It slipped into Russian history as an inaudible shadow, leaving a barely noticeable trace. Then followed almost two hundred years of oblivion, and only now the interest in this woman was reawakened, “whose whole life, covered with the imperial purple, was one insult” (D. Herzen).
Princess Louise Maria Augusta of Baden-Baden arrived in St. Petersburg in October 1792 as the bride of the beloved grandson of Tsarina Catherine, Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich. The empress found the lovely German princess a suitable candidate for the future Russian emperor.
The spouses began to quarrel immediately after the marriage vows were pronounced. Sometimes Elizabeth's maids of honor had to reconcile them. In addition, the crown princess could not get pregnant. The situation took an almost tragic turn when, in 1796, her mother-in-law, Alexander's mother, Maria Feodorovna, gave birth to a son, Nikolai.
The reason for the final breakup was the scandal associated with Platon Zubov, the favorite of the elderly Catherine. The cunning handsome courtier openly took a great interest in the charming crown princess and began to look after her in front of everyone. As a result, Catherine was forced to intervene in the amorous affairs of her favorite, restraining in the most severe form.
WHOSE MARIA?
Against the background of mutual cooling, Elizabeth in 1799 gives birth to a long-awaited child - daughter Maria. And immediately rumors spread that the child was not from Alexander. As a potential father, the Polish prince Adam Czartoryski was called, since 1795 he had been hovering around the crowned couple.
The gossip was immediately brought to the ears of Emperor Paul, and he ordered to send the "presumptuous" Czartoryski to Italy as an envoy at the court of the Sardinian king, and Elizabeth announced a boycott and did not speak to her for three months.
Promotional video:
In 1800, Elizabeth comprehends the first terrible grief from a series of future misfortunes - her daughter Maria dies before she even lives two years. From now on, death will follow Elizabeth on her heels.
On March 11, 1801, the conspirators assassinate Emperor Paul. The heir, hearing that his father was dead, fainted. Maria Feodorovna, who became an inconsolable widow, immediately demanded an imperial crown for herself, which had just rolled off her husband's head. The imperial guard rushed to the castle to deal with the murderers. Count Palen, one of the main organizers of the conspiracy, persuaded the weeping heir to show firmness and show himself to the people in order to convince the agitated public that from now on everything would be "like grandmother's."
And only Elizabeth showed amazing courage and - sanity, acting as a parliamentarian between the groups and convincing her hysterical husband to begin to reign.
She was crowned king on September 15, 1801. But, having become an empress, she did not become happier. At this time, her dear husband Alexander begins to cohabit with the maid of honor Maria Naryshkina, from whom she will have two children. Naryshkina behaved defiantly towards the empress, openly bragging about her pregnancy to a woman who had lost a child.
THE SECOND Daughter - Whose?
Another secret of Elizabeth is associated with the name of the handsome staff-captain of the Cavalry Regiment, Alexei Okhotnikov, with whom she had an affair in 1805. In 1806 she was expecting a child again and shone with happiness.
However, on the eve of her birth, Hunters was killed with a knife while leaving the theater. The murderer was never found, but they whispered that the emperor's brother, Grand Duke Constantine, had sent the mercenary, allegedly hopelessly in love with his brother's wife and jealous of her for Okhotnikov.
Elizabeth gave birth to another daughter, also named Elizabeth. And again rumors are spreading that the child is not from Alexander, but from the killed cavalry guard. After Elizabeth's death, a box was indeed found in her belongings, where Okhotnikov's letters to the Empress were kept, in which he called her his wife, and also a portrait of little Lizanka was kept.
The blows of fate followed one after another. In 1808 Lizanka died at the age of one and a half years. The unhappy mother spent four days without sleep at the bedside of her dead daughter, until it was transferred to the Nevsky Lavra. This terrible grief fundamentally undermined the fragile health of the empress, and Alexander at this time again courted the maid of honor Naryshkin …
A POET'S LOVE
After a series of terrible losses, Elizabeth chose Tsarskoe Selo as a place of her mournful seclusion, becoming, in the words of P. Vyazemsky, "a poetic and mysterious legend." It was there that the young lyceum student Alexander Pushkin saw her.
