Catherine I: how Marta Skavronskaya became the Russian Empress. Proclamation of Catherine I as Empress Catherine 1 period of reign

Proclamation of Catherine I as Empress

While Peter was struggling with death, in other chambers of the palace the nobles were holding a meeting on the succession to the throne. Some of them then seized on the rights of Grand Duke Peter, the son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich; such were the princes Golitsyn, Dolgoruky, Repnin; others - in their brow Menshikov, Admiral General Apraksin, Tolstoy, Buturlin - wanted to enthrone Catherine, based on the fact that Peter himself crowned her, and pointed out that the erection of Grand Duke Peter, who was still a minor, could result in misunderstandings and civil strife . Some of the supporters of Grand Duke Peter tried to agree on both parties and proposed that Grand Duke Peter be declared emperor, and until he came of age to hand over the reign to Catherine along with the Senate. The side that wanted the enthronement of Catherine without the participation of Grand Duke Peter finally gained the upper hand through the fact that Tolstoy and Buturlin invited a circle of guards officers to the palace, and both guards regiments were placed outside the walls of the palace with a readiness to use weapons if necessary.

Catherine I. Portrait of an unknown artist

“Who dared to bring an army here without my knowledge?” - said Prince Repnin, president of the Military Collegium.

“I am,” answered Buturlin; I did this at the behest of the Empress. Everyone is obliged to obey her, not excluding you!

Those who were on the side of Grand Duke Peter lacked consent; almost all were on various occasions in hostility with each other; many, moreover, were afraid that the trial of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich would not respond to them. Thus, Repnin, who did not get along with the Golitsyns, went over to Catherine's side; Chancellor Golovkin also landed there. They called for Makarov's office secretary; under Peter the Great, for a long time he was in charge of affairs that directly proceeded from the sovereign.

- Is there any will or order of the late sovereign regarding the succession to the throne after his death? – General-Admiral Apraksin asked Makarov.

- There is nothing! Makarov answered. - A few years ago, the sovereign made a will, but destroyed it before his last trip to Moscow. Although he later spoke of the need to write a new one, he did not carry out this intention. The sovereign expressed the following thought: “If the people, brought out by me from an ignorant state and placed on a degree of power and glory, declare themselves ungrateful, they will not act according to my will, even if it was written, and I do not want to subject my last will to the possibility of insult; but if the people feel what they owe me for my labors, they will conform to my desires, and they were expressed with such solemnity that no written document could communicate.

“I ask you to allow me to say a word,” Feofan Prokopovich said then. - And, when he received the desired permission, he began, with his characteristic eloquence, to speak about the sanctity of the oath given by all subjects in 1722 - to recognize the person whom he himself appoints as the successor to the sovereign.

- However, - they objected to him, - the deceased did not leave a will, according to which it would be possible to indicate the person chosen by him. This circumstance can rather be taken as a sign of indecision, and therefore, in the absence of a successor indicated by the former emperor, the issue of succession to the throne must be decided by the state.

- The sovereign indicated his wife Catherine as his successor, having crowned her himself with the imperial crown in Moscow. This crowning in itself, without any other document, gives her an undeniable right to govern the state.

Some objected to this: among other nations, the spouses of monarchs are crowned with them, but such a coronation does not give them the right to inherit the throne after the death of the spouses.

Then one of Catherine’s supporters said: “The late sovereign performed this coronation for precisely this purpose, in order to indicate in Catherine his successor on the throne. Even before going to Persia, he explained his views to four senators and two members of the Synod, who are now at a meeting: he then said that although in Russia there is no custom to crown queens, but necessity requires this, so that the throne after his death would not remain idle and through that there would not be any reason for misunderstandings and confusion.

Feofan, for his part, spoke about the speech that the late sovereign made before the wedding to the kingdom of Catherine in the house of an English merchant; then the bishop turned to Golovkin and other persons who were with this merchant with the sovereign, and asked: do they remember these words of the late monarch?

The chancellor confirmed the words of Theophanes. Others also answered in the affirmative.

Menshikov, who, in his position, most of all then wanted Catherine to ascend the throne, exclaimed with fervor:

“What other expression of the will of the late monarch should we seek?” The testimony of such venerable persons is worth every testament. If our great sovereign trusted his will to the truthfulness of his noblest subjects, then not complying with this would be a crime on our part against their honor and against the autocratic will of the sovereign.

“For us,” others said then, “there is nothing to talk about whom to elect as the heir to the throne: the matter has long been decided, and we have gathered here not for election, but for a declaration.

“Yes,” said General Admiral Apraksin, “according to the strength of the coronation performed in Moscow in 1724, the Senate is left to proclaim Ekaterina Alekseevna the Empress and Autocrat of All Russia, with the rights that her late husband used.

In this sense, an act was drawn up, and everyone signed it without objection. Then we went to invite Ekaterina.

Bathed in tears, Catherine came out of the royal bedchamber, accompanied by the Duke of Holstein, and addressed a touching speech to the nobles, spoke of her orphanhood, widowhood, entrusted herself and her entire family to the protection of the Senate and nobles, asked them to be merciful and to the Duke of Holstein, whom the deceased loved and appointed as his son-in-law. In response to such words, Apraksin, kneeling down, presented her with an act recognizing Peter as her successor. Approving exclamations were heard in the hall.

- My faithful ones! Catherine said. – Fulfilling the intention of my deceased spouse, who is eternally dear to my heart in Bose, I will devote my days to difficult cares for the welfare of the state until God calls me back from this earthly life. If Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich will use my advice, then perhaps I will have in my sad widowhood the consolation that I will prepare for you an emperor worthy of the blood and name of the one you have just lost.

A loud cheer resounded in the hall; the same cries resounded outside the walls of the palace.

On January 31, a manifesto was issued from the Synod, the Senate and the generals, informing all of Russia of the death of its sovereign, Emperor Peter, and obliging all subjects of the Russian Empire to swear allegiance to Empress Catherine Alekseevna, since already all of Russia in 1722 swore to abide by the law on recognition as the heir the throne is the person that the last sovereign will choose, and in 1724 Peter himself in Moscow crowned his wife Catherine with the imperial crown and thereby indicated in her the person whom he wished to appoint as his successor.

Portrait of Catherine I by J.-M. Nattier, 1717

All Petersburg swore allegiance to the new Empress Catherine I without the slightest sign of grumbling or discontent. When the people began to be sworn in in Moscow, there were small resistances, which, however, had neither influence on the mass of the people, nor important consequences. The two schismatics became stubborn and announced that they would not swear allegiance to Catherine and would not recognize her as an empress. They were first flogged with a whip, and then, when the whip did not pester them, they began to burn them with fire, and after two tortures they forced them to take an oath. There were also glimpses of displeasure in the provinces, expressed chiefly in all sorts of chatter. “Our real tsar Peter,” some said, “did not die, and did not reign; he was still young captured by the Swedes and is still in captivity with them, and the Swedes instead of him sent to Russia a man who looked like him , and he, calling himself Tsar Peter, began to cut people's beards and promoted his non-Christians to high ranks, and he was so similar to the real Peter that no one could recognize that this was not a true king, only the queen recognized him, and for this he divorced the tsarina and put her in a monastery, and he took another wife for himself, from a German woman.This fake Peter died recently, leaving the kingdom to his German queen Catherine. And now the real Tsar Peter has freed himself from captivity and is turning back to his kingdom. And his son, Tsarevich Alexei, is alive and is with his father-in-law, the Caesar. Others did not deny that the one who reigned under the name of Peter was in fact him, but they blamed him for introducing foreign customs and for burdensome institutions for the people, and according to the usual method in Russian spiritual life, they dumped everything bad on the boyars, blaming them for giving bad advice to the sovereign. Still others cried out directly against the accession of Catherine and shouted that it was not for her to reign, but for the prince, the son of Alexei. All this had important consequences for those who only talked like that and were punished for their chatter. The people everywhere dutifully swore allegiance to Catherine. Only the fiction that Tsarevich Alexei, whose death was once announced to all of Russia, did not die, but was saved somewhere, fell more to the liking of the Russian people; but here, too, circumstances have shown that now it is not so easy to inspire universal faith in impostors, as it was at the beginning of the 17th century. Soon after the promulgation of the manifesto on the death of Peter and the ascension of Catherine, two named princes Alexei appeared one after the other in two opposite Russian regions. The first one announced himself in Pochep, in Little Russia. He was a Siberian by birth, the son of a bell ringer from the city of Pogorelsky, served seventeen years in the grenadiers and then was transferred to another regiment located in apartments in Little Russia. No one recognized him there, and he began to proclaim that he was Tsarevich Alexei who had escaped death. This rogue did not manage to take a walk; he was immediately seized and taken into custody. Another appeared in Astrakhan; and he was also a native of Siberia, a peasant by class, engaged in a hackney trade on a foreign side. His name was Evstigney Artemyev. At first this enterprise was successful for this young man. There were those who believed his speeches. But soon, in some suburban village, he was seized and taken to Astrakhan, and the local authorities there ordered him to be put in prison and sent a report about him to Petersburg. Both named princes - both Pochep and Astrakhan - were brought to St. Petersburg and in November 1725 were publicly executed by death.

The reign of Catherine I

The first time after her accession to the throne, Catherine dedicated the sad duty of the burial of her husband. The embalmed body of the sovereign was exhibited in the palace hall, specially decorated in relation to the meaning of the sad celebration. In this hall, the coffin of Peter stood from February 13 to March 8, and during this period of time another coffin was placed near him - with the corpse of Peter's six-year-old daughter, Natalia. On March 8, both coffins were taken to the wooden church of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, temporarily built before the end of the stone one, and then Feofan Prokopovich delivered his famous funeral speech, which not only made an amazing impression on the audience, but was later considered one of the best examples of spiritual eloquence. The corpse of the deceased emperor, sprinkled with earth, was left in a closed coffin on a hearse and, according to Golikov, stood in the church for about six years.

There were many things started by Peter and not completed on the occasion of his death. Catherine decided to finish them. In February 1725, an order was given to the Dane Bering to equip a seafaring expedition to the shores of Kamchatka: this was done at the behest of Peter, who, shortly before his death, was occupied with the thought - to find out if Asia is connected to America or is separated from it by water? At the same time, Catherine, according to the project outlined by Peter in 1724, decided to open the Academy of Sciences and for this purpose ordered the Russian ambassador in Paris, Prince Kurakin, to invite foreign scientists to Russia to take places in the Russian Academy of Sciences, which, however, in fact was opened no earlier than October 1726. In May 1725, the cavalier order of Alexander Nevsky was established, and this was also done according to the thought of Peter: he announced such an intention even before the Persian campaign. The same year, in the same month of May, the marriage of Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna with the Duke of Holstein was performed in fulfillment of the will of the late emperor, who himself betrothed the august couple. Catherine showed mercy to persons who fell under the disgrace of their sovereign in the last time of his reign. Received freedom and restoration of their civil rights to persons punished by political death in the case of Mons; forgiveness was announced to Shafirov, and Catherine instructed him to write the history of Peter the Great; the children of the executed Prince Gagarin were admitted to the service and to the royal mercy; they released the Little Russians, planted by Peter in the Peter and Paul Fortress with the hetman Polubotok, who died in captivity. External affairs in 1725 were going well in the sense of completing Peter's plans. Left in the Transcaucasus by Peter, General Matyushkin pacified the rebellion in Georgia and convinced the Georgian king Vakhtang to surrender under the protection of Russia, and then attacked Dagestan, ruined many auls, destroyed the shakhmal capital of Tarka, drove out the shakhmal himself, hostile to Russia, and completely destroyed the dignity of the shakhmal. In October 1725, the Illyrian Count Savva Vladislavovich was sent by Catherine to distant China to establish strong borders and to spread mutual trade between Russians and Chinese.

At first glance, Catherine I could be considered well prepared for the great role that now fell to her lot. She was a constant companion and most sincere friend of the great sovereign, who ruled Russia with such glory that none of his predecessors had achieved. Most importantly, the great reformer himself declared before all of Russia that Catherine, being his beloved wife, was at the same time his assistant and participant in all important military and civilian enterprises. Much in her favor was already said by the fact that for many years she could not only get along amiably with such a character as Peter had, but also earn his high opinion of herself. But Catherine can serve as a clear argument for the truth that it is impossible to make judgments: how would a well-known human person act in such and such cases, when such cases had not previously presented to her in life. In such judgments we are usually mistaken. We would be mistaken in the verdict about what would have come out of Catherine, who remained on the throne as the sovereign decider of her own fate and the fate of the state subject to her, we would have been mistaken if Catherine left the stage before the death of her husband and did not become after him an autocratic empress. We would have the right to expect something extraordinary from her, especially guided by the verdict of Peter the Great, who knew how to appreciate people so well. Not that showed up in history. Catherine, as Peter's wife, was indeed a woman of great intelligence, but she was one of those intelligent women, of whom there are many in the world in all classes and under all conditions of life. Women like Catherine I, combining honesty with their minds, can be good spouses and mothers, pleasant companions, good housewives and fully deserve the most flattering reviews not only from their relatives and households, but also from strangers who only know them. But then such women do not represent any merit. Without a husband, without adult children, without a close circle of relatives and friends who serve as her constant support, such a woman can definitely get lost, sink and, with all her moral virtues, be of no use anywhere. This is essentially Catherine. She perfectly knew how to use the circumstances in which fate placed her woman's life; she gained the love and respect of both her husband and the whole circle of close people, and so attracted their hearts to her that they recognized in her such virtues, which in fact she did not have at all. Catherine was a woman in the full sense of her age, brought up and living in an environment where a woman, by her very nature, is obliged to be only a helper - whether her husband, parents, friends, anyone, but still only a helper, and not an original activity: in this environment, the female mind is only suitable for such a position. Catherine was a worthy assistant for Peter. We do not know, in fact, how this help was expressed, but we must believe, because Peter himself declares this to us. After the death of Peter the Great, Catherine suddenly found herself in a position above her feminine mind. I had to stand above everyone, lead others, choose suitable assistants for myself. None of the previous circumstances of her life had prepared her for this; the brilliant mind of Peter did not accustom her to this. Peter could not accustom anyone to originality; he loved and valued only assistants who did not dare to contradict him, or give advice when he did not require them, or do anything without his knowledge and without his will. And Catherine deserved her husband's high opinion of herself because she knew how to please him, and pleased him only by being in his constant moral submission. Peter was gone. Catherine, accustomed for more than twenty years to seeing another person around her, to whom she unconditionally obeyed, and to recognize behind herself only a secondary importance, from the first time she shows what her previous life has worked out: she betrays herself with her family to the patronage and protection of senators. and nobles; but they make her an autocrat; she is given something that she could not accept and keep. It was impossible to refuse this honor, even if she wanted to: she would even have to risk her own head and the fate of her daughters. It was necessary to accept a new position. But with this new position, Catherine does not have to be anyone's assistant; she must now have assistants of her own choice, and not one person, but many; if she wanted at all costs to remain as before in the meaning of someone's helper, then she would have to become the helper of many, and this is by no means impossible: many cannot mingle with each other to such an extent as to achieve complete unity. Hence the tragic, one might say, position of Catherine I, which came precisely from the moment when, by the will of fate, she reached that height that she never dreamed of in her youth.

Catherine I and the Senate

And this tragic situation was expressed primarily in the fact that Catherine had to get rid of and dodge Menshikov, who, more than others, contributed to her elevation to the throne, thinking, of course, to rule the entire state on behalf of the one who had once been his servant, and now became the sovereign . It was necessary to look for a counterweight to Menshikov, and Catherine thought to find him in her son-in-law, the Duke of Holstein; she became close to him, and, naturally, Menshikov and the Duke disliked each other. The matter went further. The Senate, which even under Peter often did not represent agreement between its members, but was restrained by the ingenious mind and iron will of the autocrat, was now left without that strong bridle that was necessary for him. At the end of 1725, a disagreement arose in him. Minich demanded 15,000 soldiers to work to finish the Ladoga Canal. Some of the members of the Senate (between them General-Admiral Apraksin and Tolstoy) found that it was necessary to fulfill Minich's demand and finish the work begun by Peter, a work to which the great sovereign attached great value. Menshikov opposed, argued that soldiers were recruited at great expense not for earthworks, but to protect the fatherland from enemies, and when his arguments were not accepted, he despotically announced in the name of the empress that the soldiers would not be given work. The senators were offended. After that, grumbling began and then secret considerations and meetings about how, instead of Catherine, to elevate the Grand Duke Peter to the throne; a child king seemed the most suitable king for those who thought to actually rule the state in his name.

Tolstoy found out about this, and according to his assumption, an institution was to be formed, standing above the senate and directly controlled by a special empress. He won over to his side several main and most influential nobles: Menshikov, Prince Golitsyn, Chancellor Golovkin, Vice-Chancellor Osterman and General Admiral Apraksin. They offered Catherine a project to establish a Supreme Privy Council, which should be higher than the Senate. The decree on its establishment was given by Catherine I in February 1726. The reason for such an institution is indicated by the fact that some of the members of the Senate are at the same time presidents of the collegiums, and moreover, "as the first ministers have secret councils on political and other military affairs ex officio." At the same time, they are obliged to sit in the Senate and delve into all matters that are subject to the conduct of the Senate, “because of busy work, they cannot soon fix resolutions on internal state affairs, and because of this, in secret councils on the most important matters, they become quite insane, and in the Senate in affairs stop and continue. The new institution separated matters of first importance from the senate and was under the direct chairmanship of the highest person. The affairs that were exclusively subject to the Supreme Privy Council were all foreign and those internal, which essentially require the highest will; for example, new taxes could not be decreed except by decree of the Supreme Privy Council. At the very opening of the new institution, it was ruled that the meetings of the Supreme Privy Council should take place weekly on Wednesday for internal affairs, and on Friday for foreign affairs, but if something unusual happens, then the meeting can take place on some other day of the week, and then all the members are specially informed about it. Decrees from the council are issued on behalf of Empress Catherine. The Senate ceased to have the right to peremptory sentences and was to be titled no longer Governing, but High. Petitioners were allowed to appeal to the Supreme Privy Council both against the Senate and the Collegia, but if anyone files an unfair appeal, he will be fined and paid in favor of those judges against whom he complained, and in such an amount as the fine would have been taken. from these judges, if the complaint filed against them was found to be just. If, however, the petitioner wrongly accuses the judges of such an unlawful act, which, according to the law, is subject to the death penalty, then the petitioner himself will be subject to death. The council - explained in the modern protocol - is not a special court, but an assembly serving to relieve her (the empress) of the burden (Thurs. 1858, 3. Protocols of V. t. Sov., 5).

Three collegiums were removed from the department of the Senate: Foreign, Military and Naval.

The members of the newly established council were the persons who submitted the draft on its establishment; Count Tolstoy was attached to them, and a few days after the opening of the council, which followed on February 8, Catherine I placed the Duke of Holstein among the members (February 17), and even with the clear intention of placing him above the other members: decree, - His dearest son-in-law, His Royal Highness, the Duke of Holstein, at our gracious request, is present in this Supreme Privy Council, and we can completely rely on his faithful zeal for us and our interests, for this reason His Royal Highness, as our most gracious son-in-law and for his dignity not only over other members of the primacy and in all incidental cases has the first vote, but we also allow his royal highness to demand from other subordinate places of the Supreme Privy Council all such statements, which are proposed for cases in the Supreme Privy Council, for a better explanation of them he will need." The duke, present at the Supreme Privy Council for the first time on February 21 and showing his importance, graciously declared that he would be pleased if other members were sometimes of an opposite opinion with him (Protocol. Thu. 1858, 111, 5). The duke did not understand Russian well, if not at all, in Russian, and therefore Prince Ivan Grigoryevich Dolgoruky was seconded to translate his opinions into Russian.

In April 1726, Catherine I began to be disturbed by anonymous letters, whose contents indicated the existence of people dissatisfied with the government established after the death of Peter. Ministers, members of the Supreme Privy Council, verbally presented various comments to her on how to protect the throne from possible upheavals. Osterman presented his opinion in a letter and proposed, in order to eliminate various opinions on the order of succession to the throne, to marry the Grand Duke Peter with his aunt, Tsarina Elizaveta Petrovna, regardless of their relationship or age inequality, with the fact that if they had no heirs, then the inheritance should go to the offspring of Anna Petrovna. This project became the subject of discussion for a long time, but for history it is important mainly because in its foundation it was realized by the course of history; although Elizabeth did not marry Peter, she really reigned and, remaining childless, transferred the throne to the offspring of her sister Anna Petrovna.

But as anonymous letters continued to appear, on April 21 Catherine issued a strict decree against their writers and distributors; a double reward was promised to those who would open and bring to justice the writers of anonymous letters, then private discussions and conversations on the question of the rights of succession to the throne were forbidden, and it was announced that if those responsible for compiling anonymous letters were not revealed within six weeks, then they would be committed to church curse.

Domestic policy of Catherine I

With the existence of the Supreme Privy Council, the short reign of Catherine was marked by the fact that attention was drawn to certain methods and institutions of the past reign that were burdensome for the people; some things have been changed, others have been cancelled. All the income of the empire in 1725 extended to 8,779,731 rubles. at an expense of 9,147,108 rubles, hence with a deficit. The main item of income fell on the head tax, which in its totality amounted to 4,487,875 rubles, and this type of tax was the most burdensome and the most intolerant of the people, both in its essence and even more in terms of the methods of collection. By its very nature, this tax represented a visible inequality and injustice. They paid those recorded in the audit, and since audits could not be undertaken frequently, it necessarily followed that the living had to pay for the dead, adults for the young, workers for the elderly, who were not capable of any work. The method of collecting this tax was extremely difficult and hateful. You need to know that, according to Peter's idea, this tax was determined solely for the maintenance of the army and the army itself was supposed to be quartered in accordance with the collection of funds, so that the levy from those recorded in the capitation salary was provided to the military ranks themselves with the participation of commissars chosen from the Zemstvo nobility. But this was done extremely ruinously for the peasants and with all sorts of signs of abuse, embezzlement, extortion and bribery.

