History of Russia
Heads of the stateTHE ROMANOVS
Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1709-1761)
Reign
1741-1761.Parents: Emperor Peter I Alexeyevich and Empress Catherine I Alexeyevna
Important events:
......1724-1741 Elizabeth was commonly regarded as the leading beauty of the Russian Empire. The Duke of Livia wrote:"Princess Elizabeth ... is a beauty the like of which I have never seen. The colour of her face is remarkable. She has flaming eyes, a perfect mouth, the whitest neck and a remarkable body. She is tall and extremely lively. She dances well, rides without the smallest fear and is intelligent and pleasant in conversation". Empress Anna Ioannovna disliked Elizabeth, who kept out of sight during her reign.
......1730s-1750s Before she became empress, Elizabeth had fallen in love with Alexei Razumovsky - a handsome member of the court choir. When Elizabeth ascended the throne, she promoted him to chamberlain and the rank of lieutenant general. She is even alleged to have secretly married him in the village of Perovo outside Moscow during her coronation. Although occupying an official position, Razumovsky was never asked to do any work because "Elizabeth wanted to spare him and even published a special decree forbidding anyone from giving him notes or requests".
Elizabeth Petrovna was born in Moscow on 18 December 1709. She was educated by foreign tutors, who taught her a love of dancing and foreign languages. Besides being fluent in Italian, Germane and French, she was an excellent dancer and rider.
Elizabeth was officially proclaimed a princess (tsarevna) on 6 March 1711 and heiress (tsarevna) on 23 December 1721. Under her mother (Catherine I) and nephew (Peter II), she led a merry and frivolous lifestyle.
Elizabeth was commonly regarded as the leading beauty of the Russian Empire. Many foreign princes hoped to marry Elizabeth, but the only suitor whom she loved was Carl August, the younger brother of Prince Carl Friedrich of Holstein. He died of smallpox in summer 1727 and Elizabeth never forgot him. She remained forever attached to Holstein and, when she became empress, summoned her nephew Peter to Russia, along with his bride, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, whose mother was Carl August's cousin. Although she never married, Elizabeth had a long line of lovers, including General Alexander Buturlin, lord steward Semyon Naryshkin (her cousin) and a page of the chamber called Alexei Shubin, whom Anna Ioannovna exiled to Siberia in 1732.
As the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth was particularly popular with the guards regiments created by her father. She often visited the regiments, marking special events with the officers and acting as godmother to their of 25 November 1741, when the thirty-two year-old princess seized power with the help of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Arriving at the regimental headquarters, wearing a breast-plate over her dress and grasping a silver cross, she addressed three hundred grenadiers. Holding up the cross, she asked the men:"Who have you want to serve? Me, the natural sovereign, or those who have stolen my inheritance?". After swearing allegiance to her, kissing her hand and cross, the troops marched to the Winter Palace, when they arrested the infant emperor, his parents and their own lieutenant colonel, Count von Munnich. It was a daring coup and it passed without bloodshed. Elizabeth had vowed that if she managed to capture the throne, she would not sign a single death sentence as empress.
She kept her word. The following day, a royal manifesto proclaimed a new empress. Elizabeth I, explaining that the preceding reigns had led Russia to ruin: "The Russian people have been groaning under the enemies of the Christian faith, but she has delivered them from the degrading foreign oppression". The population had indeed suffered under a series of German favourites and Elizabeth exiled the most unpopular of them, including Heinrich Johann Friedrich Ostermann, Burkhard Christoph von Munnich and Carl Gustaf Lowenwolde. The new empress was crowned in the Dormition Cathedral on 25 April 1742. During the ceremony, she herself placed the crown on her own head.
Elizabeth had no political ambitions of her own and disliked governing. Documents often waited months for her signature. When given a treaty with Austria to sign, a wasp settled on the pen and the empress put the quill aside. She only returned to signing the documents six months later. She sided against Prussia in the Seven Years War out of her personal dislike of Frederick the Great. Under Elizabeth, St Petersburg was the most dazzling court in Europe. Foreigners were amazed at the luxury of the sumptuous balls and masquerades. The empress adored dancing and new clothes. She issued special decrees governing the styles of the dresses and decorations worn by courtiers. No one was allowed to have the same hairstyle as the empress. Elizabeth owned fifteen thousand ball-gowns, several thousand pairs of shoes and an unlimited number of silk stockings. She never went to bed before six o'clock in the morning and spent each night in a different room, never having a permanent bedroom. Despite her love of parties and dresses, Elizabeth was extremely religious. She visited convents, made pilgrimages to holy sites and spent long hours in church. When asked to sign a law secularising church lands, she said: "Do what you like after my death, I will not sign it." All foreign books had to be approved by a church censor. Klyuchevsky called her a "kind and clever, but disorderly and wayward Russian woman" who combined "new European tends" with "devout national traditions".
In her youth Elizabeth had fallen in love with Alexei Razumovsky. In 1756, Elizabeth made him a field-marshal on his birthday, 17 March, even though he did not know the first thing about military tactics and had never commanded a unit. On his next birthday, 17 March 1757, he was presented with the Anichkov Palace.
