“Anna Mons is a foreigner, the daughter of a wine merchant is a girl, for the love of which Peter especially zealously turned old Russia to face the West and turned so abruptly that Russia still remains a little bit crooked” (D. L. Mordovtsev, “Idealists and Realists”, 1878) … At the end of the life of the Russian emperor, the mere mention of the name Mons literally shook …
Destroyer of spiritual bonds
In pre-Petrine Russia, the personal life of monarchs was regulated by church canons and, of course, was not paraded. The wild life of Ivan the Terrible, whose number of wives historians cannot figure out to this day, is rather an exception to the rule. At the same time, even Ivan Vasilyevich tried to give the appearance of legality to his relations with women.
The young Tsar Pyotr Alekseevich did not even think about encroaching on the moral foundations of his Fatherland, but life decided otherwise.
Faithhorn. Portrait of Peter I.
In 1689, 17-year-old Peter, at the insistence of his mother, married Evdokia Lopukhina. The wife, who was three years older than the tsar, was brought up in a traditional Russian family, and she categorically did not understand Peter's craving for everything European.
It is hardly worth talking about the cooling in the relationship between the king and his wife - there was no intimacy and warmth initially.
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Peter, despite the hopes of his mother, did not want to settle down, and spent time with his friends, alternating his passion for the sea business with merry revels.
One of the tsar's close friends at this time was a native of Geneva, who was in the Russian military service, Franz Lefort.
Lefort recommends
It was Lefort who introduced Peter in 1690 to his same age, 18-year-old beauty from the German settlement Anna Mons.
Anna was the youngest daughter of Johann Georg Mons, a German wine merchant and innkeeper. A native of Westphalia, Johann Mons moved with his family to Russia in search of a better life.
Portrait of F. Ya. Lefort at the end of the 17th century.
By the time Anna met Peter, the Mons family was one of the wealthy inhabitants of the German settlement. After the death of Johann Mons, his widow had to give up the mill and shop for debts, but the house with the hotel remained in the family's property.
About Anna's mother, Matilda Mons, contemporaries spoke not very well. The widow, left with four children, provided the future of the family with all available means, not worrying too much about the moral side of the issue. Roughly speaking, Matilda tried to "put" Anna in the bed of influential and wealthy men.
One of these was Franz Lefort, who recommended his former mistress to the king.
Apparently, Anna was in no way burdened with the role that her mother had assigned her. Anna saw her acquaintance with the Russian tsar as a success, flattering her female pride and promising considerable benefits.
Our Petya seems to have fallen in love …
But then something happened that, most likely, even Lefort did not expect - the young tsar truly fell in love with a beautiful German woman. Until that moment, Peter did not know this feeling, he had nothing for the wife imposed by his mother, and Anna, brought up in the freer and more liberated customs of Europe, touched the most tender strings of his soul.
Their romance stretched out for more than a decade, although even Peter's close friends were skeptical of this ardor of the tsar.
House of Anna Mons in the German Quarter in the painting by Alexander Benois.
He showered Anna with favors and gifts - Anna and her mother were paid an annual boarding house of 708 rubles, a luxurious two-story stone house was built for them in the Nemetskaya Sloboda at public expense, and the Dudinsk volost was granted to her as an estate. A personal gift to Anna was a miniature portrait of Peter, decorated with diamonds, the cost of which was estimated at a thousand rubles.
In 1698, the tsar, returning from the Grand Embassy, first visited not his legal wife, but Anna. As for Evdokia Lopukhina, a week later, Peter sent her to a monastery in Suzdal.
This completely ruined Anna's reputation in the eyes of the Russians. The first favorite in Russia was accused of “bewitching” the tsar and forcing him to “destroy Russia”. This meant the transformation of Russian life in the European manner, begun by Peter I.
Calculation instead of feelings
The tsar did not pay attention to the antipathy of the people to his beloved, and seriously thought about entering into a legal marriage with Anna. This idea, however, did not attract the approval of even the most loyal supporters of Peter. First of all, because they, not blinded by feelings, saw and heard what the king himself did not want to hear.
Anna Mons actively used the position of a favorite for her own enrichment, as well as for the enrichment of relatives and friends. The people nicknamed Anna "Kukui Queen" - by the second name of the Moscow German settlement, which was called Kukui.
Historians who have studied Anna's letters to Peter I note that they almost entirely consist of various requests, and are almost completely devoid of tender feelings for the king. The calculating Anna enjoyed the love of Peter, but did not feel any reciprocal emotions. The king himself periodically noticed this, and blamed his beloved, but then feelings again prevailed.
It was rumored for a long time that Anna had relationships with other men behind Peter's back, but the king of daredevils could not say this to the face of the king.
The tsar let the groom Anna Mons down the stairs
As is most often the case in such cases, the truth was revealed suddenly. On April 11, 1703, during the celebrations in Shlisselburg on the occasion of the completion of the repair of the yacht, the Saxon envoy Konigsek fell into the Neva and drowned.
The deceased's belongings contained Anna Mons's medallion and love letters. It turned out that the relationship between Anna and the envoy began when Peter I was leaving for the Great Embassy.
The king was crushed by such betrayal. The relationship with Anna ended, although she tried to write letters of repentance to Peter. By order of the king, she was placed under house arrest.
Catherine I Alekseevna Skavronskaya.
In a couple of years, Peter I will meet Martha Skavronskaya, a foreigner of even less noble birth, who will then become his second wife and the Russian empress.
As for Anna, the king no longer wanted to hear about her. She was accused of divination, the house was confiscated, and several dozen people associated with her ended up in prison.
The Prussian envoy Georg-John von Keyserling tried to get Peter I to cancel the house arrest of Anna Mons and permission to marry her, but the angry monarch, along with the faithful Menshikov, naturally lowered the groom down the stairs.
The offended envoy challenged Menshikov to a duel. The air smelled of a military conflict between the two states, but the situation was still resolved.
The brother of the favorite did not blow his head
Only in 1711 did Keyserling obtain permission for the marriage, which was concluded in June, but in December Anna's husband died suddenly on the way to Berlin.
For the next three years, Anna Mons litigated for the property of the deceased spouse with his relatives in Courland and still achieved a decision in her favor.
However, she practically did not have time to enjoy this acquisition. The litigation ended in March, and on August 15, 1714, 42-year-old Anne Mons died of fleeting consumption.
Anna Ivanovna Mons, Anna-Margreta von Monson, "Monsicha", Queen of Kukui - favorite of Peter I for more than ten years (from 1691 or 1692).
Her death also became the cause of disputes over the division of property between Anna's last lover, the captive Swedish captain Karl-Johann von Miller, and the brother and sister of the deceased. This dispute was eventually resolved in favor of the relatives of the disgraced favorite.
The fate of Anna's brother, Willim Mons, who received a share in his sister's inheritance, turned out to be unenviable. Having succeeded in the Russian military service and achieved the post of adjutant to the emperor, Mons was eventually executed in November 1724 on charges of bribery and other illegal actions. The real reason for the massacre of Willim Mons was his close relationship with … Empress Catherine.
According to legend, William Mons's head was preserved in alcohol, and for many decades it was kept in the basements of the building of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Historians who checked this legend, however, did not manage to find the head of Peter the Great's favorite brother in alcohol.
Andrey Sidorchik
