* Peter had devised Russia’s first Westernized court for Catherine with a Germanic hierarchy of courtiers from Oberhofmarschall (grand marshal of court) down to Kammerherr (chamberlain) and Kammerjunker (gentleman of the bedchamber), rigged out in green, gold and scarlet-trimmed tunics and white wigs, with equally flamboyant uniforms for his blackamoors – all designed of course by the supreme control freak.
* This head too was later placed in the Chamber of Curiosities (where it remains today). After Peter’s death Catherine I could have buried it quietly. She did not – whatever that signifies. Catherine was especially afraid that, after the Mons case, Peter could jettison her in favour of his young mistress, the semi-royal Princess Maria Cantemir. She was the daughter of Dmitri, the hospodar of Moldavia who was one of the Constantinople Greeks appointed by the sultans to rule Moldavia and Wallachia. After a short reign as a Russian ally during the Pruth campaign, Peter welcomed this philosopher, composer and historian to Petersburg where his daughter’s position made him influential. Accompanying Peter to Astrakhan, Maria became pregnant, alarming Catherine at a time when the succession was wide open. The baby died but back in Petersburg she resumed her place as Peter’s favourite. Rumours spread that she had given Peter VD. After his death, Catherine temporarily sent her away from court. Under Empress Anna she held a literary salon in Petersburg.
† ‘Sail on vessels to the north and, based on current expectations,’ Peter wrote to Captain Bering on 23 December 1724, ‘because no one knows where it ends, see if it appears this land is part of America . . . You are to seek where Asia and America split.’ The expedition resulted in the discovery of the Bering Strait – and later in the Russian colonization of Alaska.
* James Bruce created a new style of funeral – with its formal lying-in-state, slow martial marches, military grandeur – which now seems quintessentially Russian, serving not just the tsars but the secretary-generals of the Soviet Communist Party.
† She did not forget her family, ordering her two brothers and two sisters, Livonian cattle-herders who spoke no Russian, to be set up in the splendour of Tsarskoe Selo. They were all raised to the rank of count and enriched beyond their dreams: their descendants, the counts Scavronsky and Hendrikov among others, remained at the apex of Russian aristocracy until the Revolution.
* Catherine abolished the Secret Chancellery, transferring its torturers back to the Preobrazhensky Office: the abolition of the secret police, while recreating it with a new name, would become a ritual of new leaders, royal, Soviet and presidential.
* She made Menshikov promise to ensure that her unmarried daughter Elizaveta wed Holstein’s cousin the prince-bishop of Lübeck, Karl August of Holstein, who had just arrived in Petersburg. Elizaveta was at times meant to marry virtually everyone from Louis XV to the shah of Persia, but the prince-bishop was the one she really loved. He soon died but his influence outlived him: when Empress Elizaveta later chose a girl to marry her heir, she selected the prince-bishop’s niece, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst – who became Catherine the Great.
* Peter II lived between the Kremlin and Lefort’s palace, which survives as the rather dilapidated archive of the Collegium and Ministry of War. Some of the research used in this book was conducted there by the author, who once fell through the rickety stairs. It stands near the dreaded Lefortovo Prison, scene of many executions during Stalin’s Terror.
* The tsar’s other aunt, Peter the Great’s daughter Annushka, duchess of Holstein, was absent in Kiel, giving birth to a son, Karl-Peter Ulrich, who thanks to the interwoven marriage alliances of Europe was potentially heir to the duchy of Holstein, the kingdom of Sweden and the Russian empire. This birth of a grandson of Peter the Great, a rare male heir, was celebrated by a ball in Moscow, but his mother caught a chill at the celebrations in Kiel. Annushka died in May aged just twenty-six. Her baby would reign – and marry Catherine the Great.
* Golitsyn, now sixty-five, had suffered under Petrine tyranny: head of the Commerce Collegium, he had been entangled in the fall of Shafirov and was only saved by the mediation of Catherine. This grandest of Russian aristocrats had to thank the peasant-empress by prostrating himself at her feet and touching his forehead to the ground.
* Miliutin the fool who specialized in tickling Anna’s feet was the ancestor of Count Dmitri Miliutin, war minister of Alexander II, and his brother Nikolai, architect of the liberation of the serfs in 1861.
