28 January 1693. She grew up with her mother and sister in Izmailovo outside Moscow. A shy and reserved girl, she studied reading, writing, German, French, dancing and etiquette, but never advanced far beyond the bare essentials of literacy
Anna grew into a clumsy and gruff young woman. Count Burkhard Christoph von Munnich remembered her physical appearance: "Large and well-shaped, her lack of beauty was compensated by her noble and majestic features. She had large, sharp brown eyes, a slightly longish nose, a pleasant mouth and good teeth. Her hair was dark, her face was freckled and her voice was strong and piercing. She was well-built and never despondent for long". Countess Natalia Sheremeteva also described the future empress: "She was frightening to look at and had a repulsive face. She was so large that when she walked between others, she was a head above them. She was also extremely fat". Other contemporaries noted her rough face, great height, dark complexion, clumsy manners, deep voice, slovenliness and many other unattractive features.
In 1709, Peter the Grate decided to further Russia's foreign interests by marrying one of his nieces to a European prince. His choice fell on the nephew of King Frederick I of Prussia - Duke Fredrich Wilhelm of Courland. Peter asked his half-brother's widow, Praskovia Fedorovna, which of her three daughters she would prefer to marry to a foreign prince. Praskovia had seen and disliked the duke of Courland, so she chose her least favourite daughter, the seventeen-year-old Anna.
Anna married Duke Friedrich Wilhelm in the still unfinished Menshikov Palace in St Petersburg on 31 October 1710. Peter the Grate threw a grand banquet with a great amount of alcohol. The following day, he held a second celebration in honour of the wedding of two dwarves. Peter hoped to breed a race of small people and ordered dwarves to be sent to St Petersburg from all over Russia. Around seventy of them attended the wedding of his own minim, Yekim Volkov, to one of the dwarves. The two wedding were joined together in a drinking bout lasting several days.
In January 1711, Anna and Friedrich Wilhelm set off for the capital of Courland, Mitawa (now Jelgava in Latvia). On the way there, fired out from the heavy drinking, the duke fell ill and died twenty-five miles from St Petersburg. Anna was a widow two months after her marriage. The duke's body was taken to Courland for burial and his wife returned to St Petersburg.
Peter the Great ordered Anna to return to Mitawa and rule Courland. Realising that his unintelligent niece might not necessarily act in Russia's best interests, the emperor dispatched his lord steward, Peter Bestuzhev-Rumin, who was given three tasks - to govern Courland, to inform the tsar of everything going on there and to be Anna's lover. Her mother protested at the last point, until she was reminded of her own youth, when she had betrayed Tsar Ioann V and given birth to a child fathered by her own bailiff, Vasily Yushkov.
Peter the Great allowed Anna forty thousand roubles a year for the running of her court. This sum was not enough to maintain her position as the rules of a small European state and the duchess was constantly obliged to ask Peter or his wife Catherine for money. When she was allowed to visit St Petersburg, she also borrowed from Russian aristocrats. In 1726, when Peter Bestuzhev-Rumin was recalled from Courland. Anna fell madly in love with Ernst Johann von Biron. He was an impoverished local nobleman, who had escaped from prison in Konigsberg, where he had killed a soldier in a fight.
After the death of Peter II in January 1730, the privy council decided to offer the Russian throne to Anna, with strict limitations on her power. A special list of "conditions" was compiled for Anna to sign. She was not allowed to declare war, make peace, set taxes, spend government money, sign death sentences and distribute or confiscate estates and honours without the permission of the eight-man council. On 25 January 1730, Russian envoys arrived in Mitawa with the document, which Anna signed.
The new empress hurried to Moscow for her coronation. On 25 February 1730, a group of Moscow noblemen presented her with petition, asking her to reject the conditions and rule as an autocrat. Anna tore up document in public and arrested the members of the privy council, who were either sentenced to death or banished. On 28 April 1730, Anna Ioannovna was crowned empress of Russia in the Dormition Cathedral. Although Anna ostensibly ruled Russia with the help of a cabinet of five ministers, she left the running of the state to Ernst Johann von Biron. This period of Russian history was a time of German influence and power abuses, when all the key government posts were held by men of foreign origin. Ironically, Anna Ioannovna was the only purely Russian empress in Russian history. The unintelligent and lazy tsaritsa took virtually no role in the running of the state. She did not even sign the majority of official documents, preferring to leave them to her ministers.
