Elizabeth's reign. Aphorisms and thoughts about history Domestic policy of Nicholas I

Empress Elizabeth reigned for twenty years, from November 25, 1741 to December 25, 1761. Her reign was not without glory, not even without benefit. Her youth was not instructive. The princess could not bear any strict rules or pleasant memories from the homeless second family of Peter, where the first words that a child learned to pronounce were aunt, mother, soldier, and the mother was in a hurry to sell her daughters in marriage as soon as possible, so that in the event of the death of their father they would not have rivals in the succession to the throne. Growing up, Elizabeth seemed like a young lady who was brought up in a girl's room. All her life she didn't want to know when to get up, get dressed, eat dinner, go to bed. The servants' weddings gave her great entertainment: she herself cleaned the bride to the crown and then from behind the door admired how the wedding guests were having fun. In her address, she was either too simple and affectionate, then she lost her temper over trifles and scolded whoever she came across, a lackey or a courtier, with the most unfortunate words, and the ladies-in-waiting got it even more painfully. Elizabeth fell between two opposite cultural currents, was brought up among new European trends and traditions of pious domestic antiquity. Both influences left their imprint on her, and she knew how to combine the concepts and tastes of both: from vespers she went to the ball, and from the ball she kept up to matins, reverently honored the shrines and rites of the Russian church, wrote out descriptions of court Versailles banquets from Paris and festivals, loved French performances to a passion and knew all the gastronomic secrets of Russian cuisine to a subtlety. The obedient daughter of his confessor, Fr. Dubyansky and a student of the French dance master Rambour, she strictly observed the fasts at her court, so that the gastronome chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, only with the permission of the Patriarch of Constantinople, was allowed not to eat mushrooms, and in the whole empire no one better than the empress could perform the minuet and Russian dancing. The religious mood was warmed in her by an aesthetic feeling. The bride of all kinds of suitors in the world, from the French king to her own nephew, under Empress Anna, saved by Biron from the monastery and the ducal Saxe-Coburg Meiningen slum, she gave her heart to the court chorister from the Chernigov Cossacks, and the palace turned into a musical house: they wrote out both Little Russian singers, and Italian singers, and in order not to violate the integrity of the artistic impression, both of them sang together both mass and opera. The duality of educational influences explains the pleasant or unexpected contradictions in the character and lifestyle of Elizabeth. Lively and cheerful, but keeping her eyes on herself, at the same time large and slender, with a beautiful round and ever-blooming face, she loved to impress, and, knowing that a man's costume especially suits her, she established masquerades without masks at court. , where men were required to arrive in full women's attire, in extensive skirts, and ladies in men's court dress. The most legitimate of all the successors and successors of Peter I, but raised to the throne by rebellious guards bayonets, she inherited the energy of her great father, built palaces in twenty-four hours and traveled the then path from Moscow to St. Petersburg in two days, regularly paying for each driven horse. Peaceful and carefree, she was forced to fight for almost half of her reign, defeated the first strategist of that time, Frederick the Great, took Berlin, laid the abyss of soldiers on the fields of Zorndorf and Kunersdorf; but since the reign of Princess Sophia, life in Russia has never been so easy, and not a single reign before 1762 left such a pleasant memory. With two great coalition wars that exhausted Western Europe, it seemed that Elizabeth, with her 300,000-strong army, could become the arbiter of European destinies; the map of Europe lay before her at her disposal, but she looked at it so rarely that for the rest of her life she was sure of the possibility of traveling to England by land; and she also founded the first real university in Russia - Moscow. Lazy and capricious, frightened by any serious thought, abhorred by any business occupation, Elizabeth could not enter into the complex international relations of the then Europe and understand the diplomatic intricacies of her chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin. But in her inner chambers, she created for herself a special political environment of hangers-on and storytellers, gossips, headed by an intimate solidarity cabinet, where the prime minister was Mavra Yegorovna Shuvalova, the wife of the inventor and projector known to us, and Anna Karlovna Vorontsova, nee Skavronskaya, was the prime minister, a relative of the Empress, and some just Elizaveta Ivanovna, who was called the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “All cases were submitted to the empress through her,” a contemporary notes. The subjects of this study were stories, gossip, trickery, all sorts of tricks and baiting courtiers against each other, which gave Elizabeth great pleasure. These were the "spheres" of that time; important ranks and bread places were heard from here; major government business was done here. These cabinet studies alternated with festivities. From her youth, Elizabeth was dreamy and, while still a Grand Duchess, once in an enchanted oblivion she signed a business paper instead of her name with the words Flame of fire... Having ascended the throne, she wanted to fulfill her girlish dreams into a magical reality; performances, pleasure trips, courts, balls, masquerades, striking with dazzling brilliance and luxury to the point of nausea, stretched out in an endless string. Sometimes the whole courtyard turned into a theatrical foyer: from day to day they talked only about the French comedy, about the Italian comic opera and its landlord Locatelli, about intermezza, etc. But the living rooms, where the palace inhabitants left the lush halls, were struck by crampedness, squalor conditions, slovenliness: the doors did not close, the windows blew; water ran over the wall-boards, the rooms were extremely damp; Grand Duchess Ekaterina had huge cracks in her bedroom in the oven; near this bedroom, 17 servants crowded in a small chamber; the furnishings were so meager that mirrors, beds, tables and chairs were transported as needed from palace to palace, even from St. Petersburg to Moscow, broken, beaten and placed in this form in temporary places. Elizabeth lived and reigned in gilded poverty; she left behind in her wardrobe too 15,000 dresses, two chests of silk stockings, a bunch of unpaid bills, and the unfinished huge Winter Palace, which had already absorbed more than 10 million rubles from our money from 1755 to 1761. Shortly before her death, she really wanted to live in this palace; but in vain she tried in vain to have the builder Rastrelli hasten to finish at least her own living rooms. French haberdashery shops sometimes refused to release newfangled goods to the palace on credit. For all that, in her, not like in her Courland predecessor, somewhere deep under a thick crust of prejudices, bad habits and spoiled tastes, there still lived a man who sometimes broke through to the outside in a vow before seizing the throne not to execute anyone by death and in fulfilling this vow decree of May 17, 1744, which actually abolished the death penalty in Russia, then in the failure to approve the ferocious criminal part of the Code, drawn up in the Commission of 1754 and already approved by the Senate, with exquisite types of the death penalty, then in preventing the obscene petitions of the Synod about the need to abandon this empress of vow, then, finally, in the ability to cry from an unjust decision, torn out by the intrigues of the same Synod. Elizabeth was a smart and kind, but disorderly and capricious Russian lady of the 18th century, who, according to Russian custom, was scolded by many during her lifetime and, according to Russian custom, everyone mourned after her death.

