A Short History of Russia

by Mary Platt Parmele

We wonder if Peter saw his great minister scheming for wealth and for power, and then his fall, like Wolsey's, from his pinnacle. We wonder if he saw him with his own hands building his hut on the frozen plains of Siberia, clothed, not in rich furs and jewels, but bearded and in long, coarse, gray smock-frock; his daughter, the betrothed of an Emperor, clad, not in ermine, but in sheep-skin. Perhaps the lesson with his master the Carpenter of Saardam served him in building his own shelter in that dread abode. Nor was he alone. He had the best of society, and at every turn of the wheel at St. Petersburg it had aristocratic recruits. The Galitsuins and the Dolgorukis would have joined him soon had they not died in prison, and many others had they not been broken on the wheel or beheaded by Anna, the coarse and vulgar woman who succeeded Peter II., when he suddenly died in 1730.

Anna Ivanovna was the daughter of Peter's brother Ivan V., who was associated with him upon the throne. She had the force to defeat an oligarchic attempt to tie her hands. The plan had originated with the Galitsuins and Dolgorukis, and was really calculated to benefit the state in a period of incompetent or vicious rulers by having the authority of the Crown limited by a council of eight ministers. But it was reactionary. It was introducing a principle which had been condemned, and was a veiled attempt to undo the work of the Ivans and the Romanoffs, and to place the real power as of old in the hands of ruling families. The plan fell, and the leaders fell with it, and a host of their followers. The executioners were busy at St. Petersburg, and the aristocratic colony in Siberia grew larger.

Anna's reign was the period of a preponderating German influence in politics and at court. Germans held high positions; one of them, Gustav Biron, the highest and most influential of all. Anna's infatuation for this man made him the ruling spirit in her reign and the Regent in the next, until he had his turn in disgrace and exile. Added to the dissatisfaction on account of German ascendency was a growing feeling that the succession should come through Peter, instead of through Ivan, his insignificant associate upon the throne. Such was the prevailing sentiment at the time of Anna's death (1740). The Tsaritsa named Ivan, a grand-nephew, the infant son of her niece Anna, her successor under the Regency of Biron, the man who had controlled the policy of the administration during her reign.

This was only a brief and tragic episode. Biron was swiftly swept out of power and into exile, and succeeded in the Regency by Anna, the mother of the infant Emperor; then, following quickly upon that, was a carefully matured conspiracy formed in the interest of Elizabeth Petrovna, the beautiful daughter whose marriage with the young Louis XV. had been an object of the great Peter's hopes.

In this connection it is well to mention that the terminations vich and vna, so constantly met in Russian names, have an important significance—vich meaning son of, and vna daughter of. Elizabeth Petrovna is Elizabeth the daughter of Peter, and Peter Alexievich is Peter the son of Alexis. In like manner Tsarevich and Tsarevna are respectively the son and daughter of the Tsar; Czar, Czarevich, and Czarevna being the modern form, and Czarina instead of Tsaritsa. The historian may for convenience omit the surname thus created, but in Russia it would be a great breach of decorum to do so.

By a sudden coup d'état, Elizabeth Petrovna took her rightful place upon the throne of her father (1741). In the dead of night the unfortunate Anna and her husband were awakened, carried into exile, and their infant son Ivan VI. was immured in a prison, where he was to grow up to manhood,—shattered in mind by his horrible existence of twenty years,—and then to be mercifully put out of the way as a possible menace to the ambitious plans of a woman.

Of the heads that dropped by orders of Elizabeth it is needless to speak; but of one that was spared there is an interesting account. Ostermann, a German, had been vice chancellor to the Empress Anna, and had also brought about the downfall of Biron the Regent. Now his turn had come. He was taken to the place of execution with the rest; his gray head was laid upon the block, his collar unbuttoned and gown drawn back by the executioner—when a reprieve was announced. Her Gracious Majesty was going to permit him to go to Siberia. He arose, bowed, said: "I pray you give me back my wig," calmly put it on the head he had not lost, buttoned his shirt, replaced his gown, and started to join his company of friends—and of enemies—in exile.

Elizabeth was a vain voluptuary. If any glory attaches to her reign it came from the stored energies left by her great father. The marvel is that in this succession of vicious and aimless tyrannies by shameless women and incompetent men, Russia did not fall into anarchy and revolution. But nothing was undone. The dignity of Moscow was preserved by the fact that the coronations must take place there. But there was no longer a reactionary party scheming for a return to the Ancient City. The seed scattered by Peter had everywhere taken hold upon the soil, and now began to burst into flower. A university was founded at Moscow. St. Petersburg was filled with French artists and scholars, and had an Academy of Art and of Science, which the great Voltaire asked permission to join, while conferring with Ivan Shuvalof over the History of Peter the Great which he was then engaged in writing. There were no more ugly German costumes; French dress, manners and speech were the fashion. Russia was assimilating Europe: it had tried Holland under Peter, then Germany under Empress Anna; but found its true affinity with France under Elizabeth, when to write and speak French like a Parisian became the badge of high station and culture.

So of its own momentum Russia had moved on without one strong competent personality at its head, and had become a tremendous force which must be reckoned with by the nations of Europe. In every great political combination the important question was, on which side she would throw her immense weight; and Elizabeth was courted and flattered to her heart's content by foreign diplomatists and their masters. Frederick the Great had reason to regret that he had been witty at her expense. It was almost his undoing by turning the scale against him at a critical moment. Elizabeth did not forget it and had her revenge when she joined Maria Theresa in the final struggle with Frederick in 1757. And Frederick also remembered it in 1760, when, as he dramatically expressed it, "The Barbarians were in Berlin engaged in digging the grave of humanity."

But all benefit from these enormous successes was abandoned, when the commanding Russian officer Apraxin mysteriously withdrew and returned with his army to Russia. This was undoubtedly part of a deeply laid plot of which Frederick was cognizant, and working in concert with a certain distinguished lady in Elizabeth's own court—a clever puller of wires who was going to fill some important chapters in Russian history!