Terrible Tsarinas

the Marquis de La Chétardie (pleading in favor of France), Marde-

feld (promoting Germany’s interests), and Bestuzhev (a resolute

Russian traditionalist), she had to decide on domestic policies of

every sort, questions that seemed to her to be of great importance

as well. She therefore reorganized the old Senate so that it would

wield the legislature and the judiciary powers from that point for-

ward; she replaced the dysfunctional Cabinet with Her Majesty’s

private Chancellery, and she increased various fines; she raised the

octroi taxes and encouraged settlement by foreign colonists to

populate the uninhabited regions of southern Russia. But these

strictly administrative measures did not ease her main worry.

How could she ensure the future of the dynasty? What would

become of the country if, for one reason or another, she had to

“pass on the torch”?

Since she did not have a child of her own, she was deeply

afraid that after she died — or as a result of some conspiracy —

the young ex-tsar Ivan VI, now dethroned, would succeed her. For

the moment, the baby and his parents were safely tucked away in

Riga. But they were liable to come back into favor some day,

through one of those political upheavals that had become so com-

mon in Russia. To preclude any such possibility, Elizabeth could

< 134 >

Elizabeth’s Triumph

only think of one possible course of action: she would have to

name an heir now, and have him be accepted. However, the can-

didates were few and the choice seemed apparent: the only appro-

priate recipient of this supreme burden was the son of her de-

ceased sister Anna Petrovna, the young prince Charles Peter Ul-

rich of Holstein-Gottorp.

The boy’s father, Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, had

died in 1739; now the orphan, who was about 14 years old, had

been placed under the guardianship of his uncle, Adolf Frederick

of Holstein, Bishop of Lübeck. After making initial inquiries

about the child’s fate, Elizabeth had never really dealt with him.

She suddenly felt obliged to make a sacrifice to the family spirit

and to make up for lost time. As for the uncle-bishop, there could

be no problem. But what would she say to the Russians? Oh well,

this would hardly be the first time that a sovereign who was

three-fourths a foreigner would be offered for their veneration! As

soon as Elizabeth set her mind to this plan, committing the entire

country to support her, secret negotiations began between Russia

and Germany.

Despite the usual precautions, rumors of these talks quickly

spread through the foreign ministries all across Europe. La

Chétardie panicked and hunted around desperately for a way to

head off this new Germanic invasion. Surmising that certain por-

tions of the public would be hostile to her plan, Elizabeth decided

to burn her bridges: without informing Bestuzhev or the Senate,

she dispatched Baron Nicholas Korf to Kiel in order to bring back

the “heir to the crown.” She did not even bother to make inquiries

beforehand to find out how the youth had turned out. As the son

of her beloved sister, he would have to have inherited the most

delightful personality and visual characteristics. She looked for-

ward to this meeting with all the emotion of an expectant mother,

impatient to lay eyes on the son that Heaven was about to present

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Terrible Tsarinas

to her after a long gestation.

Baron Korf conducted his mission with such discretion that

Peter Ulrich’s arrival in St. Petersburg on February 5, 1742, almost

went unnoticed by the hangers-on at the imperial Court. Seeing

her nephew for the first time, Elizabeth, who had been prepared

to feel a lightning bolt of maternal admiration, froze in consterna-

tion. In place of the charming adolescent Adonis that she had ex-

pected, here stood a skinny, scowling, runty fool who only spoke

German, could not put two thoughts together, had a habit of

laughing in an insinuating way and walked about with the look of

a cornered fox. Was this the gift that she was about to spring

upon an unsuspecting Russia?

Stifling her dismay, Elizabeth showed a good face to the

newcomer, awarded him with the medal of St. Andrew, and ap-

pointed tutors to teach him Russian; and she asked Father Simon

Todorsky to instruct him in the basics of the Orthodox religion,

which would be his from now on.

Russia’s Francophiles were already concerned that the ad-

mission of the crown prince to the palace would strengthen Ger-

many’s hand against France in the contest for influence. The

Russophiles, clearly xenophobic, were disturbed that the tsarina

still retained certain prestigious military leaders of foreign origin

like the prince of Hesse-Homburg and the English generals Peter

de Lascy and James Keith. Now, such high level émigrés, who had

clearly demonstrated their loyalty in the past, should have been

above suspicion. One had to hope that sooner or later, in Russia as

elsewhere, common sense would prevail over the proponents of

extremism. Unfortunately, this viewpoint was not very wide-

spread.