In the decree of Catherine I to the Supreme Privy Council of January 9, 1727, many things were combined that were invented and worked out during the year. There (see Collection. Otde. Russian language and words. Imperial Ak. N., IX, 86 and Reader. 1857, III, 33) it is said: "Not only the peasantry, on which the maintenance of the army is supposed, is in great poverty is acquired from great and unceasing executions and other disorders into extreme and eternal ruin, but other things, like commerce, justice and mints, are found in a very ruined state. Peasant escapes that devastated the Russian lands throughout the reign of Peter did not stop even now; others settled on the outskirts, many fled abroad: some sought shelter in Poland, others in Turkish and Crimean possessions or among the Bashkirs. The government and Catherine were aware that such escapes occurred "not only from a shortage of grain and from a poll tax," but also "from disagreement among the officers with the Zemstvo." But one should not think that only officers and soldiers weighed down the peasants in their life: “Now there are ten or more commanders above the peasants instead of what used to be one, namely from the military, starting from the soldier to the headquarters and generals, and from the civilian and civilians from the fiscal, commissars, waldmeisters and others to the governor, of which some are not shepherds, but can be called wolves in the herd who burst in. The same is true of many clerks who, after excommunicating their landowners over poor peasants, repair whatever they want.

This was how the government of that time saw the position of the rural working class, which required measures to alleviate its fate and improve its well-being. At her very accession to the throne, Catherine reduced the per capita salary from the peasants by four kopecks from the revision soul, and this was done out of necessity, since over a million arrears had accumulated over the past year, and in two-thirds of the current year only half of what was due was collected. collect. In 1727, it was decided in the Supreme Privy Council, also as a result of the conviction that it was impossible to collect the due amount from the peasants, followed throughout Russia from the capitation salary: to eliminate the military (generals, headquarters and chief officers) from collecting the capitation salary and withdraw them from the counties , placing settlements near cities, and entrusting the poll tax to the voivods, managing provinces and dependent on the governors, with the participation, together with the voivodes, of a staff officer from the army. Simultaneously with the removal of the military from the collection of per capita money, the position of zemstvo commissars was abolished and their offices were destroyed, and at the same time, the people's courts. Reprisal and trial were assigned to the governor under the jurisdiction of the governors, and the highest authority where it was possible to appeal against the governors was the College of Justice. The Manufactory Collegium was destroyed, and instead a council of factory owners was established, who were supposed to come to Moscow and serve without pay. The government generally had in mind to abolish many offices and government posts, "because the multiplication of rulers and offices is painful for the people and requires a lot of costs" - such a reason is given in the minutes of the Supreme Privy Council. For order in the calculation of income and expenses, the Revision Board, which had been abolished before, was resumed and a taxation office was established. Omissions in the collection of government payments accumulated and increased, which forced the emergence of this institution. We have no reason to indicate the degree of participation that Catherine I personally took in the issue of relieving the people from the hardships of poll taxes and military arbitrariness. But in general, as she put her name on decrees, then, of course, it must be admitted that if their content was composed by others, she nevertheless sympathized with their meaning. Knowing how, at every opportunity, under Peter she appeared on the side of those who, due to their position, needed good-natured representation for them, we can safely admit that during the original possession of supreme power in matters related to easing the people's lot, the good female heart of Catherine acted .

Catherine I. Engraving 1724

Feofan Prokopovich and Theodosius Yanovsky

But not in all the affairs of her reign, when decisions followed on her behalf, it is possible to reliably recognize the personal participation of Catherine. Blatant outrageous deeds were committed, and although officially they came from her, she was as guilty here as much as guilt can fall on a weak or underage person sitting on the throne, when orders are made in his name that he either did not think about, or did not at all. knew. To the category of such cases, we can safely include the case of the archbishop of Novgorod Theodosius Yanovsky, which was under Catherine. This man, one of the smart and bright archpastors of the Petrov century, the favorite of the late sovereign and the executor of his plans, had a stubborn and quarrelsome disposition, and therefore he was surrounded by ill-wishers and no one loved him. This was taken advantage of by the Pskov bishop Feofan Prokopovich, an extremely intelligent and learned man, but cunning and cunning, who did not stop at any path to his own exaltation. By the way, it happened to him that Theodosius, in accordance with his restless disposition, uttered some expressions that should not have pleased the supreme power, and in April 1725 Theophan filed a denunciation of his comrade; before, he had been on friendly terms with him: they were both preparing for the death of Peter the Great. Theodosius, in a conversation with Theophanes and other synod members, grumbled about the unwillingness of secular dignitaries to the clergy, threatened God's punishment on Russia for this, criticized the actions of the former emperor, condemned his excessive desire to follow secret affairs, which "shows in him a tormenting heart, thirsting for human blood ", recalled how he was" fickle and imprudent: today he will think up one great thing, tomorrow he will start even more, from the slander of soulless people and informers about all spiritual and secular persons, he began to have a bad opinion as unfaithful to himself, had secret spies who over they supervised everyone and sometimes embarrassed him so much that he couldn’t sleep at night, for that suspicion he was afraid of everyone, for not very important words he ordered to be executed by death, but it was possible without such bloodshed in the words of vile people and rely on God’s providence in everything. Speaking about the futility of harsh measures, he expressed: “How many people have been executed, but theft does not decrease, the conscience in people is not bound, it is necessary to teach through schools, and from that they will know God and what is sin; only this cannot be done without money, and the tool is iron ( i.e. for executions) is a small curiosity: give two hryvnias! On the death of the sovereign, Theodosius noted that the illness "came to him from immeasurable womanizing." When the highest authorities appointed divine services, the Novgorod bishop made the following remark on this occasion: “What tyranny! Worldly power forces the spiritual to pray! they didn’t exile, but will God hear such a prayer? Other clerics, asked about Feofanov's denunciation, confirmed his denunciation: among these clerics was Theophylact Lopatinsky, the Tver bishop, who later himself experienced a fate from Theophanes, similar to that which he now prepared for the unfortunate Theodosius together with Theophanes. The accused confessed, asked for pardon, but he had no intercessors. With his restless disposition and careless tongue, he had already managed to arm the mighty Menshikov against himself.

Once, when the guards did not want to let him into the palace, he said in a fit of temper: "I myself am better than the Most Serene Prince!" Menshikov knew about this incident, and now, when Feodosius was in danger, he did not open his mouth in favor of the obstinate bishop. In addition, Theodosius was also accused of embezzlement and appropriation of church property in the salaries of images and silver utensils. On May 11, 1725, Catherine was sentenced to death for approval - "for the opposition and obscene words committed by him to the Church of God and the decrees of Her Majesty." But Catherine "for the commemoration of His Majesty" throughout the state abolished the death penalty and ordered: "Theodosius from the Synod government, the Novgorod diocese and the archimandrite of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery should be dismissed and exiled to a distant monastery, namely Korelsky at the mouth of the Dvina, where it is impossible to keep under guard and give him two hundred rubles a year for food and clothing. But the evil enemies dealt with him even more severely than what was prescribed in the decree. He was removed from his rank and, with the rank of a simple monk, under the name of the monk Theodos, was sent to the place of imprisonment and put into a stone prison with a small window, defining him only bread and water for food. The sufferer, sent to the Korelsky monastery in September 1725, died in February of the following year from hunger, grief and lack of fresh air, persecuted by envious people and enemies, without arousing compassion in anyone because of his perky and quarrelsome disposition. No one pursued him with such bitterness as Feofan Prokopovich, although he had previously been apparently on friendly terms with the Novgorod bishop; but Theophanes had in mind to take the place of the deposed Theodosius, and therefore, more than anyone else, he was afraid that Theodosius would not receive forgiveness and again enter favor with the supreme authority; therefore, it was necessary for Theophan to drive Theodosius of Yanovsky out of the world as soon as possible.

Catherine I and Menshikov

Menshikov did not stop at any path leading to the satisfaction of his greed and ambition. But his Serene Highness met opposition from other nobles, especially from the Duke of Holstein. From this, Catherine did not immediately endow him with the wealth that he coveted. Even under Peter, there were large charges to the treasury on him, and for a long time he could not get these charges removed from him. He wanted to add land and villages in Little Russia to his vast possessions - and he did not get that. Under Catherine I, he had the opportunity to become a sovereign duke in Courland; then old Ferdinand was considered the Duke of Courland; he had lived outside his dukedom for many years, because he did not get along with his subjects. But besides him, the Dowager Duchess Anna Ivanovna, the niece of Peter the Great, lived in Mitava, surrounded by Russians; the affairs of Courland were in charge of the Russian sovereign. Meanwhile, on the basis of state law, Courland was considered a fief possession of the Polish Commonwealth, which, due to internal civil strife and a long-term external war, was not so strong as to put pressure on the country, which was considered its property during the life of Peter. But Peter was gone; the ducal old man was close to death; Important changes awaited Courland. In Poland, the lords interpreted that since the house of Ketler, which ruled in Courland, was finally fading away, under which Courland became a Polish fief, now the Courland region, as an escheat fief possession, should join the direct possessions of the Commonwealth and be divided, like the latter, into voivodeships. But the Polish king Augustus II, who was also the Saxon prince-elector, wanted to deliver the Duchy of Courland to his natural son Moritz at the choice of the Sejm of Courland, and in this the aspirations of the king ran counter to the views of the Polish pans. In general, the Polish lords rarely got along with their kings, guarding themselves against the aspirations inherent in kings to strengthen the monarchical power. And now the lords were ready to oppose any royal aspirations of this kind.

Poland's neighbors, Prussia and Russia, were equally disgusted both with the intentions of the Polish king and with the types of the Polish nation. Both did not want to allow the spread of the borders of the Commonwealth, were not disposed to contribute to the strengthening of the Saxon house; finally, both wanted to plant their candidates in the Duchy of Courland. The Polish king secretly sent Moritz to Courland. Moritz liked the Courland nobility; it was ready to elect him, but offered him a condition: to marry the Dowager Duchess Anna Ivanovna. Everything was the best luck for both Moritz and the Courlanders: Anna Ivanovna liked Moritz very much. Courlanders began to gather to convene the Diet and elect Moritz to the dukes. But they learned about it in Russia and looked unfriendly at such an intention of the Courlanders. On May 31, 1726, the Supreme Privy Council sent a decree to the Russian resident Bestuzhev to try with all his might to convince the people of Courland not to choose Moritz, but to choose the Holstein prince, the son of the deceased Bishop Lubsky. The deputies who had gathered for the Sejm did not listen to Bestuzhev, assuring that Catherine I was merciful to Anna Ivanovna and would do everything for her at her request, and representing for their part that if the duke was not elected now, the Poles would hasten to declare Courland an escheat fief and annex it to the Polish possessions, and this will not be considered beneficial for Russia. On June 18, 1726, the Diet of Courland elected Moritz duke unanimously.

At this time, Menshikov decided to become the Duke of Courland himself. This desire was still under Peter, but then it was inconvenient to lean on it, but now Menshikov bolder proposed his plan to Catherine when the question arose of electing a new duke in Courland. Catherine, for her part, considered it too intrusive to force the people of Courland to choose Menshikov, but put him among the candidates pleasing to Russia instead of Moritz, leaving the choice of these candidates to the Sejm of Courland itself. At the end of June, still probably not knowing about Moritz's choice that ended in Mitau, the Supreme Privy Council sent Menshikov to Courland and at the same time ordered the Russian ambassador, Prince Vasily Dolgoruky, to go there as well. They had to offer the Courlanders: if they want to live on friendly terms with Russia, then let them choose either the Holstein prince, the son of Bishop Lubsky, or Prince Menshikov, or one of the two princes of Hesse-Homburg, who were then in the Russian service. But Menshikov went to Courland with the intention of conducting business in such a way that not someone else would be chosen, but certainly his person. On June 28, Menshikov arrived in Riga, and Anna Ivanovna arrived there from Mitava and, without entering the city, stopped behind the Dvina and sent to ask Menshikov to her place. Menshikov has arrived. Anna Ivanovna began to ask him to intercede with the empress for permission to marry her to Moritz and approve the latter in the ducal dignity conferred on him by the Sejm of Courland.

- Your Highness! - Menshikov told her, - It would be indecent to enter into a marital union with him, because he was born from a metress, and not from a lawful wife; and to you, and to Her Majesty our Empress, and to our entire state, it will be dishonorable, and it is impossible for Prince Moritz to be admitted to the dukedom for the harmful interests of Russia and Poland. Her Majesty the Empress Empress Catherine I will deign to work for the interests of the Russian Empire, so that it is always safe from this side, and for the benefit of the entire Principality of Courland, so that under Her Majesty's high patronage, with her faith and fidelity, in eternal times it will continue to be, and for this, I deigned to indicate to introduce the successors, which are written in the instructions of Prince Dolgoruky, so that Your Highness would know about such a high permission of Her Majesty the Empress Empress and choose the best from it.

“I,” said the Duchess, “I will obey the will of Empress Catherine I and leave my former intention. If it is the will of the empress that one of those proposed in the instructions of Prince Dolgorukov be the duke, then I most desire that you be elected the duke, because at least I hope to be at peace in the possession of my villages; and if someone else is chosen, I don’t know if he will be kind to me, and I’m afraid that he might take away my widow’s food from me.

Anna Ivanovna, speaking such words, was cunning; she did not at all wish Menshikov to increase his power; she had long ceased to bear him, and regarded him as her enemy. She had something else on her mind. She planned to go to Petersburg and personally ask Catherine I for herself, setting the Duke of Holstein to intercede for her.

After a conversation with Menshikov, Anna Ivanovna left for Mitava, and after her departure, Prince Vasily Lukich Dolgoruky and the Russian resident, who was constantly in Courland, Pyotr Bestuzhev, came from Mitava to Riga to meet with Menshikov. Prince Dolgoruky informed Menshikov that he made proposals to the Courland ranks to act in accordance with the instructions received from the Russian government, but did not meet on their part the desire to comply with the will of the Russian Empress. The Courlanders did not want to elect Menshikov as duke, saying that he was not a natural German and not of the Lutheran religion - they did not want to elect the Holstein prince, imagining the fact that he was still a minor and had only reached the age of thirteen; they also did not want the Hesse-Homburg princes serving in Russia.

Menshikov reprimanded Bestuzhev for allowing, while in Mitau, the choice of Prince Moritz without protest; then Menshikov himself went to Mitava, accompanied by a significant military convoy.

The next day after Menshikov's arrival in Mitava, Prince Moritz appeared to him.

“Empress Catherine I wants,” Menshikov told him, “so that the Courland ranks gather again and make a new choice: that’s why I came here.”

- This is an impossible thing, - answered Moritz; - the Diet is over; the ranks have departed; if now they are gathered and forced to make new elections, then the elections he has made will not have legal force. I have been chosen as a city in accordance with the ancient form of government in Courland, and if after my election I am not a duke, then Courland should be, like an escheated fief, attached to the Commonwealth and divided into voivodeships, or else be conquered by Russia.

“Nothing like that will happen,” said Menshikov, “Courland will have its own ancient form of government, but should not seek other patronage than Russia.

On the same day, Menshikov called the Seim Marshal, the Chancellor and several influential members of the Seim to his place and told them that it was imperative to convene the Seim again and make new elections, otherwise he threatened to enter Courland with the Russian troops and exile the stubborn to Siberia. According to German sources, during Menshikov's stay in Mitava, the matter with Moritz came to a military skirmish. Menshikov sent to take Moritz, and Moritz, having locked himself in the house, fought off the Russians, and at the same time several people were killed.

But when Menshikov let Catherine I know about his decision announced to the Courlanders, the Supreme Privy Council did not look at such a decisive tone with approval. could irritate both states. Much to the detriment of Menshikov's intentions, the Dowager Duchess Anna Ivanovna arrived in Petersburg on July 23 and stayed with the Duke of Holstein. She raised both him and the entire imperial family to their feet. She complained bitterly about Menshikov's arbitrariness and arrogance. The Duke of Holstein, always beloved by his mother-in-law, took the case of the Duchess of Courland to heart. Under his influence, Catherine received and listened to Anna Ivanovna very friendly and became so irritated against Menshikov that many, having learned about this, expected something bad for the prince; they even said that the empress would order his arrest. But everything, however, was limited to the fact that Catherine ordered a reprimand to be sent to him, indicating that with his harsh actions in Courland he could bring Russia to an untimely quarrel with the Prussian and Polish kings and the Polish Commonwealth. Catherine I demanded him back to Petersburg for advice on important matters. Menshikov returned. His enemies thought that now, as they say, the star of his happiness would set, but fate delayed its judgment on him. Menshikov had a friend Bassevich, a minister of the Duke of Holstein, who had a great influence on the latter. This man, incited by Menshikov, inspired his duke that in his position it was much better to get along with Menshikov, since Menshikov’s enemies were supporters of the party of Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich, and if this party prevailed, it would not benefit either the duke or his Holsteiners . The Duke trusted Bassevich, whom he had long been accustomed to regard as his sincere well-wisher. The duke himself began to ask the empress for Menshikov, and Catherine, as if condescending to the petition of her son-in-law, returned Menshikov's former favor and disposition; the duke imagined that by his magnanimity he had conquered his rival and bound him to eternal gratitude. But Menshikov was not such as to be touched by a feeling of gratitude to the duke: after that he began to hate him even more, having experienced that the duke enjoyed great power with the empress. But, knowing how to hide his real feelings, he became kind to the duke, did not resist when the duke received command over the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment, and with his feigned friendliness to the duke gained Catherine's goodwill. The mercies of the empress to him not only did not decrease, but increased. The Empress herself again thought to deliver the Duchy of Courland to him by choice, but in agreement with Poland; however, Menshikov himself, having failed, abandoned his ambitious plans for Courland and turned to another path that would lead him to a higher height than that to which the achievement of the ducal title could elevate him. Menshikov decided to enlist the favor of the party of the Grand Duke, but decided to act in such a way that Catherine and other members of the imperial family would not immediately see harm for themselves; knowing the lack of character of the empress, he hoped to influence her and induce her to make such orders in favor of the Grand Duke that at the same time would be useful to him.

From the very moment she assumed autocratic autocracy, Catherine was distinguished neither by firmness, nor insight, nor love for business. Previously, when she was the wife and assistant of Peter and was in his constant moral submission, she, pleasing her husband in everything, seemed mobile, hardworking, able to endure hardships; now she became lazy, careless, pampered, prone to luxury and empty amusements, and, what was worse, having previously been accustomed to obey Peter and not having her own will, now she also had no will and obeyed anyone who knew how to become close to her. Catherine I was led by the Duke, then Menshikov, then Tolstoy, then Yaguzhinsky, Golovkin and others, depending on the circumstances. The longer she reigned, the lower she sank. After the sovereign, gifted with a terrifying iron will and incomprehensible insight, the throne was occupied by Catherine I, who resembled the king sent by Zeus to the frog kingdom, in a well-known fable. At the end of July 1726, the envoy of the Polish king and the Saxon prince-elector Augustus, Lefort, wrote in his dispatch: “At court, days constantly turn into nights; they have fun in all sorts of ways. Nobody talks about business; the most capable and most weighty people do not take not for any work otherwise than in such a way that as soon as possible off the shoulders. Everyone is terribly dissatisfied with not receiving a salary; the government owes everyone eight months." In the middle of December of the same year, he wrote: “The more I peer into the various circumstances of the present reign, the less I see traces of the former industriousness, vigilance and fear. True patriots used to contribute to the general good, their advice was accepted and weighed, now the fatherland has no king, dominate luxury, bliss, laziness. The Supreme Council exists only in name; the Duke of Holstein would like to seize the reins of government, but he is not allowed, and for four weeks now the Supreme Council has not met. Only the spirit of discord brings people together, and private advantage dominates the common good. Nothing is done, all vigilance is aimed only at emptying the treasury. Costs increase to infinity, everyone drags as much as they can, nothing is done without cash "(R. I. O. Sat., vol. III, p. 455). On January 18, 1727, it is written: “For eighteen months the Persian army does not receive a penny, and the fleet for nine months, the guard for about two years; civil officials are also paid very badly. The court took possession of the sums assigned to the army, and in addition everyone who maybe he draws as much as he wants from the treasury in his favor. To complete the decline of power, Catherine's health began to get worse and worse from the winter. It was said that even in the summer of 1726 dashing people gave her something, but such rumors were not based on correct data, which at present history would have the right to be based on. There is no doubt that from December Catherine was ill until her death.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Devier was sent there, as if to verify Menshikov's actions in Courland. Such an appointment shows that he was run by hands hostile to Menshikov. Anton Devier, who was the chief of police under Peter, Menshikov's son-in-law (married to his sister), was at the same time his sworn enemy. But Devier could not do anything bad to Menshikov in Mitau, and when he returned to Petersburg in February 1712, he saw that Menshikov had already become so high that he could do almost everything with Catherine. Menshikov asked the empress to own the city of Baturin and the estates belonging to Mazepa, assigned to the Gadyatsky castle (Protocols of the Upper T. Sov. Thu 1858, vol. III, 42 - 43), and in December 1726 they were removed from it all the odds that were on it under Peter the Great. True, Menshikov did not succeed even now in begging for himself the title of generalissimo, which he had long sought, but he set Catherine up that she agreed to make him the father-in-law of the heir to her throne.