Elizabeth Petrovna had another intimate friend - Ivan Shuvalov. The son of a guards captain, Ivan Menshoi Shuvalov, and Tatyana Rostislavskaya, he had pleasant manners and a handsome face. Ivan Shuvalov received a good education and knew several European languages. He began his career as a page of the chamber at the court of Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeyevna, who remembers him as a quiet, modest young man whom she often came across with a book in his hands. Ivan Shuvalov fell in love with Princess Anna Gagarina, an intelligent and well-read girl who was eight years his senior. She reciprocated his love and the couple hoped to get married. Ivan's cousins, however, decided that there was more benefit to be gained from making him the favourite of Elizabeth Petrovna. They prevented the marriage between the twenty-two year-old Ivan and the thirty-year-old Anna and managed to arrange an audience with the forty-year-old empress. Elizabeth took an immediately liking to Ivan Shuvalov. In September 1749, she appointed him gentleman of the bedchamber, followed by the usual posts and titles awarded to all favourites - chamberlain, lieutenant general, adjutant general and knight of the Orders of St Alexander Nevsky and the White Eagle. Elizabeth's ministers attempted to ingratiate themselves with the empress's favourite by offering him even more titles and awards - senator, count and the Order of st Andrew. Shuvalov, however, was not interested. He was happy with his status as the empress's secretary, which gave him access to her at all times. His opinion decided the outcome of all requests and petitions submitted to Elizabeth. Ivan drafted replies to the reports submitted by foreign diplomats and military commanders, writing the texts of Imperial decrees without bearing any legal responsibility for them. Anyone wanting to reach the empress could do so only through Shuvalov.
In 1761, the French diplomat Jean-Louis Favier wrote: "He interferes in all affairs, although he does not have any special titles or posts ... In short, he enjoys all the advantages of a minister without actually being one".
Elizabeth's health deteriorated in the late 1750s, when she suffered a series of dizzy spells. She refused to take any medicine and became reticent and irritable. She forbade the word "death" to be uttered in her presence.
Elizabeth died in St Petersburg on 25 December 1761 and was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on 3 February 1762 after lying in state for six weeks. Her death interrupted the Romanov line. Although all following sovereigns were called Romanovs, they were not Russian.
Important events:
- 1741-43 - Russo-Swedish War. Treaty of Abo between Russia and Sweden.
- 1748 - War of the Austrian Succession. Abolition of internal tolls and customs. Foundation of the Nobles Loan Bank. Foundation of the border service corps and an institute of customs patrols.
- 1754-62 - Construction of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg.
- 1755 - Foundation of Moscow University.
- 1756 - Foundation of the first Russian public theater under Feodor Volkov.
- 1756-62 - Russian victories over Prussia in the Seven Years War.
- 1757 - Establishment of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg.
- 1759 - Russian victory at the Battle of Kunersdorf.
- 1760 - Russian army captures Berlin.
......1724-1741 Elizabeth was commonly regarded as the leading beauty of the Russian Empire. The Duke of Livia wrote:"Princess Elizabeth ... is a beauty the like of which I have never seen. The colour of her face is remarkable. She has flaming eyes, a perfect mouth, the whitest neck and a remarkable body. She is tall and extremely lively. She dances well, rides without the smallest fear and is intelligent and pleasant in conversation". Empress Anna Ioannovna disliked Elizabeth, who kept out of sight during her reign.
......1730s-1750s Before she became empress, Elizabeth had fallen in love with Alexei Razumovsky - a handsome member of the court choir. When Elizabeth ascended the throne, she promoted him to chamberlain and the rank of lieutenant general. She is even alleged to have secretly married him in the village of Perovo outside Moscow during her coronation. Although occupying an official position, Razumovsky was never asked to do any work because "Elizabeth wanted to spare him and even published a special decree forbidding anyone from giving him notes or requests".
Elizabeth Petrovna was born in Moscow on 18 December 1709. She was educated by foreign tutors, who taught her a love of dancing and foreign languages. Besides being fluent in Italian, Germane and French, she was an excellent dancer and rider.
Elizabeth was officially proclaimed a princess (tsarevna) on 6 March 1711 and heiress (tsarevna) on 23 December 1721. Under her mother (Catherine I) and nephew (Peter II), she led a merry and frivolous lifestyle.
Elizabeth was commonly regarded as the leading beauty of the Russian Empire. Many foreign princes hoped to marry Elizabeth, but the only suitor whom she loved was Carl August, the younger brother of Prince Carl Friedrich of Holstein. He died of smallpox in summer 1727 and Elizabeth never forgot him. She remained forever attached to Holstein and, when she became empress, summoned her nephew Peter to Russia, along with his bride, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, whose mother was Carl August's cousin. Although she never married, Elizabeth had a long line of lovers, including General Alexander Buturlin, lord steward Semyon Naryshkin (her cousin) and a page of the chamber called Alexei Shubin, whom Anna Ioannovna exiled to Siberia in 1732.
