There are such historical riddles that, while seemingly unreliable, raise more questions than answers. These, with confidence, include the sudden death of the most controversial Russian emperor - Peter III.
According to history textbooks, the Russian autocrat died from strangulation during a palace coup. And the evidence seems to have been provided. But over time, they seem not so irrefutable. And increasingly, researchers and historians are considering alternative versions of events that happened a long time ago.
Three European states considered Peter to be their heir. The first of them is Sweden, the second is Russia, and the third was part of the German empire - Holstein. The boy had two more names besides Peter: Ulrich and Karl. He was the son of the eldest daughter of Peter the Great.
Unfortunately, three months after birth, the boy lost his mother: she died suddenly. For eleven years he was brought up by his father, Duke Karl-Friedrich. Thanks to him, the boy mastered the basics of military engineering.
The boy's entourage made every effort to prepare the child for the reign of the Swedish throne. On his father's side, he was the nephew of the Swedish king Charles XII, who, because of his love for military campaigns, did not have time to create a family and therefore did not have an heir. The young prince's mentor was his uncle, Bishop Adolf Eitinsky, who brought up hatred of Russia in the boy.
Young Peter did not speak Russian, he considered German as his native language, and also knew a little French. It so happened that the ruling Russian Empress Elizabeth had no direct heirs, so only her nephew could take the Russian throne. Peter moved to Russia, where he was baptized in an Orthodox church and given the name - Peter Fedorovich, and so that the subjects could understand why the boy became the heir, the title was spelled out the words "grandson of Peter the Great."
The young man received neither warmth, nor affection, much less attention from his aunt. Most often, the heir to the Russian throne played with toys, the most favorite were toy soldiers. When the boy arrived in Russia, he was only thirteen years old. But even a few years after arriving in Russia, he preferred to tinker with toy soldiers rather than pay attention to state affairs and a young bride.
After a while, Peter received a more dangerous toy - a detachment of soldiers was ordered for him from Holstein. With great enthusiasm, Peter spent all his time on the parade ground with his "amusing" soldiers, and his young bride stubbornly studied Russian and studied the works of French philosophers. Peter's mistake was that he was always very dismissive of everything that concerned the Russian, did not hide his bad attitude towards all the national traditions of the country. This did not strengthen his authority as the future Russian emperor. At the same time, Catherine constantly emphasized her love for Russia.
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In 1745, the wedding of Peter and Catherine was magnificently celebrated in the capital of the Russian Empire on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. The young spouses did not love each other - they were very different in character and level of education, and even their life priorities were significantly different. Often, Catherine made fun of her spouse, but despite the openly hostile relationship between the spouses, Peter often turned to Catherine for advice when problems arose. Pyotr Fyodorovich often called Ekaterina "lady help".
The heir did not want to fulfill his marital duty: there are letters in which he asked Catherine not to insist on a joint bed. Because of these decisions of the young heir, many contemporaries believed that the son of Catherine Alekseevna, Pavel, was not the child of Peter Fedorovich, and the father was one of the favorites of the wife of the future emperor.
Unfortunately, not only war games distracted the heir to the throne from communicating with his wife. In 1750, the sisters, Catherine and Elizabeth Vorontsov, arrived at the palace. And if the first of the ladies-in-waiting made friends with Ekaterina Alekseevna, then the second became Peter's beloved. Among the maids of honor there were quite beautiful and noble maidens who would hardly have refused Peter, but he chose the "fat and awkward" maid of honor. How not to remember the proverb - "love is evil"!
The love triangle was very entertaining for the courtyard and served as an endless source of gossip and rumors. It was these rumors that turned out to be fatal for the future fate of Peter. Many said that Peter was planning, like his glorious ancestor Peter I, to send his lawful wife to a monastery, and to remarry himself, marrying Elizaveta Vorontsova. Peter openly insulted and taunted his wife, but she patiently endured all the insults and planned to take revenge by looking for a strong ally. Of course, Peter III was also looking for supporters against his aunt the Empress. He especially counted on the help of the King of Prussia. The courtiers convinced him that Frederick II treated Peter with great respect and would help him in all his affairs.
Peter betrayed himself by handing over information about the Russian troops supporting Austria in the war against Prussia into the hands of Frederick II. The Empress, although she was angry, forgave her nephew for the betrayal.
Immediately after the funeral of Empress Elizabeth, Peter was proclaimed emperor.
Catherine considered Peter to be an ignorant soldier and a feeble-minded person. But modern historians claim that Peter III turned out to be an energetic and intelligent sovereign who, in just a few months of his reign, managed to do a lot for the state. Pyotr Fedorovich liquidated the Secret Chancellery. Initiated the introduction of paper money. He became the author of a document on the unimpededness of foreign trade.