Question about the heir of Catherine I

Until now, everyone considered Menshikov in no way capable of taking the side of the Grand Duke Peter, but meanwhile this side was strong among the nobles, and, most importantly, in favor of the Grand Duke was generally the conviction of the Russian people, who could not sympathize with the strange order of succession to the throne, introduced by Peter the Great, and could not renounce respect for the birthright. Menshikov knew that the idea of ​​declaring Grand Duke Peter the heir to the throne after Catherine I would be enthusiastically received throughout Russia, and after his failure in Courland he himself stuck to this idea, but he wanted to strengthen his security by marrying the Grand Duke to his daughter. Whether someone else gave this idea to Menshikov or whether he himself came up with it - we do not know, but it is true that Menshikov found strong accomplices in this - a powerful representative of the old boyars, Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn, many other nobles and two foreign ministers, whom the courts had it is desirable and beneficial for the Grand Duke Peter to become emperor: the first of these foreign ministers was the Caesar's envoy Rabutin, the second was the Danish envoy Westfalen. The sovereign of the first, Emperor Charles VI, desired the accession of Peter, because Peter, by his mother, was the nephew of the empress; the sovereign of the second, the Danish king, wanted the same thing, to reject the election to the Russian throne of the Duke of Holstein, whom Catherine loved very much and, for this love, could make her successor; the Danish king did not like the duke due to a long-standing enmity to the Holstein house. It was so desirable to the Caesar's court that Grand Duke Peter become emperor that Rabutin promised Menshikov the first fief in the empire if Menshikov had time to persuade the empress to appoint Peter as his successor on the throne. Menshikov began to influence the empress and began by obtaining permission from Catherine for the marriage of his daughter with Peter, although the latter, being still a minor, could not soon make this marriage. By the way, Menshikov had the following circumstance: Menshikov's daughter was conspired for the Polish native Sapieha, granted the title of field marshal in St. Petersburg. Sapega was a wonderfully handsome and dexterous fellow. Catherine wished to marry him to her niece, the daughter of her brother Karl Skovronsky, whom she had just granted the dignity of a count. Menshikov, as if in reward for taking away his daughter's fiance, asked to give her another - the Grand Duke. Catherine agreed. In general, having become an autocratic empress, from time to time she became more and more pliable, and here she was still weakening in health, and it is not surprising that it was not difficult for Menshikov to force such consent from a sickly and almost feeble-minded woman.

The upcoming marriage of the Grand Duke with Menshikov's daughter was not associated with the appointment of Peter as heir to the throne, and perhaps Catherine succumbed to Menshikov's request so easily because she did not see anything related to important state issues. But everyone, having learned about the consent given by the Empress to such a marriage, clearly saw where things were going and what Menshikov was preparing for himself in the future. First of all, both daughters of Catherine were horrified, rushed to the feet of their mother and pointed out to her the disastrous consequences of her succumbing to the plans of an ambitious person. Catherine said that the marriage of Grand Duke Peter to Menshikov's daughter would not change her secret intention, which she had regarding the appointment of an heir, but it was already impossible to change the word of consent given to Menshikov.

Then the party hostile to Menshikov began to conspire with the aim of preventing Catherine I from leaving Menshikov's son-in-law as heir at all costs. Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy, who had so recently worked together with Menshikov, was now attached to Menshikov's enemies. The participants in this conspiracy were Devier, General Buturlin, Grigory Skornyakov-Pisarev, General Ushakov, Alexander Lvovich Naryshkin, the terrible head of the Secret Chancellery under Peter, and Prince Ivan Alekseevich Dolgoruky. The Duke of Holstein also knew about the conspiracy and naturally sympathized with it.

The beginning, it seems, was laid by the duke of Holstein: this is evident from the testimony of Devier, published in the appendices to the history of Catherine I. (Uch. zap. Imp. Ak. nauk. Book II, issue I, p. 246). The duke, having seen Devier, asked him: does he know about the matchmaking of the Grand Duke Peter?

“I heard about it in part,” Devier replied, “but whether it’s true or not, I don’t know.

The duke said: “Will it be good and useful for Her Majesty Catherine I? It is necessary for Her Majesty to convey this with the circumstance; Tolstoy told me this: Her Majesty needs to have precautions; the Most Serene Prince is strong, he has troops in command and the Military College under the command , and if it happens as he wants, then he will come to the best of his strength, and then ask her majesty to take the former queen from Schlutenburg, and she is a person of the old custom, she can change everything in the old way, of an angry disposition. "Perhaps she wants to offend Her Majesty and her children. So Tolstoy told me. Yes, I myself admit that it is not good, and I must tell Her Majesty about it, as she pleases, so that she knows."

- Not bad, - answered Devier; - you need to know about that empress. Why don't you report to Her Majesty yourself?

“I,” replied the duke, “already gave her majesty something to know, only I deigned to keep silent.

Devier said: "When you find time, report to her majesty."

After the Easter holiday, Tolstoy came to Devier and at first talked about how to beg mercy from the Empress for her delinquent son, and then, with an air of frankness, asked Devier: "Did His Royal Highness the Duke tell you anything?"

"Told me something," Devier said.

“Do you know,” Tolstoy asked, “that the grand duke is wooing the daughter of his Serene Highness?”

“I know,” answered Devier, “but in part, but I really don’t know, I only see that his lordship treats the Grand Duke kindly.

Tolstoy said: “It is necessary to convey everything to Her Majesty in detail and show her what can happen in the future; the Most Serene Prince is now so great, in mercy, and if this happens by the will of Her Majesty, will there be any opposition to Empress Catherine after that? "After all, he wants good things more for the Grand Duke than for her; besides, he is very ambitious; it may happen that he will make the Grand Duke his heir and orders his grandmother to be brought here, and she is a woman of special character, hard-hearted, she wants to avenge the malice and deeds that were in the blessed memory of the sovereign, - to refute, for this it is necessary to convey to her majesty in detail, as she deigns, if only everyone knew about it; I myself want to convey, and I ask you, if you find time, report it to you. to me that it would be better when her imperial majesty, for her own interest, deigns to crown the princess Elizabeth Petrovna or Anna Petrovna, or both together, and when this is done, her majesty is more trustworthy b will leave, and then, as the Grand Duke learns, then it will be possible to send him overseas for a walk and send him to other states for training, just like other European princes are sent.

But when it was a matter of which of the two princesses to prefer as an heiress to Catherine I, both friends disagreed in their views. Devier stood behind the eldest, the duchess, and said: "She is pretty in character, touching and accepting, and has a great mind, she looks a lot like her father and is fair in humanity, and the other princess, even if fair, will only be more angry." But Tolstoy was for Elizabeth: “Anna’s husband,” he said, “the Duke of Holstein, is unloved by us, like a foreigner, and he himself looks at Russia only as a means to get the Swedish throne. Elizabeth Petrovna must be erected, and Grand Duke Peter still small, let him learn, then travel abroad, and in the meantime, Tsarina Elizabeth will be crowned and established on the throne.

Similar conversations were held between Devier and Tolstoy with the Buturlins, Skornyakov-Pisarev, Ushakov and the Duke of Holstein. Everyone talked about the need to report to the empress, point out to her the danger from Menshikov and convince her to appoint one of her daughters heir to the throne in advance. Devier expressed a desire to sit among the members of the Supreme Privy Council, and the duke of Holstein - to receive the rank of generalissimo. Meanwhile, everyone was just talking among themselves, without starting an explanation with the empress; And so the days passed after days, until finally, on April 10, the Duke of Holstein sent to Tolstoy to invite him for a conference in Andrei Ushakov's house. Tolstoy, not finding Ushakov at home, drove down the street, and suddenly the duke of Holstein overtook him, invited him to his carriage and ordered him to go to his house. Ushakov was already there.

“Do you know,” said the duke, “the Empress Catherine became very ill, and there is little hope of recovery. If she dies without disposing of the succession to the throne, then we will all perish; Is it possible now to quickly persuade her Majesty to declare her daughter her heiress.

“They didn’t do it before,” said Tolstoy, “now it’s too late, when the Empress is dying.

“True,” said Ushakov.

Since Catherine fell ill and her illness inspired fear, Russian nobles hid behind each other, pretended to be sick, trying to keep themselves away from business, so as not to get into a mess. Apraksin, Golitsyn, Golovkin, Menshikov, Osterman - all were pretending to be ill, depending on the calculation, when they found it useful for themselves. By the end of April, Catherine's health had become hopeless. Menshikov took possession of a special dying woman and tried not to let anyone near her. In such a state of affairs, it was not difficult for him, on behalf of the empress, to accuse Devier of obscene words and misconduct and dress up a commission of inquiry over him. Menshikov calculated that if Devier was hooked, then his other accomplices would open up behind him and get caught. The commission appointed to interrogate Devier consisted of the following persons: Chancellor Golovkin, real Privy Councilor Prince Golitsyn, Lieutenant General Mamonov and Prince Yusupov, with the participation of the commandant of the St. Petersburg fortress Famintsyn. The interrogation was carried out in the fortress.

The case was set up in such a way as if the investigation about Devier arises from the testimony of the crown princes.

Anton Devier was accused of the fact that on April 16, when the empress was especially ill and "all the benevolent subjects were in sorrow," he "was not in sorrow, but had fun." So, for example, he turned the crying niece of the Empress Sofya Karlovna, as if dancing with her, and said: "There is no need to cry"; sitting on the bed next to the Grand Duke, he whispered something in his ear, and when Tsarina Elizabeth entered at that time, he did not give her "the proper slavish respect" and "with his evil impudence" said: "What are you sad about? Have a glass of guilt!" And to the Grand Duke, as the latter announced, he said: "Let's go with me in a carriage, it will be better for you and your will, and your mother will not be alive!" And he also joked with the Grand Duke, saying that "His Highness agreed to marry, and they will drag after his bride, and he will become jealous."

These accusations were put forward in order to find a reason to start a search for another case and through such a search to find out: in what force the evil words were spoken, where, with whom and when he was in the council, and what evil intention he had.

According to the then legal customs, Devier was tortured. Devier could not endure bodily torment and opened up to everyone with whom he had conversations about preventing Grand Duke Peter from marrying Princess Menshikova and about removing Peter from succession to the throne after Catherine I.

On May 6, Menshikov communicated to the Supreme Privy Council a decree on behalf of the Empress, which decided the fate of Devier and his accomplices. Devier and Skornyakov-Pisarev are ordered to be deprived of their ranks, honor and property, to be punished with a whip and exiled to Tobolsk; Tolstoy, together with his son Ivan - sent to imprisonment in the Solovetsky Monastery, Buturlin and Naryshkin, depriving them of their ranks, sent to live in the villages; Prince Ivan Dolgoruky and Ushakov - transferred to the field regiments.

Death and testament of Catherine I

Catherine I ended her life on the very day when Menshikov issued a decree allegedly approved by the empress on the execution of Devier with accomplices. It goes without saying that the dying empress was neither in soul nor body guilty of this. The disease tormented Catherine from the winter; in the spring it intensified; On April 16, everyone thought that the Empress would die at the same time; nobles and guards officers spent the whole night in the palace chambers. Then, by order of the empress, it was ordered to distribute 15,000 rubles to the poor, release prisoners from prisons and pray in churches for the empress. At a time when everyone expected Catherine I to breathe, she fell asleep, lasting five hours, and after that she seemed to feel better; there was little hope of recovery. Near the sick empress, her daughter Anna Petrovna was relentless. In early May, doctors noticed that the Empress had an abscess in her lungs. This abscess broke through, and on the 6th of May, at nine o'clock in the afternoon, Catherine died quietly and calmly. Judging by the described signs of the course of her illness, she died of consumption. Her death befell her at the forty-fourth year of her age. (Weber. Das veranderte Russland, III, 81, 82).

Menshikov immediately declared a will, as if drawn up at the behest of the late empress. The throne was left to the Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich. We will not analyze this testament, since it belongs, in fact, to the next reign. We think that Catherine participated in the drafting of it as much as in the approval of the sentence on Devier and his comrades.

Evaluation of the personality of Catherine I

The era of Peter the Great can truly be called the era of miracles. We are not talking about such phenomena as the emergence of a strong navy in a state that until that time did not have a single sea vessel - the formation of a large and well-armed army that won brilliant victories over the first commander of its century - the establishment of factories and plants in the country , where until that time there were only the primary beginnings of a handicraft industry to satisfy the unpretentious needs of the common people - the education of scientists, artists, statesmen and diplomats from a people who had a weak degree of literacy - all these phenomena are too well known and have long been on all modes are valued: new talk about them may seem fruitless rhetoric. But we will point to that circle of persons who were in closer contact with the special person of the great Transformer: and here we will be presented with personalities in whose fate there was something unusual, marvelous, mysterious. We are involuntarily struck by the fate of a poor commoner boy who sold pies on the Moscow streets; he subsequently became the owner of many lands and slaves, the owner of thirteen million capital, reached the status of the most omnipotent person in the state, he lacked only a scepter and a crown: and this man, deprived of everything, dies a poor exile in the Siberian tundra. And here is another boy, a beggar, an orphan, wandering the streets of another city, Kyiv: later - this is a mighty hierarch, Feofan Prokopovich, glorious both in his mind and in his machinations. And here is the poor Tula gunsmith, who accidentally corrected Peter's pistol: later he was the founder of the richest house in Russia. And how many others, exalted by Peter, made strong nobles, and then, after Peter, after Menshikov, who spent the rest of their sad life in Siberia! But no one was as close to Peter as Catherine. How wonderful, how unusual the fate of this woman. A commoner, a poor orphan who, out of Christian philanthropy, received shelter and a piece of bread from kind people, Catherine grows up, finds a groom for herself, marries, prepares to live by labor in accordance with the circle in which she was born. Suddenly, fate scatters her desires in the wind, destroys the union of family love that has just taken place, fate attracts Catherine as a miserable captive to a foreign land, to strangers. For what? Is it in order to leave a soldier's laundress or a slave in some manor house? No. In order to make the wife of one of the greatest sovereigns of the earth and after his death to make the autocratic owner of a vast monarchy. Doesn't it look like a fairy tale? In fact, if someone, in the form of a fairy tale, told a similar fate of a woman, then the narrator would be blamed for the extreme improbability of fiction. And yet this is not a fairy tale, but a historical reality. Fate, as it were, indicated to Catherine a vocation - to live for Peter, to be necessary for a great man and thereby render a great service to Russia and all mankind. Above, we said that we do not know the degree of Catherine's participation in military and civilian enterprises, as Peter stated, but we are sure that she was really his assistant to the extent that this great man needed a softening, calming influence of the female soul. Peter found this feminine soul in Catherine. Whether he would have found her if fate had not brought him to the Livonian captive, we do not undertake to guess about it; but it is true that Peter did not find this female soul either in Evdokia Lopukhina, or in Anna Mons, or in many other female persons with whom he met by chance and for a short time. One Ekaterina tied him to her. Only Catherine managed to be a worthy friend of this great genius, who fully understood and appreciated the moral dignity of a woman, although she temporarily descended into the mud of cynicism and depravity: this mud could not, clinging to his powerful nature, spoil him. Only such a friend as Catherine was needed by Peter; the great man himself was aware of this and that is why he extolled his "Katerinushka" so highly. She did all her work, fulfilled the secret calling of her earthly life; she lived with Peter for twenty years, patiently endured the cross of his obstinate and wild disposition, the cross at times very heavy, kindly and lovingly served him as a comforting angel in all life's paths, sat vigilantly at the head of his deathbed for many days and nights and closed her eyes to her great friend. Here Catherine's earthly calling ended. She was left without Peter in this world; people then lifted her up to such a height that she could no longer hold on; and in this outward grandeur, Catherine became completely superfluous in the world; it may be recognized to her as a special favor of Providence that she outlived her husband by only two years and three months. Who knows what would have awaited her in this whirlpool of intrigues of temporary workers, cunning self-lovers, greedy self-lovers who clashed with each other, trying to drown one another in order to become taller themselves. In any case, Catherine's role was not brilliant, rather miserable, and perhaps deplorable. Fate delivered her from this temptation; Catherine died by the way, leaving a bright memory in history - as a long-term companion of the great Russian sovereign, dearly loved by him, and as a kind woman, always, as far as possible, ready to alleviate other people's disasters and did no harm to anyone.

We have not read the real file on this conspiracy, which belongs to the secret files of the State Archives; we did not have access to these cases, and therefore, if necessary, we must be guided by the information reported from this case by Messrs. Arseniev and Solovyov, and moreover, the news of foreigners. The Frenchman Villardeau says that Tolstoy, in a strong speech, represented a danger to Catherine, but could not reject her. The extracts from the investigative file, known to us, which we will further use, do not allow us to trust Villardo. It is evident that Tolstoy did not have the opportunity to talk about this with the empress.

When writing the article, an essay by N. I. Kostomarov was used - “Ekaterina Alekseevna, the first Russian Empress”

The cook on the throne

On April 15, 1684, Marta Skavronskaya, the future second wife of Peter I and the Russian Empress, was born in Livonia. Her ascension is amazing for that time. Martha's origins are not exactly known. According to one version, she was born in the family of the Livonian peasant Skavronsky (Skovarotsky). According to another version, Martha was the daughter of the quartermaster of one of the regiments of the Swedish army, Johann Rabe. Parents died of the plague and the girl was given to the Lutheran pastor Ernst Gluck. According to another version, Martha's mother, having become a widow, gave her daughter to serve in the pastor's family.

At the age of 17, Martha was married to a Swedish dragoon named Johann Kruse. During the Northern War, the Russian army under the command of Field Marshal Sheremetev took the Swedish fortress of Marienburg. Sheremetev took the young girl he liked as his maid. A few months later, Prince Alexander Menshikov became its owner, who took it from Sheremetev. On one of his regular visits to Menshikov in St. Petersburg, Tsar Peter I noticed Marta and made her his mistress. Gradually, he became attached to her and began to single out among the women who always surrounded the loving king.

When Katerina-Marta was baptized into Orthodoxy (in 1707 or 1708), she changed her name to Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova. Even before the legal marriage with Peter, Marta gave birth to two boys, but both died. Daughters Anna and Elizabeth survived. Catherine will give birth to Peter 11 children, but almost all will die in childhood. A cheerful, affectionate and patient woman tied Peter to herself, could subdue his fits of anger, and the tsar in 1711 ordered Catherine to be considered his wife. In addition, Peter was attracted by such a trait of Catherine's character as the lack of ambition - a trait characteristic of many people from the bottom. Catherine until her accession to the throne remained a housewife, far from politics.

On February 19, 1712, the official wedding of Peter I with Ekaterina Alekseevna took place. In 1713, in honor of the worthy behavior of his wife during the unsuccessful Prut campaign for Russia, the tsar established the Order of St. Catherine. Pyotr Alekseevich personally laid the signs of the order on his wife. On May 7 (18), 1724, Peter crowned Catherine the Empress in Moscow's Assumption Cathedral (this was the second time in the history of Russia, the wife of False Dmitry, Marina Mnishek, was crowned first).

By the law of February 5, 1722, Emperor Peter Alekseevich canceled the previous order of succession to the throne by a direct descendant in the male line (the first official heir, Alexei Petrovich, was killed, the second, Peter Petrovich, died in infancy), replacing it with the personal appointment of the sovereign. According to the Decree of 1722, any person who, in the opinion of the emperor, was worthy to head the state, could become the successor of Peter Alekseevich. Peter died in the early morning of January 28 (February 8), 1725, without having time to appoint a successor and leaving no sons.

empress

When it became obvious that Peter Alekseevich was dying, the question arose of who would take the throne. A fierce struggle for power unfolded. Members of the Senate, the Synod, senior dignitaries and generals, even before the death of the sovereign, gathered on the night of January 27-28, 1725 to resolve the issue of power. The first "palace coup" took place in the country. The struggle for power was fleeting, did not break out of the palace, did not develop into an armed confrontation. However, it is no coincidence that the beginning of the “epoch of palace coups” is celebrated precisely in 1725.

The emperor did not leave a written will, he did not even have time to give an oral order about the throne. All this created a crisis situation. Indeed, besides the widow, a woman who did not have a great mind that would allow her to play an independent role, there were several more possible successors - children and grandchildren from the king's two marriages. The children of the murdered heir, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, Natalya and Peter, were alive and well. From Peter's second marriage to Martha-Catherine, by January 1725, three daughters remained alive - Anna, Elizabeth and Natalya. Thus, six people could claim the throne.

In pre-Petrine Russia there was no law on succession to the throne, but there was a tradition that was stronger than any law - the throne passed in a direct descending male line: from father to son and from son to grandson. Peter in 1722 issued the "Charter on the succession to the throne." The document legalized the unlimited right of the autocrat to appoint an heir from among his subjects and, if necessary, change his choice. The "Charter" was not a whim of the tsar, but a vital necessity. Peter lost two heirs - Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and Peter Petrovich. Grand Duke Pyotr Alekseevich, grandson of the emperor, remained the only man in the Romanov household. However, Emperor Peter could not allow this. He was afraid that opponents of his policy would unite around his grandson. And the coming to power of a grandson will lead to the collapse of the cause to which Peter I devoted his whole life.

The coronation of Ekaterina Alekseevna was perceived by many as a sign that Peter wanted to transfer the throne to his wife. The manifesto on Catherine's coronation emphasized her special role "as a great helper" in the emperor's grave state affairs and her courage in difficult moments of her reign. However, in 1724 Peter lost interest in his wife. There was a case of Catherine's valet Willim Mons, who was suspected of having an affair with the Empress. By the will of fate, V. Mons was the brother of Anna Mons, the daughter of a German artisan in the German Quarter near Moscow, who for a long time was the favorite of Peter I, and for some time he thought of marrying her. Mons was executed on charges of bribery. Peter lost interest in his wife and did not take further steps to strengthen her rights to the throne. Having convicted his wife of treason, Peter lost confidence in her, rightly believing that after his death and the accession of Catherine, any intriguer who can get into the bed of the empress will be able to get the highest power. The tsar became suspicious and stern towards Catherine, the former warm and trusting relations were a thing of the past.