As the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth was particularly popular with the guards regiments created by her father. She often visited the regiments, marking special events with the officers and acting as godmother to their of 25 November 1741, when the thirty-two year-old princess seized power with the help of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Arriving at the regimental headquarters, wearing a breast-plate over her dress and grasping a silver cross, she addressed three hundred grenadiers. Holding up the cross, she asked the men:"Who have you want to serve? Me, the natural sovereign, or those who have stolen my inheritance?". After swearing allegiance to her, kissing her hand and cross, the troops marched to the Winter Palace, when they arrested the infant emperor, his parents and their own lieutenant colonel, Count von Munnich. It was a daring coup and it passed without bloodshed. Elizabeth had vowed that if she managed to capture the throne, she would not sign a single death sentence as empress.
She kept her word. The following day, a royal manifesto proclaimed a new empress. Elizabeth I, explaining that the preceding reigns had led Russia to ruin: "The Russian people have been groaning under the enemies of the Christian faith, but she has delivered them from the degrading foreign oppression". The population had indeed suffered under a series of German favourites and Elizabeth exiled the most unpopular of them, including Heinrich Johann Friedrich Ostermann, Burkhard Christoph von Munnich and Carl Gustaf Lowenwolde. The new empress was crowned in the Dormition Cathedral on 25 April 1742. During the ceremony, she herself placed the crown on her own head.
Elizabeth had no political ambitions of her own and disliked governing. Documents often waited months for her signature. When given a treaty with Austria to sign, a wasp settled on the pen and the empress put the quill aside. She only returned to signing the documents six months later. She sided against Prussia in the Seven Years War out of her personal dislike of Frederick the Great. Under Elizabeth, St Petersburg was the most dazzling court in Europe. Foreigners were amazed at the luxury of the sumptuous balls and masquerades. The empress adored dancing and new clothes. She issued special decrees governing the styles of the dresses and decorations worn by courtiers. No one was allowed to have the same hairstyle as the empress. Elizabeth owned fifteen thousand ball-gowns, several thousand pairs of shoes and an unlimited number of silk stockings. She never went to bed before six o'clock in the morning and spent each night in a different room, never having a permanent bedroom. Despite her love of parties and dresses, Elizabeth was extremely religious. She visited convents, made pilgrimages to holy sites and spent long hours in church. When asked to sign a law secularising church lands, she said: "Do what you like after my death, I will not sign it." All foreign books had to be approved by a church censor. Klyuchevsky called her a "kind and clever, but disorderly and wayward Russian woman" who combined "new European tends" with "devout national traditions".
In her youth Elizabeth had fallen in love with Alexei Razumovsky. In 1756, Elizabeth made him a field-marshal on his birthday, 17 March, even though he did not know the first thing about military tactics and had never commanded a unit. On his next birthday, 17 March 1757, he was presented with the Anichkov Palace.
Elizabeth Petrovna had another intimate friend - Ivan Shuvalov. The son of a guards captain, Ivan Menshoi Shuvalov, and Tatyana Rostislavskaya, he had pleasant manners and a handsome face. Ivan Shuvalov received a good education and knew several European languages. He began his career as a page of the chamber at the court of Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeyevna, who remembers him as a quiet, modest young man whom she often came across with a book in his hands. Ivan Shuvalov fell in love with Princess Anna Gagarina, an intelligent and well-read girl who was eight years his senior. She reciprocated his love and the couple hoped to get married. Ivan's cousins, however, decided that there was more benefit to be gained from making him the favourite of Elizabeth Petrovna. They prevented the marriage between the twenty-two year-old Ivan and the thirty-year-old Anna and managed to arrange an audience with the forty-year-old empress. Elizabeth took an immediately liking to Ivan Shuvalov. In September 1749, she appointed him gentleman of the bedchamber, followed by the usual posts and titles awarded to all favourites - chamberlain, lieutenant general, adjutant general and knight of the Orders of St Alexander Nevsky and the White Eagle. Elizabeth's ministers attempted to ingratiate themselves with the empress's favourite by offering him even more titles and awards - senator, count and the Order of st Andrew. Shuvalov, however, was not interested. He was happy with his status as the empress's secretary, which gave him access to her at all times. His opinion decided the outcome of all requests and petitions submitted to Elizabeth. Ivan drafted replies to the reports submitted by foreign diplomats and military commanders, writing the texts of Imperial decrees without bearing any legal responsibility for them. Anyone wanting to reach the empress could do so only through Shuvalov.
In 1761, the French diplomat Jean-Louis Favier wrote: "He interferes in all affairs, although he does not have any special titles or posts ... In short, he enjoys all the advantages of a minister without actually being one".
Elizabeth's health deteriorated in the late 1750s, when she suffered a series of dizzy spells. She refused to take any medicine and became reticent and irritable. She forbade the word "death" to be uttered in her presence.
Elizabeth died in St Petersburg on 25 December 1761 and was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on 3 February 1762 after lying in state for six weeks. Her death interrupted the Romanov line. Although all following sovereigns were called Romanovs, they were not Russian.
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