Anna of Russia
Anna | |||||
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Empress of Russia | |||||
Reign | 26 (15) February 1730 – 28 (17) October 1740 | ||||
Coronation | 28 April (9 May) 1730 | ||||
Predecessor | Peter II | ||||
Successor | Ivan VI | ||||
Born | Moscow, Tsardom of Russia | 7 February 1693||||
Died | 28 October 1740 Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg Governorate, Russian Empire | (aged 47)||||
Burial | |||||
Spouse | |||||
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House | Romanov | ||||
Father | Ivan V of Russia | ||||
Mother | Praskovia Saltykova | ||||
Religion | Russian Orthodox | ||||
Signature |
Anna Ioannovna (
Early life
Anna was born in Moscow as the daughter of Tsar Ivan V by his wife Praskovia Saltykova. Ivan V was co-ruler of Russia along with his younger half-brother Peter the Great, but he was mentally disabled and reportedly had limited capacity of administering the country effectively, and Peter effectively ruled alone. Ivan V died in February 1696, when Anna was only three years old, and her half-uncle became the sole ruler of Russia.[citation needed]
Although Anna was the fourth child of her parents, she had only one surviving elder sister,
In time, her uncle
Courland Regency
In 1710,
The newly wedded couple spent several weeks in Russia before proceeding to Courland. Only twenty miles out of St. Petersburg, on the road to Courland, on 21 January 1711, Duke Frederick died. The cause of death was uncertain - it has been attributed variously to a chill or to the effects of alcohol.[8]
After her husband died, Anna proceeded to Mitau (now known as Jelgava), the capital of Courland (now western Latvia) and ruled that province for almost twenty years, from 1711 to 1730. During this period, the Russian resident, Count Peter Bestuzhev, was her adviser (and sometimes lover). She never remarried after the death of her husband, but her enemies claimed she conducted a love affair with Duke Ernst Johann von Biron, a prominent courtier, for many years.[citation needed]
Accession
This section needs additional citations for verification. (February 2020) |
In 1730,
Ivan V had been the older brother of Peter the Great and co-ruler with him, and by that reckoning, his daughters may be considered to have the prior claim. However, if seen from the perspective that the successor should be the nearest kin of the most recent monarch, then the daughters of Peter the Great were nearer to the throne, because they were the aunts of the recently deceased Tsar Peter II. The dilemma was made greater because the daughters of Peter the Great had been born out of wedlock, and had been legitimized later by him, after he formally married their mother Catherine I, who had previously been a maid in his household. On the other hand, Praskovia Saltykova, the wife of Ivan V, had been a nobleman's daughter and a devoted wife and mother; moreover, she had been a lady greatly respected for her many virtues, not least her chastity.
Finally, the Russian
The Supreme Privy Council preferred the childless and widowed Duchess of Courland. They hoped that she would feel indebted to the nobles and remain a figurehead at best, and malleable at worst. To make sure of that, the Council convinced Anna to sign a declaration of "Conditions" to her accession, modeled after a Swedish precedent, which stated that Anna was to govern according to their counsel and was not permitted to declare war, call for peace, impose new taxes or spend the revenue of the state without their consent.[1] Without the consent of the council, she could not punish nobility without trial, make grants of estates or villages, appoint high officials, or promote anyone (foreign or Russian) to court office.[9][page needed]
The deliberations of the council were held even as Peter II lay dying of smallpox during the winter of 1729–30. The document of "
Strong-willed and eccentric, Anna was known for her cruelty and vulgar sense of humor.[10] She forced Prince Mikhail Alekseevich Golitsyn to become her court jester and had him married off to her unattractive Kalmyk maid Avdotya Buzheninova.[10] To celebrate the wedding, the Empress had an ice palace measuring thirty-three feet high and eighty feet long built together with icy beds, steps, chairs, windows and even logs of ice in a fireplace of ice.[10] Prince Golitsyn and his bride were placed in a cage atop an elephant and paraded through the streets to this structure, to spend their wedding night in the ice palace, despite it being an extremely cold night in the dead of winter. Empress Anna told the couple to make love and keep their bodies close if they did not wish to freeze to death.[10] Eventually, the couple survived when the maid traded a pearl necklace for a sheepskin coat from one of the guards. An enthusiastic hunter, Anna always kept a rifle by her window so she could blast away at birds at all hours of the day whenever she felt the urge to hunt.[11]
Empress of Russia
Anna continued to lavish architectural advances in St. Petersburg.[12] She completed a waterway that began construction under Peter the Great and called for seafaring ships to accompany this new canal and continue naval expansion.[13] Anna's lover Ernst Johann von Biron was a Baltic German and due to his influence Baltic Germans were favored with government offices, leading to the resentment of the ethnic Russian nobility, though the American historian Walter Moss cautioned that the popular image of the Bironovschina as one of total Baltic German domination of Russia is exaggerated.[11]
Cadet Corps
Anna founded the Cadet Corps in 1731, one year after coming to the throne. The Cadet Corps was a group of young boys starting at the age of eight being trained for the military. It incorporated a very rigorous training program which included all the schooling necessary for someone to hold an important position in the military. As time went on, the program was improved upon by other emperors and empresses, such as Catherine the Great. These began to include the arts and sciences into cadets' schooling, alongside established studies of military topics.[citation needed]
Academy of Science
Anna continued to fund the
The Secret Office of Investigation