It should also be noted that in the last years of the emperor's life there were persistent rumors that he would transfer the throne to his daughter, Anna. This was also reported by foreign envoys. Emperor Peter had great love for Anna, paid great attention to her upbringing. Anna was a smart and beautiful girl, many contemporaries noted this. However, Anna did not particularly strive to become the ruler of Russia, as she sympathized with Grand Duke Peter and did not want to cross the path of her mother, who saw her as a rival. As a result, the issue of succession to the throne remained unresolved.

In addition, the sovereign did not consider himself mortally ill, believing that he still had time to resolve this issue. According to a secret clause in Anna's marriage contract with the Duke of Holstein, their possible sons opened the way to the Russian throne. Apparently, 52-year-old Peter planned to live for a few more years and wait for the birth of his grandson from Anna, which gave him the opportunity to transfer the throne to him, and not to his unfaithful wife and the dangerous Peter II, who was backed by the “boyar party”. However, the unexpected death of the emperor, in which some researchers see the murder, judged in her own way. An interesting fact is that the first palace coup was carried out in the interests of the first persons of the empire, who at the end of the life of Peter the Great fell into disgrace - Catherine, Menshikov and the tsar's secretary Makarov. On Makarov, the emperor received an anonymous denunciation of his enormous abuses. All of them feared for their future if Peter I continued to rule.

In the future, the scenario of Peter the Great will still be implemented. The grandson of Peter, the son of Anna Petrovna and Karl Friedrich, born in 1728, will be summoned from Holstein in 1742 by his childless aunt Elizabeth. Karl Peter Ulrich will become the heir to the throne, Peter Fedorovich, and then Emperor Peter III. True, another palace coup will put an end to his short reign.

During the agony of the king, the court split into two "parties" - supporters of the emperor's grandson, Peter Alekseevich, and supporters of Catherine. The ancient families of the Golitsyns and Dolgorukis rallied around the son of the executed prince. Not long before this, V.V. Dolgoruky, pardoned by Peter, and Senator D.M. Golitsyn were at the head of them. On the side of Pyotr Alekseevich Jr., the President of the Military College, Prince A.I. Repnin, Count P.M. Apraksin, Count I.A. Musin-Pushkin also spoke. This party had many supporters who were dissatisfied with the course of Emperor Peter and did not want the coming omnipotence of Menshikov, who under Catherine would have become the true ruler of Russia.

In general, the party of the Grand Duke succeeded in its work. Only at the very last moment was Menshikov able to turn the situation in his favor. Prosecutor General Pavel Yaguzhinsky (who began his career as a shoe polisher) somehow found out about the preparations for the party of the Grand Duke and let Menshikov know about it. His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Menshikov was the head of Catherine's party. Alexander Danilovich, who rose from the very bottom to the top of the Russian Olympus, understood better than others that the accession of Peter II would put an end to his well-being, power, and possibly freedom and life. Menshikov and Ekaterina, like some other dignitaries who came out of "rags to riches", made a dizzying rise to the heights of power and wealth, were not protected from numerous, but still hidden, enemies. They had neither high birth nor numerous high-ranking relatives. They did not enjoy the sympathy of the majority of the nobles. Only mutual support, energetic pressure and subtle calculation could save them.

And Menshikov was able to make the first palace coup. He developed a frenzied activity, did everything possible and impossible to change the situation in his favor. On the eve of the death of the emperor, he took some preventive measures: he sent the state treasury to the Peter and Paul Fortress, under the protection of the commandant, who was his supporter; the guard was put on alert and, at the first signal, could leave the barracks and surround the palace; The Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky regiments received a salary for two-thirds of the past year (in normal times, the salary was delayed). Menshikov personally met with many dignitaries, and, not sparing promises, promises and threats, urged them to support Catherine. Menshikov's subordinates were also very active.

The natural allies of Menshikov and Catherine were those who, thanks to the emperor and fate, found themselves in a position similar to them. Among them, Aleksey Vasilievich Makarov stood out - the son of a clerk of the Vologda voivodeship office (prikaz hut). Thanks to his closeness to the sovereign, Makarov rose to the secret cabinet-secretary of Peter, who had secret papers in his charge. Makarov became a real “gray eminence”, who accompanied the king everywhere and knew all the secret affairs. Not a single important paper was placed on the emperor's desk without the approval of the secret cabinet-secretary. And this power, and even the head, Makarov could save only if the throne remains with Catherine. In addition, he thoroughly knew the management system and was an indispensable assistant to the future empress, who did not understand state affairs.

Another active and powerful supporter of Catherine was Count Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy. An experienced diplomat, ally of Menshikov and head of the Secret Chancellery, Tolstoy led the case of Tsarevich Alexei, becoming one of the main culprits for his death. It was Tolstoy who, through threats and false promises, persuaded the prince to return to Russia. The case of Tsarevich Alexei made Tolstoy a close friend of Catherine. In the event that the grandson of Emperor Peter came to power, the saddest fate awaited him.

The two highest hierarchs of the church, Archbishops Theodosius and Theophan, also had something to lose. They turned the church into an obedient instrument of imperial power. Many enemies and ill-wishers were waiting for the hour when it would be possible to pay them off for the destruction of the institution of the patriarchate, the creation of the Synod and the Spiritual Regulations, which made the church part of the bureaucracy, emasculated most of the spiritual principle.

In addition, Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein, and his minister Bassevich played an active role in the enthronement of Catherine to the throne, without whose advice the fiancé of Peter's eldest daughter, Anna Petrovna, did not take a step. The interest of the Holsteiners was simple. The coming to power of Peter II would dispel the duke's hopes of becoming the son-in-law of the Russian empress and with her help to carry out certain foreign policy plans.

Many prominent figures of the "Petrov's nest" waited, taking a neutral position. They wanted to wait for the outcome of the struggle for power and join the victors. So, the Prosecutor General of the Senate, Yaguzhinsky, was generally for Catherine, but for many years he was at enmity with Menshikov. Only at the very last moment did he warn the Most Serene Prince about the conspiracy of the party of Peter II. But he himself did not openly take the side of Catherine. A similar position was taken by Chancellor G. I. Golovkin. Count Ya. V. Bruce, Baron A. I. Osterman and others were also cautious.

The agony of the tsar had not yet ended, when Menshikov gathered a secret meeting in the tsarina's apartment. It was attended by cabinet secretary Makarov, Bassevich, the head of the Synod Theodosius, senior officers of the guards regiments. Catherine came out to them and declared her rights to the throne, promised the rights of the Grand Duke, which she would return to him after death. In addition, words about promotions and awards were not forgotten. Bills of exchange, precious things and money were immediately prepared and offered to those present. The Archbishop of Novgorod Theodosius was the first to take advantage, he was the first to take the oath of allegiance to Catherine. Others followed suit. They also discussed the program of action. The most radical plan, with the preventive arrest of Catherine's opponents, was rejected, as it could lead to an aggravation of the situation in St. Petersburg.

Until the death of the emperor, no party dared to act. The power magic of the mighty lord was unusually strong until the very last moment of his life. Immediately, members of the Senate, the Synod, senior officials and generals gathered in one of the halls of the palace. Many nobles were constantly in the palace, they also spent the night here, others were informed by secretaries and adjutants who were on duty here.

However, everything was decided by "bayonets". Guards regiments surrounded the building of the palace. The President of the Military Collegium, Anikita Repnin, tried to find out who, without his order, led the guards out of the barracks. The commander of the Semyonovsky regiment, Buturlin, sharply replied that the guards were acting on the orders of the empress, to whom he, as her subject, was subordinate. It is clear that the spectacular appearance of the guards made a huge impression on Catherine's opponents and those who hesitated. To this we can add the presence in the hall, along with senators and generals, of guards officers who support Catherine; patrolling the streets by guardsmen; doubling the guards; the prohibition of leaving the capital and the delay of mail. As a result, the military coup went like clockwork.

Catherine came out to the first persons of the empire and promised to take care of the good of Russia and prepare a worthy heir in the person of the Grand Duke. Then Menshikov suggested discussing the case. Makarov, Feofan and Tolstoy expressed their arguments in favor of Catherine. Attempts by the party of the Grand Duke to carry out the idea of ​​elections or the regency of Catherine under Peter II failed. All the objections and proposals of the opposition were simply drowned in the cries of the guards officers, who promised to "split the heads of the boyars" if they did not elect "mother" to the throne. Guard Major A. And Ushakov bluntly stated that the guard sees only Catherine on the throne, and whoever disagrees may suffer. The final speech was delivered by Menshikov, who declared Catherine the Empress. The whole assembly was forced to repeat his words. The control of the guard determined the future of the empire.

Governing body

In general, St. Petersburg officially continued the course of Peter the Great. A decree was even issued ordering "to keep everything in the old way." Many generals and officers were promoted for loyalty. The officials and commanders who had been guilty under Peter breathed a sigh of relief. The king's iron grip was gone. Life has become much calmer and freer. The iron and restless emperor himself did not rest, and did not allow others to enjoy life. Catherine showed "mercy" and carried out amnesties, many thieves, debtors and swindlers were released. The empress also released political exiles and prisoners. So, Catherine's lady of state, M. Balk, who was involved in the Mons case, was released, and the former Vice-Chancellor Shafirov was returned from Novgorod exile. The Little Russian foreman was also released.

The work begun by Peter continued. So, the First Kamchatka Expedition was sent under the command of Vitus Bering; order was established. St. Alexander Nevsky; The Academy of Sciences was opened. There were no cardinal changes in foreign policy either. Ekaterinopol was still being built in Transcaspia. There were no big wars, only a separate detachment under the command of Prince Vasily Dolgorukov operated in the Caucasus. True, in Europe, St. Petersburg began to actively defend the interests of the Holstein Duke Karl Friedrich, who fought against Denmark. This caused some cooling of relations with Denmark and England. The Holstein course clearly did not meet the interests of the great empire. In addition, St. Petersburg concluded a strategic alliance with Vienna (Vienna Treaty of 1726). Austria and Russia created an anti-Turkish bloc. Austria guaranteed the peace of Nystadt.

In fact, Prince and Field Marshal Menshikov became the ruler of the empire during this period. The Most Serene Prince, who in the last years of the reign of Peter in many respects lost the trust of the emperor and was constantly under investigation, perked up. Repnin was sent as governor to Riga and returned the Military Collegium under his control. Menshikov's case was closed, he was released from all fines and commissions imposed. Menshikov also got to his old enemy, Fiscal General Myakinin, who allowed himself to bring the powerful nobleman to clean water. A denunciation came to Myakinin, they gave him a move and the general was sentenced to death, which was replaced by exile in Siberia. Menshikov in his abuses and theft reached the highest point, now no one limited him.

Great power was also given to the Supreme Privy Council, a new body of state power. It included: Menshikov, Apraksin, Golovkin, Golitsyn, Osterman, Tolstoy and Duke Karl-Friedrich. The activities of the Catherine's government, in which there was a constant struggle for power (for example, Menshikov tried to push the "Holstein party" away from the empress), was limited to preserving what had already been achieved. There were no large-scale reforms and transformations.

The empress herself was completely satisfied with the role of the first mistress of the capital. She and her court lived through life - balls, revels, walks around the night capital, an uninterrupted holiday, dances and fireworks. Entertainment continued almost all night (Catherine went to bed at 4-5 in the morning) and a significant part of the day. It is clear that with such a lifestyle, the empress, already not distinguished by health, could not last long. Foreign observers, reporting on the festivities, interspersed them with news of Catherine's constant illnesses. The building of the empire, which was created by the hands of Peter the Great, gradually began to fall into decay.

Ekaterina Alekseevna Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya
Coronation:
Predecessor:
Successor:
Birth:
Buried:	Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg
Dynasty:	Romanovs (by marriage)
	According to the most common version, Samuil Skavronsky
	Assume (Anna-) Dorothea Gan
	1) Johann Kruse (or Rabe) 2) Peter I
	Anna Petrovna Elizaveta Petrovna Pyotr Petrovich Natalya Petrovna the rest died in infancy
Monogram:

early years

Origin question

1702-1725 years

Mistress of Peter I

Wife of Peter I

Rise to power

Governing body. 1725-1727 years

Foreign policy

End of reign

Question of succession

Will

Catherine I (Marta Skavronskaya, ; 1684-1727) - the Russian Empress from 1721 as the wife of the reigning emperor, from 1725 as the ruling empress; second wife of Peter I the Great, mother of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.

According to the most common version, the real name of Catherine is Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya, later baptized by Peter I under a new name Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova. She was born in the family of a Baltic (Latvian) peasant, originally from the vicinity of Kegums, captured by Russian troops, became the mistress of Peter I, then his wife and the ruling Empress of Russia. In her honor, Peter I established the Order of St. Catherine (in 1713) and named the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals (in 1723). The name of Catherine I is also the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo (built under her daughter Elizabeth).

early years

Information about the youth of Catherine I is contained mainly in historical anecdotes and is not sufficiently reliable.

The most common version is this. She was born on the territory of modern Latvia, in the historical region of Vidzeme, which was part of Swedish Livonia at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries.

Martha's parents died of the plague in 1684, and her uncle gave the girl to the house of the Lutheran pastor Ernst Gluck, known for his translation of the Bible into Latvian (after the capture of Marienburg by Russian troops, Gluck, as a learned man, was taken to the Russian service, founded the first gymnasium in Moscow, taught languages ​​and wrote poetry in Russian). Martha was used in the house as a servant, she was not taught literacy.

According to the version set out in the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, Marta's mother, having become a widow, gave her daughter to serve in the family of pastor Gluck, where she was allegedly taught to read and write and needlework.

According to another version, until the age of 12, Katerina lived with her aunt Anna-Maria Veselovskaya before she ended up in the Gluck family.

At the age of 17, Martha was married to a Swedish dragoon named Johann Cruse, just before the Russian advance on Marienburg. A day or two after the wedding, the trumpeter Johann left for the war with his regiment and, according to the widespread version, went missing.

Origin question

The search for Catherine's roots in the Baltics, carried out after the death of Peter I, showed that Catherine had two sisters - Anna and Christina, and two brothers - Karl and Friedrich. Catherine moved their families to St. Petersburg in 1726 (Karl Skavronsky moved even earlier, see Skavronsky). According to A. I. Repnin, who led the search, Khristina Skavronskaya and her husband “ lie", both of them" people are stupid and drunk", Repnin offered to send them" somewhere else, so that there are no big lies from them". Catherine awarded Karl and Friedrich in January 1727 the dignity of a count, without calling them her brothers. In the will of Catherine I, the Skavronskys are vaguely named " close relatives of her own surname". Under Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine's daughter, immediately after her accession to the throne in 1741, the children of Christina (Gendrikova) and the children of Anna (Efimovskaya) were also elevated to count dignity. Later, the official version was that Anna, Christina, Karl and Friedrich were Catherine's brothers and sisters, children of Samuil Skavronsky.

However, since the end of the 19th century, a number of historians have questioned this relationship. It is pointed out that Peter I called Catherine not Skavronskaya, but Veselevskaya or Vasilevskaya, and in 1710, after the capture of Riga, in a letter to the same Repnin, he called completely different names to “my Katerina’s relatives” - “Yagan-Ionus Vasilevsky, Anna Dorothea , also their children. Therefore, other versions of the origin of Catherine were proposed, according to which she is a cousin, and not a sister of the Skavronskys who appeared in 1726.

In connection with Catherine I, another surname is called - Rabe. According to some sources, Rabe (and not Kruse) is the surname of her first dragoon husband (this version got into fiction, for example, A. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the Great”), according to others, this is her maiden name, and someone Johann Rabe was her father.

1702-1725 years

Mistress of Peter I

On August 25, 1702, during the Great Northern War, the army of Russian Field Marshal Sheremetev, fighting against the Swedes in Livonia, took the Swedish fortress of Marienburg (now Aluksne, Latvia). Sheremetev, taking advantage of the departure of the main Swedish army to Poland, subjected the region to merciless ruin. As he himself reported to Tsar Peter I at the end of 1702:

In Marienburg, Sheremetev captured 400 inhabitants. When pastor Gluck, accompanied by his servants, came to intercede about the fate of the inhabitants, Sheremetev noticed the maid Martha Kruse and took her by force as his mistress. After a short time, around August 1703, Prince Menshikov, a friend and ally of Peter I, became its owner. This is how the Frenchman Franz Villebois, who has been in the Russian service in the navy since 1698 and married to the daughter of pastor Gluck, tells. The story of Villebois is confirmed by another source, notes of 1724 from the archive of the Duke of Oldenburg. According to these notes, Sheremetev sent pastor Gluck and all the inhabitants of the Marienburg fortress to Moscow, while Marta left himself. Menshikov, having taken Martha from the elderly field marshal a few months later, had a strong quarrel with Sheremetev.

The Scot Peter Henry Bruce in his "Memoirs" sets out the story (according to others) in a more favorable light for Catherine I. Marta was taken by the colonel of the dragoon regiment Baur (later became a general):

“[Baur] immediately ordered her to be placed in his house, which entrusted her to the cares, giving her the right to dispose of all the servants, and she soon fell in love with the new steward for her manner of household. The General later often said that his house was never as well maintained as in the days of her stay there. Prince Menshikov, who was his patron, once saw her at the general, also noting something extraordinary in her appearance and manners. Asking who she was and whether she knew how to cook, he heard in response the story just told, to which the general added a few words about her worthy position in his house. The prince said that it was in such a woman that he really needed now, for he himself was now served very poorly. To this, the general replied that he owed too much to the prince so as not to immediately fulfill what he only thought of - and immediately calling Catherine, he said that in front of her was Prince Menshikov, who needed just such a servant as she, and that the prince will do everything possible to become, like himself, her friend, adding that he respects her too much to prevent her from receiving her share of honor and a good fate.

In the autumn of 1703, on one of his regular visits to Menshikov in St. Petersburg, Peter I met Marta and soon made her his mistress, calling her in letters Katerina Vasilevskaya (perhaps by the name of her aunt). Franz Villebois relates their first meeting as follows:

“This is how things were when the tsar, traveling by post from St. Petersburg, which was then called Nyenschanz, or Noteburg, to Livonia, in order to travel further, stopped at his favorite Menshikov, where he noticed Catherine among the servants who served at the table. He asked where it came from and how he acquired it. And, speaking quietly in his ear with this favorite, who answered him only with a nod of his head, he looked at Catherine for a long time and, teasing her, said that she was smart, and ended his joking speech by telling her, when she went to bed, to take light a candle in his room. It was an order, spoken in a playful tone, but not subject to any objections. Menshikov took it for granted, and the beauty, devoted to her master, spent the night in the king's room ... The next day the king left in the morning to continue his journey. He returned to his favorite what he lent him. The satisfaction of the king, which he received from his nightly conversation with Catherine, cannot be judged by the generosity that he showed. She limited herself to only one ducat, which is equal in value to half of one louis d'or (10 francs), which he thrust into her hand in a military way at parting.

In 1704, Katerina gives birth to her first child, named Peter, the next year, Paul (both died soon after).

In 1705, Peter sent Katerina to the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow, to the house of his sister Tsarevna Natalya Alekseevna, where Katerina Vasilevskaya learned Russian literacy, and, in addition, became friends with the Menshikov family.

When Katerina was baptized into Orthodoxy (1707 or 1708), she changed her name to Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova, since Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich was her godfather, and Peter I himself used the surname Mikhailov if he wanted to remain incognito.

In January 1710, Peter staged a triumphal procession to Moscow on the occasion of the Poltava victory, thousands of Swedish prisoners were held at the parade, among whom, according to the story of Franz Villebois, was Johann Kruse. Johann confessed about his wife, who gave birth one after another to the Russian Tsar, and was immediately exiled to a remote corner of Siberia, where he died in 1721. According to Franz Villebois, the existence of a living legal husband of Catherine during the years of the birth of Anna (1708) and Elizabeth (1709) was later used by opposing factions in disputes over the right to the throne after the death of Catherine I. According to notes from the Duchy of Oldenburg, the Swedish dragoon Kruse died in 1705, however one must keep in mind the interest of the German dukes in the legitimacy of the birth of the daughters of Peter, Anna and Elizabeth, who were looking for suitors among the German specific rulers.

Wife of Peter I

Even before her legal marriage to Peter, Katerina gave birth to daughters Anna and Elizabeth. Katerina alone could cope with the tsar in his fits of anger, knew how to calm Peter's attacks of convulsive headache with kindness and patient attention. According to Bassevich's memoirs:

In the spring of 1711, Peter, having become attached to a charming and light-tempered former maid, ordered Catherine to be considered his wife and took her on the Prut campaign, which was unfortunate for the Russian army. The Danish envoy Just Yul, from the words of the princesses (nieces of Peter I), wrote this story down like this:

“In the evening, shortly before his departure, the tsar called them, his sister Natalya Alekseevna, to one house in Preobrazhenskaya Sloboda. There he took his hand and placed before them his mistress Ekaterina Alekseevna. For the future, the tsar said, they should consider her his lawful wife and Russian tsarina. Since now, due to the urgent need to go to the army, he cannot marry her, he takes her with him in order to do this on occasion in more free time. At the same time, the king made it clear that if he died before he had time to marry, then after his death they would have to look at her as his lawful wife. After that, they all congratulated (Ekaterina Alekseevna) and kissed her hand.

In Moldova in July 1711, 190,000 Turks and Crimean Tatars pressed the 38,000th Russian army to the river, completely surrounding it with numerous cavalry. Ekaterina went on a long trip, being 7 months pregnant. According to a well-known legend, she took off all her jewelry in order to bribe the Turkish commander. Peter I was able to conclude the Prut Peace and, having sacrificed the Russian conquests in the south, to withdraw the army from the encirclement. The Danish envoy Just Yul, who was with the Russian army after she left the encirclement, does not report such an act of Catherine, but says that the queen (as everyone now called Catherine) handed out her jewelry to the officers for safekeeping and then collected them. Brigadier Moro de Brazet's notes also do not mention the bribery of the vizier with Catherine's jewels, although the author (the Brigadier Moro de Brazet) knew from the words of Turkish pashas about the exact amount of state sums aimed at bribes to the Turks.

