Whatever it was, but the sudden death of the Tsarevich was unexpected for everyone.
On April 26 (May 7), 1718, at 15 o'clock, a funeral ceremony of farewell to the ashes of the heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke Peter Petrovich Romanov, who died under mysterious circumstances at the age of three and a half, began in St. Petersburg. He was the youngest son of Emperor Peter I by Catherine.
Peter the First with his wife Catherine.
Under cannon fire, the sorrowful procession was led by two hundred and forty officers of the Guards dressed in black, with a mourning veil on their hats and swords. Fifty Transfiguration men followed them with burning torches. The clergy followed with funeral hymns. Then a chariot with a coffin upholstered in scarlet velvet with gold fringes. Behind the coffin was a mournful father - Peter I, accompanied by the most noble court officials and foreign diplomats in black clothes and long robes.
The procession moved slowly to the Neva River, where the coffin with the body was transferred to the funeral boat. The emperor moved into it with close courtiers, the rest crossed the river on their own boats. The burial boat was first used in the royal funeral ceremony in connection with Peter's attachment to water travel, and it was easier to get to the burial place in the Alexander Nevsky monastery by water.
Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
After the funeral service, the body of the heir to the throne was buried in the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
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And the emperor "hurried to his inconsolable wife, in whose presence he showed particular courage and firmness of mind", - the Hanoverian resident F. H. Weber.
Mourning for Pyotr Petrovich Romanov was announced for a year. However, just a month after the death of his last direct male heir, on May 30, 1718, Peter I celebrated the birthday of his royal majesty with special solemnity.
Tsarevich Pyotr Petrovich in the form of Cupid. Hood. Louis Caravac.
Grand Duke Pyotr Petrovich Romanov was born in St. Petersburg on November 9 (October 29), 1715. The long-awaited son for the happy Peter and Catherine was henceforth lovingly called in the spouses 'correspondence nothing more than "Lump", "Gutted" (ie, a part of the parents' flesh or flesh of the flesh - author's note).
Immediately after his birth, the boy was awarded the highest Russian Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.
In honor of the newborn prince, Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich proclaimed "words of praise"; Vice-Chancellor Baron Pyotr Pavlovich Shafirov dedicated his book "Discourse" about the reasons for the beginning of the Russian-Swedish war "to him. The closest tsarist comrades-in-arms Alexander Danilovich Menshikov and Yakov Bruce were assigned to his upbringing and training.
Happy mother Catherine wrote to the Tsar: “I ask you, my father, for protection, since he (Pyotr Petrovich - author's note) has a considerable quarrel with me because of you: when I remember you about you that dad left, then loves such a speech that he left, but loves and rejoices more when you say that dad is here. In her letters, Catherine, with hope and far-reaching plans, called her son “the master of St. Petersburg”.
By the manifesto of Emperor Peter I of February 14 (3), 1718, Tsarevich Peter Petrovich was proclaimed heir to the throne. The former heir Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich took the oath to his half-brother while in captivity. Under the threat of execution and anathema, his supporters were also forced to take the oath.
Henceforth, in the imprint of the books published during this period, it was indicated that "was printed under the hereditary most noble Tsarevich Tsarevich Petr Petrovich."
Some sources indicate that the boy grew up alive and mobile, but spoke little, and according to other sources it is known that in the fall of 1718, three-year-old Peter was weak in health - he did not speak or walk yet.
Whatever it was, but the sudden death of the tsarevich was unexpected for everyone. And the funeral of the heir in a closed coffin the next day looked hasty.
So what happened?
Supposedly, Pyotr Petrovich was killed by ball lightning.
Daniel Granin in his "Evenings with Peter the Great" describes the death of the heir in the following way: “The news of his death stunned everyone in the palace. On that day, Peter and Catherine were in Kronstadt. The prince died at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. A messenger was sent from Petersburg to Kronstadt. In the morning Menshikov visited the tsarevich, played with him, the prince was very fond of the four-year-old boy, and everything was in order. By order of Bruce, they drove the messenger and the Most Serene Prince.
Having galloped into the palace, Menshikov found the tsarevich still alive, in an inexplicable state: unconscious, paralyzed, the most amazing thing was that the bones were broken when the prince took him in his arms, the little body sagged, all of it sagged like cotton.
Jacob Bruce, always phlegmatic and slow, drank vodka shot after shot, his lips trembled, he could not coherently state what had happened. There was a thunderstorm, then a downpour began, Bruce was working in the next room, suddenly lightning flashed, there was a crack, then an explosion, a cry - the nanny was screaming. She still hasn’t come to her senses, she is shaking like mad. Apparently, the boy was sitting on her lap when a "fire-breathing dragon flew up to them and puffed on the baby."
Menshikov sent for a doctor, but he himself carefully examined the room: windows, doors - there was no access for lightning anywhere. They interrogated the officers on duty, outside sentries - nobody from outsiders could enter the palace.
No wounds, no bruises, no signs of violence were found on the boy's body. They dressed him in a long shirt, laid him on the bed and then noticed a blue spot on his forehead. The prince has already departed into the eternal kingdom. No one grasped when, for no reason, quiet death led everyone to despair. Bruce, clenching his head, moaned: "Martyr innocent, my child …" ".
At the funeral service for Tsarevich Peter Petrovich, April 26, 1719 in the Trinity Church of St. Petersburg, a relative of the disgraced Tsarina Evdokia and the murdered Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich Romanov, Stepan Lopukhin, chatted loudly and laughed blasphemously.
Soon, during interrogation in the Secret Chancellery, witnesses said that Lopukhin was happy, they say: "Even his, Stepan, the candle has not died out, he will have a future!" During the torture, Lopukhin tried to get out and assured that he did not see himself on the throne, but the Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich, the son of the late Tsarevich Alexei, the future Emperor Peter II. They did not believe him and exiled with his family to Siberia.
Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
On November 4 (October 24), 1723, the ashes were reburied in the Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
The execution of the eldest son and the sudden death of the younger Peter I confused the succession to the throne. On February 5, 1722, the emperor signed the "Charter on the inheritance of the throne" drawn up by himself. He noted that “to impose this Charter, so that this is always in the will of the ruling sovereign, to whom he wants it, he will determine the inheritance and to the certain, seeing what indecency, he will cancel the packs so that children and descendants do not fall into such anger, as it is written above, having this bridle upon me."
Peter the First on his deathbed.
These convulsive attempts of the tsar to introduce a new order in the succession to the throne will not save Russia from palace coups, but will only confuse the course of further events, ascending to the throne Martha Samuilovna Skavronskaya (married to Kruse), after the adoption of Orthodoxy, Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailovuritsa - known as Empress I …
In 1732, Tsarevich Pyotr Petrovich appeared among the Don Cossacks. It turned out to be a dragoon soldier Larion Starodubtsev. During interrogation under torture, he took full responsibility for the uprising. After that, he stopped taking food in order to "kill himself with that."
On November 1, 1733, Empress Anna Ioanovna signed the death warrant to Starodubtsev. His body was burned.
The troubled times of palace coups and false tsars returned to Russia.
