Peter III Fedorovich (nee Karl Peter Ulrich, born February 10 (21), 1728 - death July 6 (17), 1762) - Russian emperor in 1762. The grandson of Peter I is the son of his daughter Anna.
Origin
Peter III's mother, Anna Petrovna, died of consumption two months after his birth in the small Holstein town of Kiel. She was overwhelmed by the life there and the unhappy family life. Peter's father, Duke of Holstein Karl Friedrich, nephew of the Swedish king Karl XII, was a weak sovereign, poor, ugly, small in stature and weak build. He died in 1739, and his cousin, the Duke of Holstein and the Bishop of Lubeck, Adolf Friedrich, took custody of his son, who was at that time about 11 years old, who later came to the Swedish throne. Peter was naturally weak, frail and nondescript-looking child.
Childhood, adolescence, education
The main educators were the court marshal of his court Brummer and the chief chamberlain Berchholz. None of them were suitable for this role. According to the testimony of the Frenchman Millet, Brummer was good only for "raising horses, not princes." He treated his pupil extremely rudely, subjecting him to humiliating and painful punishments, forced him to kneel on peas scattered on the floor, left him without dinner, and even subjected him to beatings.
Humiliated and shy in everything, the prince adopted bad tastes and habits, became irritable, absurd, stubborn and fake, acquired a sad tendency to lie, believing in his own fiction with innocent enthusiasm. At the same time, Peter remained puny and unattractive, both physically and morally. He possessed a strange, restless soul trapped in a narrow, anemic, prematurely emaciated body. Even as a child, he discovered a tendency to drunkenness, which is why the teachers were forced to closely monitor him at all receptions.
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Heir to the throne
Initially, the prince was prepared for the accession to the Swedish throne, while being forced to learn the Lutheran catechism, Swedish and Latin grammar. However, Elizabeth I, having become a Russian empress and wanting to ensure the inheritance through her father, sent Major Korf with instructions to take her nephew from Kiel at any cost and bring him to Petersburg.
Arrival in Russia
Peter arrived in the Russian capital on February 5, 1742 and was soon declared Grand Duke and heir to the Russian throne. After communicating with her nephew, Elizabeth was amazed at his ignorance and ordered to immediately start teaching. Little use came of this good intention. The teacher of the Russian language Veselovsky rarely appeared from the very beginning, and then, convinced of the complete inability of his ward, he completely stopped walking. Professor Stehlin, who was tasked with teaching the heir to mathematics and history, showed great persistence. And soon he realized that the Grand Duke "does not like deep reflection."
Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich
He brought books with pictures, ancient Russian coins to class and told the ancient history of Russia using them. With the medals of Peter I, Shtelin spoke about the history of his reign. Reading the newspapers to him, he went through universal history.
However, much more important for the empress was the introduction of her nephew to Orthodoxy. On this side, we also met with considerable difficulties, because Peter learned from childhood the rules of the strictest and least tolerant of Lutheranism. In the end, after many troubles for himself, he obeyed the will of the empress, but at the same time he said several times that it would be more pleasant for him to leave for Sweden than to stay in Russia.
One occupation to which the prince indulged himself with selfless perseverance was playing with soldiers. He ordered to make himself many different soldiers: wax, lead and wood, and arranged them in his study on tables with such devices that if you pulled the laces stretched across the tables, sounds like a running gun fire were heard. On regular days, Peter gathered his courtyard, put on a general's uniform and performed a parade inspection of his toy troops, pulling the laces and listening with pleasure to the battle sounds. The Grand Duke kept his love for these childish games for a long time, even after his marriage to Catherine.
Catherine about Peter
From Catherine's notes, it is known what kind of fun he liked to indulge in soon after the wedding. In the village, he made himself a doghouse and began to train the dogs himself.
“With amazing patience,” wrote Catherine, “he trained several dogs, punishing them with cane strikes, shouting hunting terms and walking from one end of his two rooms to the other. As soon as a dog got tired or ran away, he subjected her to severe torture, which made her howl even louder. When these exercises, unbearable for the ears and the calmness of his neighbors, eventually bored him, he took up the violin. Peter did not know the notes, but he had a strong ear and believed that the main advantage of playing was to move the bow harder and make the sounds as loud as possible. His playing tore the ear, and often the listeners had to regret that they did not dare to shut their ears.