Anna resurrected the Secret Office of Investigation, whose purpose was to punish those convicted of political crimes, although some cases were occasionally taken that were not of a political nature.[17] It has been rumored since Anna's reign that Biron was the power behind the Secret Office of Investigation when in fact it was run by the senator A. I. Ushakov. The punishments meted out for the convicted were often very painful and disgusting. For example, some people that had supposedly been plotting against the government had their noses slit in addition to being beaten with the knout.[18] Russian authorities listed a total of around 20,000 Russians—including some of the highest native nobility—who fell victim to Biron and Anna's police.[1]
Office for the Affairs of New Converts
The government under Anna established an Office for the Affairs of New Converts in 1740 to expand the conversion to Orthodoxy. The office which was situated in the Bogoroditsky Monastery in Kazan was staffed by monks and aided by state authorities. Under the empress' decree, they presided under a huge increase in converts where converts were provided goods and cash in return for a "reward for accepting baptism". However, intimidation and violence also played a role in conversions, a Chuvash petition described how the clergy "mercilessly beat them and baptized them against their will", besides this, hundreds of mosques were destroyed. By the 1750s, over 400,000 pagans and Muslims converted.[19]
Nobility
Anna gave many privileges to the nobility. In 1730 she ensured the repeal of Peter the Great's primogeniture law prohibiting the division of estates among heirs. Starting in 1731 landlords were made responsible for their serfs' taxes, which had the effect of tightening their economic bondage further. In 1736, the age for a noble to begin his compulsory service to the state changed to 20 with a 25-year service time. Anna and her government also determined that if a family had more than one son, one could now stay behind to run the family estate.[20]
Westernization
Westernization continued after Peter the Great's reign in areas of prominent Western culture such as the Academy of Science, cadet corps education, and imperial culture including theater and opera.[21] Although not at the fast-paced speed of Westernization under her Uncle Peter's reign, it is evident that a culture of the expansion of knowledge continued during Anna's rule and affected mostly the nobility. It is argued that this success in Westernization is due to the efforts of the German court nobility; the foreigners' impacts are viewed both positively and negatively.[22]
Anna's reign was different from that of other imperial Russian rulers in one respect: her court was almost entirely made up of foreigners, the majority of whom were German. Some observers have argued that historians isolate her rule from Russian history due to their long-term prejudice towards Germans, towards whom Anna seems to have been sympathetic.[23]
There is a lot of mention of Germans throughout the reign of Anna. For example, she often gave them ruling positions in her cabinet and other important decision-making positions. This was because she had very little trust in the Russians. It was because of this strong German influence in government that many Russians came to resent them.[2]
The Imperial Theatre School, known as Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet after 1957, was founded during Anna's reign on May 4, 1738.[24] It was the first ballet school in Russia, as well as the second in the world. The school was established through the initiative of the French ballet master and teacher Jean-Baptiste Landé.[24]
Foreign affairs
During Anna's reign Russia became involved in two major conflicts, the
In 1732
The war against the Turks took four and a half years, a hundred thousand men, and millions of rubles;
The Russians also established a protectorate over the khan of the
Two
Relationship with Biron
After being widowed just weeks following her wedding, Anna never remarried. As empress of Russia, she enjoyed the power she held over all men and may have thought that marriage would undermine her power and position. Nevertheless, Anna's reign is often referred to as "The Age of Biron" (Bironovschina), after her German lover
Death and succession
As her health declined Anna declared her grandnephew,
Anna died on 17 October 1740 at the age of 47 from a kidney stone that made for a slow and painful death.[35] The tsaritsa's final words focused on Biron.[36] Ivan VI was only a two-month-old baby at the time, and his mother, Anna Leopoldovna, was detested for her German counsellors and relations. As a consequence, shortly after Anna's death, Elizabeth Petrovna, legitimized daughter of Peter the Great, managed to gain the favor of the populace, locked Ivan VI in a dungeon, and exiled his mother. Anna was buried three months later on 15 January 1741, leaving behind uncertainty for the future of Russia.[37]
Legacy
In the West, Anna's reign was traditionally viewed as a continuation of the transition from the old Muscovy ways to the European court envisioned by Peter the Great.[1] Her government, on the whole, was prudent, beneficial and even glorious; but it was undoubtedly severe and became at last universally unpopular.[28] Within Russia Anna's reign is often referred to as a "dark era".[2] The issue with her reign derives from her personality flaws. Even considering the need of Russian rulers to avoid displays of weakness, Anna's rule involved questionable actions towards her subjects. She was known to enjoy hunting animals from the palace windows and, on more than a few occasions, humiliated individuals with disabilities. The issues of serfdom, peasant and lower class slavery, taxation, dishonesty, and rule through constant fear persisted in Russia during her rule.[38] Her empire was described by Lefort, the Saxon minister, as being "comparable to a storm-threatened ship, manned by a pilot and crew who are all drunk or asleep. . . with no considerable future".[39] Anna's war with Turkey, economic issues, and conspiracy revolving around her accession all bring to light an ominous glow of the empress' reign.[40] She restored the court in St. Petersburg and brought Russia's political atmosphere back to where Peter the Great had intended,[41] and its grandeur was almost unmatched in Europe or Asia;[42] but such lavish court life was overshadowed by the thousands of men slaughtered in war.[citation needed]
See also
- Bibliography of Russian history (1613–1917)
- Tsars of Russia family tree
Notes
- ^ In Jacobi's ironic and critical historical pastiche, the thoroughly Frenchified ministers, their weaknesses symbolized by crutches and a rolling invalid's chair, are dominated by the absent presence of the Empress, through her empty seat at table and her shadowed portrait looming on the wall; at right a courtier behind the screen eavesdrops on the proceedings.
