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rheinsberg2022-11-30 10:07 am
selenak) wrote in rheinsberg2022-11-30 10:07 am
"Empress Elizabeth" and "Five Empresses" by Evgenii Anisimov
The two books are written a few decades apart, with "Empress Elizabeth" published in 1986, i.e. a year after Gorbachev in earnest practiced perestroika and glasnost, and the preface (not by the author) declares it to be very much a product of glasnost applied to history, doing away with both the Marxist pov and with the dea that the post-Peter the Great era until Catherine the Great's ascension is not worth studying. For me, the most obvious difference between the two books is actually that the second one, "The Five Empresses" is far more anecdotal, chatty and emotionial in nature. "Empress Elizabeth" may not be Marxist, but it does apply thematic structures the way I'm used to from current day German biographies (for example of FW, F1 or the Great Elector) I've read in recent years, i.e. foreign policy, domestic policy, private life - which means we go back and forth in time a few times - while "Five Empresses" does not.
Otoh, the other thing I noticed is that while both books describe the relationship between Anna Leopoldovna and Julia Mengden as "unusually close", it does not speculate on it being sexual, and the "Empress Elizabeth" biography when mentioning the Chevalier d'Eon describes their transgender nature as "pathological". I.e. Queerness of all sorts either does not get mentioned or is pathological; yep, that's a Russian historian, alright. This said, he at various times makes fun of Russian nationalism and at one point wistfully speculates what would have happened if the start of Anna Ivanova's reign had gone differently and instead of folding to completely reinstated autocracy, something like a parliamentary monarchy had developed, thus changing Russian and world history for ever. Speaking as someone who frequently wishes the 1848 revolution in the German states had succeeded and that first parliament had continued, for similar reasons, I hear you, Anisimov.
Both books are easy to read and tell their stories in an entertaining way. Anisimov is an opinioated narrator who is prone to declare he's not judging and then immediately coming up with a judgey statement. (Thus, for example, about Peter the Great's first love and mistress Anna Mons being not interested in the high risk stakes of life with Peter and better suited to happy housewifedom.) He also when talking about non-Russian matters occasionally slips up, as when designing Voltaire, Fritz and even Catherine (in her case secretly) as atheists. (Though this might also be a mistake by the translator. Maybe Russian doesn't have a separate word for "deist"? ) And then there's this gem:
We cannot say now what kind of empress Anna Leopoldovna would have been. Her inertness, reserve, lack of character and preparation would have made her chances for a successful reign over a country such as Russia doubtful. However, anything is possible; power and a crown on a person's head may transform him or her beyond recognition: action, ambition and intelligence can suddenly appear. Suffice it to recall Austrian archduchess Maria Theresa when she became the Empress of Austria. She wa salmost the same age as Anna Leopoldovna when in 1740 she inherited the htrone of her deceased father, Charles VI, and was compelled to immediately start fighting with Austria's old enemies, who dreamed of tearing the empire to pieces. Frederick II, the ingenious king of Prussia, had become Maria Theresa's most formidable and implacable enemy. Nevertheless, young and inexperienced Maria Theresa proved to be worthy of her destiny; she not only managed to preserve the empire but also to strengthen its position in the world. She invited talented ministers to work for her, effected important reforms, and when the time came for her to transfer power over the flourishing country to her son Joseph II, who was born almost at the same time as Ivan Antonovich, Maria Theresa did so. However, let's stop fantasizing - Russia is nothing like Austria, and nothing like any other country, for that matter.
Joseph: She did what when the time came?
Barbara S-R: "Empress of Austria" contains two wrongs. She was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and a few other things, and after Silesia 2 when FS was elected Emperor, she became Empress Consort of the HRE. Lots of people on her side dropped "Consort" when talking about her and referred to her as "The Empress-Queen". At no point, however, was she "Empress of Austria".
This said, I now wonder how MT would have fared as Tsarina. It's a somewhat frightening idea, because this was one woman who did use absolute power when given it.
Anyway. Anisimov manages to bring his various characters to life, and he's good at establishing where their various strengths and weaknesses come from.
