Notater:

{geni:occupation} Queen of Russia

{geni:about_me} * Sophie Friederike Auguste princess of Anhalt-Zerbst
*By marriage Ekaterina Alexseivna Romanov
*Catherine II(Russian: XXXXXXXXX II XXXXXXX, Yekaterina II Velikaya), also known as Catherine the Great (German: Katharina die Große) on 9th july 1762


==Links:==

*[http://thepeerage.com/p10195.htm#i101941 The Peerage]
*[http://www.geneall.net/W/per_page.php?id=5082 Geneall]
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great Wikipedia]
*'''Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias:''' Reign 9 July 1762 X 17 November 1796 (34 years, 131 days) Coronation 12 September 1762
>'''Predecessor:''' [http://www.geni.com/people/Peter-III-Romanov/6000000003628136249 Peter III] '''Successor:''' [http://www.geni.com/people/Emperor-Paul-I-of-Russia-Reign-1796-1801/6000000001449295063 Paul I]

"OF ANHALT", DAUGHTER OF THE GERMAN PRINCE OF ANHALT-SERBST; LATER
"YEKATERINA/CATHERINE II""CATHERINE THE GREAT"; TSARINA/EMPRESS 1762-1796

Catherine the Great of Russia - aka Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, or Catherine
Alekseevna, Empress Catherine II of Russia was the wife of Peter III of
Russia. Became estranged from Peter soon after their marriage. She helped
to have him deposed with the aid of Grigori Orlov, Potemkin, Princess
Dashkova, and others. She succeeded him to the throne on 28 June 1762,
and the following day had Peter III imprisoned. She proclaimed that
Russia was in dire danger from foreign domination of her government, the
church, and the culture of the country were at stake, and the safety of
the nations welfare was in jeopardy. Her take-over was extraordinary
without any bloodshed. She broke off relations with Frederick II of
Prussian, and had her friend, Stanislaus Poniatowski, elected King of
Poland. She won two wars with Turkey; extending Russia's border to the
Black Sea. She imported German farmers from her country to populate and
farm this new aquisition - promising them they would be free of army
service. Her coronation at the Kremlin 22 September 1762 was the most
spectacular ever recorded in Russia. During her reign serfdom and misery
among peasants increased. But the borders of Russia expanded and increased
by her large conquests. She participated in the partition of Poland
(1772-1793-95).
She won victoris over the Turks in 1768=1772; and by Treaty of Kuchuk
Kainarja (1774) annexed the Crimea. She thoroughly identified herself
with the Russia people - although she herself was German. She died of
natural causes 5 November 1796.

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Stanislaw II August Poniatowski, King of Poland. Stanislaw ble født 17 Jan 1732 , Wolczyn, Poland; døde 12 Feb 1798, St Petersburg, Russia; ble begravet , King of Poland. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Grigory XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX Potemkin-Tavricheski XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX, XXXXX. Grigory ble født 11 Okt 1739 , Chizhovo, Russia; døde 16 Okt 1791, Jassy, Romania; ble begravet , St. Catherine´s Cathedral, Kherson, Ukraine. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Platon (XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX) Zubov (XXXX XXXXX). Platon ble født 15 Nov 1767 , Vladimir, Russia; døde 7 Apr 1822, JoniXkis, Lithuania. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Fürst Grigori Grigorjewitsch Orlow, Count , Graf. Fürst ble født 6 Okt 1734 , selo Lyutkino, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; døde 13 Apr 1783, Moscow, Russian Federation. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Sergiusz SaXtykow. Sergiusz ble født cirka 1726; døde cirka 1765. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Aleksandr Zavadovskij. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Familie/Ektefelle/partner: Aleksander Vassiltjikov. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Catharina giftet seg med Peter III XXXX III Fyodorovich XëXXXXXXX, Romanov PoXXXXX Tsar of all the Russians, Tsar of all the Russians 24 Aug 1745, St. Petersburg, Russia. Peter (sønn av Carl Friedrich zu Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, Herzog og Anna XXXX Petrovna XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXa, Herzogin zu Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp) ble født 21 Feb 1728 , Kiel, Holstein, Deutschland(HRR); ble døpt , Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov line Petr Feodorovich; døde 17 Jul 1762, Ropsha, Leningrad Oblast, Russia; ble begravet cirka Des 1796, Exhumed and currently buried at Peter and Paul Cathedral. [Gruppeskjema] [Familiediagram]