He signed documents establishing peace with Prussia. In the officers' circles, the conditions of making peace with the Germans, unfavorable for Russia, caused irritation. Trying to flirt with the aristocracy, Peter III signed the "Manifesto on the Liberty of the Noble." Thanks to the emperor, at the legislative level, it was forbidden to kill and abuse serfs. The persecution of the Old Believers also stopped.
As a result, all the reforms adopted by Peter III were progressive and served for the good of the Fatherland. But the ruling emperor also had a lot of miscalculations: he openly showed rejection of everything Russian, introduced into the army a uniform hated by Russian soldiers and officers, and also entered into an alliance with Frederick II against Denmark. All these steps directed the nobility and the guard against the young emperor. It so happened that Peter III tried to find a way to the hearts of all strata of society, but all his innovations were not accepted by society.
The reason for the conspiracy was the unconfirmed gossip that he plans to introduce services in temples according to the Protestant model. In addition, the Guard betrayed its emperor, taking the side of Catherine. Peter was forced to sign a recantation in favor of his wife, under the supervision of the hating guards. After the abdication of power, Peter III was transported to Ropsha. The main historical mystery is the death of Emperor Peter III.
The official version was that the cause of death was the emperor's illness. And although Peter III could hardly be recognized as a completely healthy person, the excitement due to renunciation could harm the psyche and a completely healthy person. The sudden death of the emperor, moreover, immediately after the abdication, could not but cause numerous rumors and speculations.
The dubious death of the emperor subsequently gave rise to a large number of impostors. More than forty people passed themselves off as Emperor Peter III. The most famous among them was Emelyan Pugachev. In Montenegro, one of these impostors managed to take the royal throne. The last of the impostors was arrested thirty-five years after the death of the emperor! The evidence of the death of Peter III is considered to be the records made by the alleged participant in these events, officer Alexei Orlov for Catherine II. In this letter, Orlov describes in detail the death of the former emperor. According to her, Peter III, bored with idleness, began to drink alcohol in unmeasured quantities and play cards with the guards guarding him. During one of the games, an argument took place, which turned into a scuffle, as a result of which Pyotr Fedorovich was "accidentally" killed. And since during the funeral service of the deceased emperor, everyone saw that the face of the deceased had changed beyond recognition, there was a rumor that instead of Peter III someone else was buried, and the sovereign himself managed to escape and managed to hide.
Orlov's surviving letter sent to Catherine turned out to be a fake: no one saw the original, and only a copy written by another person is known. The assumption that Paul, ascending the throne, destroyed the original of Orlov's note also does not stand up to criticism, since Paul was sure that his father had been mercilessly killed by his mother's associates and would not hide the proof of this fact. By the way, strange as it may seem, the death of the young emperor was not beneficial to Catherine: this could negatively affect her reputation, spoil her relationship with her son and forever attach the label of a “husband-killer” to her. In addition, in Russia, Pyotr Fedorovich did not have support and he could not create a conspiracy to return the Russian throne. Finally, if Catherine wished him death,it would have been enough to leave the former emperor in Peterhof under the supervision of the guards who hate him, and not hide in Ropsha. Pyotr Fedorovich himself hoped that he would be released to his beloved Holstein, but the Empress had already made a decision to imprison him in Shlisserburg.
The secret of this whole story is connected with the royal palace in Ropsha. The history of this residence dates back to the time of the reformer Tsar Peter I. He built it in a picturesque area for the treatment of local mineral water. In 1714, Peter I presented the estate to Fyodor Romodanovsky. The palace was inherited by the descendants of Romodanovsky and each of them rebuilt the estate. In 1742, the entire complex became the property of the state and became the hunting estate of the Empress Elizabeth. An interesting conclusion was made by modern researchers regarding the palace complex. They assumed that the manor's map was encrypted in the Masonic style. And of course, there is an extensive network of underground passages under the complex.
For some reason, the idea that Peter III, guarded by several guardsmen, could use these underground passages to escape, does not seem so crazy, because he visited Ropsha quite often with his aunt Empress Elizabeth. Interesting places where rumors about the salvation of Emperor Peter III were spread. Popular rumor claimed that the fugitive emperor was seen at the Ural Cossacks. There is information that in one of the churches in the Urals, a thanksgiving service was served in honor of the "salvation" of Peter III. Moreover, there were eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw Peter III after the announcement of his death: they recognized him in the Poltava region in the form of a hussar officer, and the serf of the Kursk landowner saw him in the house of his master, then the "deceased" emperor was noticed in Kiev and even at Don.
Summing up, we can conclude that all the rumors only supported the idealized image of the prince-deliverer. Folk legends and stories were formed about the "saved" Emperor Peter III. I would like to believe that Peter III was still able to escape from the Ropsha palace and lived a long life, albeit not in the royal palace. But this historical mystery has not yet been solved by anyone.