So Anna Ivanova, for example, starts out as the poor relation, one of three daughters of Peter the Great's half-witted brother Ivan whom her own mother does not like and who has to spend the first part of her life constantly begging for crumbs from her terrible mighty relations. This results in a constantly suspicious, lonely woman who once she has power is not gracious about it. Like Fritz, she has learned that power is a zero sum game early on, but unlike Fritz, she's not one of life's hard workers. (In fact, none of the Tsarinas except for Catherine II. are. She's the first Russian monarch since Peter the Great who really is a hardcore worker, as can be seen by the thousands of letters and memoranda she personally signed and/or wrote and/or wrote observations on. Both the Annas - Anna Ivanova and Anna Leopoldovna - weren't, they let their favorites do the actual administrative work. Catherine I., the former Livonian peasant, was a special case in that as long as she was NOT yet Empress, she was diligent and busy, keeping up with Peter (the Great) not just in drinking bouts but also in organisational talent (most famously when she saved his butt in a dire situation against the Turks), and did have the energy and industry of a good monarch, but as soon as Peter was dead and she was safely on the throne, she seems to have spent the not two years of her reign in an unending party, which must have contributed to that early death (she was solidly healthy in Peter's life time - talk about drinking, eating and dancing yourself into a grave) while Alexander Menshikov did the actual governing. Elizabeth did some work herself - about two days a week in the 1740s when she started, with the rest given to the representative partying part of being a monarch. Wheraes the former Sophie of Zerbst liked sex and fun as much as the next Russian czar, but she did rise at 6 am at the latest every day and got work done first.
Mostly, Anisimov brings up the quotes to back up his opinions, but not always. For example: after presenting the Peter I/Catherine I relationship as a love match on both parts backed up by excerpts from their earthy, mutually fond correspondence through the years, he arrives that point in the story where Catherine takes a non-Peter young lover, who happened to be the younger brother of Peter's first love, one Villm Mons. This is after Alexei's death and when speculating why she took that insane risk which easily could have gotten her killed painfully once Peter found out (in effect, he did kill her love, but not Catherine), our narrator suddenly questions whether she loved Peter at all, and points out the former Martha the peasant, war captive, did not have much choice, being handed from man to man until ending up with Peter, and doing anything but please the most powerful man in the land was out of the question. True enough, but might I suggest a third possibility: she both wanted the life with him and loved him until she saw him torture his own son to death. Even if she disliked Alexeii and saw him as a rival for her own children, including her at this point living son (something Anisimov assumes but does not back up with a quote), once you've seen a man do that, I could well see it killing any attachment beyond self preservation.
The Elizabeth biography includes a defense of the Russian general who after defeating Fritz at Kunersdorf did give him the first Miracle of the House of Brandenburg by NOT marching on Berlin.
Why did Saltykov not set off for Berlin? It appears that the Russian commander-in-chief was not certain of the success of such a march. Right after the battle the fatigued army, burened with wounded, trophies and prisoners, could not have resumed its march. Estimating that the losses comrpisied a third of his forces, Saltykov considered a campaign possible only on condition of active Austrian participation. Analysis suggests that Saltykov was not being overly cautious. The emotional, panic-stricken letter of Frederick II declares more about the king of Prussia's unbalanced character than about the actual situation. After the victory the Russian army did not pursue the enemy beyond the field of combat, hence the 29.000 troops that remained with Frederick began to reassamble at Fürstenwalde on the Spree. Frederick started bringing in troops form the garrisons and preapred for the defense of the capital. Saltykov did not wish to march on Berlin without the Austrians. Daun assigned him General Hadik's 12,00 man ncorps in addition to Loudon's corps of 10,000 but himself declined to take the offensive with his whole army. For this he had his own reasons. The most important of these wa sthe presence in the rear of the Austrian armies: Prince Henry's in Saxony and General Fuchs' in Silesia, no less than 60,000 mmen in all. In an advance on Berlin both of these armies, which were covering Daun's army, would have m arched at once to cut the Austrians' commuknications.
In short, Heinrich did (partly) save Fritz' butt?
Speaking of Saltykyov, he's the same guy Catherine wrote the "Heinrich comes across as cold at first, but he's really smart and cool, so be nice and impress him!" letter to which Mildred has quoted to us. I do wonder whether Heinrich had a "so, Kunersdorf, huh?" conversation with him, but if he did, he didn't tell Lehndorff (that we know of), and obviously it didn't come up in his secret letters to Fritz during his time in Russia.
Apropos Fritzian battles: the Elizabeth biography also includes a detailed description of the battle of Zorndorf near Küstrin. Given that at different points the Prussians and the Russians both declared this a win for them, I was curious how our author would present it. He calls it a draw.