Notater:

{geni:occupation} Princess

{geni:about_me} http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Piotrowna_(c%C3%B3rka_Katarzyny_II)

Notater:

{geni:occupation} Kreivitär

{geni:about_me} Annantehdas, ent. rautatehdas Suojärvellä, Neuvostoliitolle 1940 luovutetulla alueella, per. 1809 kreivitär Anna Aleksejevna Orlova, Suojärven lahjoitusmaan silloinen haltija. Lahjoitusmaa rautaruukkeineen siirtyisittemmin Venäjän valtiolle, joka luovutti 1880 siitä n. 1/3 talonpojille perintömaaksi, mutta pidätti itselleen rautaruukin ja 2/3 Suojärven kunnasta. Siirtyi Tarton rauhanteossa 1920 Suomen valtiolle.

Notater:

{geni:occupation} Kreivi

{geni:about_me} http://www.bogoroditsk.ru/bobrinsk.htm
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX, XX XXX XXXXXXX X XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX, XXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX. XXXXX XX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXX XXXXXX, XXXXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX X XXXXX XXXXX. XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX, XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXXX X XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX "XXXX XXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX". XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX, XX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXX X XXXX XX XXXXXXXXX. XXX XXXXX I XXX XXXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXXXX. X XXXXXXX XXXXXX XX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX, XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXX (XXXXXXXX, XXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XX XXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXX XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX, X X XXXXXXXXXXX XX XXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXXX XXXX). XXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXX X XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX, XXXXX XX XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX. X XXXXXXX X XXXXXXXXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX, X X. X. XXXXXXX, XXXXXX X 1803 XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX, XXXXX X XXXXX XXXXXXXX "XXXXXX" XXXXXXXX.
XXXXXXX X.X. XXXXXXXXXX (X.X. XXXXXXX)
XXXXXXX X.X. XXXXXXXXXXX (X.X. XXXXXXX)

X XXXXXXXXXXX X XXXXX X XXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX 1812 XXXX, XXX XX X XXXX 1813 XXXX XXXXXXXX XX XXXX XXXXXX XXXX.

Notater:

{geni:occupation} Emperor of Russia, grand-duc de Russie, empereur de Russie (17 November 1796 - 23 March 1801), Tsar 1796 - 1801, Tsar 1796-, Tsar of Russia

{geni:about_me} Paul I Emperor of All Russia (Russian: XXXXXX I XXXXXXXXX)

* Father:

Peter III

* Mother:

Catherine II the Great

* Spouse:

Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg

* Issue:

Alexander I

Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich

Archduchess Alexandra of Austria

Elena, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Maria, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Catherine, Queen of Württemberg

Olga Pavlovna

Anna, Queen of the Netherlands

Nikolai I

Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich

*'''Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias''' Reign 17. November 1796 X 23. March 1801Coronation 5. Apri 1797 '''Predecessor''' [http://www.geni.com/people/index/4215208366090031541 Catherine II]
Successor Alexander I
*'''Duke of Holstein-Gottorp''' Reign 7. July 1762 X 1. July 1773
Predecessor Carl Peter Ulrich]
Successor Christian VII of Denmark
Count of Oldenburg
Reign 1 July X 14 December 1773
Predecessor Christian VII of Denmark
Successor Frederick Augustus I
Predecessor: http://www.geni.com/people/Catharina-II-Romanov/4215208366090031541#/tab/overview

Successor: http://www.geni.com/people/Emperor-Alexander-I-of-Russia-Reign-1801-1825/6000000001449427127#/tab/overview

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_I_of_Russia

Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.

Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth in St Petersburg. He was the son of Elizabeth's heir, her nephew, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor Peter III, and his wife, the Grand Duchess Catherine, later Empress Catherine II. In her memoirs, Catherine strongly implies that Paul's father was not Peter, but one of her lovers, Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and so could not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is possible that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt onPaul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim. He physically resembled the Grand Duke so one might doubt the claims of illegitimacy.

During his infancy, Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy, he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnosed facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the British Ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764. However, others suggest that the Empress, who was usually very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in the charge of a trustworthy governor, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.

Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina Louisa (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), one of the daughters of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1773, and allowed him to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. His tutor, Poroshin, complained of him that he was "always in a hurry," acting and speaking without reflection.

After his first wife died in childbirth, his mother arranged another marriage on 7 October 1776, with the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, given the new name Maria Feodorovna. At this time he began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination. He also suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken glass to be mingled with his food.

Yet, though his mother removed him from the council and began to keep him at a distance, her actions can not be termed unkind. The use made of his name by the rebel Pugachev, who had impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubtto render Paul's position more difficult. On the birth of his first child in 1777 the Empress gave him an estate, Pavlovsk. Paul and his wife gained leave to travel through western Europe in 1781X1782. In 1783 the Empress grantedhim another estate at Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian model, still an unpopular stance at the time.

Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a stroke on 5 November 1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and, if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumouredthat she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.

The army, then poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month of Paul's ascension. His father Peter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the St. Michael's Castle reads in Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious allusion to the Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the dedication by Catherine on the 'Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Both qualities, it must be added, which the Russian people greatly favoured as typical of benevolent autocrats of the time. During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the harsh policies of his mother. Although he accused many of Jacobinism, he allowed Catherine's best known critic, Radishchev, to return from Siberian exile. Along with Radishchev, he liberated Novikov from the fortress of Shlisselburg, and also Tadeusz KoXciuszko, yet both liberated persons were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling a medieval chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites Kutusov, Arakcheyev, Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented to her lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who did not share his chivalric views were dismissedor lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fell into this category.

In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made of his courtly love affair with Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail in his ideal of chivalric manhood.

Emperor Paul also ordered the bones of Grigory Potyomkin, one of his mother's lovers, dug out of their grave and scattered.

Paul's handling of foreign affairs plunged the country into successive wars against allies hastily abandoned. After withdrawing plans of a joint Russo-French naval assault on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, he allied with the United Kingdom against Napoleon in the War of the Second Coalition. In 1798 he sent Suvorov to batter Napoleon in Switzerland and Ushakov to assist Nelson's operations in the Mediterranean. After hard won success in these campaigns, the emperor turned against the United Kingdom in 1801: realigning Russia in armed neutrality against the former ally and dispatching a Cossack expeditionary force to fight the British in India (see Indian March ofPaul). In both cases it seems as if he acted on personal pique, quarreling with France because he took a "sentimental" interest in the Knights Hospitaller, and then with the United Kingdom after it had captured Malta, the Hospitaller's traditional home.

Paul's premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. Although he repealed Catherine's law which allowed the corporal punishment of the free classes and directed reforms which resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organized, some months before it was executed, by Counts Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and the half-Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer Admiral Ribas. The death of Ribas delayed the execution. On the night of the 23 March [O.S. 11 March] 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the newly built St Michael's Castle by a band of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and General Yashvil, a Georgian. They charged into his bedroom, flushed with drink after supping together, and found Paul hiding behind some drapes in the corner. The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, after which he was strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, the 23-year-old Alexander I; who was actually in the palace, and to whom General Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins, announced his accession, accompanied by the admonition, "Time to grow up! Go and rule!".