EMPEROR PETER III. Only one face did not mourn her, because it was not Russian and did not know how to cry: this is the heir to the throne appointed by her - the most unpleasant of all the unpleasant that Empress Elizabeth left behind. This heir, the son of Elizabeth's elder sister, who died shortly after his birth, the Duke of Holstein, is known in our history under the name of Peter III. By a strange play of chance, in the person of this prince, an afterlife reconciliation took place between the two greatest rivals of the early 18th century. Peter III was the son of the daughter of Peter I and the grandson of the sister of Charles XII. As a result, the owner of the small duchy of Holstein was in serious danger of becoming the heir to two large thrones, Swedish and Russian. At first he was prepared for the first and forced to learn the Lutheran catechism, Swedish and Latin grammar. But Elizabeth, having ascended the Russian throne and wishing to secure it beyond her father's line, sent Major Korf on a mission to take her nephew from Kiel at all costs and bring him to Petersburg. Here the Duke of Holstein, Karl-Peter-Ulrich, was transformed into Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich and forced to study the Russian language and the Orthodox catechism. But nature was not as favorable to him as fate: the probable heir to two alien and large thrones, according to his abilities, he was not suitable for his own small throne. He was born and grew up a frail child, poorly endowed with abilities. What the unfavorable nature did not guess to refuse, the absurd Holstein pedagogy managed to take away from him. Early becoming an orphan, Peter in Holstein received a worthless upbringing under the guidance of an ignorant courtier who treated him rudely, subjected him to humiliating and harmful punishments, even flogging the prince. Humiliated and embarrassed in everything, he acquired bad tastes and habits, became irritable, absurd, stubborn and false, acquired a sad tendency to lie, believing in his own fantasies with ingenuous enthusiasm, and in Russia he also learned to get drunk. In Holstein, he was taught so badly that he came to Russia as a 14-year-old ignoramus and even struck Empress Elizabeth with his ignorance. The rapid change of circumstances and educational programs completely confused his already fragile head. Forced to study this and that without connection and order, Peter ended up learning nothing, and the dissimilarity between the Holstein and Russian situation, the senselessness of Kiel and St. Petersburg impressions completely weaned him from understanding his surroundings. Its development stopped before its growth; in the years of courage, he remained the same as he was in childhood, grew up without maturing. His way of thinking and acting gave the impression of something surprisingly ill-conceived and unfinished. He looked at serious things with a childish look, and treated children's undertakings with the seriousness of a mature husband. He was like a child who imagined himself to be an adult; in fact, it was an adult who forever remained a child. Already married in Russia, he could not part with his favorite dolls, behind which he was often caught by court visitors. A neighbor of Prussia by hereditary property, he was fond of the military glory and strategic genius of Frederick II. But since in his miniature mind any great ideal could fit only by being broken into toy trifles, this militant passion led Peter only to an amusing parody of the Prussian hero, to a simple game of soldiers. He did not know and did not want to know the Russian army, and since real, living soldiers were too big for him, he ordered that wax, lead and wooden soldiers be made for himself and placed them in his office on tables with such devices that if you pull the shoelaces stretched across the tables, then sounds were heard that seemed to Peter like quick rifle fire. Sometimes, on a day of service, he would gather his household, put on an elegant general's uniform and make a parade review of his toy troops, pulling the laces and listening with pleasure to the sounds of battle. Once Catherine, who entered her husband, was amazed at the sight that presented itself to her. A large rat was hanging from a rope stretched from the ceiling. When asked by Catherine what this meant, Peter said that the rat had committed a criminal offense, the most severely punishable under military laws: she climbed onto a cardboard fortress that stood on the table and ate two sentries made of starch. The criminal was caught, brought to court-martial and sentenced to death by hanging. Elizabeth despaired of the nature and behavior of her nephew and could not spend a quarter of an hour with him without grief, anger, and even disgust. In her room, when the talk came up about him, the empress burst into tears and complained that God had given her such an heir. Not at all pious comments about him broke from her pious language: “damned nephew”, “my nephew is a freak, the devil take him!” This is what Catherine says in her notes. According to her, at court it was considered likely that Elizabeth at the end of her life would have agreed if she had been asked to send her nephew from Russia, appointing his 6-year-old son Pavel as the heir; but her favorites, who thought of such a step, did not dare to take it and, turning over like a courtier, began to curry favor with the future emperor.