Anisimov's judgment on Elizabeth herself remains the same in both books. She has her father Peter's restless energy, personal charisma attracting people to her and the common touch, and not a little courage, but alas she absolutely did not have Peter's mind or eagerness for work or hunger for innovations. After Elizabeth's coup, there was a lot of "now the time of Peter the Great starts again", but what this meant was the canonization of Peter as a historical figure and the complete lack of direly needed reforms, i.e. adapting the dress up but not the mentality. (It is at this point, though, that Peter gets treated as the icon of Russian history he thereafter became. Remember, in his life time, his brutal methods ensured he was hugely controversial abroad and in his country alike, and given his attitude towards the Russian church, there was a solid part of the country seeing him as the antichrist. By the time Elizabeth came on the throne, these memories had faded and he was the good czar, the founding father of modern Russia, pater patriae etc. Elizabeth's popularity largely rested on her being the last surviving child of Peter the Great who successfully marketed herself as his one true heir.
Now, post-Alexei and after the death of his sons by Catherine (I), Peter the Great had famously changed the Russian inheritance laws, so that instead of the throne always going to a male biological heir, the Czar could appoint whoever the Czar decided would be heir (of either sex). And then he didn't appoint anyone in his life time. (He may have wanted Catherine to succeed him - he did have her crowned, after all -, but then he found out about her lover, and that was that.) Catherine I. did leave detailed will about the line of succession, but as opposed to what Elizabeth later claimed, this actually named any descendant of Elizabeth's late older sister Anna Petrovna (not to be confused with either Anna Ivanova or Anna Leopoldovna) before Elizabeth. And in any event, Catherine I. was followed by the short lived Peter II (son of the murdered Alexei), who was followed by Anna Ivanova, and on each of these occasions, Elizabeth swore with the rest of the nobility she'd respect the most recent ruler's choice of successor. In Anna Ivanova's case, this was Ivan the son of Anna Leopoldovna, with Anna Leopoldovna as regent. So there really was no legal justification for Elizabeth's coup, other than "but I want to". Mind you, as our aiuthor points out, she did have to put her own life on the line when finally risking it, because in the event of a failure, she'd have had no plausible deniability about not knowing anything about it. Since no one of her co-conspirators dared, she led the march into the Winter Palace herself, after having gone to the guards who venerated her as the daughter of Peter the Great.
Our old aquaintance La Chetardie, who went from being French envoy in Prussia to being French envoy in St. Petersburg (you might recall Crown Prince Fritz was a fan and grumbled about how way worse his successor Valory was, until Valory backed him up in the First Silesian War), had befriended Elizabeth and till his dying day gave himself credit for the coup, way too much of it in our author's opinion, since while La Chetardie wanted a coup, he actually got cold feet (and there are quotes for this one) in the months preceding the event and cautioned against it. Post-coup, he expected Elizabeth to be putty in his hands, but while she was as willing to party with him as ever, she kept being non-committal on fulfillling what he thought she'd promised him to do, i.e. hand over some Russian territory to the Swedes, until she finally point blank refused and Versailles bitterly noted that Chetardie was useless in terms of actually getting political advantages out of Elizabeth, no matter how many balls he opened with her. As our author points out, that one was a no brainer. The daughter of Peter the Great handing over territory to the Swedes when cousin Anna the almost German had refused to? No way. Elizabeth could have kissed her popularity goodbye right then and there.
Which brings me to: in both books our author basically subscribes to the traditional image of Peter III., quoting amply from Catherine (II)'s memoirs. Now, he does admit Catherine had all the reason in the world to make Peter look as bad as possible in order to justify her own actions, but in the Elizabeth biography he quotes some non-Catherine witnesses who have a similar bad opinion of Peter to back her up. (And no, Poniatowski isn't among them.) Since our author bitterly notes that Peter after all that 7 Years War bloodshed handed over Russian conquests to Fritz and then wanted to go to war against Denmark for bloody Holstein, WTF, I suspect that's the main reason for his "no, there is no enigma of Peter III, he really was like that" statements. He does state Peter would likely have been a perfectly decent Duke of Holstein and was a kid brought to a country he didn't like, whose language he didn't speak and never spoke well, whose customs he hated, in care of an aunt who didn't like him, either, and never was there the inheritor of a country with so much of an understandable dislike for the country in question from the outset.