Then again there was the training of the dogs and their torture, which truly seemed to me extremely cruel. Once I heard a terrible, incessant screeching. My bedroom, where I sat, was near the room where the dog training took place. I opened the door and saw how the Grand Duke lifted one of the dogs by the collar, ordered the Kalmyk boy to hold her by the tail and beat the poor animal with all his might with a thick stick of his whip. I began to ask him to spare the unfortunate dog, but instead he began to beat her even harder. I went to my room with tears in my eyes, unable to bear such a cruel sight. In general, tears and screams, instead of arousing pity in the Grand Duke, only made him angry. Pity was a painful and, one might say, intolerable feeling for his soul …"
Through Madame Cruz, Peter got himself dolls and children's trinkets, to which he was a passionate hunter. “During the day, he hid them from everyone under my bed,” Ekaterina recalled. - The Grand Duke immediately after supper went into the bedroom, and as soon as we were in bed, Madame Cruz would lock the door, and the Grand Duke began to play until one o'clock and until two in the morning. I, along with Madame Cruz, am glad not happy, had to take part in this pleasant lesson. Sometimes I amused myself with it, but much more often it bored me and even bothered me, because the dolls and toys, some very heavy, filled and filled up the whole bed."
Contemporaries about Peter
Is it any wonder that Catherine gave birth to a child only 9 years after the wedding? Although there were other explanations for this delay. Champeau, in a report drawn up for the Versailles court in 1758, wrote: “The Grand Duke, without suspecting it, was unable to produce children, due to the obstacle removed among the Eastern peoples by means of circumcision, but which he considered incurable. The Grand Duchess, who did not love him and was not imbued with the consciousness of having heirs, was not saddened by this."
For his part, Caster wrote: “He (the Grand Duke) was so ashamed of the misfortune that struck him that he did not even have the determination to confess it, and the Grand Duchess, who received his caresses with disgust and was at that time as inexperienced as she did not think of either comforting him or encouraging him to seek means to return him to her arms."
Peter III and Catherine II
According to the same Champeau, the Grand Duke got rid of his lack with the help of Catherine's lover Sergei Saltykov. It happened like this. Once the whole courtyard attended a big ball. The Empress, passing by the pregnant Naryshkina, Saltykov's sister-in-law, who was talking to Saltykov, told her that she should have conveyed a little of her virtue to the Grand Duchess. Naryshkina replied that it might not be as difficult to do as it seems. Elizabeth began to question her and thus learned about the physical disability of the Grand Duke. Saltykov immediately said that he enjoyed Peter's confidence and would try to persuade him to agree to the operation. The Empress not only agreed to this, but made it clear that by doing so he would be of great service. On the same day, Saltykov arranged a dinner,invited all good friends of Peter to him, and in a cheerful moment they all surrounded the Grand Duke and asked him to agree to their requests. The surgeon immediately entered, and in one minute the operation was done and was a great success. Peter was finally able to enter into normal communication with his wife and soon after that she became pregnant.
But if Peter and Catherine united to conceive a child, after his birth they felt absolutely free from marital obligations. Each of them knew about the other's love interests and treated them with complete indifference. Catherine fell in love with Augustus Poniatowski, and the Grand Duke began courting Countess Elizaveta Vorontsova. The latter soon took complete power over Peter.
Contemporaries amicably expressed bewilderment on this score, because they absolutely could not explain how she could bewitch the Grand Duke. Vorontsova was completely ugly and even more. “Ugly, rude and stupid,” Masson said about her. Another witness put it even more harshly: "She swore like a soldier, mowed, smelled and spat while talking." It was rumored that Vorontsova encouraged all the vices of Peter, got drunk with him, scolded and even beat her lover. By all accounts, this was a wicked and ignorant woman. Nevertheless, Peter did not want anything so much as to marry her, having previously divorced Catherine. But while Elizabeth was alive, one could only dream of it.
Everyone who more or less knew the Grand Duke had no doubt that with his coming to power, Russian policy would change dramatically. Peter's Prussian affections were generally known, because he did not consider it necessary to hide them (and in general, by his very nature, he could not keep secrets and immediately blurted them out to the first person he met; this vice harmed him more than any other in the future).
Accession to the throne of Peter III
1761, December 25 - Elizabeth died. On the very first night of his accession to the throne, Peter sent messengers to various corps of the Russian army with orders to stop enemy actions. On the same day, the favorite of the new emperor, the brigadier and chamberlain Andrei Gudovich, was sent to the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst with a notice of the accession to the throne of Peter III and took the emperor's letter to Frederick. In it, Peter III proposed to Frederick to renew harmony and friendship. Both were accepted with the greatest gratitude.