Not suspecting the past misfortune, admonished by the ominous reviews of his aunt, this man inside out, whose concepts of good and evil were confused, ascended the Russian throne. Here, too, he retained all the narrowness and pettiness of the thoughts and interests in which he was brought up and raised. His mind, narrow as Holstein, could in no way expand to the geographical measure of the boundless empire that he accidentally inherited. On the contrary, on the Russian throne, Peter became even more of a Holsteiner than he was at home. The quality that nature, mean to him, endowed him with merciless generosity, spoke with special force in him: it was cowardice, combined with frivolous carelessness. He was afraid of everything in Russia, called it a cursed country, and himself expressed the conviction that he would certainly have to perish in it, but he did not at all try to get used to and get closer to her, he did not recognize anything in her and shunned everything; she frightened him the way children are frightened when left alone in a vast empty room. Guided by his own tastes and fears, he surrounded himself with a society that was not seen even under Peter I, so illegible in this respect, created his own little world in which he tried to hide from Russia, which was terrible for him. He started a special Holstein guard from any international rabble, but not from his Russian subjects: they were mostly sergeants and corporals of the Prussian army, “a bastard,” in the words of Princess Dashkova, “consisted of the sons of German shoemakers.” Considering the army of Frederick II to be a model, Peter tried to learn the manners and habits of a Prussian soldier, began to smoke an exorbitant amount of tobacco and drink an unbearable lot of bottles of beer, thinking that without this it was impossible to become a “real brave officer”. Having ascended the throne, Peter rarely lived until the evening sober and usually sat down at the table tipsy. Every day there was a feast in this Holstein society, which was joined from time to time by wandering comets - visiting singers and actresses. In this company, the emperor, according to Bolotov, who had seen him closely, used to say “such nonsense and such inconsistencies” that the heart of his loyal subjects bled from shame in front of foreign ministers: either he would suddenly begin to develop impossible reform plans, then with epic enthusiasm he would begin to talk about his unprecedented victorious campaign against the gypsy camp near Kiel, he will simply blurt out some important diplomatic secret. Unfortunately, the emperor felt attracted to playing the violin, considering himself quite seriously a virtuoso, and suspected himself of great comic talent, because he rather deftly made various funny grimaces, mimicked the priests in the church and deliberately replaced the old Russian bow at court with a French squat in order to then imagine the awkward curtseys of the elderly ladies of the court. One smart lady, whom he amused with his grimaces, said of him that he was completely unlike the sovereign. During his reign, several important and practical decrees were issued, such as, for example, the decrees on the abolition of the Secret Chancellery, on allowing schismatics who had fled abroad to return to Russia with a ban on prosecuting them for a split. These decrees were inspired not by the abstract principles of religious tolerance or the protection of the individual from denunciations, but by the practical calculations of people close to Peter - the Vorontsovs, Shuvalovs and others, who, saving their position, wanted to strengthen the popularity of the emperor by royal favors. From the same considerations came the decree on the freedom of the nobility. But Peter himself cared little about his position and soon succeeded in arousing a unanimous murmur in society by his mode of action. It was as if he deliberately tried to arm all classes against him, and above all the clergy. He did not hide it, on the contrary, he fervently flaunted his disdain for Orthodox church rites, publicly teased the Russian religious feeling, in the court church during divine services he received ambassadors, walking back and forth, as if in his office, talking loudly, sticking out his tongue to the clergymen, once on Trinity day, when everyone knelt down, with a loud laugh, he left the church. Archbishop Dimitri Sechenov of Novgorod, who was the first present in the Synod, was ordered to “cleanse the Russian churches”, that is, to leave only the icons of the Savior and the Mother of God in them and take out the rest, Russian priests to shave their beards and dress like Lutheran pastors. The execution of these orders was delayed, but the clergy and society were alarmed: Luthors are advancing! The black clergy were especially annoyed by the secularization of church real estate undertaken by Peter III. The Collegium of Economy that ruled them, previously subordinate to the Synod, was now placed in direct dependence on the Senate, and it was ordered to give the peasants all church lands and with those that they plowed for monasteries and bishops, and to assign from the income collected from church estates to the maintenance of church institutions limited salaries. Peter did not have time to carry out this measure; but the impression was made. Much more dangerous was the irritation of the guards, that ticklish and self-confident part of Russian society. From the very accession to the throne, Peter tried in every possible way to advertise his boundless worship of Frederick II. He piously kissed the bust of the king in front of everyone, during one ceremonial dinner in the palace in front of everyone, he knelt before his portrait. Immediately after his accession to the throne, he put on a Prussian uniform and often wore a Prussian order. A motley and antique narrow Prussian uniform was also introduced in the Russian guard, replacing the old spacious dark green caftan given to it by Peter I. Considering himself a military apprentice of Frederick, Peter III tried to introduce the strictest discipline in the slightly dissolute Russian troops. There were excercises every day. Neither rank nor age exempted from marching. The dignitaries, who had not seen the parade ground for a long time and, moreover, had managed to stock up on gout, had to undergo the military ballet drill of the Prussian officers and do all the military articles. Field Marshal, former Prosecutor General of the Senate, the old man Prince Nikita Trubetskoy, in his rank of lieutenant colonel of the guard, was supposed to appear at the exercise and march along with the soldiers. Contemporaries could not be surprised how times have changed, how, in the words of Bolotov, now the sick and not sick and the old men are the most raising their legs and, along with the young, marching and trampling and kneading the dirt just as well as the soldiers. What was most offensive of all - Peter gave preference to the rabble Holstein guard in everything over the Russian one, calling the latter Janissaries. And in Russian foreign policy, the Prussian envoy was in charge, in charge of everything at the court of Peter. A Prussian newsman before his accession, who sent information about the Russian army to Frederick II during the Seven Years' War, Peter on the Russian throne became a loyal Prussian minister. Before the indignant feeling of offended national dignity, the hated specter of the second Bironovshchina again arose, and this feeling was fueled by the fear that the Russian guard would be dispersed among the army regiments, which Biron had already threatened. In addition, the whole society felt in the actions of the government unsteadiness and caprice, the lack of unity of thought and a definite direction. It was obvious to everyone that the governmental mechanism was in disorder. All this caused a friendly murmur, which poured down from the higher spheres and became popular. Tongues loosened, as if not feeling the policeman's fear; on the streets they openly and loudly expressed discontent, without any fear blaming the sovereign. The murmur imperceptibly developed into a military conspiracy, and the conspiracy led to a new coup.