Elizabeth making Peter her heir was atually one of her rare political masterstrokes, because it removed him as her rival - he was ahead of her in the sucession as defined by her own mother - , without granting him all the sympathies the imprisoned Ivan and his siblings (and parents) got. The story of Anna Leopoldovna and her children is tragic in both books. Something I did not know or had forgotten: Anton Ulrich, EC's brother, Anna's unwanted husband and father of her children, fathered a lot of other children as well during those decades of imprisonment. On the female servants. Who then become servants to the imprisoned family. (They went as far as the ship to Denmark with their half siblings when the later were finally released but weren't alllowed to actually enter Denmark, because they were Russian citizens - this, btw, seems to have been Danish bureaucracy, not Russian cruelty. What then became of then, our author does not say.) On the less represensible and nobler side, Anton Ulrich really did refuse to be released without his children when Catherine offered this to him upon her ascension and prefered remaining with them.
What I also had forgotten or didn't know: Julia Mengden originally did go with Anna Leopoldovna, but then Elizabeth separated the two. She thought Anna Leopoldovna did know where the fabled jewles and riches of Anna Ivanova's lover Biron were hidden and in her letter instructed her official to tell Anna Leopoldovna that if she didn't share this knowledge, Julia would be tortured, but Anna L. really did not know.
Elizabeth could be petty and greedy like that - another Elizabeth deed was that when in her later years a dying job on her hair went wrong and she had to cut it, she ordered all the ladies of the court to cut their hair and wear wigs as well - , but she must have been very charming and attractive in general; Catherine (II), who has a lot of criticial things to say about her, and who only met her when Elizabeth was in her mid 30s, nonetheless reports in her memoirs how magnetic she was and how one could not look away when she was in the room, and how Elizabeth looked great both in male and female dressing. This of course was true for Catherine as well. As opposed to Elizabeth, who always had been a beauty, even as a girl, former Sophie hadn't been as a girl (where she'd been repreatedly told she was unattractive) and there are somewhat contradictory reports on her looks even through her 20s, when they were at their best (for every glowing Poniatowski like rave, there's a "small eyes, slight hook in her nose" critique from soneone else), but she, too, was magnetic, and she was far more calculating and self disciplined and smart than any of the previous empresses, with an eighteen years long time (between her arrival in Russia and her ascension to the throne) providing more than enough training ground.
One Catherine detail which had not been known to me before were her instructions on how to raise her grandkids. Remember, just like Elizabeth had taken newborn baby Paul immediately away from his mother (Catherine) and raised him herself until her death, Catherine when Paul's (second) wife produced future Czar Alexander and his brother Constantine immediately took the boys away and took them for herself. And one thing I noticed in the instructions to their teachers she wrote and which our author quotes is is this:
To forbid and discourage Their Highnesses from inflicting any harm on themselves and any other human; hence it shouild be proscribed that anyone be beaten or scolded in their presence and they shouild not be allowed to beat up, pinch, or scold a man or beast or to hurt anyone in any other way. It should not be allowed that Their Highnesses torture or kill innocent animals such as birds, butterflies, dogs, cats or otherws or that they damage anything on purpose, but they should get accustomed to taking care of a dog, bird, squirrel or any other pet at their disposal and to working for the benfits of these down to the potted flowers, which they should water.
Now, aside of these instructions making pedagogical sense, what it immediately made me think of, but which our author does NOT mention, is that this is utterly unlike the education Catherine's husband received (young Peter definitely was beaten and scolded), AND unlike what she claims in her memoirs he was allowed to do. Because one of the things Catherine says which the pro-Peter historians doubt is that he tormented animals in her presence. (Including dogs.) So Catherine's need to vilify her late husband not withstanding, these instructions made me believe the animals thing could very well have been true.
In conclusion, thank you, Mildred, these were two instructive books. Since the author is remarkably not nationalistic - for example, when talking about the Anna Ivanova period is remembered as the time where Germans dominated the court, he points out that firstly, the Germans in question all came originally from different German states, had lived in Russia for many years and were at each other's throats, i.e. were rivals, not a unified German party, and secondly, it was in this very era that the Russian nobility got the massive concessions from the government which plagued every ruler since because they daren't take all those privileges away again, so the Russian nobles had the least cause to complain, as opposed to the general Russian population -, I am somewhat afraid to check whether he's still alive, and how he's doing these days....
mildred_of_midgard: Surprisingly well, at least according to his university page! 74 years old, tenured professor at the HSE University campus in St. Petersburg, tons of publications, named Best Teacher in 2014 and 2015, Winner of the HSE University Best Russian Research Paper Competition in 2021...