As Dr Michael Foster points out: The popular view of Paul I has long been that he was mad, had a mistress, and accepted the office of Grand Master of the Order of St John, which furthered his delusions. These eccentricities and his unpredictability in other areas naturally led, this view goes, to his assassination. This portrait of Paul was promoted by his assassins and their supporters.

There is some evidence that Paul I was venerated as a saint among the Russian Orthodox populace [4], even though he was never officially canonized by any of the Orthodox Churches.

A recent film on the rule of Paul I was produced by Lenfilm in 2003. Poor, Poor Paul ("XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX") is directed by Vitaliy Mel'nikov and stars Viktor Sukhorukov as Paul and Oleg Yankovsky as Count Pahlen, who headed a conspiracy against him. The film portrays Paul I more compassionately than the long-existing stories about him. The movie won the Michael Tariverdiev Prize for best music to a film at the Open Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr" in 2003.









Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth In St Petersburg. He was the son of the Grand Duchess, later Empress, Catherine II. In her memoirs, she strongly implies that his father was not her husband, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor, but her lover Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and socould not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is fairly likely that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt on Paul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim. He physically resembled the Grand Duke so one might doubt the claims of illegitimacy.

During his infancy, Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy, he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnosed facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the British Ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764. However, others suggest that the Empress, who was usually very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in the charge of a trustworthy governor, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.

Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina Louisa (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), one of the daughters of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1773, and allowed him to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. His tutor, Poroshin, complained of him that he was "always in a hurry," acting and speaking without reflection.

After his first wife died in childbirth, his mother arranged another marriage on October 7, 1776, with the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, given the new name Maria Feodorovna. At this time he began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination. He also suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken glass to be mingled with his food.

Yet, though his mother removed him from the council and began to keep him at a distance, her actions were not unkind. The use made of his name by the rebel Pugachev, who had impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul's position more difficult. On the birth of his first child in 1777 the Empress gave him an estate, Pavlovsk. Paul and his wife gained leave to travel through western Europe in 1781-1782. In 1783 the Empress granted him another estate at Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian model.

Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a stroke on November 5, 1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and, if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumoured that she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the famous Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.

During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the policies of his mother. Although he accused many of Jacobinism and exiled people merely for wearing Parisian dress or reading French books, he allowed Catherine's best known critic, Radishchev, to return from Siberian exile. The army, then poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month of Paul's ascension. His fatherPeter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the St. Michael's Castle reads in Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious mockery of Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the pompous dedication by Catherine on the 'Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Apart from Radishchev, he liberated Novikov from the fortress of Shlisselburg, and also Tadeusz KoXciuszko, yetboth liberated persons were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling amedieval chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites Kutaysov, Arakcheyev, Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented toher lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who did not share his chivalric views were dismissed or lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fell into this category.

In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made of his courtly love affair with Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail in his ideal of chivalric manhood.

Paul's independent conduct of the foreign affairs plunged the country into the War of the Second Coalition against France in 1798, when he sent Suvorov to batter Napoleon in Switzerland and Ushakov to assist Nelson's operations in the Mediterranean. After great hardships endured and great victories won in either campaign, the emperor suddenly changed his mind and turned toward armed neutrality against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

In both cases it seems as if he acted on personal pique, quarrelling with France because he took a "sentimental" interest in the Hospitallers, and then with Britain after it had captured Malta, their traditional home. Besides thepreviously abandoned plans of a joint Russo-French naval assault on the United Kingdom, another of his famous follies was the dispatching of the Cossack expeditionary force to fight the British in India (see Indian March of Paul).

Paul's premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. Although he repealed Catherine's law which allowed the corporal punishment of the free classes and directed reforms which resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organizedXsome months before it was executedXby Counts Petr Alekseevich Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and the half-Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer Admiral Ribas. The death of Ribas delayed the execution. Onthe night of the March 23 [O.S. March 11] 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the newly built St Michael's Castle by a band of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and GeneralYashvil, a Georgian. They charged into his bedroom, flushed with drink after supping together, and found Paul hiding behind some drapes in the corner.[1] The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, after which he was strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, the 23-year-old Alexander IXwho was actually in the palaceXand to whom General Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins, announced his accession, accompanied by the admonition, "Time to grow up! Go and rule!").