Guard and nobility. Thus, I repeat, almost all the governments that changed from the death of Peter I to the accession of Catherine II were the work of the guard. With her participation at the age of 37, five or six coups took place at the court. The Petersburg Guards barracks was a rival of the Senate and the Supreme Privy Council, the successor of the Moscow Zemsky Sobor. This participation of the Guards regiments in deciding the question of the throne had very important political consequences; above all, it had a strong effect on the political mood of the guards themselves. At first, an obedient tool in the hands of her leaders, Menshikov, Buturlin, she then wanted to be an independent mover of events, intervening in politics on her own initiative; palace coups became for her a preparatory political school. But the then guard was not only a privileged part of the Russian army, cut off from society: it had an influential social significance, was a representative of an entire class, from whose midst it was almost exclusively recruited.

The color of the estate served in the guard, the layers of which, previously divided, under Peter I united under the common name of the nobility or gentry, and according to the laws of Peter, it was an obligatory military school for this estate. The political tastes and pretensions acquired by the guard through participation in palace affairs did not remain within the walls of the St. Petersburg barracks, but spread from there to all corners of the nobility, urban and rural. This political connection between the guards and the class at the head of Russian society, and the dangerous consequences that could result from this, were vividly felt by the powerful Petersburg businessmen of that time. When, after the death of Empress Anna, Biron became regent, a murmur quickly spread in the guards against the Courland adventurer, who had achieved such power in a shameful way. Biron complained about the obstinacy of the guards, called them janissaries and saw the root of evil precisely in their class composition, said with annoyance: “Why are ordinary nobles in the guards? They can be transferred as officers to army regiments, and in their place to recruit a guard from the common people. This fear of being dispersed among the army regiments was what raised the guards against Biron, prompting them in 1740 to follow Minich.