Of course, what's not listed on the page (or even what's listed in Russian that may give clues), I cannot say. But at least not in prison, mysteriously dead, mysteriously disappeared, or in exile.
Otoh, the other thing I noticed is that while both books describe the relationship between Anna Leopoldovna and Julia Mengden as "unusually close", it does not speculate on it being sexual, and the "Empress Elizabeth" biography when mentioning the Chevalier d'Eon describes their transgender nature as "pathological". I.e. Queerness of all sorts either does not get mentioned or is pathological; yep, that's a Russian historian, alright. This said, he at various times makes fun of Russian nationalism and at one point wistfully speculates what would have happened if the start of Anna Ivanova's reign had gone differently and instead of folding to completely reinstated autocracy, something like a parliamentary monarchy had developed, thus changing Russian and world history for ever. Speaking as someone who frequently wishes the 1848 revolution in the German states had succeeded and that first parliament had continued, for similar reasons, I hear you, Anisimov.
Both books are easy to read and tell their stories in an entertaining way. Anisimov is an opinioated narrator who is prone to declare he's not judging and then immediately coming up with a judgey statement. (Thus, for example, about Peter the Great's first love and mistress Anna Mons being not interested in the high risk stakes of life with Peter and better suited to happy housewifedom.) He also when talking about non-Russian matters occasionally slips up, as when designing Voltaire, Fritz and even Catherine (in her case secretly) as atheists. (Though this might also be a mistake by the translator. Maybe Russian doesn't have a separate word for "deist"? ) And then there's this gem:
We cannot say now what kind of empress Anna Leopoldovna would have been. Her inertness, reserve, lack of character and preparation would have made her chances for a successful reign over a country such as Russia doubtful. However, anything is possible; power and a crown on a person's head may transform him or her beyond recognition: action, ambition and intelligence can suddenly appear. Suffice it to recall Austrian archduchess Maria Theresa when she became the Empress of Austria. She wa salmost the same age as Anna Leopoldovna when in 1740 she inherited the htrone of her deceased father, Charles VI, and was compelled to immediately start fighting with Austria's old enemies, who dreamed of tearing the empire to pieces. Frederick II, the ingenious king of Prussia, had become Maria Theresa's most formidable and implacable enemy. Nevertheless, young and inexperienced Maria Theresa proved to be worthy of her destiny; she not only managed to preserve the empire but also to strengthen its position in the world. She invited talented ministers to work for her, effected important reforms, and when the time came for her to transfer power over the flourishing country to her son Joseph II, who was born almost at the same time as Ivan Antonovich, Maria Theresa did so. However, let's stop fantasizing - Russia is nothing like Austria, and nothing like any other country, for that matter.
Joseph: She did what when the time came?
Barbara S-R: "Empress of Austria" contains two wrongs. She was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and a few other things, and after Silesia 2 when FS was elected Emperor, she became Empress Consort of the HRE. Lots of people on her side dropped "Consort" when talking about her and referred to her as "The Empress-Queen". At no point, however, was she "Empress of Austria".
This said, I now wonder how MT would have fared as Tsarina. It's a somewhat frightening idea, because this was one woman who did use absolute power when given it.
Anyway. Anisimov manages to bring his various characters to life, and he's good at establishing where their various strengths and weaknesses come from.