* Anna expelled all Jews to soothe popular discontent. After Peter I’s death, Catherine I had expelled all Jews in 1727. Now Anna reissued that decree. A Jew was burned alive for building a synagogue opposite a church in his village and for converting a Christian, who was executed with him. Yet Biron was the patron of a ‘court Jew’, Isaac Libman from Riga, who was appointed ‘Ober-Hof-Kommissar’ at Anna’s court in 1734 where he handled and earned vast sums as supplier to the armies and as middleman in artistic and jewellery commissions such as the bejewelled sword awarded to Münnich. Libman unusually remained a practising Jew who continued to serve Anna. One of the empress’s doctors was the converted Portuguese Jew Antonio Sanchez.
* On 9 October the other emperor in Europe, Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI, archduke of Austria, had died in Vienna, leaving only a female heir, his daughter Maria Theresa. He had canvassed Europe to agree what became known as the Pragmatic Sanction – that a female could succeed him – though the imperial title would have to be held by her husband. But her accession provided an opportunity for a young monarch who had also just succeeded to his throne: the Prussian Frederick II the Great.
* Nadir Shah was an extraordinary Persian warlord, a herdsman’s son who had raised himself to the throne. An eighteenth-century, Near Eastern version of Napoleon with a touch of Tamerlane, he conquered Iraq and then the Caucasus where the Russians were forced to retreat. In 1739 he defeated the Mughals and captured Delhi, where he looted the Peacock Throne. These elephants and jewels were Mughal booty. The conqueror was assassinated in 1747. The elephants were presented to the regent who kept them in a special yard.
SCENE 3
Russian Venus
CAST
Anna of Brunswick, regent and grand duchess 1740–1
Prince Anton of Brunswick, her husband, generalissimus
IVAN VI, emperor 1740–1, their son
Baroness Julie von Mengden, their friend, ‘Julka’
ELIZAVETA, empress 1741–61, daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I
PETER III, emperor 1761–2, duke of Holstein, grand duke, son of Annushka, grandson of Peter the Great, Elizaveta’s nephew and heir, ‘Little Holstein Devil’
CATHERINE II (THE GREAT), empress 1762–96 (née Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst), grand duchess, wife of Peter III
PAUL I, emperor 1796–1801, son of Peter III and Catherine II
COURTIERS: ministers etc. of Elizaveta
Jean Armand de Lestocq, court doctor and Prussian agent, later count
Alexei Razumovsky, count, Elizaveta’s lover, ‘Night Emperor’
Kyril Razumovsky, his brother, count, hetman of Cossacks
Mikhail Vorontsov, count, vice-chancellor, later chancellor
Andrei Ushakov, secret police chief, general, count
Alexei Bestuzhev-Riumin, count, vice-chancellor, later chancellor
Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, field marshal, head of War Collegium
Prince Nikita Trubetskoi, procurator-general, field marshal
Nikita Panin, Paul’s oberhofmeister
Peter Shuvalov, count, master of ordnance, field marshal, ‘Mughal’
Alexander Shuvalov, his brother, count, secret police chief, field marshal, ‘Terror’
Ivan Shuvalov, cousin of Peter and Alexander, Elizaveta’s lover
SEVEN YEARS WAR
Stepan Apraxin, field marshal, count, head of War Collegium
Alexander Buturlin, count, field marshal
Frederick the Great, king of Prussia
Count Wilhelm von der Goltz, Prussian emissary
 
; COURTIERS: ministers etc. of Peter III
Elizabeth Vorontsova, mistress of Peter III, niece of Mikhail Vorontsov
Andrei Gudovich, Peter’s favourite, adjutant-general
Baron Karl von Ungern-Sternberg, his other favourite, adjutant-general
Alexander Glebov, procurator-general
Dmitri Volkov, state secretary
Lev Naryshkin, master of the horse
SUPPORTERS OF CATHERINE
Grigory Orlov, Guards officer, Catherine’s lover
Alexei Orlov, his brother, ‘Scarface’, Guards officer
Grigory Potemkin, sergeant of the Horse Guards, ‘Alcibiades’
After midnight on 25 November 1741, Elizaveta donned a breastplate and, accompanied by Dr Lestocq, music master Schwartz and courtier Vorontsov, emerged from her palace and drove in a sleigh through a blizzard across Petersburg to the Preobrazhensky Guards barracks where she rallied her supporters, 300 in total. ‘My friends,’ she said, holding a pike, ‘just as you served my father, now loyally serve me!’ This Venus in a cuirassier must have been a stirring sight for any Guardsman. ‘We’ll die for Your Majesty and the Motherland!’ they cried.