E. Lansere.Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo.1905

Therefore, simultaneously with the palace coups and under their obvious influence, important changes are also found in the mood of the nobility: 1) thanks to the political role that was imposed on the guards in the course of court affairs and so willingly learned by them, such a pretentious view of their importance in the state was established among the nobility , which he did not notice before; 2) with the assistance of this view and the circumstances that established it, both the position of the nobility in the state and its relations with other classes of society changed.

Political mood of the upper class. The activities of Peter in the whole of Russian society awakened an unusual and intensified work of political thought. They experienced so many unexpected situations, met and perceived so many unprecedented phenomena, such unexperienced impressions left the thought that even unresponsive minds began to think about what was going on in the state. Outlining the popular rumors under and about Peter, I pointed out how animatedly the simplest people discussed current phenomena, far from their daily horizons. But the strange phenomena that so aroused the general attention did not stop even after Peter.

Ancient Russia never saw women on the throne, and after the death of the reformer, a woman sat on the throne, and even a foreigner who had come from nowhere. This news caused many misunderstandings among the people, sad or funny. So, during the oath to the Empress-widow, some simpletons in Moscow refused to take the oath, saying: "If a woman has become a king, then let the women kiss her and the cross." This excitement of political thought was to be revealed first and most strongly in the upper class, the nobility, who were closer than other estates to state affairs, as a habitual instrument of government. But this revival manifested itself unequally in the various strata of the class. While in the rank and file of the nobility, mercilessly expelled from provincial estates to regiments and schools, thought was refined by inventing ways to retire from science and service, in the upper strata, especially in the government environment, the minds worked hard on more lofty subjects. Here, the remnants of the old boyar nobility still survived, forming a fairly close circle of a few surnames.

Out of the general political excitement, a kind of political program was developed here, a rather definite view was formed of the order that should be established in the state. Various conditions helped the earlier and deeper tension of political thought in this well-born and at the same time high-ranking stratum of the nobility. First of all, some of the political traditions that came from the 17th century had not yet been extinguished here. And in the XVIII century. Moscow boyars made several attempts to limit the supreme power. One of them, undertaken under Tsar Fedor and almost failed, was remembered even after the death of Peter by the old people who were part of this nobility. Yes, and Peter himself, no matter how little it looks like him, with his regional decentralization, these eight provincial kingdoms of 1708 with plenipotentiary proconsuls at their head, could only refresh the memory of the noble governors conceived in the boyar project of 1681.

On the other hand, the arbitrariness of Peter, his neglect of the breed fueled these memories. We already know that the last decades of the 17th century, especially during the reign of Tsaritsa Natalia, were noted by contemporaries as the initial era of the fall of the first noble families and the rise of people from the "lowest and most wretched gentry." Under Peter, these people became the first nobles, "great masters of the state." In the minds memorizing dozens of generations of their numbered genealogical ancestors, the antagonism of the old and new nobility transformed the fresh traditions of the past into bright dreams of the future. Projectors of Peter I could not noticeably influence the political consciousness of Russian society. Their drafts were not made public, they discussed mainly practical issues, financial, industrial, police, without touching on the foundations of the state order, from the European charters they chose only what "befits only autocracy." It is impossible to exaggerate the impact on Russian minds of political literature, compiled and translated, printed and handwritten, accumulated under Peter I. Approving the reading of Puffendorf, Hugo Grotius, Tatishchev complains about the spread of such harmful writers as Hobbes, Locke, Boccalini, the Italian liberal and satirist XVI -XVII centuries, which in his work, depicting the Parnassian court of Apollo and pundits over the rulers of the world, represents how all sovereigns, to the great annoyance of the learned court, join the prince of Moscow, who confessed his hatred of science and enlightenment. Walking and harmless to the Russian reader ideas of Western European journalism about the origin of states, about the forms of government, about the power of sovereigns are set forth by F. Prokopovich in “The Truth of the Monarch’s Will”, but this brief encyclopedia of state law, with all the interest of the question that caused it, was not sold out in 4 years and 600 copies.

A great deal of fermentation, albeit in a limited sphere of action, was introduced into the political mood of the upper class by close acquaintance with the political orders and social mores of Western Europe, which was acquired by people of this class through educational and diplomatic sendings abroad. No matter how dimly the order of life abroad seemed to the understanding of the Russian observer, nevertheless he could not but stop his surprised attention on some of them. He went abroad with the thought, brought up by the entire warehouse of Russian life, that no decency, no public order is possible without the statutory church tightening and police fear. And so the Petrovsky businessman Tolstoy notes in his diary that the “Venetians” live happily and do not despise each other in anything. No one has any fear from anyone, in anything, everyone does according to his own will, whoever wants what, but they live in all peace, without offense and without burdensome taxes.