The popular view of Paul I has long been that he was mad, had a mistress, and accepted the office of Grand Master of the Order of St John, which furthered his delusions. These eccentricities and his unpredictability in other areas naturally led, this view goes, to his assassination. This portrait of Paul was promoted by his assassins and their supporters, and has become accepted wisdom mainly by repetition.

Comparatively recent research has reconsidered and rehabilitated the character of Paul I. In the 1970s, two academic panels provided the assessments of new research into Paul I: one at Montreal in 1973 and the other at St. Louis in 1976. Some of the findings were presented in 1979: Paul I: A reassessment of His Life and Reign, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1979. The reappraisal of Paul I has demonstrated his character as someone of high morals, who followed his conscience. His infidelity is dismissed as unlikely, and the involvement with the Order of St. John is understood against a background of his idealising their history as a lesson in high chivalric ideals which he wished the Russian nobility would adopt. Paul saw in the Russian nobles an element of degeneracy, and introducing the high ideals of the Knights of Malta was his method of reform. Paul suffered a lonely and strict upbringing, and whilst he was eccentric and neurotic, he was not mentally unbalanced. Though an analysis of his biography reveals an obsessive-compulsive personality, he had "characteristics fairly common in the population at large". Where Paul differed was that, by 1796, he had to manage the whole of the Russian Empire. In some Orthodox Christian churches Paul I is even venerated as a saint[citation needed], although he has not been officially canonized.

A recent film on the rule of Paul I was produced by Lenfilm in 2003. Poor, Poor Paul ("XXXXXX, XXXXXX XXXXX") is directed by Vitaliy Mel'nikov and stars Viktor Sukhorukov as Paul and Oleg Yankovsky as Count Pahlen, who headed a conspiracy against him. The film portrays Paul I more compassionately than the long-existing stories about him. The movie won the Michael Tariverdiev Prize for best music to a film at the Open Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr" in 2003.



--------------------

His Imperial Majesty Paul I, by the Grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias

--------------------

Paul I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias



Reign November 6, 1796 X March 23, 1801

Consort Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg



Father Peter III

Mother Catherine II

Born October 1 1754

St Petersburg

Died March 23 1801

St Michael's Castle



Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth In St Petersburg. He was the son of the Grand Duchess, later Empress, Catherine II. In her memoirs, she strongly implies that his father was not her husband, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor, but her lover Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and socould not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is fairly likely that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt on Paul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim. He physically resembled the Grand Duke so one might doubt the claims of illegitimacy.

During his infancy, Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy, he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnosed facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the British Ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764. However, others suggest that the Empress, who was usually very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in the charge of a trustworthy governor, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.

Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina Louisa (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), one of the daughters of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1773, and allowed him to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. His tutor, Poroshin, complained of him that he was "always in a hurry," acting and speaking without reflection.

After his first wife died in childbirth, his mother arranged another marriage on October 7, 1776, with the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, given the new name Maria Feodorovna. At this time he began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination. He also suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken glass to be mingled with his food.

Yet, though his mother removed him from the council and began to keep him at a distance, her actions were not unkind. The use made of his name by the rebel Pugachev, who had impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul's position more difficult. On the birth of his first child in 1777 the Empress gave him an estate, Pavlovsk. Paul and his wife gained leave to travel through western Europe in 1781-1782. In 1783 the Empress granted him another estate at Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian model.



A statue of Emperor Paul in front of the Pavlovsk Palace.Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a stroke on November 5, 1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and,if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumoured that she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the famous Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.