So Anna Ivanova, for example, starts out as the poor relation, one of three daughters of Peter the Great's half-witted brother Ivan whom her own mother does not like and who has to spend the first part of her life constantly begging for crumbs from her terrible mighty relations. This results in a constantly suspicious, lonely woman who once she has power is not gracious about it. Like Fritz, she has learned that power is a zero sum game early on, but unlike Fritz, she's not one of life's hard workers. (In fact, none of the Tsarinas except for Catherine II. are. She's the first Russian monarch since Peter the Great who really is a hardcore worker, as can be seen by the thousands of letters and memoranda she personally signed and/or wrote and/or wrote observations on. Both the Annas - Anna Ivanova and Anna Leopoldovna - weren't, they let their favorites do the actual administrative work. Catherine I., the former Livonian peasant, was a special case in that as long as she was NOT yet Empress, she was diligent and busy, keeping up with Peter (the Great) not just in drinking bouts but also in organisational talent (most famously when she saved his butt in a dire situation against the Turks), and did have the energy and industry of a good monarch, but as soon as Peter was dead and she was safely on the throne, she seems to have spent the not two years of her reign in an unending party, which must have contributed to that early death (she was solidly healthy in Peter's life time - talk about drinking, eating and dancing yourself into a grave) while Alexander Menshikov did the actual governing. Elizabeth did some work herself - about two days a week in the 1740s when she started, with the rest given to the representative partying part of being a monarch. Wheraes the former Sophie of Zerbst liked sex and fun as much as the next Russian czar, but she did rise at 6 am at the latest every day and got work done first.
Mostly, Anisimov brings up the quotes to back up his opinions, but not always. For example: after presenting the Peter I/Catherine I relationship as a love match on both parts backed up by excerpts from their earthy, mutually fond correspondence through the years, he arrives that point in the story where Catherine takes a non-Peter young lover, who happened to be the younger brother of Peter's first love, one Villm Mons. This is after Alexei's death and when speculating why she took that insane risk which easily could have gotten her killed painfully once Peter found out (in effect, he did kill her love, but not Catherine), our narrator suddenly questions whether she loved Peter at all, and points out the former Martha the peasant, war captive, did not have much choice, being handed from man to man until ending up with Peter, and doing anything but please the most powerful man in the land was out of the question. True enough, but might I suggest a third possibility: she both wanted the life with him and loved him until she saw him torture his own son to death. Even if she disliked Alexeii and saw him as a rival for her own children, including her at this point living son (something Anisimov assumes but does not back up with a quote), once you've seen a man do that, I could well see it killing any attachment beyond self preservation.
The Elizabeth biography includes a defense of the Russian general who after defeating Fritz at Kunersdorf did give him the first Miracle of the House of Brandenburg by NOT marching on Berlin.
Why did Saltykov not set off for Berlin? It appears that the Russian commander-in-chief was not certain of the success of such a march. Right after the battle the fatigued army, burened with wounded, trophies and prisoners, could not have resumed its march. Estimating that the losses comrpisied a third of his forces, Saltykov considered a campaign possible only on condition of active Austrian participation. Analysis suggests that Saltykov was not being overly cautious. The emotional, panic-stricken letter of Frederick II declares more about the king of Prussia's unbalanced character than about the actual situation. After the victory the Russian army did not pursue the enemy beyond the field of combat, hence the 29.000 troops that remained with Frederick began to reassamble at Fürstenwalde on the Spree. Frederick started bringing in troops form the garrisons and preapred for the defense of the capital. Saltykov did not wish to march on Berlin without the Austrians. Daun assigned him General Hadik's 12,00 man ncorps in addition to Loudon's corps of 10,000 but himself declined to take the offensive with his whole army. For this he had his own reasons. The most important of these wa sthe presence in the rear of the Austrian armies: Prince Henry's in Saxony and General Fuchs' in Silesia, no less than 60,000 mmen in all. In an advance on Berlin both of these armies, which were covering Daun's army, would have m arched at once to cut the Austrians' commuknications.
In short, Heinrich did (partly) save Fritz' butt?
Speaking of Saltykyov, he's the same guy Catherine wrote the "Heinrich comes across as cold at first, but he's really smart and cool, so be nice and impress him!" letter to which Mildred has quoted to us. I do wonder whether Heinrich had a "so, Kunersdorf, huh?" conversation with him, but if he did, he didn't tell Lehndorff (that we know of), and obviously it didn't come up in his secret letters to Fritz during his time in Russia.
Apropos Fritzian battles: the Elizabeth biography also includes a detailed description of the battle of Zorndorf near Küstrin. Given that at different points the Prussians and the Russians both declared this a win for them, I was curious how our author would present it. He calls it a draw.
