Palace coups in Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The change of power in Russia is always a painful procedure. In the eighteenth century, it was complicated by confusion in the laws, which led to regular conspiracies and coups.

For most of the 17th century, the problem of succession to the throne did not arise in Russia. After the end of the Time of Troubles, power gradually passed from one representative of the new Romanov dynasty to another. The crisis arose only at the end of the century, when in the struggle for the throne, half-sisters grappled with their brother: Princess Sophia and the young Peter. In this battle, the young tsar won, and life in Russia went on in a new way.

According to ancient tradition, the eldest son of the king was the rightful heir to the throne. However, Peter destroyed this tradition as well. He did not love his son Alexei. The manically suspicious monarch accused his offspring of high treason and in 1718 brought him to justice. Two days after the guilty verdict, Alexei, in a strange way, suddenly died in the cell of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Not wishing to entrust the fate of the reforms that had turned Russia upside down into accidental, albeit kindred, hands, in 1722 Peter issued the "Charter on the inheritance of the throne." According to this decree, the monarch himself had to appoint his successor. By this decree, the emperor laid a mine under the quiet transfer of power in his state. During the 18th century, this charge exploded several times, and Peter himself was the first to explode on it.

Peter I on his deathbed. I. N. Nikitin, 1725. Source: wikipedia.org

Over the next three years, the emperor never bothered to draw up a will and appoint an heir to the throne. Writhing in agony on the night of January 28, 1725, he only croaked: "Give everything …" and died. Who exactly should have given the huge state, the courtiers did not make out.

While the monarch's body was cooling down, the highest officials of the empire began to decide who would rule them. The candidacy of the grandson of the deceased, the juvenile Tsarevich Peter, who had all the legal rights to the throne, was considered. While the debate was going on, the hall began to fill with guards officers, who clearly supported the newly-dowed Empress Catherine. The dignitaries succumbed to the force of arms and proclaimed Catherine the Autocrat of All Russia.

The poorly educated empress did not bother herself too much with state affairs. In fact, the first person of the country for both years of its reign was His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov. External and internal political courses of Russia have not changed much. The state continued to follow the path outlined by Peter.

The hunt of Peter II and the crown princess Elizabeth. V. Serov, 1900. Source: wikipedia.org

In April 1727, Catherine fell seriously ill. The question of succession to the throne has become aggravated again. It seems that the empress wanted to leave the throne to her daughter Elizabeth, but no one cared about the opinion of the dying woman. The Supreme Privy Council was inclined to think that Tsarevich Peter would become the new ruler of Russia.

The all-powerful Menshikov also supported this idea: he was already planning the wedding of his daughter to the heir and saw himself as the emperor's father-in-law. Catherine died on May 6. Before her death, the dignitaries drew up her will, which Elizabeth signed on behalf of her mother, who was no longer able to hold a pen. The 12-year-old Peter II ascended the throne.

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Immediately, everything did not go as planned by Menshikov. His Serene Highness commanded so demonstratively on behalf of the young emperor that he turned Peter against himself. On September 8, 1727, the richest man in Russia was sent to a distant Siberian exile. Together with her father, the failed bride of the emperor also left Petersburg.

Peter had new friends and confidants, among whom members of the Dolgorukov family dominated. They arranged for the young man a series of holidays, amusements and hunts. Peter was so passionately happy about life even in the severe Russian frosts that he caught a cold and died on January 19, 1730, on the eve of his own wedding with Princess Dolgorukova.

The inconsolable Dolgorukovs forged the will of the deceased emperor, according to which power passed to his bride. But the members of the Privy Council made fun of the failed royal relatives. According to Catherine's will, if Peter II dies before adulthood, power was to pass to one of her daughters - Anna or Elizabeth.

Russian aristocrats decided to spit on the will of the "Livonian port wash" and began to sort out the members of the Romanov family. The men of this dynasty ended with the death of Peter II, and the choice of the dignitaries fell on the daughter of Tsar Ivan V and Tsarina Praskovya, Duchess Anna of Courland. She was invited to the kingdom.

While the future empress was getting from the Baltic to Moscow, the so-called "conditions" were drawn up - a list of restrictions on the monarch's power. Over the past forty years, the higher nobility was so tired of the tyranny of the rulers that they wanted to put it at least in some kind of framework. For the sake of accession to the throne, Anna Ioannovna first agreed to sign the conditions, but ten days after the coronation she solemnly tore up this document. The initiators of the unsuccessful attempt to limit the absolute monarchical power went into exile, and Anna Ioannovna began to rule.

Her reign lasted ten years, during which she poked fun at her subjects. In fact, Russia was ruled during these years by the favorite of the Empress Ernst Johann Biron, brought by her from Courland. Childless Anna took care of the heir in advance. Back in 1732, she announced that the Russian throne would go to her niece's son. At that time, this niece, who received the name of Anna Leopoldovna in baptism, was not even married yet.