Among some Pushkin scholars there is an opinion that it was Elizabeth who became the great poet's secret muse. Evidence of this can be found in the work of Alexander Sergeevich. The poet has always been attributed to a passion for Ekaterina Bakunina during the lyceum time, but, in fact, Alexander Pushkin was in love with a completely different lady. He wrote:
“My light, my good genius, The object of my love
And the shine of heavenly eyes …
And the graceful camp, And the snow on her face ….
But, as you know, Katenka Bakunina was a brown-eyed dark-skinned woman, and not at all a pale blue-eyed vision. It is the Empress Elizabeth, melting with suffering, that corresponds to this description.
There could not have been Bakunin and "dear N" in one of the poet's diary entries dating back to 1815. There Alexander Pushkin wrote: “How sweet she was! How the black dress adhered to the cute N…”. If this is Bakunina, then it is very strange that a young cheerful girl was dressed in a black dress, without being in mourning. But, most importantly, Katenka Bakunina visited her brother at the Lyceum in 1816, and the record refers to November 29, 1815. On November 28, Elizaveta Alekseevna, who was at that time in mourning for her sister's husband (hence the black dress), came to Tsarskoe Selo.
HIDDEN CASES
In the war of 1812, the empress took an active part of a purely female persuasion. On her initiative, a female patriotic society emerged, which was engaged in the placement of the wounded, the creation of orphanages and state schools for the education of the children of the dead officers.
In 1812, the Orphan School was created and with it the House of Labor for the maintenance and training at the state expense of the daughters of officers who died in the war. The empress personally took care of this institution, and later it became known as the Elizabethan Institute.
Elizabeth conducted most of her charitable affairs secretly, spending almost all of her personal funds on noble goals (by the way, she refused from her allotted, as an empress, a million, taking only 200 thousand, of which she left only 15 for herself, and all the rest of the money went to the needy).
In 1817, the Empress met the historian Nikolai Karamzin, with whom she developed a very trusting relationship. She reads aloud to the historian her personal diary, which she began to keep from the moment she arrived in Russia. She bequeathed the diary to the historian, but Karamzin died two weeks after her death, and the diary fell into the hands of Emperor Nicholas, who immediately burned it, like all other papers, so that they could not "damage the Empress's reputation."
MYSTERIOUS DEATH
The rapprochement between Elizabeth and Alexander began twenty years later, and the reason, in many respects, was Elizabeth's illness: she was greatly troubled by her heart, since 1810 she began to suffer from heart attacks. By 1825, her life was under threat.
Perhaps at the end of his life, the emperor stirred up some unknown feeling for his abandoned wife. He was seriously concerned about his wife's health. Alexander decides to take his wife to Taganrog. He arrived in Taganrog ten days earlier to prepare everything for the arrival of his wife. Elizabeth wrote that the emperor was so caring that he made the route himself and, driving ahead, made all the necessary orders, as a result of which she did not experience the hardships of moving.
Elizabeth was happy, having left hateful Petersburg: "No visits, no notes to be answered, no one who would constantly distract over trifles."
In Taganrog, Alexander and Elizabeth lived a simple life, enjoying belated family happiness. It, alas, did not last long. At the invitation of M. S. Vorontsov Alexander went to Crimea. From there he returned sick. Until the last minute of his life, Elizabeth looked after him. She closed his eyes.
It is difficult to describe what unfortunate Elizabeth went through when the emperor breathed his last. Her letters to her mother breathe deadly despair: “What should I do with my will, which was subordinated to him, what should I do with the life that I was ready to devote to him? Mom, mom, what to do, what to do? It's dark ahead …"
The body of the emperor was sent to St. Petersburg, and Elizabeth remained in Taganrog until the end of April 1826, since her state of health precluded any possibility of moving.
There is an opinion that it was Elizabeth who became the secret muse of the great poet
On April 22, she left the fateful Taganrog. But I only got to Belyov. Elizaveta Alekseevna died on the night of May 3-4, 1826. She passed away quietly, as she lived. However, the fact that no one in St. Petersburg saw her dead gave rise to all sorts of speculation. There was a rumor that the empress did not die in Belyov, but went to the Syrkov monastery under the name of Vera the Silencer and lived for many more years, having died in 1861. It was also indicated that the cell of Vera the Silent in appearance coincides with the Tomsk cell of the famous elder Fyodor Kuzmich, who was considered by many to be the hiding emperor Alexander I.
Aventine Rossi