The official wedding of Peter I with Ekaterina Alekseevna took place on February 19, 1712 in the church of St. Isaac of Dalmatsky in St. Petersburg. In 1713, in honor of the worthy behavior of his wife during the unsuccessful Prut campaign, Peter I established the Order of St. Catherine and personally laid the signs of the order on his wife on November 24, 1714. Initially, it was called the Order of Liberation and was intended only for Catherine. Peter I recalled the merits of Catherine during the Prut campaign in his manifesto on the coronation of his wife dated November 15, 1723:

In personal letters, the tsar showed an unusual tenderness for his wife: “ Katerinushka, my friend, hello! I hear that you are bored, but I am not bored either ...» Ekaterina Alekseevna gave birth to her husband 11 children, but almost all of them died in childhood, except for Anna and Elizabeth. Elizabeth later became empress (ruled in 1741-1762), and Anna's direct descendants ruled Russia after the death of Elizabeth, from 1762 to 1917. One of the sons who died in childhood, Peter Petrovich, after the abdication of Alexei Petrovich (Peter's eldest son from Evdokia Lopukhina) from February 1718 until his death in 1719, he was the official heir to the Russian throne.

Foreigners, who followed the Russian court with attention, note the tsar's affection for his wife. Bassevich writes about their relationship in 1721:

In the autumn of 1724, Peter I suspected the empress of adultery with her chamberlain Mons, who was executed for another reason. He stopped talking to her, she was denied access to him. Only once, at the request of his daughter Elizabeth, Peter agreed to dine with Catherine, who had been his inseparable friend for 20 years. Only at death did Peter reconcile with his wife. In January 1725, Catherine spent all her time at the bedside of the dying sovereign, he died in her arms.

Descendants of Peter I from Catherine I

	Year of birth	Year of death	Note
Anna Petrovna			In 1725 she married the German Duke Karl-Friedrich; left for Kiel, where she gave birth to a son, Karl Peter Ulrich (later Russian Emperor Peter III).
Elizaveta Petrovna			Russian empress since 1741.
Natalia Petrovna
Margarita Petrovna
Petr Petrovich			He was considered the official heir to the crown from 1718 until his death.
Pavel Petrovich
Natalia Petrovna

Rise to power

By a manifesto of November 15, 1723, Peter announced the future coronation of Catherine as a token of her special merits.

On May 7 (18), 1724, Peter crowned Catherine the empress in Moscow's Assumption Cathedral. This was the second coronation in Russia of a female sovereign's wife (after the coronation of Marina Mnishek by False Dmitry I in 1605).

By his law of February 5, 1722, Peter canceled the previous order of succession to the throne by a direct descendant in the male line, replacing it with the personal appointment of the reigning sovereign. Any person worthy, in the opinion of the sovereign, to head the state could become a successor according to the Decree of 1722. Peter died in the early morning of January 28 (February 8), 1725, without having time to name a successor and leaving no sons. In the absence of a strictly defined order of succession to the throne, the throne of Russia was left to chance, and the subsequent time went down in history as the era of palace coups.

The popular majority was in favor of the only male representative of the dynasty - Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich, grandson of Peter I from his eldest son Alexei, who died during interrogations. For Pyotr Alekseevich there was a well-born nobility, who considered him the only legitimate heir, born from a marriage worthy of royal blood. Count Tolstoy, Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky, Chancellor Count Golovkin and Menshikov, at the head of the service nobility, could not hope to retain the power received from Peter I under Peter Alekseevich; on the other hand, the coronation of the empress could be interpreted as Peter's indirect reference to the heiress. When Catherine saw that there was no longer any hope for her husband's recovery, she instructed Menshikov and Tolstoy to act in favor of their rights. The guard was devoted to adoration to the dying emperor; she transferred this attachment to Catherine.

Officers of the Guards from the Preobrazhensky Regiment came to the meeting of the Senate, knocking down the door to the room. They frankly declared that they would smash the heads of the old boyars if they went against their mother Catherine. Suddenly, a drum beat sounded from the square: it turned out that both guards regiments were lined up in front of the palace under arms. Prince Field Marshal Repnin, President of the Military Collegium, angrily asked: Who dared to bring shelves here without my knowledge? Am I not a field marshal?"Buturlin, the commander of the Semenovsky regiment, replied to Repnin that he called the regiments at the behest of the empress, to whom all subjects are obliged to obey," not excluding you he added impressively.

Thanks to the support of the guards regiments, it was possible to convince all the opponents of Catherine to give her their vote. The Senate “unanimously” elevated her to the throne, calling her “ Most Gracious, Most Powerful Grand Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, Autocrat of All Russia”and in justification announcing the will of the late sovereign interpreted by the Senate. The people were very surprised by the accession for the first time in Russian history to the throne of a woman, but there was no unrest.

On January 28 (February 8), 1725, Catherine I ascended the throne of the Russian Empire thanks to the support of the guards and nobles who rose under Peter. In Russia, the era of the reign of empresses began, when, until the end of the 18th century, only women ruled, with the exception of a few years.

Governing body. 1725-1727 years

The actual power in the reign of Catherine was concentrated by Prince and Field Marshal Menshikov, as well as the Supreme Privy Council. Catherine was completely satisfied with the role of the first mistress of Tsarskoye Selo, relying on her advisers in matters of state administration. She was only interested in the affairs of the fleet - Peter's love for the sea also touched her.

The nobles wanted to rule with a woman, and now they really achieved their goal.

From the "History of Russia" S.M. Solovyov:

Under Peter, she did not shine with her own light, but with a light borrowed from the great man of whom she was a companion; she had the ability to keep herself at a certain height, to show attention and sympathy for the movement that took place around her; she was initiated into all the secrets, the secrets of the personal relationships of the people around her. Her position, her fear for the future, kept her mental and moral powers in constant and intense tension. But the climbing plant reached its height only thanks to that giant of the forests around which it twisted; the giant is slain - and the weak plant is spread on the ground. Catherine retained a knowledge of faces and relationships between them, retained the habit of wading between these relationships; but she had neither due attention to matters, especially internal ones, and their details, nor the ability to initiate and direct.

On the initiative of Count P. A. Tolstoy, in February 1726, a new body of state power, the Supreme Privy Council, was created, where a narrow circle of chief dignitaries could govern the Russian Empire under the formal chairmanship of a semi-literate empress. The Council included Field Marshal Prince Menshikov, Admiral General Count Apraksin, Chancellor Count Golovkin, Count Tolstoy, Prince Golitsyn, and Vice Chancellor Baron Osterman. Of the six members of the new institution, only Prince D. M. Golitsyn was a descendant of noble nobles. In April, the young prince I. A. Dolgoruky was admitted to the Supreme Privy Council.

As a result, the role of the Senate declined sharply, although it was renamed the "High Senate". The leaders jointly decided all important matters, and Catherine only signed the papers they sent. The Supreme Council liquidated the local authorities created by Peter and restored the power of the governor.

The long wars waged by Russia affected the country's finances. Due to crop failures, the price of bread rose, and discontent grew in the country. To prevent uprisings, the poll tax was reduced (from 74 to 70 kopecks).

The activity of the Catherine's government was limited mainly to petty issues, while embezzlement, arbitrariness and abuse flourished. There was no talk of any reforms and transformations; there was a struggle for power within the Council.

Despite this, the common people loved the empress because she sympathized with the unfortunate and willingly helped them. Soldiers, sailors and artisans were constantly crowding in her front rooms: some were looking for help, others asked the queen to be their godfather. She refused no one and usually gave each of her godsons a few chervonets.

During the reign of Catherine I, the Academy of Sciences was opened, the expedition of V. Bering was organized, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky was established.

Foreign policy

During the 2 years of the reign of Catherine I, Russia did not wage major wars, only in the Caucasus a separate corps operated under the command of Prince Dolgorukov, trying to recapture the Persian territories, while Persia was in a state of unrest, and Turkey unsuccessfully fought against the Persian rebels. In Europe, the matter was limited to diplomatic activity in defending the interests of the Duke of Holstein (husband of Anna Petrovna, daughter of Catherine I) against Denmark.

Russia waged war with the Turks in Dagestan and Georgia. Catherine's plan to return Schleswig taken by the Danes to the Duke of Holstein led to military operations against Russia from Denmark and England. In relation to Poland, Russia tried to pursue a peaceful policy.

End of reign

Catherine I ruled for a short time. Balls, festivities, feasts and revels, which followed a continuous series, undermined her health, and on April 10, 1727, the empress fell ill. The cough, previously weak, began to intensify, a fever was discovered, the patient began to weaken day by day, signs of damage to the lung appeared. Therefore, the government had to urgently resolve the issue of succession to the throne.

Question of succession

Catherine was easily enthroned due to the infancy of Peter Alekseevich, however, in Russian society there were strong sentiments in favor of the grown-up Peter, the direct heir to the Romanov dynasty in the male line. The empress, alarmed by anonymous letters sent against the decree of Peter I of 1722 (by which the reigning sovereign had the right to appoint any successor for himself), turned to her advisers for help.

Vice-Chancellor Osterman proposed, in order to reconcile the interests of the noble and new serving nobility, to marry Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich to Princess Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine's daughter. Their close relationship served as an obstacle, Elizabeth was Peter's own aunt. In order to avoid a possible divorce in the future, Osterman proposed to determine the order of succession to the throne more strictly when entering into a marriage.

Catherine, wanting to appoint her daughter Elizabeth (according to other sources - Anna), did not dare to accept Osterman's project and continued to insist on her right to appoint her successor, hoping that the issue would be resolved over time. Meanwhile, the main supporter of Ekaterina Menshikov, having assessed the prospect of Peter becoming the Russian emperor, went over to the camp of his adherents. Moreover, Menshikov managed to get Catherine's consent to the marriage of Maria, Menshikov's daughter, with Peter Alekseevich.

The party led by Tolstoy, which most of all contributed to the enthronement of Catherine, could hope that Catherine would live for a long time and circumstances might change in their favor. Osterman threatened people with uprisings for Peter as the only legitimate heir; they could answer him that the army was on the side of Catherine, that it would also be on the side of her daughters. Catherine, for her part, tried to win the affection of the troops with her attention.

Menshikov managed to take advantage of the illness of Catherine, who signed on May 6, 1727, a few hours before her death, an accusatory decree against Menshikov's enemies, and on the same day Count Tolstoy and other high-ranking enemies of Menshikov were sent into exile.

Will

When the empress fell dangerously ill, members of the highest government institutions gathered in the palace to decide on a successor: the Supreme Privy Council, the Senate and the Synod. Guards officers were also invited. The Supreme Council resolutely insisted on the appointment of the infant grandson of Peter I, Peter Alekseevich, as the heir. Before his death, Bassevich hastily compiled a will, signed by Elizabeth instead of the infirm mother empress. According to the will, the throne was inherited by the grandson of Peter I, Peter Alekseevich.

Subsequent articles dealt with the guardianship of a minor emperor; determined the power of the Supreme Council, the order of succession to the throne in the event of the death of Peter Alekseevich. According to the will, in the event of Peter's childless death, Anna Petrovna and her descendants became his successor, then her younger sister Elizaveta Petrovna and her descendants, and only then Peter II's sister Natalya Alekseevna. At the same time, those applicants for the throne who were not Orthodox or already reigned abroad were excluded from the order of succession. It was to the will of Catherine I that 14 years later Elizaveta Petrovna referred in the manifesto, setting out her rights to the throne after the palace coup of 1741.

The 11th article of the will amazed those present. It ordered all the nobles to contribute to the betrothal of Peter Alekseevich with one of the daughters of Prince Menshikov, and then, upon reaching adulthood, to promote their marriage. Literally: “Our princesses and the government of the administration also have to try to arrange a marriage between his love [Grand Duke Peter] and one princess of Prince Menshikov.”

Such an article clearly testified to the person who participated in the preparation of the will, however, for Russian society, the right of Peter Alekseevich to the throne - the main article of the will - was indisputable, and there were no unrest.

Later, Empress Anna Ioannovna ordered Chancellor Golovkin to burn the spiritual Catherine I. He did, nevertheless keeping a copy of the will.

Peter I. Portrait by P. Delaroche, 1838

In the history of all human societies, there are few individuals with such a strange fate as was the fate of our Catherine I, the second wife of Peter the Great. Without any desire for self-exaltation, not gifted by nature with brilliant, out of a number of outstanding abilities, without receiving not only an education, but even a superficial upbringing, this woman from the rank of a serf girl was elevated by fate, through gradual steps on the path of life, to the rank of autocratic owner one of the largest and most powerful states in the world. You will involuntarily come to a dead end with many questions that arise about various cases and relationships in the life of this woman, and you will admit to yourself that it is completely impossible to answer these questions, and the very sources for the biography of this first Russian Empress are extremely obscure. Her very origin is covered in darkness: we do not positively know where her homeland is, what nation her parents belonged to and what faith they professed and in which she herself was originally baptized. Foreign news has survived, fragmentary, anecdotal, contradictory among themselves and therefore having little scientific merit. Back in the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II, the German Büsching, who was diligently engaged in Russian antiquity, said: “Everything that historians asserted about the origin of Catherine I or only cited their guesses is all a lie. I myself, being in St. Petersburg, searched in vain and It seemed to me that he had lost all hope of finding out something true and correct, when suddenly chance told me what I had been deliberately looking for for a long time.

What Busching attached such importance to was the following: Catherine came from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in her childhood she professed the Roman Catholic religion of her parents, then, when the latter moved to the Ostsee region, she adopted Lutheranism, and after her captivity, when she became close to Peter, accepted Orthodoxy. In addition to such news communicated to the public by Busching, one can point out what is said in the book "Die neuere Geschichte der Chineser, Japaner etc.", that Catherine's father was from Lithuania, moved to Dorpat; there this daughter was born to him, whom he baptized, like all his children, in the Roman Catholic faith. The epidemic and contagious disease that raged in Dorpat prompted him to get out of there to Marienburg with his family. In a book compiled by Schmid-Fiseldeck and published in 1772 in Riga under the title: "Materialen fur die Russische Geschichte", a curious letter from the Hanoverian envoy to Russia, Weber, is cited, which tells the following: "Catherine's mother was a serf girl of the landowner Rosen, on his estate Ringen, Derpt district. This girl gave birth to a female child, then soon died. Her young daughter was brought up by the landowner Rosen, who served in the Swedish army for twenty years and lived in retirement on his estate. By this human act, Rosen brought suspicion upon himself; they thought that he was the real father of an illegitimate child. This educator himself soon died, the girl remained a homeless round orphan; then the local pastor accepted her out of compassion. But fate, which in time prepared for her a strange and brilliant future, soon sent her another patron: it was preposit, or (as this position is now called) superintendent of the Livland parishes c, Marienburg pastor Ernest Gluck.

According to other news, a different story is told about Catherine's childhood before her placement with Gluck. Rabutin, who was the Caesar's envoy at the Russian court in the last years of the reign of Peter and in the reign of Catherine I, says that Catherine was the daughter of a serf girl of the landowner of the Livland Alfendal and was taken in by her mother with the landowner, who later married his mistress to a rich peasant who had subsequently from her several children, already legitimate. Voltaire considers Catherine illegitimate from a peasant girl, but says that her father was a peasant who was engaged in the trade of a gravedigger. The Swedish historian, who under Peter the Great was in captivity in Russia with many captured Swedes, according to the report of the Swedish military commissar von Seth, says that Catherine was the daughter of the Swedish lieutenant colonel Rabe and his wife Elisabeth, nee Moritz. Having lost her parents in infancy, she was taken to an orphanage in Riga, and from there adopted by the beneficent pastor Gluck. Another writer, Iversen, in the article "Das Madchen von Marienburg", says that Catherine was a native of Riga from the Badendak clan. Of all these conflicting reports, Weber's message rests on the kind of evidence that gives it comparatively more credibility. Weber says that he heard this from Wurm, who once lived with Gluck as a children's teacher and knew Ekaterina at the time when she lived as a servant at the Marienburg pastor. For us, the most important thing would be the news gleaned from government acts of that time; but from the files of the state archive we learn only that Catherine was the daughter of a peasant Skovronsky. At the end of the reign of Peter the Great, they began to look for relatives of the then empress. Thus, Catherine's brother Karl Skovronsky and his wife were found, who, however, did not want to go with her husband to Russia for anything. Peter had little confidence that these persons were in fact those whom they pretended to be, and indeed it was impossible to do without extreme caution in such a matter; There could have been many hunters to get into the relatives of the Russian Empress. The one who called himself Catherine's brother was kept under guard: and this clearly proves that Peter did not trust him, otherwise this would not have happened, with Peter's extreme love for his wife. Perhaps, fearing imprisonment, the wife of Karl Skovronsky did not want, as we said above, to go to her husband and stayed in the Livonian village of Dogabene, assigned to the town of Vyshki-lake, which belonged to the gentry Laurensky; after a long struggle, she finally went to her husband. When Catherine, after the death of Peter, became the sole autocratic owner of Russia, then there was more credulity towards applicants for kinship with the empress. Then another woman appeared who called herself Catherine's sister; her name was Christina; she was married to the peasant Gendrikov and, together with her husband, was a serf on the estate of the Livonian landowner Vuldenschild or Guldenschild. The request with which this woman turned to the name of the Russian empress was written in Polish, and this prompts us to consider it likely that Catherine's parents were from Lithuania. Christina was taken to Petersburg with her husband and four children. Then there was another woman in the Polish "Inflators", who declared herself another sister of the Russian empress; she was married to a peasant Yakimovich. Her name was Anna, and she, recognized as nee Skovronskaya or Skovoronskaya (Skovoroshchanka), was taken to Petersburg with her family. Another brother of Catherine, Friedrich Skovronsky, was also found; and he was taken to the Russian capital, but his wife and children from her first marriage did not go with him. It turned out that there was still Catherine's brother, Dirich; he was taken to Russia under Peter among the Swedish captives; by order of the sovereign, they searched for him everywhere and did not find him.

Catherine took care of her relatives, but who knows if she trusted them all completely, without any shadow of a doubt that they really were her relatives. She could hardly remember them and believe their statements with her own memories. She, however, granted her brother Karl Skovronsky the title of count, and the complete elevation of all her relatives occurred already in the reign of Catherine's daughter, Empress Elizabeth; then the offspring of Catherine's sisters received the dignity of a count and formed the clans of counts Gendrikov and Efimovsky.

From this news, preserved not by foreign rumor-catchers, but in state documents, it turns out indisputably that Catherine came from a peasant family of the Skovronskys: if the relatives who declared themselves as such were not in fact who they pretended to be, then all it is still undoubted that the nickname Skovronsky for the peasants who were serfs was, so to speak, a patent for the title of relatives of the Russian empress, and, therefore, she herself recognized herself as a nee Skovronskaya and by origin a serf peasant. The very name of the Skovronsky surname is purely Polish, and, probably, the Skovronskys were, as they say, peasants who moved from Lithuania to Livonia, and the request submitted by Catherine’s sister in Polish shows that this resettlement happened recently, and therefore the Polish language did not stop be their native language. In those days, resettlement from place to place was a common occurrence in the life of the rural people, who were looking for where they could live more comfortably and more prosperously. In such forms, of course, the Skovronskys left the Lithuanian possessions and settled in Livonia. But as a rule, the settlers met at their housewarming party in essence the same thing that they got used to in their former homeland. A muzhik, having passed or fled from one owner to another, at first enjoyed benefits from the latter, and then here, as in the former ashes, he had to serve corvee work, pay taxes arbitrarily imposed by the master, and it turned out that the muzhik remained a muzhik everywhere, for that he and was born into the world to work for another; wherever the peasant poked his head, his share of dependence on the nobleman trailed behind him everywhere. It could have been much worse for him in his new place of residence than it was where he left, especially when a war breaks out in the region where he chose a housewarming place for himself. This is what happened to the Skovronskys.