Anisimov's judgment on Elizabeth herself remains the same in both books. She has her father Peter's restless energy, personal charisma attracting people to her and the common touch, and not a little courage, but alas she absolutely did not have Peter's mind or eagerness for work or hunger for innovations. After Elizabeth's coup, there was a lot of "now the time of Peter the Great starts again", but what this meant was the canonization of Peter as a historical figure and the complete lack of direly needed reforms, i.e. adapting the dress up but not the mentality. (It is at this point, though, that Peter gets treated as the icon of Russian history he thereafter became. Remember, in his life time, his brutal methods ensured he was hugely controversial abroad and in his country alike, and given his attitude towards the Russian church, there was a solid part of the country seeing him as the antichrist. By the time Elizabeth came on the throne, these memories had faded and he was the good czar, the founding father of modern Russia, pater patriae etc. Elizabeth's popularity largely rested on her being the last surviving child of Peter the Great who successfully marketed herself as his one true heir.
Now, post-Alexei and after the death of his sons by Catherine (I), Peter the Great had famously changed the Russian inheritance laws, so that instead of the throne always going to a male biological heir, the Czar could appoint whoever the Czar decided would be heir (of either sex). And then he didn't appoint anyone in his life time. (He may have wanted Catherine to succeed him - he did have her crowned, after all -, but then he found out about her lover, and that was that.) Catherine I. did leave detailed will about the line of succession, but as opposed to what Elizabeth later claimed, this actually named any descendant of Elizabeth's late older sister Anna Petrovna (not to be confused with either Anna Ivanova or Anna Leopoldovna) before Elizabeth. And in any event, Catherine I. was followed by the short lived Peter II (son of the murdered Alexei), who was followed by Anna Ivanova, and on each of these occasions, Elizabeth swore with the rest of the nobility she'd respect the most recent ruler's choice of successor. In Anna Ivanova's case, this was Ivan the son of Anna Leopoldovna, with Anna Leopoldovna as regent. So there really was no legal justification for Elizabeth's coup, other than "but I want to". Mind you, as our aiuthor points out, she did have to put her own life on the line when finally risking it, because in the event of a failure, she'd have had no plausible deniability about not knowing anything about it. Since no one of her co-conspirators dared, she led the march into the Winter Palace herself, after having gone to the guards who venerated her as the daughter of Peter the Great.
Our old aquaintance La Chetardie, who went from being French envoy in Prussia to being French envoy in St. Petersburg (you might recall Crown Prince Fritz was a fan and grumbled about how way worse his successor Valory was, until Valory backed him up in the First Silesian War), had befriended Elizabeth and till his dying day gave himself credit for the coup, way too much of it in our author's opinion, since while La Chetardie wanted a coup, he actually got cold feet (and there are quotes for this one) in the months preceding the event and cautioned against it. Post-coup, he expected Elizabeth to be putty in his hands, but while she was as willing to party with him as ever, she kept being non-committal on fulfillling what he thought she'd promised him to do, i.e. hand over some Russian territory to the Swedes, until she finally point blank refused and Versailles bitterly noted that Chetardie was useless in terms of actually getting political advantages out of Elizabeth, no matter how many balls he opened with her. As our author points out, that one was a no brainer. The daughter of Peter the Great handing over territory to the Swedes when cousin Anna the almost German had refused to? No way. Elizabeth could have kissed her popularity goodbye right then and there.
Which brings me to: in both books our author basically subscribes to the traditional image of Peter III., quoting amply from Catherine (II)'s memoirs. Now, he does admit Catherine had all the reason in the world to make Peter look as bad as possible in order to justify her own actions, but in the Elizabeth biography he quotes some non-Catherine witnesses who have a similar bad opinion of Peter to back her up. (And no, Poniatowski isn't among them.) Since our author bitterly notes that Peter after all that 7 Years War bloodshed handed over Russian conquests to Fritz and then wanted to go to war against Denmark for bloody Holstein, WTF, I suspect that's the main reason for his "no, there is no enigma of Peter III, he really was like that" statements. He does state Peter would likely have been a perfectly decent Duke of Holstein and was a kid brought to a country he didn't like, whose language he didn't speak and never spoke well, whose customs he hated, in care of an aunt who didn't like him, either, and never was there the inheritor of a country with so much of an understandable dislike for the country in question from the outset.