At 2 a.m., they sped off on sleighs through the snow. They halted at Admiralty Square and proceeding on foot advanced silently towards the Winter Palace. A French diplomat ‘caught sight of 400 grenadiers at the head of whom stood the most beautiful’ Elizaveta. As they hurried through the grey light, Elizaveta struggled to walk in the snow with her gown and breastplate, so the Guards picked her up and bore her on their shoulders, her gold locks flowing.
Entering the palace, Elizaveta addressed the sentries in their guardroom: ‘Wake up, children, you know who I am. Will you follow me?’ They immediately joined her, allowing Vorontsov and Lestocq to lead a detachment up to the apartments of the regent, while others fanned out around the city to arrest Münnich and Osterman.
Regent Anna of Brunswick was awoken by soldiers and arrested by Vorontsov and Lestocq. ‘Ach, we’re finished,’ she sighed. She dressed and climbed into the sleigh that was to convey her to Elizaveta’s palace; her husband was tossed in after her, half naked. ‘Will we see the princess [Elizaveta]?’ she asked, but in fact she never saw her again. She begged for Julie to be allowed to stay with her, and this was permitted.
The Guards waited for the deposed baby Ivan VI to awaken in his crib, and he was then arrested (in so far as a Guardsman can ‘arrest’ a baby) and brought to Elizaveta, who held the ex-tsar in her arms. ‘You’re not guilty of anything,’ she said. As dawn broke, soldiers celebrated; courtiers rushed to worship the rising sun.1
At her palace, Elizaveta first embraced her Cossack lover Alexei Razumovsky and then received the submission of the grandees, while in another chamber, under guard, the fallen Brunswicks and Julie von Mengden awaited their fate with their two babies, one of them a deposed tsar. She immediately promoted Razumovsky and courtiers Vorontsov and the Shuvalov brothers, Peter and Alexander – all to be counts and chamberlains.*
Elizaveta disdained to appoint a cabinet like Anna, and was keen to rule directly as her father had done. Actually, she ruled through two men. Since she had no experience of politics, she allowed the French ambassador Chétardie to propose that Biron’s fallen sidekick, Alexei Bestuzhev-Riumin, should be vice-chancellor. But Elizaveta must have known him well anyway as he was the son of Peter’s retainer who became Empress Anna’s lover. Bestuzhev, now forty-eight, was ungainly, sloppy-lipped, ‘more feared than loved, exceedingly scheming, suspicious, wilful and daring, tyrannical in his principles, an implacable enemy but a friend to his friends’. This diplomatic hypochondriac was an amateur chemist who had invented his own nerve-calming medicine. Her other potentate was Prince Nikita Trubetskoi, aged forty-two, who had helped organize Anna’s counter-coup in 1730. He possessed aptitude and connections, a Naryshkin relative married to one of Chancellor Golovkin’s many daughters. Restored to his old office of procurator-general, he ran most of her domestic government.
The new Prussian king, later known as Frederick the Great, had recently launched an unprovoked attack on Austria to seize the rich province of Silesia, encouraged by the death of Tsarina Anna because he knew the rule of the baby Ivan VI would prevent Russia intervening. He was exploiting the questionable succession of a female heir, the young Maria Theresa, to the Austrian throne; his attack† sparked decades of European wars – and a competition between Austria, Prussia and France to win over Elizaveta. The empress agreed with Bestuzhev that Russia should follow Osterman’s longstanding policy of alliance with Austria to contain France and the newly aggressive Prussia. But her intimates Vorontsov and Lestocq, encouraged by a golden shower of bribes, supported Prussia and France. Lestocq, whose ‘black and evil heart’ was addicted to intrigue, lobbied and spied for his paymasters – even though he knew he would go too far: ‘I’ll be banished in the end!’
On 28 November Elizaveta generously allowed the Brunswicks, Julie and the baby tsar to leave for Riga – and probably Germany. But a day later she ordered their imprisonment in a Baltic fortress. She had dealt with the past. Now for the future.*
She summoned her thirteen-year-old nephew, Karl Peter Ulrich, duke of Holstein, who, as both grandson of Peter the Great and great-nephew of Charles XII, was potential heir to both Russia and Sweden. By the will of Catherine I, he actually ranked above Elizaveta in the Russian succession. ‘I’m waiting with friendly impatience, my dearest nephew,’ she declared, ‘your benevolent and supportive aunt Elizaveta.’ On 5 February 1742, he arrived and began his Orthodox instruction: Peter Fyodorovich, as he was now known, was proclaimed heir and grand duke.