Catherine I. Portrait of an unknown artist

Where exactly in the Livonian Territory Catherine's parents moved when they died, and for what reason her brothers and sisters ended up in different places, and not where she was, we do not know all this. It is only reliable that in Ringen, under a kister (according to others, under a pastor), Marta Skovronskaya was brought up as an orphan. So was the first name of the one who later appeared in history as Ekaterina Alekseevna, Empress and Autocrat of All Russia. Ernest Gluck arrived in Ringen, who traveled around the parishes, over which, in his duty, he was supposed to supervise. This Ernest Gluck was an outstanding man: he was the true type of such a learned German who knows how to combine enterprise, indefatigability and the desire to turn his learning to the benefit of as many of his neighbors as possible with armchair learning. He was born in 1652 in Germany, in the Saxon town of Wettin near Magdeburg, and in his youth he was brought up in the educational institutions of his homeland. His poetic and good-natured nature was excited by the idea of ​​becoming a preacher of the word of God and a distributor of enlightenment among such peoples, who, although they were baptized, were, in terms of education, inferior to the Germans and other Western Europeans. Gluck's German heart seemed closest to Livonia; after many political upheavals, this country at that time was under the rule of the Swedish crown, but lived an internal German life and always seemed to be the outskirts of the German world, the first outpost of German culture, which, according to the unchanging German tribal catechism inscribed in every German heart, should move east, subduing and absorbing all nationalities. The mass of the common people in Livonia consisted of Latvians and Chukhons, although they had assimilated both the religion of the Germans and, little by little, the customs of their life, but had not yet lost their language. The Germans - barons and burghers - looked with the arrogance of the exploiters at the enslaved tribes, and therefore the assimilation of the Latvians and Chukhons with the Germans was difficult; and this saved the nationality of both from the premature absorption of the German elements). In addition to the Latvians and Chukhons, Russian settlers from schismatics, who fled from their fatherland in recent times on the occasion of religious persecution, should be counted among the simple rural people of the Livonian region. These fugitives from Russia lived in the eastern outskirts of Livonia. Gluck arrived in the Livonian region in 1673 with the desire to be an educator of the common people, to which tribe this people would belong, if only they were common people. Gluck began to study in Latvian and in Russian. This man had great abilities; while still in Germany, he successfully studied oriental languages; and in Livonia it went quickly and quickly. He learned Latvian in a short time to such an extent that he could begin to translate the Bible into Latvian. But then Gluck saw that he had not yet sufficiently prepared himself in the study of what he had to translate from - in the study of the Hebrew and Greek languages. Gluck goes back to Germany, settles in Hamburg and begins to study with the orientalist Ezard; so he goes on until 1680; then Gluck again goes to Livonia. He takes the place of the parish pastor there, then he is made a preposite; Gluck devotes himself entirely to educational activities for the local population; translates useful books into local dialects and starts schools for the education of the common youth - these are his favorite thoughts and intentions, these are the goals of his life. In 1684, Gluck went to Stockholm and presented to the then king a project to establish schools for Latvians in those parishes where the pastors were probsts. The king did not leave without approval Gluck's other project - about establishing schools for Russian settlers who lived in Swedish possessions, and their mass was not limited only to schismatics who had recently left for Livonia; at that time, Russian subjects belonging to the Swedish crown were also enough in those lands that were ceded by Russia to Sweden according to the Stolbovsky peace. The project relating to the education of Russians, however, was not carried out until Livonia and the Russian regions, which were the property of ancient Veliky Novgorod, were under the rule of the Swedes. Meanwhile, Gluck, in anticipation of the establishment of Russian schools, began to study in Russian. In his own words (Pekarsky, "The Science of Letters, under Peter I"), Gluck saw the extreme poverty of public education among the Russians, subject to the Swedish scepter, but even worse ignorance was shown among those who remained under Moscow rule. “Although,” says the pastor, “they have the entire Slavic Bible, the Russian dialect (vernacule rossica) differs so far from the Slavic dialect that the Russian commoner will not understand a single period of Slavic speech. “I,” Gluck continues, “heartily surrendered desire to learn Russian, and God sent me ways for this, although he had no intentions and did not realize how Providence could direct me to serve a brilliant goal. "With the study of the Russian language, Gluck undertook experiments in translating the Slavic Bible into simple Russian and composed prayers in this language. He was assisted by a Russian monk, whom Gluck invited to live with him and undertook to support him, and he had to work together with his master in his scientific work. This monk was taken from the Pichugovsky Monastery, which was within Russian borders, not far from the Livonian border. The occupation of the Russian translation of the Holy Scriptures led Gluck to correspond with Golovin, the Russian envoy in 1690. This Pastor Gluck, living in the city of Marienburg with his family and serving as presiding officer, traveled around the parishes and stopped in Ringen to see a pastor or a kister. He saw an orphan girl with him and asked: who is this?

- Poor orphan; I accepted it out of Christian compassion, although I myself have a small income. It is a pity that I will not be able to raise her as I would like, - said the Ringen Kister (or pastor).

Gluck caressed the girl, talked to her and said: "I will take this orphan to my place. She will go after my children with me."

And the preposite left for Marienburg, taking with him little Marta Skovronskaya.

Marta has since grown up in Gluck's house. She went after his children, dressed them, cleaned them, took them to the church, and tidied up the rooms in the house; she was a servant, but, with the kindness and complacency of the owner, her position was much better than at that time the position of a servant in a German house could be. Little attention seems to have been paid to her mental education; at least, and later, when her fate miraculously changed, she, as they say, remained illiterate. On the other hand, Martha grew prettier day by day, as she grew older; Marienburg fellows began to stare at her in the church, where she appeared every Sunday with the children of her master. She had shiny, sparkling black eyes, a white face, black hair (it was said later that she inked them). Correcting all sorts of work in the master's house, she could not be distinguished either by the softness and tenderness of the skin on her hands, or by elegant tricks, like a mistress or a wealthy townswoman, but in a peasant circle she could be considered a real beauty.

When Marta was in her eighteenth year, she was seen in the church by a Swedish dragoon who served in the military garrison located in Marienburg; His name was Johann Rabe. He was twenty-two years old; he was curly, well-built, stately, dexterous, quite well done. He liked Martha very much, and Martha liked him too. Whether he explained somewhere with the girl or not, we do not know. Living with a strictly moral pastor, Marta did not go to work in the field, she did not go to places where young people of both sexes usually get close, and therefore it could very well be that the soldier’s acquaintance with the pastor’s maid was only limited to the fact that he saw her in the church Yes, perhaps he exchanged fleeting expressions of courtesy and courtesy with her on leaving the church. Rabe turned to the mediation of a respectable person who is called a relative of Gluck, although such a relationship can be doubted, since Gluck was a stranger in the Livonian region and hardly had relatives there. The servant asked this respectable person to take the trouble to talk to the pastor about his desire to marry his maid. This gentleman fulfilled the order of the soldier.

Pastor Gluck told him:

– Martha has reached the age of majority and can decide her own fate. Of course, I am not a rich person; I have many children of my own, and now hard times are coming: the war with the Russians has begun. Enemies are coming to our land with a strong army and not today tomorrow they can get here. Such dangerous times have come that the father of the family may envy the one who has no children. I will not force my servant to marry and will not keep her. As she wants, so let her do it! But about this dragoon, I should ask his commander.

The garrison at Marienburg was commanded by Major Tiljo von Tilsau; he was on good terms with Gluck and visited the pastor. When the major came to him, Gluck reported the proposal made on behalf of the dragoon, and asked what kind of person this dragoon was and whether his commander thought it appropriate for him to marry.

“This dragoon is a very good man,” the commander said, “and he does well that he wants to marry. I will not only allow him to marry your maid, but for good behavior I will make him a corporal!

Gluck called Martha and said:

Johann Rabe is wooing you from the local garrison of dragoons. Do you want to follow him?

“Yes,” Martha replied.

Both the pastor and the major realized that the beauty of the soldier pinched the girl's heart. A dragoon was called in, and the same evening they were betrothed. The soldier groom said then:

“I ask that our marriage be consummated as soon as possible and not be postponed for a long time. They can send us somewhere. Military time. Our brother cannot hope to stay long in one place.

"He's telling the truth," the major said, "the Russians are fifteen miles away and might head for Marienburg." We must prepare for defense against intruders. Shall we have fun when the enemies appear in sight of the city?

They decided to marry Johann Rabe with Martha Skovronskaya on the third day after the betrothal.

This third day has come. At the end of the service, Gluck united the dragoon with his servant in a marital union. At the same time, the major and three officers with him were present, and the wife of the major himself, along with other women, cleaned the bride and escorted to church. After the ceremony, the newlyweds and all the guests went to the house of the preposite and feasted until night.

There is different news about how long these newlyweds had to live together. Some of these news are transmitted by those who claim that they heard about the details of the event from the newlywed herself later, when she was the wife not of a Swedish dragoon, but of a Russian captain-tsar: they say that the news of the approach of the Russian army came on the very day of marriage and dispersed the guests feasting in Gluck's house. But according to other news, the young couple lived together for eight days. Be that as it may, the separation of the newlyweds on the occasion of the approach of the Russian army followed very soon after the marriage. Dragoon Rabe, with ten other dragoons, on the orders of the major, went on reconnaissance and no longer saw his wife.

Sheremetev approached Marienburg with an army. His invasion of Livonia was a terrible disaster for the region. It revived the forgotten times of the 16th century, when outrageous atrocities were committed against the local inhabitants, which throughout Europe were painted in the then brochures (playing the role of newspapers) in the brightest colors and, perhaps, with exaggeration, in order to arouse widespread disgust for half-savage Muscovites. And now the descendants were no more merciful than their ancestors. Sheremetev, in his report to Peter, boasted that he had devastated everything around him, nothing remained intact, there were ashes and corpses everywhere, and there were so many captured people that the leader did not know where to put him. The tsar approved this way of waging war, and ordered the prisoners to be driven to Russia. Then tens of thousands of Germans, Latvians and Chukhons were driven to a settlement in the depths of Russia, where, having mixed with the Russian people, their offspring were to disappear without a trace for history.

Sheremetev approached Marienburg in August 1702. The city of Marienburg was located on the shore of a spacious lake, which had eighteen miles in circumference and five miles in width. Opposite the town on the lake rose out of the water an old castle, a work of chivalry, connected to the town by a bridge across the water. It was built in 1340 in order to protect against the Russians, who were already making attacks on the Livonian region, indignant at the fact that the Germans settled there as masters and masters of the Latvians and Chukhons. Cut off from the city and the coast by water, the castle seemed impregnable with the then methods of warfare; however, in 1390, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt took possession of it not through courage, but through cunning: he disguised himself as a knight and found an opportunity to enter the castle, and then let his army in there. In 1560, during the war of Tsar Ivan with the Livonian Germans, the Marienburg Castle was again taken by the Russians. At the time of the Sheremetev invasion, which we are describing, this castle could not defend the cities, but it was suitable to be a temporary refuge for the besieged as long as large forces could come to their rescue. The then sovereign of the Livonians, the Swedish king, ordered that in Livonia, where Peter's aggressive aspirations were mainly directed, not enough troops were left and the command over this army was handed over to the worst generals.

First, the Russian avant-garde under the command of Yuda Boltin approached Marienburg, then the whole Sheremetev corps, divided into four regiments. Sheremetev had just won a victory over the Swedish general Schlippenbach and had struck fear into the entire neighborhood both with his successes and even more with his hardness of heart and ruthlessness towards the defeated and subjugated. Major Tilho had some dragoons in the castle. With the approach of the Russians, the inhabitants rushed to the castle to escape, but it was impossible for everyone to fit in there for a long time. Sheremetev settled down on the shore of the lake and decided to take both the city and the castle by all means. The field marshal sent to the besieged to demand voluntary surrender, but the besieged did not surrender. Sheremetev stood ten days. Help for the Swedes did not come from anywhere. Crowding in the castle threatened the appearance of diseases, as happens in such cases. Sheremetev ordered the rafts to be prepared and intended, having landed on them three regiments of his army: Balk, Anglerov and Murzenkov, to hit the castle from two sides. For some time the enterprise failed: the dragoons and the besieged inhabitants actively fought back from the walls and ramparts, many Russian soldiers were shot down, others were crippled. “But God,” in Sheremetev’s words in his report to his sovereign, “and the Most Holy Theotokos with your high happiness had mercy that two bombs flew in one place to the island in the chamber, which was attached to the city wall near the new earthen bolter, where their thicker guns stood, vomited and collapsed the city wall five fathoms, and they, not allowing them to land on the island, beat the drums and asked for a deadline and sent a letter "(Ustr. Ist. p. V. IV, 2, 248). In their letter, the besieged asked Sheremetev to stop the attack on the castle on such terms that the inhabitants would leave their property and life, and the army would be allowed to leave with weapons and with their banners unfurled. But Sheremetev felt like a complete winner and did not agree to proposals that would be appropriate only when both sides, who were at enmity with each other, would have enough strength to force themselves to be respected. The Russian commander, in his own words, "refused them severely", demanded unconditional surrender to the mercy of the winners, and in the eyes of the envoys sent to him ordered to fire cannons into the gap made, and the soldiers to storm the castle. Angler moved forward with his regiment; behind him and the soldiers of other regiments. Then from the side of the besieged there was again a drumbeat, showing again their desire to enter into negotiations. This time the relations were of a different kind: the commandant, Major Tiljo von Tilsau, appeared, and with him all the officers: two captains, two lieutenants, a food superintendent, an engineer and a pharmacist; they gave the field marshal their swords and were declared prisoners of war. They asked for mercy for everyone. But not all the military men who were then in the castle decided to surrender to the Russian force: one artillery ensign, with him one junker bayonet and several soldiers remained in the castle, did not announce to anyone what they wanted to do, and secretly decided on a bold and desperate enterprise. .

For the military, who surrendered, a crowd went to the Russian camp, residents of both sexes with children and servants. Then Ernest Gluck appeared before the winner and presented with his family and servants. The venerable pastor knew that the formidable warlike Russian tsar appreciated people who devoted themselves to science and was thinking about enlightening his subjects. Gluck took with him a translation of the Bible into Russian and presented it to Sheremetev. The field marshal received him kindly; he saw that this prisoner would be especially to the liking of Peter and useful to the sovereign in the education of Russian society. Then the Russians captured Gluck and his family, his children's teacher Johann Wurm and their former nanny Marta Rabe, who lost her husband and her freedom so soon after marriage. According to some reports, Sheremetev distributed the prisoners to the initial people and Marta Rabe went to Colonel Balk, who assigned her to wash clothes for his soldiers along with other captured women. Subsequently, Sheremetev noticed her and took her from Valk to himself. According to other reports, at the very hour when Gluck and his family came to Sheremetev, the Russian field marshal noticed Marta, was struck by her beauty and asked Gluck: what kind of woman is he with?

“That poor orphan!” the pastor said. “I took her in as a child and kept her until adulthood, and recently I married a Swedish dragoon.

- It does not interfere! Sheremetev said. She will stay with me. And you all the rest will go to Moscow. They'll set you up there.

And the field marshal ordered to get a decent dress from the wife of one of his subordinate officers and dress the prisoner. By order of Sheremetev, she sat down at the table to dine with others, and during this dinner there was a deafening explosion; Marienburg Castle perished in ruins.

Be that as it may, whether immediately after Gluck's arrival in the Russian camp, Martha was abandoned by Sheremetev or, having been taken before Balk, was later taken by the field marshal, it is undoubted that Marienburg died a few hours after the garrison and the inhabitants of the city surrendered to the victors. An artillery ensign, nicknamed Wulf, a junker bayonet and soldiers entered that ward, "where there was gunpowder and hand cannonballs and all sorts of supplies, and himself and those who were with him, lit the gunpowder and killed a lot of people with him" ( Ustrial, I.P.V., IV, 248). “As soon as God saved us too!” Sheremetev continues in his report. “Thank God Almighty that the bridge didn’t let us get closer: it was burned! And if it weren’t for the bridge, many of us would have died; everything was gone, there was 1,500 pounds of rye alone, and other things, how many shops he burned! And those who were taken cursed that damned one. They say (Phiseldek, 210) that Wulf, having decided on a desperate act, revealed his intention to Gluck and gave him advice to escape, and Gluck, having recognized Wulf's intention, convinced the other inhabitants by word and example to leave the castle and surrender to the mercy of the conqueror.

So Marienburg, or Marinburg, long known to Russians under the native name Alyst, died at the hands of a handful of brave Swedes who decided to prefer death to captivity. But the ruins of the castle remained on the island. Sheremetev ordered to destroy everything to the ground. "I will," he wrote to the tsar, "stand to those places, until I dig everything out. But it was impossible to keep it: it was enough and everything around was empty, and the extravagant blew up gunpowder there."

The winner was then hampered by the abundance of prisoners. “Sorrow has come to me,” he wrote to Peter, “where is my child taken full. Prisons are full and there are no ordinary people everywhere, it’s dangerous that people are so angry! You know how many reasons they have already done, not sparing themselves; so that what tricks they did it: they wouldn’t light gunpowder in the cellars, they wouldn’t even start to die from crowding, and a lot of money comes for food. And one regiment escorted to Moscow is not enough. Meanwhile, the tsar valued not only the Germans, but also the Chukhns and Letts; the Livonian natives, although they seemed uneducated in the eyes of Europeans, were nevertheless more cultured than the people of that time in Russia. Of the hundred families sent by Sheremetev to Russia from near Marienburg, there were up to four hundred souls who "can use an ax, some other artists (Ustr. IV, 2 - 249 - 250) are suitable for the Azov parcel."

Sheremetev, having taken Marienburg at the end of August 1702, sent all the prisoners to Moscow at the disposal of Tikhon Nikitich Streshnev. The field marshal tried to deliver them as soon as possible, before the autumn cold set in. Then Gluck was sent to Moscow with many others. The pious and enlightened pastor looked at the event that happened to him as one of the ways in which Providence directed him to his calling. Peter was not unfamiliar with the name of Gluck, and the Russian Tsar was very pleased when this man was in his power, capable, even against his own will, of benefiting the Russian people. Brought to Moscow, the pastor was placed in the German Quarter and spent the winter there. On March 4, 1703, the tsar indicated his appointment: Peter granted him a yearly allowance of three thousand rubles and ordered him to open a school in Moscow for the children of raznochintsy, giving him the choice of teachers in various subjects of scientific teaching. Gluck faced significant difficulties: there were no Russian teachers, no Russian manuals. Fortunately, Moscow was not poor with foreigners who had mastered both Russian life and the Russian language. Gluck recruited six of these individuals. It was supposed to teach philosophy, geography, rhetoric, languages ​​Latin, French and German, as well as the beginnings of Greek and Jewish in the newly founded school. The foreigners who became teachers were Germans, with the exception of two who seemed to belong to the French nation. Former home teacher of the Marienburg presiding officer, Wurm has now entered the number of teachers of this school. Ernest Gluck himself, who had previously thoroughly studied the Russian language as much as he could, now took up compiling manuals and translations: he completed the translation of Holy Scripture - he translated the New Testament, translated the Lutheran catechism, wrote a prayer book in Russian in rhymed verses, compiled a vestibulum, or dictionary to the knowledge of the languages ​​of Russian, German, Latin and French, translated Comenius "Janua linguaram", translated "Orbis pictus", compiled a geography textbook, preserved in manuscript, - with an appeal in the sense of dedication to Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and with an invitation to Russian laws, " like soft clay, suitable for every image." The Russian language in which Ernest Gluck wrote is a mixture of folk Russian speech with Slavic-church speech. Gluck, apparently, although he studied the Slavic speech well, did not reach a clear understanding of the line that exists in nature itself between the Slavic-church and folk-Russian dialects. And to demand this from a foreigner under the conditions under which Gluck could study the Russian language would be too strict, while people of purely Russian origin could not always comprehend and observe this line. Gluck was given a room for the school on Pokrovka, in the house of the Naryshkins. The venerable activity of this man continued until 1705, and this year, on May 5, Gluck died, leaving behind a large family.

Peter, patronizing in general any mental activity, according to his personal sympathies, could not find in Gluck a completely suitable figure in the field of the education that he wanted to spread in Russia subject to him. Peter was a realist beyond measure, so that his reformative plans could find an executor in a German pastor who thought of starting Latin schools for the masses of the common people. Peter needed knowledgeable sailors, engineers, technicians in Russia, and not philologists, Hellenists and Ebraists. That is why the phenomenon of Gluck and his school in the history of the spiritual transformation of Russia undertaken by Peter did not take root and remained somehow episodic.

Such was the fate of the Marienburg preposit. Another was determined from above to his maid Martha. When she was at Sheremetev, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov arrived and, seeing Martha, expressed a desire to take her to himself. Sheremetev did not like this, he reluctantly gave in to the beautiful captive; but yielded, although, according to his custom, he did not refrain from rude words; he did not dare to give in, because Menshikov was the first favorite of the tsar and became an all-powerful man in Russia. Alexander Danilovich, having taken the Livonian captive as his property, sent her to Moscow, to his own house, rich, distinguished by many domestic and yard servants, as it should have been, according to the then customs, to be the house of a noble Russian nobleman.

We do not know how long the Marienburg prisoner lived with her new master until a change happened to her again. Tsar Peter lived for some time in Moscow and, visiting the house of his favorite, saw his beautiful maid there. It seems that this was in the winter of 1703/1704, since we know for certain that Peter spent some time in Moscow that winter. More than once, at the end of the year's work, the tsar visited Moscow for the winter and arranged celebrations and festivities there on occasion of his recent successes. The year 1703 was marked by important events for Peter and Russia: this year, on May 27, Tsar Peter, together with his favorite Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, founded the Peter and Paul Fortress on the Neva and thus laid the foundation for St. Petersburg, the first Russian city on the Baltic Sea. The place where the new city was founded was extremely pleasing to Peter; soon he began to call the newly built city his paradise and prepared for him a great future. There was a reason to have fun in the winter that followed. Menshikov climbed out of his skin, as they say, trying to amuse his sovereign, and arranged feasts and festivities in his house. At one of these feasts, Peter, having drunk quite a bit as usual, saw Martha. She, as a servant, served something to the sovereign. Peter was struck by her face and posture - the sovereign immediately liked her.

- Who is this beauty? Peter asked Menshikov.

Menshikov explained to the tsar that she was a Livonian captive, a rootless orphan who served with the pastor and was taken with him in Marienburg.

Pyotr, having stayed overnight at Menshikov's, ordered her to take him to the bedroom. He loved pretty women and allowed himself fleeting amusements; many beauties stayed with him, leaving no trace in his heart. And Martha, apparently, was to be no more than one of such many. But it didn't work out that way.

Peter was not satisfied with her only in such an acquaintance. Soon the emperor liked Martha so much that he made her his constant mistress. The rapprochement with Martha coincided with Peter's cooling that arose for his former beloved Anna Mons.

We will have to leave unresolved the question of what exactly cooled Peter to this German woman, for the sake of whom he removed from himself and imprisoned his lawful wife; it is better to leave it undecided than to repeat conjectures and raise them to factual truths.