Elizabeth making Peter her heir was atually one of her rare political masterstrokes, because it removed him as her rival - he was ahead of her in the sucession as defined by her own mother - , without granting him all the sympathies the imprisoned Ivan and his siblings (and parents) got. The story of Anna Leopoldovna and her children is tragic in both books. Something I did not know or had forgotten: Anton Ulrich, EC's brother, Anna's unwanted husband and father of her children, fathered a lot of other children as well during those decades of imprisonment. On the female servants. Who then become servants to the imprisoned family. (They went as far as the ship to Denmark with their half siblings when the later were finally released but weren't alllowed to actually enter Denmark, because they were Russian citizens - this, btw, seems to have been Danish bureaucracy, not Russian cruelty. What then became of then, our author does not say.) On the less represensible and nobler side, Anton Ulrich really did refuse to be released without his children when Catherine offered this to him upon her ascension and prefered remaining with them.
What I also had forgotten or didn't know: Julia Mengden originally did go with Anna Leopoldovna, but then Elizabeth separated the two. She thought Anna Leopoldovna did know where the fabled jewles and riches of Anna Ivanova's lover Biron were hidden and in her letter instructed her official to tell Anna Leopoldovna that if she didn't share this knowledge, Julia would be tortured, but Anna L. really did not know.
Elizabeth could be petty and greedy like that - another Elizabeth deed was that when in her later years a dying job on her hair went wrong and she had to cut it, she ordered all the ladies of the court to cut their hair and wear wigs as well - , but she must have been very charming and attractive in general; Catherine (II), who has a lot of criticial things to say about her, and who only met her when Elizabeth was in her mid 30s, nonetheless reports in her memoirs how magnetic she was and how one could not look away when she was in the room, and how Elizabeth looked great both in male and female dressing. This of course was true for Catherine as well. As opposed to Elizabeth, who always had been a beauty, even as a girl, former Sophie hadn't been as a girl (where she'd been repreatedly told she was unattractive) and there are somewhat contradictory reports on her looks even through her 20s, when they were at their best (for every glowing Poniatowski like rave, there's a "small eyes, slight hook in her nose" critique from soneone else), but she, too, was magnetic, and she was far more calculating and self disciplined and smart than any of the previous empresses, with an eighteen years long time (between her arrival in Russia and her ascension to the throne) providing more than enough training ground.
One Catherine detail which had not been known to me before were her instructions on how to raise her grandkids. Remember, just like Elizabeth had taken newborn baby Paul immediately away from his mother (Catherine) and raised him herself until her death, Catherine when Paul's (second) wife produced future Czar Alexander and his brother Constantine immediately took the boys away and took them for herself. And one thing I noticed in the instructions to their teachers she wrote and which our author quotes is is this:
To forbid and discourage Their Highnesses from inflicting any harm on themselves and any other human; hence it shouild be proscribed that anyone be beaten or scolded in their presence and they shouild not be allowed to beat up, pinch, or scold a man or beast or to hurt anyone in any other way. It should not be allowed that Their Highnesses torture or kill innocent animals such as birds, butterflies, dogs, cats or otherws or that they damage anything on purpose, but they should get accustomed to taking care of a dog, bird, squirrel or any other pet at their disposal and to working for the benfits of these down to the potted flowers, which they should water.
Now, aside of these instructions making pedagogical sense, what it immediately made me think of, but which our author does NOT mention, is that this is utterly unlike the education Catherine's husband received (young Peter definitely was beaten and scolded), AND unlike what she claims in her memoirs he was allowed to do. Because one of the things Catherine says which the pro-Peter historians doubt is that he tormented animals in her presence. (Including dogs.) So Catherine's need to vilify her late husband not withstanding, these instructions made me believe the animals thing could very well have been true.
In conclusion, thank you, Mildred, these were two instructive books. Since the author is remarkably not nationalistic - for example, when talking about the Anna Ivanova period is remembered as the time where Germans dominated the court, he points out that firstly, the Germans in question all came originally from different German states, had lived in Russia for many years and were at each other's throats, i.e. were rivals, not a unified German party, and secondly, it was in this very era that the Russian nobility got the massive concessions from the government which plagued every ruler since because they daren't take all those privileges away again, so the Russian nobles had the least cause to complain, as opposed to the general Russian population -, I am somewhat afraid to check whether he's still alive, and how he's doing these days....
mildred_of_midgard: Surprisingly well, at least according to his university page! 74 years old, tenured professor at the HSE University campus in St. Petersburg, tons of publications, named Best Teacher in 2014 and 2015, Winner of the HSE University Best Russian Research Paper Competition in 2021...Of course, what's not listed on the page (or even what's listed in Russian that may give clues), I cannot say. But at least not in prison, mysteriously dead, mysteriously disappeared, or in exile.