In January 1732, Anna transferred the court back to St Petersburg from Moscow, a city she disliked for its traditional values and customs. After living in relative poverty in Europe, the empress decided to make up for lost time. Foreigners gasped at the splen-dour of the Russian court and Anna's own passion for luxury. The empress held parties and other forms of wild entertainment involving jesters, dwarves, idiots, Negroes, cripples and Kalmyks. Anna enjoyed watching comedies performed by Italian and German actors. She particularly liked fight scenes and organised similar contests between the court jesters.. One of the empress's other passions was card games, in which enormous sums were won and lost. One of her jesters, an Italian fiddler and juggler called Pedrillo, amassed a large fortune and returned to his hometown of Naples. Wild animals were let loose in the Peterhof Park to satisfy Anna's lust for hunting. Loaded rifles stood in all the palace rooms so that the empress could shoot at birds flying past the windows. Anna Ioannovna's love of holding weddings for her subjects led to her being termed the "national matchmaker" by one Russian historian. The most famous marriage presided over by the empress was the wedding of one of her jesters, Prince Michael Golitsyn-Kvasnik, to a Kalmyk woman called Avdotia Buzheninova. The event was celebrated in a special house carved from ice on the frozen River Neva.
All this was paid for by taxing the population. Under Anna Ioannovna, the institution of serfdom was stengthened, with landless peasants being sold like cattle. When people complained, they attracted the attention of the Secret Chancellery of Investigations, who sent the more unruly elements to the block or scaffold.
On 5 October 1740, Anna Ioannovna fainted during lunch. After twelve days of illness, she died of as a result of a kidney stone. The empress was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on 23 December 1740. Nine years earlier, on 17 December 1731, Anna signed a manifesto restoring Peter the Great's practice of the sovereign designating his or her own successor. Before her death, she bequeathed the throne to her great-nephew, Ioann Antonovich, who was born in August 1740. Until he reached the age of majority, the country was to be ruled by Ernst Johann von Biron, whom Anna had made duke of Courland in 1737.
Important events:
- 1730 - Foundation of two new guards regiments - the Izmailovsky and Horse Guards.
- 1731 - Caucasian territories included in the composition of the Russian Empire. Opening of the Military Academy for Noblemen in St Petersburg.
- 1733-35 - War of the Polish Succession.
- 1733-39 - Russo-Turkish War. Russia loses one hundred thousand men, but acquires Azov and the land between the River Bug and River Dniester. Moldavia comes under Russian protection
- 1733-43 - The Great Northern Expedition to explore siberia, the shores of the Arctic Ocean and Kamchatka.
- 1734 - A new government for the Ukraine, consisting of a council of three Russians and three Ukrainians under the control of the Senate.
- 1735-40 - Revolts in Bashkirostan and Kirghizstan (1738).
- 1736 - Introduction of military service lasting twenty-five years.
- 1738 - Opening of the first ballet school in St Petersburg.
......1730-1740 Anna Ioannovna was the only purely Russian empress in Russian history. The unintellingent and lazy tsaritsa took virtually no role in the running of the state. She did not even sign the majority of official documents, preferring to leave them in her ministers.
......1740 The empress held parties and other forms of wild entertainment involving jesters, dwarves, idiots, Negroes, cripples and Kalmyks. Anna enjoyed watching comedies performed by Italian and German actors. She particularly liked fight scenes and organised similar contests between the court jesters.
Anna Ioannovna was born in Moscow on 28 January 1693. She grew up with her mother and sister in Izmailovo outside Moscow. A shy and reserved girl, she studied reading, writing, German, French, dancing and etiquette, but never advanced far beyond the bare essentials of literacy
Anna grew into a clumsy and gruff young woman. Count Burkhard Christoph von Munnich remembered her physical appearance: "Large and well-shaped, her lack of beauty was compensated by her noble and majestic features. She had large, sharp brown eyes, a slightly longish nose, a pleasant mouth and good teeth. Her hair was dark, her face was freckled and her voice was strong and piercing. She was well-built and never despondent for long". Countess Natalia Sheremeteva also described the future empress: "She was frightening to look at and had a repulsive face. She was so large that when she walked between others, she was a head above them. She was also extremely fat". Other contemporaries noted her rough face, great height, dark complexion, clumsy manners, deep voice, slovenliness and many other unattractive features.
In 1709, Peter the Grate decided to further Russia's foreign interests by marrying one of his nieces to a European prince. His choice fell on the nephew of King Frederick I of Prussia - Duke Fredrich Wilhelm of Courland. Peter asked his half-brother's widow, Praskovia Fedorovna, which of her three daughters she would prefer to marry to a foreign prince. Praskovia had seen and disliked the duke of Courland, so she chose her least favourite daughter, the seventeen-year-old Anna.
Anna married Duke Friedrich Wilhelm in the still unfinished Menshikov Palace in St Petersburg on 31 October 1710. Peter the Grate threw a grand banquet with a great amount of alcohol. The following day, he held a second celebration in honour of the wedding of two dwarves. Peter hoped to breed a race of small people and ordered dwarves to be sent to St Petersburg from all over Russia. Around seventy of them attended the wedding of his own minim, Yekim Volkov, to one of the dwarves. The two wedding were joined together in a drinking bout lasting several days.