We do not know whether the reason for this change was the discovery of Anna's love letter in the pocket of the drowned Polish-Saxon envoy Koenigsek, as Lady Rondo reports, or, as others say, the reason for the break was that Anna Mons preferred the position of the lawful wife of the Prussian envoy to the position of the royal mistress Keyserling. Menshikov slyly led her to express this kind of desire, and then he told the tsar about her; he hated Anna Mons: it seemed to him that she took away from the tsar that affection that Peter would have undividedly shown to Menshikov. The fidelity of one and the other news can equally be admitted according to their plausibility, but neither one nor the other has any certainty behind it. It is only true that the time when Peter got together with Martha closely coincides with the time when he broke up with Anna.

We do not know for sure when exactly this new rapprochement of the king took place, and we can only guess that the day when he first recognized Martha was September 28 - probably 1703. We assume this on the basis that in 1711 Peter from Karlsbad wrote to this Martha, who had already become his wife, and, setting September 28, added: "the beginning of the day of our good." But this is only an assumption on our part, because, perhaps, Peter was hinting at something else, noticing the day of September 28th. After Peter decided to take Marta as his mistress, he ordered her to move to him, and some time later Marta accepted the Orthodox faith and was named Catherine; Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich was her successor, and that is why she was called Alekseevna. When exactly this conversion to Orthodoxy of the Marienburg captive happened - there is no data to determine. Martha, now Ekaterina, lived since then for several years in Moscow, more often in Preobrazhensky, in the community of the Arseniev girls (of whom one, Darya Mikhailovna, was later Menshikov's wife), Menshikov's sister and Anisya Tolstaya. There is a letter dated October 6, 1705, in which all these women signed, and Peter's mistress called herself "the third herself", which proves that at that time she already had two children from Peter.

But Catherine was not constantly, not without a break in Moscow, often the tsar demanded her to him, and she traveled with him for some time in his non-sitting life, and then returned to Moscow again. She was called Ekaterina Vasilevskaya, but then they changed her nickname and began to call Katerina Mikhailovna, because Peter passed through the official ranks under the name Mikhailov. At a time when Catherine was not with the tsar, Peter constantly wrote to her and in his letters called her a uterus, understanding that she was the mother of his children, and Anisya Tolstaya, close to her, was an aunt, sometimes adding the epithet "multiple-thinking"; She also jokingly called herself "Aunt senseless." This Anisya Tolstaya in the early years was, as it seems, something like a matron of Peter's mistress. Catherine, in relation to Menshikov, her former master and lord, respected for several years, and Menshikov nevertheless treated her noticeably with the tone of a person who stood above her, which, on occasion, could influence her fate. But this relationship changed in 1711. Until then, Menshikov wrote to her: "Katerina Alekseevna! For many years, hello in the Lord!" This showed that Peter had already recognized her as his lawful wife, and all his subjects had to recognize her in this title. Peter himself, in his letters to Catherine on envelopes, began to title her queen, and addressing her, expressed himself: "Katerinushka, my friend, my heart!" The marriage of Peter and Catherine took place in 1712 on February 19, at 9 o’clock in the morning in St. Petersburg, in the church of Isaac of Dalmatsky (see notes by A.F. Bychkov, “Dr. .323 - 324). Subsequently, the tsar declared to the public information to his people about some important merits provided by Catherine during the Prut case, when the sovereign with his military forces found himself in a critical situation, but what exactly these merits of Catherine consisted of, her royal husband did not announce, and nothing can be deduced from all surviving contemporary descriptions of the Prut affair that could indicate the important participation of Catherine. The vague testimony of Peter himself about Catherine's participation in the Prut affair subsequently gave rise to arbitrary fabrications. It was believed that Catherine, in moments of general danger, donated all her jewelry to gifts intended in order to persuade the vizier to peace and through this be able to lead the entire Russian army out of the hopeless situation in which it was then. This is how it was told in the Venetian history of Peter the Great and in Voltaire; from them this story passed to Golikov; the same was repeated by many. These stories have become an anecdotal fable, on a par, for example, with the fable about the rescue of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Susanin, and many other similar historical fables that were accepted without a rigorous investigation of their authenticity. For our part, we cannot resort to any assumptions about this. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Catherine knew how to declare herself and please Peter at that moment. Many years after, when the sovereign, having already assumed the title of emperor, set out to crown his wife with the imperial crown, in a decree about this, he testified to the important services rendered by Catherine in 1711 during the Prut case. It remains unknown to us what kind of participation in the Prut case Catherine gained such fame, but we have no right to deny the reliability of this participation after we hear about such participation from Peter himself.

Since the time of the Prut campaign, Peter's relations with Catherine have somehow risen and ennobled. Often we see Catherine as Peter's inseparable companion. She made a trip abroad with him through Western Europe, although she did not accompany her husband to France and remained in Holland while Peter visited this country. In 1722, Catherine accompanied Peter in the Persian campaign, sharing the glory of his successes, just as eleven years ago she shared the grief of failure in the Turkish war. Most of the letters of Peter to Catherine and Catherine to Peter, written during those periods of time when circumstances forced the spouses to be apart, refer to the period from 1711 to the death of Peter, or from the time when Catherine began to be recognized by all as the queen and lawful wife of the Russian sovereign , until those moments when, having become a widow, she became the only and complete autocrat in Russia. History would have suffered an irreplaceable loss if this correspondence of the spouses had not reached posterity (Letters of Russian sovereigns. M. 1861, part I). The personality of Peter the Great would have remained not only in the shadows, but also in the wrong light. Peter is here as a family man, and, moreover, a happy family man - this is not at all like Peter being a politician or Peter, bound by marriage with a person whom he is not able to love. In his letters to Catherine there is not even a shadow of those features of severity and callousness that accompanied all the activities of the sovereign outside of his relationship with his beloved wife and family. In everything and everywhere, he has the most tender affection. He misses her when things distract him from the family hearth, and she misses him. “I hear,” he wrote to Catherine in August 1712 from abroad, “that you are bored, but I’m not bored either, but you can judge that there is no need to change things for boredom.” In 1717, when Peter traveled to France, and Catherine at that time remained in Holland, he wrote to her: “And what do you write so that I come quickly, that you are very bored, I believe that; I only refer to the informer (i.e., to the bearer of the letter), what is it like for me without you, and I can say that, apart from those days that I was in Versailles and Marly, since 12 days, how great a plaisir I had "(p. 71) One can see the tender concern for his wife, which manifested itself especially when Catherine had to set off on the road.In 1712, he wrote: and if your horses have come, then go with those three battalions that were ordered to go to Anklam, only for God, drive carefully and don’t leave the battalions for a hundred fathoms, because there are a lot of enemy ships in Gafa and constantly go out in large numbers, and you forests cannot be bypassed" (p. 22). In 1718 (p. 75) he wrote to the tsarina: “I declare to you that you don’t go by the road that I traveled from Novgorod, because the ice is thin and we traveled much with need and were forced to spend the night for one night. For which I wrote , twenty miles away from Novgorod, to the commandant, so that he ordered you to put carts on the old road. In 1723, he wrote, having returned to St. Petersburg before her: “It’s very boring without you. The promising road is very thin, and especially through high bridges, which many rivers are not strong; 137). Often the spouses, being separated from each other, sent gifts to each other.

When the sovereign was abroad, Catherine sent him beer (p. 29 - 30), freshly pickled cucumbers (p. 132), and he sent her Hungarian wine, expressing a desire that she drink for health, and notifying that he was with those who were then with him, will drink for her health, and whoever does not drink will order a fine to be imposed on him. In 1717, Peter thanked Catherine for the gift she had sent and wrote to her: “So I send from here to you mutually. Really, worthy presents on both sides: you sent me to help my old age, and I send to decorate your youth” (p. 45). Probably, to help old age, Catherine then sent wine to Peter, and he sent her some outfits. The following year, 1717, Peter from Brussels sent lace to Catherine (p. 62), and Catherine gave him wine as a gift. Being on the waters in Spa in the same year, Peter wrote: “From now on, Lubras brought a letter from you in which you congratulate each other these days (it was the anniversary of the Poltava victory) and grieve about the same thing that they are not together, just like a present for two bottles of a strong man. And what do you write for that I sent little because we don’t drink much by the waters, and it’s true, I don’t drink more than five a day, but the strong man one or two, but not always, it’s different because this wine is strong, and something else because it is rare." Catherine herself, showing concern for her husband’s health, wrote to him (p. 165) that she sends “only two bottles of strong man to him, and that she didn’t send more than that wine, and then because when drinking water, tea, it’s not possible for you to have much eat". The spouses also sent berries and fruits to each other: in July 1719, Catherine sent Peter, who was then on a sea voyage against the Swedes, "strawberries, oranges, citrons" along with a barrel of herring (p. 111), and Peter sent her fruits from the "Reval vegetable garden" (p. 91). As a caring wife, Ekaterina sent clothes and linen to her husband. Once, from abroad, he wrote to her that at a feast he had arranged, he was dressed in a doublet, which she had sent him before, and another time, from France, he wrote to her about the state of the linen sent to him: you sent the shirts" (p. 59). Among the presents sent to Catherine, Peter once sent his cut hair (p. 78), and in 1719 he sent her a flower and mint from Revel, which, having previously been with Peter in Revel, she herself planted (p. 79 ); and Catherine answered him: “It’s not dear to me that she planted it herself; then I’m pleased that it’s from your pens.” Often the correspondence between the spouses concerned the household. Peter, being abroad, entrusted his wife with the supervision of economic institutions. So, by the way, she observed the arrangement of Peterhof ponds and fountains. In July 1719, Catherine wrote to Peter (p. 106): “They deigned to mention to me about the pool, that the water does not hold in it, and so that, having taken out the old clay, fill the chikmaremi with Peterhof clay, if it won’t hold out, then put a slab with se- ment, and for this, my father, I convey the truth: as if I knew about your writing, I ordered to carry this Peterhof clay, only I wanted to lay it with a brick. Now they take out the old yellow clay, then I will do it at your pleasure. " With particular vivacity, Catherine wrote about her children, informed Peter about the health of the princesses and the prince, a favorite of both parents, whom they called Shishechka. “I inform,” Catherine wrote in August 1718, “that with the help of God, I am with our dear Shishechka and with everyone in good health. This dear Shishechka often mentions his trembling dad, and with the help of God, he goes into his state and constantly has fun with munching soldiers and cannon fire" (p. 81). In important family matters, apparently, Catherine always asked for her husband's decision, and in general, as many traits show, she did not dare to go beyond his will. So, for example, in 1718 she found it difficult, not knowing the will and desire of her father, to baptize her daughter and wrote to her husband, who was then outside Russia: (Which name would your mercy please?) Either do it without you, or wait for your happy arrival here, which the Lord God grant soon" (p. 84). Peter shared with his wife, as with his true friend, the news of the victories won and sent her statements about battles and political affairs. So, in July 1719, he informs Catherine about the victorious exploits of General Lessy over the Swedes (p. 110): “There was a battle with the enemy, and with the help of God they beat the enemy and took seven cannons. , I am sending a detailed statement to him - a copy of his letter and we congratulate you with this. Catherine answered Peter: “On this happy victory, I especially congratulate your mercy, wishing from the bottom of my heart that the almighty God, in his usual mercy to us, deigns to bring about a prosperous end to this already long war” (p. 115). Here, Catherine does not express her own views and desires regarding the war, but adapts to the then direction of Peter, who very much desired peace, but with the benefit of Russia. The news of the victories over the enemy of Russia gave rise to festivities and feasts not only with Peter, but also with Catherine, when she was separated from her husband. In 1719, Catherine wrote: "For that past Victoria and for your future happiness, let's have fun tomorrow" (p. 108). Adapting to the way of Peter's expressions, Catherine (p. 109) writes: "I congratulate Paki on a happy Victoria at the sea of ​​the past, and for your special work at that time we gave thanks to God this day, then we will have fun and Ivashka Khmelnitsky will not leave." More than once in the correspondence of the spouses on the part of both there is a playful tone, or Korzweilworth, as they said at that time. In 1716, when Peter was trying to arrange an alliance with Denmark, England and the German states against Sweden, wanting to express the idea that the enterprise was not successful, Peter wrote to Catherine: the united, and especially the natives, want the bastard, but the natives don’t think: why am I going to be here soon” (p. 49). In 1719, he wrote: “Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Admiral, having written out the extract, I am sending it, from which you will see that the above-mentioned Mr. Admiral has corrupted almost all of Sweden with his great spiron” (p. 113). In the same year, Catherine, informing her husband about the accidental death of some French gardener, expressed herself as follows: “Which Frenchman made new flower beds, he walked poor at night through the canal, joined him opposite Ivashka Khmelnitsky and, having somehow stayed with the bridge, pushed sent to the other world to make flower beds" (p. 96). In 1720, Catherine wrote to Peter about some Leo who brought her a letter from the sovereign: "This is not a lion, but a mangy cat brought a letter from an expensive lion, whatever I want" (p. 123). In his letters, Peter called himself an old man. On this occasion, Catherine, in a letter to her husband, says: “It is in vain that the old man is started, because I can put witnesses to the old sisters, but I hope that they will be eagerly found again to such a dear old man” (p. 97). Here Catherine alludes to various women with whom Peter accidentally made fleeting connections. In this respect, something even cynical is noticeable between the spouses. In 1717, from the Spa, where Peter used the healing waters, he wrote to Catherine: “Because while drinking the waters of domestic fun, dokhtury is forbidden to use, for this reason I let my meter go to you, because I could not resist if I had it with me” ( p. 70). Catherine answered him (p. 166): “What do you deign to write, that you let your little girl go here for your abstinence, that it’s impossible to have fun with her by the waters, and I believe that, however, I think more that you deigned to let her go because of her illness , in which she still resides and deigned to go to Gaga for treatment, and I would not want (from what God save) that the galan of that mother would come as healthy as she came. And that in your other writing, you would like to congratulate the old man and the Shishechkins on the name day, and I have tea that if this old man were here, then the other Shishechka would ripen next year! "Here Catherine wants to say that if she were constantly with her husband, she would soon become pregnant and could give birth to another child the next year.

This kind of "Korzweilworth" in Peter's correspondence with Catherine explains a lot in the characters of both and, together with other features, contribute to the solution of the question: what could bind Peter to this woman to such an extent?

Peter, from his youthful years, learned not to constrain his desires and actions for anyone and in nothing; because of this, probably, he could not get along with his first wife, Evdokia. And with any other wife, except for Catherine, he could not get along. If this wife were the daughter of some foreign sovereign or prince, he would not have dared to send his "metresishka" to her; if this second wife were the daughter of some Russian boyar or nobleman, she would not have reacted to such antics of her husband with Korzweilworths: let this husband be her king and master, but at the same time he would be her lawful husband, having in relation to her duties imposed on him not by worldly laws, dependent on the will of the tsar, but by the statutes of the Orthodox Church, which for the Russian heart and mind has long been above all earthly authorities. Only such an orphan-foreigner as Catherine, a former servant, then a miserable captive, obliged by her rank to meekly obey every master who had the right, like a thing, to transfer it to another - only such a woman was fit to be the wife of a man who, without turning no attention to anyone, considered it permissible for him to do whatever he thought of, and to amuse himself with everything that his unbridled sensuality would lead to. Peter not only did not tolerate contradiction to himself, he could not even endure restrained, not directly expressed disapproval of his actions. Peter wanted everyone around him to recognize as good whatever he does. So Catherine treated Peter. This was her first virtue. In addition to this virtue, Catherine possessed another. Often, subjected to anger, Peter went into a frenzy: everything fled from him, as from a ferocious wild beast; but Catherine, due to her innate female ability, was able to notice and learn such methods of treating her husband with which it was possible to calm his ferocity. Bassevich, a contemporary, says that at such moments, Catherine alone could approach him without fear: the mere sound of her voice calmed Peter; she sat him down, took him by the head; Sometimes for two or three hours he rested in this way on her breast and woke up fresh and cheerful: without this, his irritation entailed a severe headache. When she succeeded several times in this remedy, Catherine became a necessary being for Peter; as soon as those close to the tsar noticed convulsive movements of the mouth in his face, harbingers of fits of ferocity, they immediately called Catherine: it was as if there was something magnetic, healing in her. Using such a meaning for her husband, it seemed easy for her to become the guardian angel of many, the intercessor of the unfortunate, comprehended by royal anger; but Catherine, naturally gifted with great feminine tact, did not abuse her property and allowed herself to turn to Peter with intercession only when she noticed that her intercession would not only not be rejected, but the king would like it in itself. Yes, and here it happened that Catherine, with all her worldly prudence, was mistaken. And in this case, having received a refusal, she did not dare to repeat her request and did not allow her husband to notice her displeasure that Peter did not act as she would have liked; on the contrary, she was in a hurry to show complete indifference to the fate of the guilty person, for whom she tried to ask, and recognized the sovereign’s court as unconditionally right. From the correspondence of the royal spouses that has come down to us and published in print, it is clear that Catherine tried to think about everything as Peter thought, to be interested in what Peter was interested in, to love what he loved, to joke about what he joked about, and to hate what that he hated. Catherine did not have an original personality: to such an extent she subordinated herself in everything to the will of Peter. The sovereign, however, treats her not as a despot treats a worker, but as a ruler treats his best, most faithful friend. Judging by his letters, he considered her competent to be his adviser in matters not only domestic, but also public and political: he informs her about various political events and assumptions that occupied him, sends her descriptions of battles. Catherine behaved with remarkable tact and restraint in this sphere too: she declared her joy about the successes of Russian weapons, about the exploits of the fleet newly created by Peter, about everything that led to the increase in the glory and benefit of Russia, but did not indulge in advice and reasoning, even and in domestic affairs, which, by their very nature, belonged to a woman more than other affairs; Catherine always asked for orders from Peter and in everything surrendered to his will. Peter liked this restraint, and the more modestly Catherine behaved in this regard, the more he considered her worthy to be his comrade in everything. Such natures as Peter are fond of turning to advisers, but these advisers are all the more pleasing and seem worthy, the less they express their own opinions, but only reverently agree with what is communicated to them. In this regard, Peter found in Catherine the true ideal of a wife for himself. But he, in addition to the most tender conjugal love, showed attention to her, wanting to perpetuate her name in posterity: for example, he established the Order of St. Catherine in memory of the services rendered by her beloved wife during the Prut campaign; arranged pleasure gardens in St. Petersburg and Reval (Ekaterinengof and Katarinental), named a sixty-gun ship after her, established a cavalry guard company for her person (in 1724), and, finally, with great honor and triumph, laid the imperial crown on her.

A few years after the Turkish War and the Prut disaster, Catherine gave birth to Peter's son, Tsarevich Peter Petrovich, dear "Shishechka", as his parents called him. This event tied the spouses closer to each other. Peter had only daughters alive from Catherine; male children, though born, died in infancy. The son of Peter's hated first wife, Evdokia Lopukhina, Tsarevich Alexei, who did not at all share either the aspirations or tastes of Peter, remained the legitimate heir, who was supposed to take the throne after his father's death. Peter wanted instead to give an inheritance to the dear "Shishechka". We will not here not only repeat, but also recall the tragic events of the death of the unfortunate prince, described by us in the article "Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich". The desire of the sovereign to deliver the Russian throne after himself to "Shishechka" coincided with Alexei's inability to be Peter's successor as a reformer of Russia; this incapacity was recognized by the father, and it was impossible for such a great mind not to be conscious of it. What role did Catherine play here?

The spineless, insignificant prince, having fled from his father to Vienna, in a conversation with the imperial chancellor, pointed to Catherine as the main person hostile to himself and attributed the dislike of his parent to the evil influence of his stepmother; but this same prince, upon his arrival in the fatherland, lay at the feet of this stepmother and begged her for intercession before the irritated parent. We do not know the slightest feature on her part, according to which we could draw some kind of conclusion, exactly how Catherine behaved at the time when this whole tragedy was happening before her eyes. Did she make any petition to Peter for the prince or for one of the many who suffered in his case? There is no trace of that anywhere. But the truth must be told: it is not clear that Catherine exerted on Peter the opposite influence, which increased his cruelty in this matter. With her worldly tact, accustoming herself not to interfere in such matters where her voice could not have weight, Catherine prudently removed herself here too and behaved in such a way that her person was not at all visible in all this deplorable business. The Tsarevich was gone. Much blood was shed for him; a lot of Russian heads were put up on stakes; all this tended to ensure that dear "Shishechka" was the successor of Peter I on the Russian throne. And Pyotr Petrovich, the son of Catherine, appeared in the eyes of the whole world as the only legitimate heir: after the death of Alexei, no one in the world seemed to be able to challenge his rights. How can one not be pleased with Catherine in her soul? Her offspring were the beneficiaries of Alexei's death. This circumstance involuntarily arouses the suspicion that Catherine was pleased with the tragic fate of her stepson and the removal of the latter's son from the succession to the throne. But there is not the slightest historical evidence that could confirm such a suspicion.

But "Shishechka" went to the other world on April 25, 1718. The late Tsarevich Alexei had two children: a boy, Peter, and a girl, Natalia. The boy was now made the legal heir. All over Russia they were already whispering about this, they saw in the death of Tsarevich Peter Petrovich God's justice, punishing the tsar and his entire family for the death of the innocent son of the first-born and returning the rightful inheritance to the baby to whom it belonged by birth.

It is said that Peter himself hesitated. The death of Alexei did not remain without traces on his conscience, whose voices could not be lulled either by vigorous activity in the work on the state system, or by the noisy orgies of the most drunken cathedral. From time to time the sovereign became gloomy, thoughtful. Catherine, even though she was completely innocent in the death of Alexei Petrovich, should have felt a constant burden on her heart the thought that after the death of her husband they could proclaim a sovereign of such a child, who was taught by educators from childhood that the enemy of his parent was the stepmother of the latter. On February 5, 1722, Peter took another step, although somewhat protecting Catherine from this menacing danger. Peter issued a law on succession to the throne, according to which he determined the right of the reigning sovereign to appoint a successor for himself, guided by his personal will. Under such a law, the children of Alexei Petrovich no longer had the right to the throne by their birthright. Catherine was still young and could give birth to a male child, to whom Peter could transfer his throne by will, and even if Catherine had not given birth to a son, all the same, in the will of Peter, it remained to arrange after herself such an order of things in which his widow would not would be in danger.

