Terrible Tsarinas

able than usual.

His provocations recently had reached a new height, as he

had taken up with Brummer, the minister from Holstein, and a

clique of schemers all of German extraction. Furthermore, instead

of being pleased that Her Majesty had named him a colonel in the

Preobrazhensky Regiment, he now had the gall to invite a regi-

ment from Holstein to come and demonstrate what was meant by

discipline and efficiency — two qualities that were, in his view,

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Terrible Tsarinas

sorely lacking in the Russian military.

Elizabeth had long mourned her inability to produce an heir

for Russia herself, but given all these annoyances from her Ger-

manophile nephew she must have been glad, in the end, that he

was in fact not her own son. This disastrous successor resembled

her neither in mind nor spirit. She began to pity the poor girl she

was about to throw at the feet of such an unworthy man. She

would have to do whatever she could to help the new bride win

over, and control, the stupid and fanatical young fellow who was

destined to become emperor one day. If only Sophia could still

rely on her mother to guide her and comfort her in her disappoint-

ment; but with all her airs, Johanna appeared to be as irksome as

Sophia was pleasing, with her aura of sincerity, health and good

cheer.

Some relationships can be sized up in a flash. Elizabeth

sensed that the bond between Johanna and Sophia was more form

than feeling, based on circumstance and need rather than on affec-

tion and sympathy. Maybe Elizabeth could take the girl in hand;

maybe it would be a pleasure to do so. While she had not been

able to do much to mold the Grand Duke, perhaps she could help

Sophia to develop into a happy, clear-headed and independent

woman — without impinging on the husband’s traditional au-

thority.

As a start, she had Razumovsky bring her the insignia of the

Order of St. Catherine, and had two ladies-in-waiting pin them to

the bodice of Sophia’s dress. Razumovsky was aware of her feel-

ings in regard to this unequal but so necessary match, which had

no hope of providing its protagonists with the satisfaction Eliza-

beth had found in her de facto marriage.

In the days that followed, Elizabeth watched closely and had

her ladies-in-waiting report as well on the conduct of the young

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An Autocrat at Work and Play

couple. While Sophia seemed to be waiting for her suitor to un-

dertake some sort of gallant initiative, the foolish grand duke

talked about nothing but the fine qualities of the Prussian Army,

on parade as well as in combat, while systematically denigrating

everything about Russia, from its customs to its history to its re-

ligion. Was he simply trying to assert his independence? As

though in compensation, Sophia began to display the contrary

view on every point, and seemed to find the history and the tradi-

tions of her new homeland more and more appealing.

Both Vasily Adadurov and Simon Todorsky, the tutors ap-

pointed by Her Majesty to instruct Sophia in the Russian lan-

guage and religion, praised her diligence. Enjoying the intellectual

effort, she would study the most difficult problems of vocabulary,

grammar and theology until late at night. Then she caught cold,

and took to bed with a fever. Terrified that they might fail in their

objective, after coming so close, Johanna accused her of shirking

her duties as a princess preparing herself for marriage; she told her

to get up and get back to work.

The Francophile clique took this development as a positive

sign. If the perspiring, shivering Sophia should fail to recover, a

replacement bride would have to be found — and another candi-

date might be more inclined to favor an Anglo-Austrian alliance.

Elizabeth hotly declared that she would refuse any Saxon candi-

date, come what may.

The men of medicine recommended bleeding the patient;

Johanna was against it. Elizabeth, under pressure from her per-

sonal physician, Lestocq, cast the deciding vote and Sophia was

bled 17 times in seven weeks. That was how they saved horses,

and that is how they saved her. Back on her feet but still very

weak, she went straight back into the fray.

She was to celebrate her 15th birthday on April 21, 1744, but

she was so pale and thin that she was afraid she would make a

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Terrible Tsarinas

poor impression on the public, and maybe even on her fiancé.

Moved by an uncharacteristic solicitude, Elizabeth sent her some

rouge and suggested she touch up her face in order to appear to

better advantage. Impressed by Figchen’s courage, she found the

charming girl (who was unrelated to her, but was so eager to be-

come Russian) far more worthy than her pitiful nephew and

adoptive son (who was adamant in remaining German).

Meanwhile, Johanna was busily engaging in high politics

and covert diplomacy. She received visits from all the traditional

enemies of Chancellor Alexis Bestuzhev, the inveterate Russo-

phile. La Chétardie, Lestocq and Brummer held clandestine meet-