How bizarre the story can sometimes be: the two greatest antagonists of that time - Peter the Great and Charles the Twelfth, had one heir per two thrones! And even after their death, they continued to feud, now for the direct successor of the dynasty … (more about Peter the Great in the article: "This strange king Peter …").
The son of Peter the Great's eldest daughter, Anna and the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Karl Peter Ulrich was born in February 1728. Shortly after birth, his mother died, and at the age of 10 he lost his father. The guardians did not pay attention to him, did not bother with teaching, and his only entertainment was to look at the breaking of the guard of soldiers (this determined the hobby of his whole life and played a decisive fatal role). Often beaten, he tried to assert himself by telling tales, spent a lot of time among the lackeys. He dreamed of completing his father's main business - to take away his former district from Denmark (by the forces of the Swedish or Russian armies, and this will also play a role in his overthrow).
In 1741, his own aunt Elizabeth reigned in Russia and, wishing to secure the throne along the line of her father Peter the Great (she was childless), sends him to take the prince to Russia (in fact, to steal). Upon arrival, he was baptized into Orthodoxy and was named Peter the Third, and in 1745 his aunt married him to Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst (the future Catherine II), who lived poorer than the “church rat” (and having reached power, she then made up for lost due to the Russian people). These two beautiful German children were supposed to make up the future of the Great Russian Empire….
Peter, just like his grandfather, did not like Russia and everything Russian, regretted that he was taken out and did not become the Swedish king, behaved defiantly. At that time, there was a Seven Years War (1756-1763) with Prussia, caused by the struggle of France and England for overseas colonies (they got into their own business again - well, what will you do!), Where his sympathies were on the side of Frederick, about which Peter spoke openly and did not hide at all.
Peter the Third In January 1762, Peter the Third came to the throne and here the most interesting began. Remember the tale of the ugly duckling? So this is definitely about our hero! Already in February, he implements 3 major reforms:
- publishes a manifesto on the freedom of the nobility from compulsory service and the receipt by them of the right to freely leave the country (!) (and other bonuses);
- began the secularization (confiscation) of church lands in favor of the state and freed the church serfs (needless to say that the spiritualized ministers of the church always had a reverent and tender attitude to the material and were definitely not happy with the progressive undertakings of the young reformer);
- liquidated the Secret Chancellery (the Office of Secret Investigative Affairs - BRAVO!). This frail, sickly and strange young man, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, was distinguished by his enormous capacity for work and perseverance, and in just six months of his reign made so many reforms that some rulers had not been honored in decades.
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- The most important thing is that he stopped the war with Prussia (he stopped the death of Russian soldiers for other people's interests - a rare and worthy act for Russian tsars!).
- Declared freedom of religion, stopped persecuting Old Believers.
- Issued a law limiting the personal dependence of serfs on the landowner, which qualified the murder of peasants by landowners as "tyranny torture" and provided for this for life in exile.
- Created the State Bank and issued the first banknotes to encourage commercial and industrial activities.
- Issued a decree on the freedom of foreign trade, which also contains the requirement to respect forests as one of the most important wealth of Russia. One episode with the Senate's proposal is indicative: "for zeal for the welfare of the state," to cast a monument to him from pure gold (!), To which Peter replied that the Senate should find the best use for gold, and in the people's memory he hopes to earn a place with his deeds.
Many of his undertakings were harsh and ill-considered, on the other hand, the smoothness and caution of other monarchs in carrying out urgent reforms, brought Russia to riots, the October coup and the Civil War. The maniacal passion for the Prussian drill, imposed in the army, and the intention to withdraw the Guard from St. Petersburg, and the planning of an incomprehensible Danish campaign (I hurried with a quality rare for tsars …), and a hasty peace with Prussia, which crossed out everything achieved in that war (although it was Catherine who nevertheless gave the conquered lands later).
The guards swear allegiance to Catherine.
The coup was ripe and Catherine took advantage of this: she borrowed 100,000 rubles, ostensibly to buy jewelry, transferred this money to her lovers, the Orlovs, who bought more than 35,000 buckets of vodka and watered the entire capital garrison. In high spirits with vodka, they cheerfully swore allegiance to "Mother Queen" and the job was done. After the coup, Peter did not demand death from others for himself, but gave himself up to fate. With the last decree, he paid the soldiers and officers a month in advance and ordered them not to resist.
A few days later, he signed the abdication of the throne, thereby signing himself a death warrant - on July 3, 1762, he was strangled with a rifle belt, by the hands of Alexei Orlov.
As Johann Biron (pardoned by Peter III) said: “if he hung, chopped off heads and wheeled, he would have remained an emperor, in Russia they love a strong hand” (meaning by this a cruel attitude towards his own people). But the people loved him for everything he hastily done, and Catherine had to fight with her murdered husband after his death (more on this in the next publication).
PS: It is interesting that Paul the First (his son with Catherine was immediately taken away and brought up by Elizabeth), after the death of Catherine II, he crowned Peter III posthumously (he did not have time during his life - he put it off until the end of the Danish campaign), returned his coffin from Alexandro- Nevsky Monastery (he rested there as he was not formally a monarch) and placed it next to Catherine's coffin in the Tsar's tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral (BRAVO!). Read more about this in the article: "Paul the First is killed. England".