The Persian War has begun. Peter personally went on a campaign and took Catherine with him, just as he took her during the Turkish war. But in the Persian war, nothing presented itself that could point to the feat of Catherine, as after the Prut case; at least, Catherine was now a participant in the military labors of her husband.

Upon his return from the expedition, Peter set out to elevate his wife to the degree of the most extreme honor: crown her with the imperial crown and perform the very ceremony of coronation in the Mother See of Russia. A manifesto informing the people of the royal intention was published on November 15, 1723: in this manifesto, the sovereign informed all his subjects that his dearest wife, Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, "in all his labors, was an assistant in many military actions, postponing female infirmity, by will with she was present and probably helped him a lot, and most of all in the Prut campaign from the Turks, read the desperate time, how she acted like a man, and not a woman, the whole army knows about it, and from her, undoubtedly, the whole state. For such important services rendered by the queen, the sovereign "according to the autocracy given to him by God", in gratitude, set out to crown her with the imperial crown. The time of the celebration of the coronation was appointed in advance for May 1724; to this celebration, Peter invited all members of the august house and even his nieces, the daughters of his brother Petrov, Mecklenburg Catherine and Anna of Courland, the future Russian empress, who left it through marriage with foreign princes. Only the young children of Tsarevich Alexei were not invited. But all the foreign representatives of the courts who were then in Russia were invited to the celebration, and one of these gentlemen, the minister of the Duke of Holstein, who was then caring for Peter's daughter, Bassevich, reports a very important incident. “Peter,” says Bassevich, “used to visit with his trusted nobles the most distinguished foreign merchants, and he came to one such merchant, an Englishman by birth, on the eve of the coronation celebration. Among the guests who were then with the king at the merchant, there were two bishops: Archbishop of Feodosia Yanovsky and Bishop of Pskov Feofan Prokopovich.The first was a longtime favorite of the tsar, who had recently lost some of the royal confidence, the second Peter more and more recognized, brought closer to himself and appreciated for his extraordinary mind and versatile education.The great chancellor was also there Golovkin: “The coronation scheduled for tomorrow,” the sovereign said, “is more important than many people think. I crown Catherine with the imperial crown in order to give her the right to govern the state after me. She saved the empire, which almost became the prey of the Turks on the banks of the Prut, and therefore she is worthy to reign after me. I hope that it will preserve all my institutions and make the state happy." No one dared to object to Peter, and the silence of the interlocutors was then recognized as a sign of universal approval of the sovereign's words.

Preparing for his wife a brilliant celebration, Peter established a special detachment of bodyguards; it was a company of cavalry guards, consisting for the first time of sixty nobles. The emperor himself was the captain of this company, and Peter appointed Yaguzhinsky, the lieutenant general and the prosecutor general, as lieutenant commander; before that, the sovereign granted him the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. For the first time, this company was supposed to accompany Catherine on the day of the coronation.

For three days before the celebration, Catherine observed a strict fast and remained in prayer. It was in Moscow, and it was necessary that the Russian people believe in the devotion to Orthodoxy of that person who, as it were, received the right to reign and rule the state autocratically. The coronation ceremony took place on May 7 in the Assumption Cathedral with the ceremonies that were prescribed according to the church order at royal weddings. Catherine, with the ringing of bells, walked out of the palace, dressed in a rich dress, specially ordered for this day in Paris. She was led by the arm of the duke of Holstein; behind her, dressed in a blue caftan, embroidered by the hands of his wife, was Peter, along with Menshikov and Prince. Repnin; cavalry guards escorted high-ranking persons. Those who saw Catherine then noticed that tears appeared in her eyes. It is clear that she must have experienced moments of strong inner sensations; in her recollection a long series of previous events of her strange life should have unfolded, starting from the gloomy days of orphanhood and poverty and resting on bright moments of triumph and greatness. In the Assumption Cathedral, Peter himself laid the crown on Catherine, and then, having taken the state apple, or orb, from the Novgorod archbishop, handed it to Catherine. The sovereign throughout the ceremony held a scepter in one hand. After the coronation, Catherine was anointed to the throne, and at the end of the liturgy, she, with the ringing of bells, marched from the Assumption Cathedral to the Archangel Cathedral and the Ascension Monastery to bow to the ashes of the old Russian tsars and queens. So it followed according to the ancient rite of the royal wedding.

Portrait of Catherine I by J.-M. Nattier, 1717

Lunch that day was arranged in the Faceted Chamber. The sovereign with the newly crowned empress had to sit at a special table from all other participants in the feast. Artificial fountains were arranged in front of the palace, spewing white and red wine, and roasted bulls stuffed inside with various birds were placed. It was a meal for the people. The sovereign at dinner could not bear to sit for a long time in front of the guests, jumped up from his table, went to the window and began to observe the movement of the crowd. The nobles began to join the sovereign. Peter, standing at the window, talked for half an hour, then, noticing that dinner was stopping, and meanwhile another course of dishes was being served, he said: "Go, sit down and laugh at your sovereigns!" This was said in the sense of sharpness over the vulgarity of the generally accepted court receptions, which required the observance of ceremonies, which, under the guise of honors, only embarrass high-ranking persons.

The next day after the coronation, Catherine received congratulations. Peter himself, in the rank of general and admiral, congratulated her. At his request, not he, but she, the Empress, granted the title of count to Peter Tolstoy. They say that at that time Catherine, thinking that now Peter would not refuse her any request, petitioned for pardon for Shafirov, who was convicted and was in exile in Novgorod. Peter not only did not fulfill her desire, but said that he should not be reminded of this man. Nothing could act on his heart when it was irritated against someone.

For eight days Moscow rejoiced over the wedding of Catherine to the kingdom. Many were secretly dissatisfied with Peter's act, tempted by Catherine's low birth; however, the formidable inexorable “poverty”, as the Preobrazhensky order was called, was too well known in Russia, and everyone was afraid to instill suspicion on themselves that they did not approve of the actions of the sovereign. Everyone, however, was convinced that by crowning Catherine, Peter wanted to show his desire to leave her behind as a Russian empress and autocrat. The crowning of a woman's kingdom was a new, unusual phenomenon, as was the reign of a woman without a husband. The previous Russian history could present only one case of such a coronation: this is the coronation of Maria Mnishek, arranged by the named Dmitry before his marriage to her. But this example could not serve as a model, since neither Marina nor Dmitry were subsequently considered to have the right to the throne. Foreigners who were in Russia during the coronation of Catherine saw in this act of Peter the direct intention to give his wife the right to be his successor on the throne.

In the year 1724, in November, an event took place, told by foreigners in such a sense, as if discord was about to arise between the royal spouses. Catherine had a governor of the office, who was in charge of affairs on the estates of the empress, William Mons, the brother of Anna Mons, who was once Peter's mistress. They say that Peter was jealous of him for his wife, but, not letting anyone see the real reason for his dislike for this man, he found fault with him for abuses in managing the affairs of the empress and condemned him to death. Catherine tried to ask for pardon for the condemned, but Peter became so furious that he smashed a rich mirror to smithereens and said: "This thing was the best decoration of my palace, but I wanted it and destroyed it!" With these words, Peter wanted to hint at the fate of Catherine herself; she had to understand that Peter, who raised her to a height, could also overthrow her from this height and deal with her in the same way as he would have done with a precious mirror. Having long been accustomed to such antics of annoyance, Catherine, with her usual calmness, which she considered appropriate to maintain at such moments, humbly said: "Has your palace become better because of this?" Mons was executed; the head of the executed was put on display to the public on top of a pillar. Then Peter, together with Ekaterina, drove past this pillar in a carriage, observing what kind of spiritual movement would appear on the face of his wife. Catherine, who always knew how to control herself, did not change her calmness and said: "How sad that the courtiers can have so much corruption!" This is how foreigners tell (see Lefort: "Russian. Histor. General. Collection.", vol. III, 387).

For us, in fact, this tragedy remains unclear.

According to some signs, one can guess that jealousy entered the heart of Peter about the disposition and trust of Catherine in Mons, but it is impossible to solve this. From the case brought against Mons, it is clear only that he really was convicted of bribery and various abuses; taking advantage of the favors of Catherine and Peter himself, he became conceited, as many temporary workers were arrogant, and when all his lawless tricks were revealed, it is clear that Peter was greatly annoyed against him; it was not for nothing that the sovereign pursued bribe-takers and embezzlers of public funds all his life: the scene with the mirror can also be explained by such irritation, if it only really happened. In any case, if secret jealousy was mixed with Peter's anger for abuse, then it is hardly possible to admit that Catherine, with her short treatment of Mons, gave rise to such jealousy. Let us even admit that Catherine did not have so much love for her husband that such love could keep her faithful to her husband; but there is no doubt that Catherine was very prudent and should have understood that from such a person as Peter was, it is impossible, as they say, to hide an awl in a bag and lead him in such a way that he calmly believed in the love of a woman who would deceive him. Finally, Catherine's own safety should have guided Catherine's behavior: if Peter's wife had allowed herself criminal pranks, she would have been very unwell when such a spouse found out about it. To what extent Peter was exacting in such matters, he showed the example of Evdokia and Glebov. Peter had no right to Evdokia, after he himself rejected her, and many years passed after separation from her husband, when she got together with Glebov; meanwhile, when Peter found out that they had a love affair with each other, he did not forgive them both. We can conclude from this what Catherine would have expected if betrayal of her husband, with whom she lived and to whom she gave birth to children, was revealed behind her. Therefore, the guesses and suspicions of foreigners about Catherine's relationship with Mons have no basis. At least, the good relations of the sovereign to his wife and the influential position of the empress at court continued to show themselves until the death of Peter. Catherine reconciled the widow of Tsar Ivan Alekseevich, Queen Praskrvya, with her daughter Anna, and only at the request of Catherine did her mother utter forgiveness to her daughter: Catherine's personality was so highly valued in the royal family! In November 1724, after the execution of Mons, the Duke of Holstein was betrothed to the daughter of Peter and Catherine, Anna: this was done at the insistence of Catherine, who had long favored the Duke, but Peter hesitated to give his decisive consent to this marriage for the then political reasons. . Finally, if Peter did not fulfill Catherine's request for mercy from Mons, then he showed mercy to others through her intercession. So, he returned his favor to Menshikov and his office secretary Makarov, at whom he was angry. On the other hand, it should be noted that even before the story with Mons, Peter did not always show mercy to the condemned when Catherine asked for them: so, we saw that he did not forgive Shafirov at her request, even at such moments when he most showed his disposition and respect for the wife. The envoy of the Polish King Augustus II, Lefort, who was at the Russian court, reports, of course, according to rumors, that in December 1724 Peter and Catherine had some kind of quarrel, and on December 16 Catherine asked Peter for something of forgiveness; the spouses explained themselves to each other for three hours, after which full agreement was restored between them. If this is not an idle work of rumor, often inventing fables about high-ranking persons, then all the same, what was hardly told about what happened between the spouses could be a consequence of the story with Mons, since more than a month had passed since the execution of Mons and the spouses at that time were between yourself on friendly terms.

Finally, the most fatal, the most amazing event in Catherine's life came. Peter became mortally ill. Signs of illness had been felt in him for a long time, but they showed up with irresistible force in January 1725. The symptoms of this painful condition were retention of urine. Dr. Blumentrost, who treated the sovereign, took these signs for a bladder disease and thought that the sovereign was developing a stone disease. Peter did not tolerate treatment when it was necessary to comply with doctor's prescriptions, and did not comply with them well. Already feeling ill, on January 3, 1725, Peter made the choice of a new "prince-pope" of his all-joking and all-drunk cathedral and, together with the members of this jester's cathedral, immoderately drank and fooled around according to his custom. This damaged his health. In mid-January, increased pains forced him to call on the advice of other doctors. One of these doctors, the Italian Lazariti, after examining the emperor, found that Peter's illness comes from an internal ulcer formed at the neck of the urinary canal, and the sticky matter accumulated there interferes with the passage of urine. Lazariti advised first to release the accumulated urine, and then treat the ulcer. Blumentrost was annoyed that not he, but another, attacked such a discovery; he resisted and continued to treat the sovereign in his own way, until the patient's suffering reached such an extent that he screamed terribly in pain, and his painful cry was heard not only throughout the palace, but was heard outside the palace walls. Peter, addressing those around him, said: "Learn from me what a pitiful animal man is!" Catherine did not leave her husband for a minute. On January 22, Peter wished that a movable church be set up near his bedroom and a divine service be held. After that, the emperor confessed and took communion of the Holy Mysteries.

The doctors came together again. Lazariti still insisted that the urine should be artificially expelled, and then the ulcer in the canal should be treated. Blumentrost this time had to yield to him, as other doctors joined the Italian. The operation was performed on the next day after that by the English physician Gorn; the sovereign immediately felt better; everyone rejoiced. The news of such a relief spread among the people, who then gathered in crowds in churches to pray for the recovery of the sovereign. Dr. Gorn announced to those around him that the sovereign did not have any stone in his bladder and his sufferings come from an ulcer, as Lazariti guessed.

Peter slept peacefully the next night. Hope for recovery increased. But on January 26, on Tuesday, the sovereign asked for food; they gave him oatmeal, and as soon as he had eaten a few spoonfuls, he had convulsions, then feverish fits; the doctors examined the sick man and found that there was no more salvation: the ulcer in the urinary canal had taken on a gangrenous state. Lazariti reported this to Tolstoy, Tolstoy to Catherine. It was necessary to think about the state, while Peter was still in memory. Senators and nobles were admitted to Peter.

It is not clear that at this time Peter spoke to them about the state of the state, in which it should have been in case of the death of the sovereign. But Peter then remembered the ancient custom of his ancestors: when they were struck by a serious illness and they felt the nearness of death, they hurried to do some good deed in order to propitiate God for their sins. And Peter, having retreated all his life from the habits and customs of his father, now wanted to follow in the footsteps of the old people: he ordered the release of all criminals sentenced to hard labor, excluding, however, those guilty of murder or convicted on the first two counts: for crimes against religion and the supreme authorities. On the same day, over the sick, in the afternoon, the bishops, members of the Synod, performed the consecration of the oil.

Peter spent the next night restless. Delirium was made with him; from jumping out of bed, and it was with great difficulty that he was restrained.

On January 27, Peter ordered that mercy be shown to criminals sentenced by a military court to death or hard labor, except for those guilty of the first two counts and murderers. At the same time, forgiveness was given to the nobles who did not appear at the review by royal decree and, according to the law, were subject to the loss of movable and immovable property. Those pardoned by the sovereign had to pray to God for his recovery as a token of gratitude. On this day, at the end of the second hour in the afternoon, Peter expressed his intention to express his last will. He was given writing materials. Peter began to write, but could not: he wrote some illegible signs, which only later, by guesswork, interpreted that they were the words: "give everything back ..." The sovereign said that the princess Anna Petrovna was called to him, but when she appeared to her father, the latter was no longer able to utter a single word (Zap. Bassevich, "Russian Arch.". 1865, 621).

According to the news reported by foreign envoys who were then in Russia, Lefort and Campredon, from that time until his death, Peter was in a state of agony, without a language. But Golikov, guided by the story of Feofan Prokopovich, says that after that the sovereign listened to the exhortations of the clergy and uttered several pious sayings. One can strongly doubt the reliability of such news: if the sovereign had the strength to say a few words to the bishops, he could have expressed his last will about the succession to the throne. With high probability it is possible to admit another news transmitted by the same Golikov. Already at night, when Peter was visibly weakening, the Trinity archimandrite suggested that he take communion of the Holy Mysteries once more and, if he agreed, asked him to move his hand. Peter was unable to speak, but with difficulty moved his hand, and then he was communed with the Holy Mysteries. Immediately after that, the agony began.

The Archbishop of Tver, Theophylact Lopatinsky, read over him the waste until the sick person no longer showed signs of breathing. Then Catherine closed his eyes and herself, exhausted, fell into the arms of those surrounding the bed of the deceased emperor. It was five and a quarter past midnight on January 28th.

Peter I on his deathbed. Painting by I. Nikitin, 1725

When writing the article, an essay by N. I. Kostomarov "Ekaterina Alekseevna, the first Russian Empress" was used

Reiemuth - for geography, active philosophy, ifika, politics, Latin rhetoric with oratory exercises and with explanations of examples from the historians Curtius and Justin and the poets Virgil and Horace. Christian Bernard Gluck - for Cartesian philosophy, also for the languages ​​of Greek, Hebrew and Chaldean. Johann-August Wurm - for German and Latin grammar and for vocabulary explanation (Vestibulum) and introduction to Latin (Janua linguarum). Otto Birkan - for basic reading and writing of Latin and for arithmetic.

Merle - for French grammar and Rambour - for dance art and the steps of German and French courtesies (Pek. Science and Literature under P. Vel., 122).

There is no reason to reject this news, as Ustryalov does. Ustryalov's most compelling remark against its reliability is that the source from which it was drawn contains a lot of clearly false news. But Ustryalov's other indications are easily refuted. He notices that Gordon and Player are silent about this news, but Gordon and Player might not hear it, or maybe someone did hear it, but mistook it for walking gossip. It goes without saying that the love letter taken from the pocket of the drowned Koenigsek was not published - Peter knew about it, and Anna, and persons close to them, and rumors from them already diverged, no doubt, with variations. Ustryalov, in refutation of this news, also points to the fact that after the death of Koenigsek, Anna Mons was in a friendly attitude towards the tsar, which is proved by her letter to Peter dated October 11, 1703, in which she asks for a decree to be sent to the patrimony granted to her by the tsar. But this can be explained by the fact that, as Player's report to his court testifies, the corpse of the drowned Koenigsek in the summer of 1703 has not yet been found, therefore, Peter might not yet know about the letter to Koenigsek of his mistress, or she, sending a letter to the king, did not knew that the king knew her tricks.

Anna Menshikova (Alexander Danilovich's sister), Varvara (Arsenyeva), a senseless aunt (Anisya Tolstaya), Katerina herself is the third, Daria is stupid (Alexander Danilovich's wife).

More correctly, Veselovskaya, by the name of her aunt, her mother's sister; this aunt adopted Ekaterina as a child after the death of her parents, and Ekaterina passed from her to the pastor, or kister, from whom Gluck took her to him.

The Russian Empress Catherine I Alekseevna (née Marta Skavronskaya) was born on April 15 (5 according to the old style) in Livonia (now the territory of northern Latvia and southern Estonia). According to some sources, she was the daughter of a Latvian peasant Samuil Skavronsky, according to others, a Swedish quartermaster named Rabe.

Martha did not receive an education. Her youth was spent in the house of pastor Gluck in Marienburg (now the city of Aluksne in Latvia), where she was both a washerwoman and a cook. According to some sources, for a short time Marta was married to a Swedish dragoon.

In 1702, after the capture of Marienburg by Russian troops, she became a war trophy and ended up first in the convoy of Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev, and then with the favorite and associate of Peter I Alexander Menshikov.

Around 1703, a young woman was noticed by Peter I and became one of his mistresses. Soon Martha was baptized according to the Orthodox rite under the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna. Over the years, Catherine acquired a very great influence on the Russian monarch, which, according to contemporaries, partly depended on her ability to calm him down in moments of anger. She did not try to take direct part in solving political issues. Since 1709, Catherine no longer left the tsar, accompanying Peter on all campaigns and trips. According to legend, she saved Peter I during the Prut campaign (1711), when Russian troops were surrounded. Catherine handed over all her jewels to the Turkish vizier, persuading him to sign a truce.

Upon his return to St. Petersburg on February 19, 1712, Peter married Catherine, and their daughters Anna (1708) and Elizabeth (1709) received the official status of princesses. In 1714, in memory of the Prut campaign, the tsar established the Order of St. Catherine, which he awarded his wife on her name day.

In May 1724, Peter I crowned Catherine as Empress for the first time in Russian history.

After the death of Peter I in 1725, through the efforts of Menshikov and with the support of the guards and the St. Petersburg garrison, Catherine I was enthroned.

In February 1726, the Supreme Privy Council (1726-1730) was created under the empress, which included princes Alexander Menshikov and Dmitry Golitsyn, counts Fyodor Apraksin, Gavriil Golovkin, Pyotr Tolstoy, and Baron Andrei (Heinrich Johann Friedrich) Osterman. The Council was created as an advisory body, but in fact it ruled the country and resolved the most important state issues.

During the reign of Catherine I on November 19, 1725, the Academy of Sciences was opened, an expedition of the Russian fleet officer Vitus Bering was equipped and sent to Kamchatka, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky.

There were almost no deviations from Peter's traditions in foreign policy. Russia improved diplomatic relations with Austria, obtained confirmation from Persia and Turkey of the concessions made under Peter in the Caucasus, and acquired the Shirvan region. Friendly relations were established with China through Count Raguzinsky. Russia also acquired exceptional influence in Courland.

Having become an autocratic sovereign, Catherine discovered a craving for entertainment and spent a lot of time at feasts, balls, and various holidays, which adversely affected her health. In March 1727, a swelling appeared on the Empress's legs, which grew rapidly, and in April she fell ill.

Before her death, at the insistence of Menshikov, Catherine signed a will, according to which the throne was to go to Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich, the grandson of Peter, the son of Alexei Petrovich, and in the event of his death, to her daughters or their descendants.

On May 17 (6 according to the old style) in 1727, Empress Catherine I died at the age of 43 and was buried in the tomb of Russian emperors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

The Empress Catherine and