Things were even more surprisingly noticed in France by another Peter’s businessman, Matveev, the son of Peter’s mother’s enlightened educator: sir, he cannot rape anyone, especially take nothing from anyone, except through fault itself, according to the truth judged from parliament ... Their children (the French nobility) have no inertia, no bitterness from their parents or teachers, but they have a direct will and courage are brought up and without any difficulty they learn their sciences. People who live according to their own will and do not devour each other, grandees who do not dare to offend anyone, an autocrat who cannot take anything from his subjects without a parliamentary decree, children who successfully study without beatings - all these were impossible absurdities for the then Moscow mind, capable of leading only to total anarchy. And the Russian observer saw all these absurd impossibilities with his own eyes, as daily everyday facts or rules, the violation of which was considered a scandal.

Reign. Empress Elizabeth reigned for twenty years, from November 25, 1741 to December 25, 1761. Her reign was not without glory, not even without benefit. Her youth was not instructive. The princess could not bear any strict rules or pleasant memories from the homeless second family of Peter, where the first words that a child learned to pronounce were “tatya”, “mother”, “soldier”. The mother was in a hurry to get her daughters married as soon as possible, so that, in the event of the death of their father, they would not have rivals in the succession to the throne. Growing up, Elizabeth seemed like a young lady who was brought up in a girl's room. All her life she didn't want to know when to get up, get dressed, eat dinner, go to bed. The servants' weddings gave her great entertainment: she herself cleaned the bride to the crown and then from behind the door admired how the wedding guests were having fun. In her address, she was either too simple and affectionate, then she lost her temper over trifles and scolded whoever she came across, a lackey or a courtier, with the most unfortunate words, and the ladies-in-waiting got it even more painfully.

Elizabeth fell between two opposite cultural currents, was brought up among new European trends and traditions of pious domestic antiquity. Both influences left their mark on her. She knew how to combine the concepts and tastes of both. From vespers she went to the ball, and from the ball she kept up to matins, reverently honored the shrines and rites of the Russian Church, ordered descriptions of court Versailles banquets and festivals from Paris, loved French performances to a passion and knew all the gastronomic secrets of Russian cuisine to the subtlety.

The obedient daughter of her confessor, Father Dubyansky, and a student of the French dance master Rambour, she strictly observed fasts at her court, so that the gastronomist Chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin was allowed not to eat mushrooms only with the permission of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and in the whole empire no one is better than the empress could perform the minuet and Russian dance. The religious mood was warmed in her by an aesthetic feeling. The bride of all sorts of suitors in the world, from the French king to her own nephew, under Empress Anna, saved by Biron from the monastery and the ducal Saxe-Coburg Meiningen slum, she gave her heart to the court chorister from the Chernigov Cossacks. Her palace turned into a music house. Both Little Russian choristers and Italian singers were signed out, and in order not to disturb the integrity of the artistic impression, both of them sang mass and opera together. The duality of educational influences explains the pleasant or unexpected contradictions in the character and lifestyle of Elizabeth.

Lively and cheerful, but not taking her eyes off herself, at the same time large and slender, with a beautiful round and ever-blooming face, she liked to impress. And, knowing that a man's costume especially suited her, she set up masquerades without masks at court, where men were required to come in full women's attire, in extensive skirts, and ladies in men's court dress.

On November 25, 1741, another (and not the last in the 18th century) palace coup took place, and it was initiated by Elizabeth Petrovna, the youngest daughter of Peter I.

A lot has been written about this coup, and almost all historical (and even more so, fiction) literature interprets this event as a “triumph of the Russian spirit”, as the end of foreign domination, as the only possible and even completely legal act.

V. O. Klyuchevsky calls Elizabeth as follows: "The most legitimate of all the successors and successors of Peter I." The name of Tsarina Elizabeth was called at each change of rulers since 1725, but each time the crown went to someone else. Elizabeth has always been very calm about advice and calls to act for the sake of accession to the throne. I must say that in 1741, "Petrov's daughter" succumbed to the persuasion of her entourage only under the influence of fear of an unknown future.

In public opinion, by the will of political circumstances, Elizabeth earned a reputation as the head of a certain “Russian” party that opposed the dominance of foreigners at the courts of Anna Ioannovna and Anna Leopoldovna. In this respect, Elizabeth of 1741 was the exact opposite of Elizabeth of 1725.

After the death of Peter, it was his daughters who, along with Catherine, were considered the main patrons of foreigners. Elizabeth in alliance with Anna Petrovna were symbols of Holstein influence on the Russian court. (Moreover, at that moment, Elizabeth was considered the bride of the Lübeck prince - Bishop Karl - August, who later died of a transient illness).

It should be noted that Elizabeth was not some kind of special Russian patriot, she simply became the center of gravity of that court group, which at the moment was removed from power. The patriotic feelings of Elizabeth's supporters were caused not so much by the rejection of foreigners as by their own interests.

The ease with which Minich eliminated Biron also influenced the determination of Elizabeth's supporters. In addition, the guardsmen felt themselves to be a special force, so to speak, a "hegemon". Minich himself at one time told them so: "Whoever you want to be a sovereign, he can be."