- Claudius Rondeau noted soon after that "This court begins to have a great deal to say in the affairs of Europe".[28]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Baynes 1878.
- ^ a b c d Lipski 1956, p. 488.
- ^ Longworth 1972, p. 79.
- ^ Longworth 1972, pp. 80, 81.
- ^ a b Longworth 1972, p. 81.
- ^ "Unhinged Facts About Anna of Russia, the Mad Tsarina". 29 April 2020.
- ^ a b Longworth 1972, p. 82.
- ^ a b Longworth 1972, p. 83.
- ^ Curtiss 1974.
- ^ a b c d e Moss 1997, p. 253.
- ^ a b Moss 1997, p. 254.
- ^ Longworth 1972, p. 111.
- ^ Longworth 1972, p. 112.
- ^ a b c d Lipski 1959, p. 2.
- ^ Lipski 1959, p. 4.
- ^ Lipski 1959, p. 5.
- ^ Lipski 1956, p. 481.
- ^ Lipski 1956, p. 482.
- ISBN 978-0-19-959177-0.
- ^ Pipes, Richard, Under the Old Regime, p. 133[full citation needed]
- ^ Lipski 1950, pp. 1–11.
- ^ Lipski.[full citation needed]
- ^ a b Curtiss 1974, p. 72.
- ^ a b "Vaganova Academy - History of the Vaganova Ballet Academy". vaganovaacademy.ru. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
- ^ Bain 1911, p. 68.
- ^ Bain 1911, pp. 68–69.
- ^ Tucker 2010, p. 729.
- ^ a b c d e f Bain 1911, p. 69.
- ^ Lipski 1956, p. 479.
- ^ Lipski 1956, p. 487.
- ^ Hsu, Immunel C.-Y. (1999), The Rise of Modern China, New York, Oxford University Press, p. 115-118
- ^ Hsu, Immunel C.-Y. (1999), The Rise of Modern China, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 115–118
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 84.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 286.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 288.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 289.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, pp. 290–293.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, pp. 231–232.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 232.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, pp. 232–233.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 120.
- ^ Curtiss 1974, p. 63.
References
- Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 2 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 60 ,
- public domain: Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Anne, Empress of Russia". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 68–69. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Curtiss, Mini (1974), A Forgotten Empress: Anna Ivanovna and Her Era., New York: Frederick Unga Publishing Company
- Lipski, Alexander (1950), "Some Aspects of Westernization during the Reign of Anna Ioannovna, 1730–1740", American Slavic and East European Review (1): 1–11
- Lipski, Alexander (1956), "A Re-Examination of the "Dark Era" of Anna Ioanovna", American Slavic and East European Review, 15 (4): 488, JSTOR 3001306
- Lipski, Alexander (1959), "Some Aspects of Russia's Westernization during the Reign of Anna Ioannovna, 1703–1740", American Slavic and East European Review, 18 (1): 2–5, JSTOR 3001041
- Longworth, Philip (1972), The Three Empresses: Catherine I, Anna and Elizabeth of Russia, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
- Moss, Walter (1997), A History of Russia, vol. 1, Boston: McGraw-Hill
- Tucker, Spencer C. (2010), A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, vol. 2, ABC-CLIO, p. 729
External links
- Romanovs. The fourth film. Anna Ioannovna; Anna Leopoldovna; Elizabeth Petrovna on YouTube– Historical reconstruction "The Romanovs". StarMedia. Babich-Design(Russia, 2013)