Foreign and domestic policy of Peter III
Frederick immediately sent his adjutant Colonel Golts to Petersburg. On April 24, peace was concluded, at the same time on the most favorable terms for Frederick: the Prussian king was returned to all his lands occupied by Russian troops in the former war; a separate paragraph proclaimed the desire of both sovereigns to conclude a military alliance, which was obviously directed against Austria, Russia's former ally.
Elizaveta Vorontsova
Peter behaved in the same radical way in domestic politics. On February 18, a manifesto on the freedom of the nobility was promulgated. From now on, all nobles, no matter what service they were in, military or civil, could continue it or retire. Prince Petr Dolgorukov tells an anecdote about how this famous manifesto was written. One evening, when Peter wanted to cheat on his mistress, he called State Secretary Dmitry Volkov and addressed him with these words: “I told Vorontsova that I would work with you for part of the night on a law of extreme importance. That is why I need a decree the next day, which would be discussed at court and in the city. After that, Volkov was locked in an empty room with a Danish dog. The unfortunate secretary did not know what to write about; finally rememberedwhat Count Roman Larionovich Vorontsov most often told the sovereign was the freedom of the nobility. Volkov wrote a manifesto, which was approved by the sovereign the next day.
On February 21, a very important manifesto is published, abolishing the Secret Chancellery, an agency known for its many abuses and obvious atrocities. On March 21, a decree appears on the secularization of church holdings. According to him, monasteries were deprived of their numerous land holdings, and monks and priests were given fixed state salaries.
Meanwhile, Goltz, who even after the signing of the peace continued to remain in Petersburg and had a great influence on the sovereign in all matters, anxiously informed Frederick of the growing discontent against the emperor. Bolotov wrote about the same in his notes. Having mentioned some of the decrees of the new reign that aroused the pleasure of the Russians, he further writes:
“But the subsequent subsequent orders of the emperor aroused strong murmur and indignation in the subjects, and most of all, he intended to completely change our religion, for which he showed special contempt. He summoned the leading bishop (Novgorod) Dmitry Sechenov and ordered him that only icons of the Savior and the Mother of God be left in the churches, and there would be no others, also that the priests shave their beards and wear clothes like foreign pastors. It is impossible to describe how astonished Archbishop Dmitry was at this order. This prudent elder did not know how to proceed with the execution of this unexpected command, and saw clearly that Peter had an intention to change Orthodoxy to Lutheranism. He was forced to declare his will to the sovereign's most noble clergy, and although the matter stopped there for a while,however, it caused great displeasure in all the clergy."
Palace coup
The displeasure of the troops was added to the displeasure of the clergy. One of the first deeds of the new reign was the dissolution of the Elizabethan life-company, in the place of which they immediately saw a new, Holstein, guard, which enjoyed the clear preference of the sovereign. This aroused murmur and indignation in the Russian guard. As Catherine herself later admitted, she was offered a plan to overthrow Peter III soon after the death of Elizabeth. But she refused to take part in the conspiracy until June 9. On this day, when there was a celebration of peace with the Prussian king, the emperor publicly insulted her at dinner, and in the evening gave the order to arrest her. Uncle Prince George forced the sovereign to cancel this order. Catherine remained at large, but no longer discouraged herself and agreed to accept the help of her volunteers. Chief among them were the Orlov brothers, the guards officers.
The coup was carried out on June 28, 1762 and was crowned with complete success. Upon learning that the guards unanimously supported Catherine, Peter was confused and abdicated the throne without further ado. Panin, who was instructed to transfer the will of his wife to the deposed sovereign, found the unfortunate man in the most miserable state. Peter tried to kiss his hands, begged him not to be separated from his mistress. He cried like a guilty and punished child. The favorite threw herself at the feet of Catherine's messenger and also asked that she was allowed not to leave her lover. But they were still separated. Vorontsova was sent to Moscow, and Peter was assigned a house in Ropsha as a temporary stay, "a very secluded area, but very pleasant", according to Catherine, and located 30 miles from St. Petersburg. Peter had to live there until that timeuntil a suitable room is prepared for him in the Shlisselburg Fortress.
Death
But, as it soon became clear, he did not need these apartments. On the evening of July 6, Catherine received a note from Orlov, written in an unsteady and hardly sober hand. One could understand only one thing: that day Peter at the table had an argument with one of the interlocutors; Orlov and others rushed to separate them, but did it so awkwardly that the frail prisoner turned out to be dead. “We didn't have time to separate him, but he was gone; we ourselves do not remember what we did,”wrote Orlov. Catherine, in her words, was touched and even struck by this death. But none of those responsible for the murder was punished. Peter's body was brought directly to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery and there he was modestly buried next to the former ruler Anna Leopoldovna.
K. Ryzhov