In addition, there are inexorable facts indicating that Elizabeth collaborated with French and Swedish agents of influence - Chétardie and Nolken, and that it was foreign courts that played an important role in the anti-government (essentially) adventure of the princess. The night of the coup was included not only in the history books, but also in the legends. The phrase with which the princess led the guards to storm is known: “Do you know whose daughter I am?” This was quite enough - Peter's authority was too great in all strata of society.

The victory of Elizabeth brought to power a new generation of courtiers and prominent politicians - the Shuvalov family, M.I. Vorontsov, the Razumovsky brothers, and exalted A.P. Bestuzhev - Ryumin.

Of course, after the overthrow of Minich, Osterman, Levenwolde, as well as the Braunschweig family, German influence at the Russian court practically disappeared. However, having established herself on the throne, Elizabeth declared her heir to the Holstein-Gottorp prince Karl - Peter - Ulrich, the son of Anna Petrovna, whose wife Sophia - Augusta - Frederick Anhalt - Zerbstskaya (Fike) some time later became. The young princess has learned well the lessons that the Russian history of coups has taught her - she will successfully bring them to life.

The most legitimate of all the successors and successors of Peter I, but raised to the throne by rebellious guards bayonets, she inherited the energy of her great father, built palaces in twenty-four hours and traveled the then path from Moscow to St. Petersburg in two days, regularly paying for each driven horse. Peaceful and carefree, she was forced to fight for almost half of her reign, defeated the first strategist of that time, Frederick the Great, took Berlin, laid the abyss of soldiers on the fields of Zorndorf and Kunersdorf; but since the reign of Princess Sophia, life in Russia has never been so easy, and not a single reign before 1762 left such a pleasant memory. With two great coalition wars that exhausted Western Europe, it seemed that Elizabeth, with her 300,000-strong army, could become the arbiter of European destinies; the map of Europe lay before her at her disposal, but she looked at it so rarely that for the rest of her life she was sure of the possibility of traveling to England by land; and she also founded the first real university in Russia - Moscow. Lazy and capricious, frightened by any serious thought, abhorred by any business occupation, Elizabeth could not enter into the complex international relations of the then Europe and understand the diplomatic intricacies of her chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin. But in her inner chambers, she created for herself a special political environment of hangers-on and storytellers, gossips, headed by an intimate solidarity cabinet, where the prime minister was Mavra Yegorovna Shuvalova, the wife of the inventor and projector known to us, and Anna Karlovna Vorontsova, nee Skavronskaya, was the prime minister, a relative of the Empress, and some just Elizaveta Ivanovna, who was called the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “All cases were submitted to the empress through her,” a contemporary remarks. The subjects of this study were stories, gossip, trickery, all sorts of tricks and baiting courtiers against each other, which gave Elizabeth great pleasure. These were the "spheres" of that time; important ranks and bread places were heard from here; major government business was done here. These cabinet studies alternated with festivities. From her youth, Elizabeth was dreamy and, while still a Grand Duchess, once in enchanted oblivion she signed a business paper instead of her name with the words Flame of Fire ... Having ascended the throne, she wanted to fulfill her girlish dreams into a magical reality; performances, pleasure trips, courts, balls, masquerades, striking with dazzling brilliance and luxury to the point of nausea, stretched out in an endless string. Sometimes the whole courtyard turned into a theatrical foyer: from day to day they talked only about the French comedy, about the Italian comic opera and its landlord Locatelli, about intermezza, etc. But the living rooms, where the palace inhabitants left the lush halls, were struck by crampedness, squalor conditions, slovenliness: the doors did not close, the windows blew; water ran over the wall-boards, the rooms were extremely damp; Grand Duchess Ekaterina had huge cracks in her bedroom in the oven; near this bedroom, 17 servants crowded in a small chamber; the furnishings were so meager that mirrors, beds, tables and chairs were transported as needed from palace to palace, even from St. Petersburg to Moscow, broken, beaten and placed in this form in temporary places. Elizabeth lived and reigned in gilded poverty; she left behind in her wardrobe too 15,000 dresses, two chests of silk stockings, a bunch of unpaid bills, and the unfinished huge Winter Palace, which had already absorbed more than 10 million rubles from our money from 1755 to 1761.

The era of palace coups

Task number 1

Russian emperors and empresses XVIII v.

Set the board sequence.

Peter II.

Anna Ioannovna.

Ekaterina II.

John Antonovich.

Peter I.

Elizabeth I.

Ekaterina I.

Peter III.

      

Task number 2

The reign of Anna Ioannovna and Elizabeth

Determine whose reigns are mentioned in passages from the writings of historians.

  1. Anna Ioannovna.

  2. Elizabeth Petrovna.

During her reign, through the famous ambitious and greedy nobleman Biron, the great and almost superior to Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, strictness was used with severity, cruelty and extreme subjective dejection ...

