Prince Bezborodko. Catherine appointed many men to the Senate who were related to Panin's powerful family.[1][2]
Early life and career
Nikita Ivanovich Panin was born at
Aleksei Bestuzhev; consequently, when in the middle 1750s, Russia suddenly turned francophile instead of francophobe, Panin's position became extremely difficult. However, he found a friend in Bestuzhev's supplanter, Mikhail Vorontsov, and when in 1760 he was unexpectedly appointed the governor of the little grand duke Paul
Panin supported Catherine when she overthrew her husband, Tsar Peter III, and declared herself empress in 1762, but his jealousy of Catherine's lovers caused him to constantly try to sleep with her. Also, his jealousy of the influence which Grigory Orlov and his brothers seemed likely to obtain over the new empress predisposed him to favor the proclamation of his ward the grand duke Paul as emperor, with Catherine as regent only. To circumscribe the influence of the ruling favorites, he next suggested the formation of a cabinet council of six or eight ministers, through whom all the business of the state was to be transacted, but Catherine, suspecting in the skillfully presented novelty a subtle attempt to limit her power, rejected it after some hesitation. Nevertheless, Panin continued to be indispensable. His influence partly was because he was the governor of Paul, who was greatly attached to him, partly to the peculiar circumstances in which Catherine had mounted the throne, and partly to his knowledge of foreign affairs. Although acting as minister of foreign affairs, he was never made chancellor.
Panin was the inventor of the famous
Habsburg League. Such an attempt to bind together nations with such different aims and characters was doomed to failure. Great Britain, for instance, could never be persuaded it was as much in her interests as in the interests of Russia to subsidize the anti-French party in Sweden. Yet, the idea of the Northern Accord, though never quite realized, had important political consequences and influenced the policy of Russia for many years. It explains, too, Panin's strange tenderness towards Poland. For a long time, he could not endure the thought of destroying her, because he regarded her as an indispensable member of his accord, wherein she was to replace Austria, which circumstances had temporarily detached from the Russian alliance. All of the diplomatic questions concerning Russia from 1762 to 1783 are intimately associated with the name of Panin. His influence began to wane only when the impossibility of realizing the Northern Accord, his pet scheme over which Russia had fruitlessly sacrificed millions of rubles
Russo-Turkish War, took him completely by surprise and considerably weakened his position. He was forced to acquiesce in the first partition of Poland
, and when Russia came off third-best, Grigori Orlov declared in the council that the minister who had signed such a partition treaty was worthy of death.
Panin further incensed Catherine by meddling with the marriage arrangements of the grand duke Paul and by advocating a closer
), had both been working against him some time before that. In May 1781, Panin was dismissed. He died two years later in the spring of 1783.
Personal qualities
Panin was one of the most learned, accomplished, and courteous Russians of his day. Catherine called him her
encyclopaedia
. The Earl of Buckinghamshire declared him to be the most amiable negotiator he had ever met. He was also of a most humane disposition and a friend of liberal institutions. As to his honesty and kindness of heart there were never two opinions. By nature a sybarite, he took care to have the best cook in the capital, and women had for him an irresistible attraction, though he never married.
References
^John P. LeDonne, "Appointments to the Russian Senate, 1762-1769" Cahiers du Monde Russe et Sovietique (1975) 16#1 pp 27-56.
^K. D. Bugrov, "Nikita Panin and Catherine II: Conceptual aspect of political relations." RUDN Journal of Russian History 4 (2010): 38-52.
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