The wedding took place only in 1739, and in August of the following year, the boy Vanya was born, declared the future ruler of Russia eight years before his birth. On October 17, 1740, Anna Ioannovna died, having managed to transfer the throne to two-month-old John Antonovich, and to appoint her favorite Biron as regent with him.

Little son, having ascended the throne, did not stay there …

Anna Leopoldovna and her husband, Prince of Brunswick, Anton Ulrich, were very unhappy that the power of their baby (and therefore their own) would be controlled by some Biron. They conspired and dragged the elderly Field Marshal Minich into it. On the night of November 9, 1740, he and the soldiers burst into the bedroom of the Biron spouses, woke them up and dragged them to prison.

For the usurpation of power and the oppression of the Russian people, the favorite of the late empress was sentenced to quartering, mercifully replaced by eternal exile in northern Pelym. Anna Leopoldovna was declared regent under the emperor. During the year of her reign, nothing special happened, however, the leapfrog of the Germans around the Russian throne greatly bothered the guard officers. These patriots clustered around the youngest daughter of Peter I, Elizabeth, and enjoyed her support.

The daughter of the great emperor, ostentatiously relegated to the background by her distant relatives, herself was uncomfortable to vegetate in the shadows. On November 25, 1741, the 31-year-old princess changed into the uniform of the Preobrazhensky regiment, showed up at the barracks and asked the soldiers to help her take the throne.

They were delighted with the upcoming mess and moved to the Winter Palace. Another coup took place. Poor John VI, who was barely two years old, was sent into custody with his entire family.

The Guard proclaims Elizabeth as Empress. E. Lanceray. Source: wikipedia.org

Elizabeth firmly established herself on the throne. Remembering that she herself seized the throne due to the confusing situation with the succession to the throne, Elizabeth took care in advance of appointing a successor. She was the last representative of the direct line of the Romanov dynasty.

Back in 1742, she appointed her nephew, the son of her late sister Anna, as her heir. The crowned aunt baptized the young Holstein-Gottorp prince into Peter Fedorovich and surrounded him with all sorts of attention. She chose a bride for him - the daughter of one of the German princes, who received the name Catherine in Russia. In 1754, a son, Pavel, was born into the family of the heir, and the future of the Romanov dynasty seemed cloudless to Elizabeth. The Empress died in 1761, and Peter III ascended the throne.

The fact that the Russian throne was again essentially a German, the subjects did not like very much. The courtier was much more sympathetic to his wife. Despite the fact that Catherine was one hundred percent German, she spoke Russian much better than her husband and learned the customs of her new homeland.

Her many favorites, mainly officers of the guards regiments, also greatly contributed to the knowledge of these customs. With their help, the power-hungry Catherine made a coup on June 28, 1762. Peter III, whom his wife considered a worthless man, reigned for only six months. A week later, the deposed emperor died under suspicious circumstances.

The long era of Catherine the Great began. During her reign, the empress earned the love and respect of the nobles, but she did not achieve popularity among the people. This is proved by the conspiracy of Mirovich, who tried to free the "legitimate emperor" John VI, and numerous impostors who declared themselves miraculously saved by Peter Fedorovich. The most famous of them was Emelyan Pugachev, who revolted for three years.

The frightened empress sought to suppress any conspiracies, even the most ghostly ones, in the bud. Catherine's relationship with her own son did not work out. Tsarevich Pavel idolized his murdered father and hated his mother, longingly waiting for her to die and free the throne for him. Catherine, knowing about these dreams, was thinking about handing over the throne to her grandson Alexander, whose upbringing she herself was involved in. The sudden death of the Empress in 1796 thwarted these plans.

One of the first acts of Emperor Paul was to put things in order in matters of succession to the throne. Right on the day of his coronation, he himself read out a new law, according to which from now on only representatives of the male dynasty could inherit the Russian throne. Now the choice of the heir did not depend on the whim of the ruling monarch. Paul believed that with this law he protected himself from coups, because only his eldest son Alexander could take the throne. The emperor did not think that anyone would want to speed up the transfer of power.

Assassination of Emperor Paul I. French engraving, 1880s. Source: wikipedia.org

Paul's methods of government and his, to put it mildly, eccentricity, turned against him a significant part of the upper nobility, favored by Catherine. They pinned their hopes on Alexander, who, they hoped, would rule according to the precepts of his grandmother. A conspiracy was drawn up, and on March 12, 1801, Paul was assassinated. It is still not very clear whether his son was aware of the intentions of the conspirators, but he readily sat down on the still warm throne.

Decembrists on Senate Square. W. Timm. Source: wikipedia.org

The era of palace coups in Russia ended there. Its last surge can be considered the failed uprising of the Decembrists, who wanted to change power in the traditional way for the 18th century - with the help of the guards regiments. Their attempt failed, the main conspirators were executed, and the rest went to Siberia.

For a century, power in Russia quietly passed according to the law passed by Paul. It was canceled only by the October Revolution, with which the rule of the emperors in the country ended.