Timofey Malgin. "Mirror of Russian sovereigns"

…This reign is one of the darkest pages of our history, and the darkest spot on it is the empress herself... The Germans poured into Russia like rubbish from a holey bag, stuck around the court, sat down on the throne, huddled in the most profitable places in government...

…The Russians praised her reign: she expressed more power of attorney to them than to the Germans; restored the power of the Senate, abolished the death penalty, had good-natured lovers, a passion for fun and tender poetry ...

N. M. Karamzin. "A note on ancient and new Russia"

…No matter how hard we try to reduce the disasters of this time in some particular features, it will forever remain the darkest time in our history.XVIIIcenturies, because it was not about private disasters, not about material deprivation: the people's spirit suffered, a betrayal of the basic, vital rule of the great reformer was felt, the darkest side of the new life was felt, the yoke from the West was felt, heavier than the former yoke from the East - the yoke Tatar...

S. M. Solovyov. "History of Russia since ancient times"

…Russia has come to her senses. Russian people again appeared at the highest places of government, and when a foreigner was appointed to a secondary place, then (the empress) asked: is there not a Russian? A foreigner can be appointed only when there is no capable Russian. People's activity is unraveled by the destruction of internal customs; banks come to the aid of the landowner and merchant; in the east, a strong development of ore resources begins; trade with Central Asia assumes vast proportions ...

Ibid

…Lively and cheerful, but never taking her eyes off herself, at the same time large and slender, with a beautiful round and ever-blooming face, she loved to impress ... The most legitimate of all the successors and successors of PeterI, but raised to the throne by the rebellious bayonets of the guards, she inherited the energy of her great father, built palaces in twenty-four hours and in two days drove the then path from Moscow to St. Petersburg, regularly paying for each driven horse ...

V. O. Klyuchevsky. "Lectures on Russian History"

Task number 3

Palace coups

Determine which documents refer to the listed events.

…Mother merciful sovereign! How can I explain, describe what happened: you will not believe your faithful slave; but how I will tell the truth before God ... Mother - he is not in the world. But no one thought of this, and how can we think of raising our hands against the sovereign. But, sir, disaster has struck. He argued at the table with Prince Fyodor [Boryatinsky]; we didn't have time to separate, but he was gone. We ourselves do not remember what we did; but everyone is guilty, worthy of execution. Have mercy on me, at least for my brother ...

From a letter by A. G. Orlov

…The empress came out into the hall; standing under the canopy, let the petitioners in and ordered them to read their petition ... Then she delivered a short speech in such force; that although very difficult treaties were given to her reign, however, believing, as it was reported to her, that they are required from all ranks and from the entire Russian people, she signed for the love of her fatherland. But now it is known that she was deceived by lies and flattery, for the sake of these agreements, as if they were torn from herself by the existence of unrighteousness, she destroys ... And having said that, the immediately mentioned letter, handed to her hand, she tore it and threw it to the ground ...

From the story of Archbishop F. Prokopovich

…All, to the congratulations of her majesty, came to the room close to the body of the deceased sovereign: where then the empress deigned to go out; they asked her majesty that the burden of state ownership, which God and her husband handed to her, really deigned to accept. But the empress was crushed by sadness, and weeping indefatigably, she could not answer almost verbally; only without taking away the hands of the kissers, she showed her permission ...

Archbishop F. Prokopovich. "A Brief Tale of Death..."

…The princess went straight to the guardroom. “Wake up, my children,” she told the soldiers, “and listen to me. Do you want to follow the devil of PeterI? You know that the throne belongs to me; the injustice inflicted on me resonates with all our poor people, and they are languishing under the yoke of the Germans. Let's get rid of our persecutors!"

From a letter from the French Ambassador to Russia, the Marquis de la Chétardie

Task number 4

Get acquainted with a fragment of the text of the "Conditions" presented to Anna Ioannovna by the "supervisors" and answer the questions.

“Through this we promise most strongly ... we will always maintain the already established Supreme Privy Council in eight persons and without its consent: 1) not start a war with anyone; 2) do not make peace; 3) not burden our faithful subjects with any taxes; 4) in the noble ranks, both in the civilian and in the military land or sea, do not favor higher than the colonel rank, do not appoint anyone lower to noble deeds, the guards and other troops be under the authority of the Supreme Privy Council; 5) not to take away the belly, property and honor from the nobility without a trial; 6) do not favor estates and villages; 7) not to promote both Russians and foreigners to the court ranks; 8) not to use state revenues for expenditure and to keep all his faithful subjects in his irrevocable mercy ... "

What is the essence of the conditions proposed to Anna Ioannovna by the Supreme Privy Council?

Why were the guards regiments removed from the subordination of the empress?

Is it possible in Russian history before XVIII v. find a document similar to "Conditions"?

What path would Russia's political development take if the "supervisors" succeeded in realizing their plan?

Why did the guards and the service nobility not support the proposal of the "supreme leaders" and opposed the signing of the "Conditions" by Anna Ioannovna?