In January 1711, Anna and Friedrich Wilhelm set off for the capital of Courland, Mitawa (now Jelgava in Latvia). On the way there, fired out from the heavy drinking, the duke fell ill and died twenty-five miles from St Petersburg. Anna was a widow two months after her marriage. The duke's body was taken to Courland for burial and his wife returned to St Petersburg.
Peter the Great ordered Anna to return to Mitawa and rule Courland. Realising that his unintelligent niece might not necessarily act in Russia's best interests, the emperor dispatched his lord steward, Peter Bestuzhev-Rumin, who was given three tasks - to govern Courland, to inform the tsar of everything going on there and to be Anna's lover. Her mother protested at the last point, until she was reminded of her own youth, when she had betrayed Tsar Ioann V and given birth to a child fathered by her own bailiff, Vasily Yushkov.
Peter the Great allowed Anna forty thousand roubles a year for the running of her court. This sum was not enough to maintain her position as the rules of a small European state and the duchess was constantly obliged to ask Peter or his wife Catherine for money. When she was allowed to visit St Petersburg, she also borrowed from Russian aristocrats. In 1726, when Peter Bestuzhev-Rumin was recalled from Courland. Anna fell madly in love with Ernst Johann von Biron. He was an impoverished local nobleman, who had escaped from prison in Konigsberg, where he had killed a soldier in a fight.
After the death of Peter II in January 1730, the privy council decided to offer the Russian throne to Anna, with strict limitations on her power. A special list of "conditions" was compiled for Anna to sign. She was not allowed to declare war, make peace, set taxes, spend government money, sign death sentences and distribute or confiscate estates and honours without the permission of the eight-man council. On 25 January 1730, Russian envoys arrived in Mitawa with the document, which Anna signed.
The new empress hurried to Moscow for her coronation. On 25 February 1730, a group of Moscow noblemen presented her with petition, asking her to reject the conditions and rule as an autocrat. Anna tore up document in public and arrested the members of the privy council, who were either sentenced to death or banished. On 28 April 1730, Anna Ioannovna was crowned empress of Russia in the Dormition Cathedral. Although Anna ostensibly ruled Russia with the help of a cabinet of five ministers, she left the running of the state to Ernst Johann von Biron. This period of Russian history was a time of German influence and power abuses, when all the key government posts were held by men of foreign origin. Ironically, Anna Ioannovna was the only purely Russian empress in Russian history. The unintelligent and lazy tsaritsa took virtually no role in the running of the state. She did not even sign the majority of official documents, preferring to leave them to her ministers.
In January 1732, Anna transferred the court back to St Petersburg from Moscow, a city she disliked for its traditional values and customs. After living in relative poverty in Europe, the empress decided to make up for lost time. Foreigners gasped at the splen-dour of the Russian court and Anna's own passion for luxury. The empress held parties and other forms of wild entertainment involving jesters, dwarves, idiots, Negroes, cripples and Kalmyks. Anna enjoyed watching comedies performed by Italian and German actors. She particularly liked fight scenes and organised similar contests between the court jesters.. One of the empress's other passions was card games, in which enormous sums were won and lost. One of her jesters, an Italian fiddler and juggler called Pedrillo, amassed a large fortune and returned to his hometown of Naples. Wild animals were let loose in the Peterhof Park to satisfy Anna's lust for hunting. Loaded rifles stood in all the palace rooms so that the empress could shoot at birds flying past the windows. Anna Ioannovna's love of holding weddings for her subjects led to her being termed the "national matchmaker" by one Russian historian. The most famous marriage presided over by the empress was the wedding of one of her jesters, Prince Michael Golitsyn-Kvasnik, to a Kalmyk woman called Avdotia Buzheninova. The event was celebrated in a special house carved from ice on the frozen River Neva.
All this was paid for by taxing the population. Under Anna Ioannovna, the institution of serfdom was stengthened, with landless peasants being sold like cattle. When people complained, they attracted the attention of the Secret Chancellery of Investigations, who sent the more unruly elements to the block or scaffold.
On 5 October 1740, Anna Ioannovna fainted during lunch. After twelve days of illness, she died of as a result of a kidney stone. The empress was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on 23 December 1740. Nine years earlier, on 17 December 1731, Anna signed a manifesto restoring Peter the Great's practice of the sovereign designating his or her own successor. Before her death, she bequeathed the throne to her great-nephew, Ioann Antonovich, who was born in August 1740. Until he reached the age of majority, the country was to be ruled by Ernst Johann von Biron, whom Anna had made duke of Courland in 1737.
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