Peter arrived just in time for the coronation: Elizaveta travelled to Moscow with Razumovsky in Empress Anna’s giant sleigh (now in the Kremlin Armoury), the size of a Hollywood Winnebago, pulled by twenty-three horses, and containing tables, beds and even a stove. On 27 February, Elizaveta and her nephew processed into Moscow in a cavalcade of carriages, embarking on two months of prayers and balls that climaxed on 25 April when the empress, wearing a gold brocade dress, entered the Dormition Cathedral. But here there was a change: just as her father had himself crowned her mother in 1724, now Elizaveta placed Anna’s crown on her own head, a ritual repeated by all the Romanovs down to 1896.2
On Elizaveta’s return to Petersburg, her generals advanced into Swedish Finland while Frederick of Prussia was winning his war against Austria. Chétardie, keen to save the French ally Sweden and reduce Russian power, aided by his agent Lestocq, tried to undermine Bestuzhev. But the Russian conquest of Finland left him so exposed that he resigned and returned to Paris. Just when Bestuzhev had signed the peace with Sweden and moved closer to Austria, a conspiracy against Elizaveta threatened to change everything.
One night at a Petersburg tavern, Colonel Ivan Lopukhin, son of that prominent court family, grumbled to a friend about female rule and base origins – criticisms of Elizaveta. The friend denounced him. Under torture, Lopukhin implicated his mother, Countess Natalya Lopukhina, daughter of Matrena Balk, sister of Willem Mons, executed in the last days of Peter the Great. As the ‘brightest flower’ of Anna’s and Ivan VI’s court, she had indulged in a bitchy rivalry with its other beauty, Elizaveta. After her accession, Elizaveta banned ladies from wearing pink, her favourite colour, but Lopukhina had flouted her order, adding a pink rose to her hair. Elizaveta ordered Lopukhina to kneel before her, cut off the offending lock of hair – and slapped her. Now she was arrested. But this was about much more than fashion policing: the suspects were a cabal that had flourished under Ivan VI. As suspects were tortured by secret police chief Ushakov, now raised to count, Elizaveta directed the interrogations almost as ruthlessly as her father.* She learned that the Lopukhins had been in contact with one of the guards of Ivan VI, whom they wished to reinstate – and simultaneously that Frederick of Prussia was hoping to restore the baby-tsar.
All were sentenced to death by quartering or beheading. At a ball, Elizaveta dramat
ically pardoned the capital sentences to the cheers of the guests. Instead the women were simply to have their tongues ripped out – those organs of female loose talk; the men to be broken on the wheel. On 31 May, Countess Lopukhina and Anna Bestuzheva were stripped naked and whipped with birches and knouts. Bestuzheva had managed to bribe the executioner who merely clipped her tongue but Lopukhina had failed to do so and when she struggled and bit his hand, he ripped the tongue out with such violence that she passed out. ‘Who’ll take the tongue of the beautiful Madame Lopukhina?’ he asked, holding it up. Then her men’s bones were hammered to smithereens on the wheel.3
No one flouted Elizaveta’s fashion rules again, but the revelations of Prussian plans to rescue the infant tsar Ivan VI rebounded on his family in Voronezh. Elizaveta had them moved at once to Solovetsky in the Arctic. Winter delayed the family at Kholmogory near Archangel in the far north, where Ivan was kept in a special cell while the family settled in the bishop’s house. Elizaveta ordered the four-year-old ex-tsar to be kept in solitary confinement, known only as ‘Grigory’, never seeing his parents again.
Anna was now pregnant for the second time since her downfall. The childless Elizaveta was motivated by greed as well as jealousy: she wanted Biron’s jewels and was happy to use Anna’s love for Julie to get them. ‘Ask Anna to whom she gave the diamonds which were not found,’ Elizaveta ordered her officer in Kholmogory. ‘If Anna says she didn’t give the diamonds to anyone, tell her I’ll be forced to torture Julka and if she pities her, she shouldn’t expose her to such suffering.’ When little Ivan was ill, Elizaveta banned medical treatment. But he lived on.4