During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the policies of his mother. Although he accused many of Jacobinism and exiled people merely for wearing Parisian dress or reading French books, he allowed Catherine's best known critic, Radishchev, to return from Siberian exile. The army, then poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month of Paul's ascension. His fatherPeter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the St. Michael's Castle reads in Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious mockery of Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the pompous dedication by Catherine on the 'Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Apart from Radishchev, he liberated Novikov from the fortress of Shlisselburg, and also Tadeusz KoXciuszko, yetboth liberated persons were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling amedieval chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites Kutaysov, Arakcheyev, Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented toher lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who did not share his chivalric views were dismissed or lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fell into this category.

In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made of his courtly love affair with Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail in his ideal of chivalric manhood.

Paul's independent conduct of the foreign affairs plunged the country into the War of the Second Coalition against France in 1798, when he sent Suvorov to batter Napoleon in Switzerland and Ushakov to assist Nelson's operations in the Mediterranean. After great hardships endured and great victories won in either campaign, the emperor suddenly changed his mind and turned toward armed neutrality against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

In both cases it seems as if he acted on personal pique, quarrelling with France because he took a "sentimental" interest in the Hospitallers, and then with Britain after it had captured Malta, their traditional home. Besides thepreviously abandoned plans of a joint Russo-French naval assault on the United Kingdom, another of his famous follies was the dispatching of the Cossack expeditionary force to fight the British in India.



St. Michael's palace, where Emperor Paul was murdered within weeks after the housewarming.Paul's premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. Although he repealed Catherine's law which allowed the corporal punishment of the free classes and directed reforms which resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organizedXsome months before it was executedXby Counts Petr Alekseevich Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and the half-Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer Admiral Ribas. The death of Ribas delayed the execution. Onthe night of the March 23 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the newly built St Michael's Castle by a band of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and General Yashvil, a Georgian. They charged into his bedroom, flushed with drink after supping together, and found Paul hiding behind some drapes in the corner.[1] The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, after which he was strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, the 23-year-old Alexander IXwho was actually in the palaceXand to whom General Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins, announced his accession, accompanied by the admonition, "Time to grow up! Go and rule!").

--------------------

WedXug niepotwierdzonych informacji, byX owocem zwiXzku Katarzyny II z hrabiX Siergiejem SaXtykowem. WedXug innych plotek, rzeczywistym dzieckiem Katarzyny byXa Aleksandra Branicka, którX zaraz po urodzeniu cesarzowa ElXbieta zamieniXa na niemowlX pXci mXskiej niewiadomego pochodzenia.Sam PaweX I bXXdnie uwaXaX siX za syna StanisXawa Augusta Poniatowskiego. WXtpliwoXci mogXaby rozwiaX analiza DNA zwXok PawXa I.

--------------------

Paul I of Russia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul (Russian: XXXXXX I XXXXXXXXX; Pavel Petrovich) (1 October [O.S. 20 September] 1754 X 23 March [O.S. 11 March] 1801) was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.

Childhood

Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth in St Petersburg. He was the son of Elizabeth's heir, her nephew, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor Peter III, and his wife, the Grand Duchess Catherine, later Empress Catherine II. In her memoirs, Catherine strongly implies that Paul's father was not Peter, but her lover Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and so could not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is fairly likely that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt on Paul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim. He physically resembled the Grand Duke so one might doubt the claims of illegitimacy.

During his infancy, Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy, he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnosed facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the British Ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764. However, others suggest that the Empress, who was usually very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in the charge of a trustworthy governor, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.

Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina Louisa (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), one of the daughters of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1773, and allowed him to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. His tutor, Poroshin, complained of him that he was "always in a hurry," acting and speaking without reflection.

[edit]Early life

After his first wife died in childbirth, his mother arranged another marriage on 7 October 1776, with the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, given the new name Maria Feodorovna. At this time he began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination. He also suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken glass to be mingled with his food.

Yet, though his mother removed him from the council and began to keep him at a distance, her actions were not unkind. The use made of his name by the rebel Pugachev, who had impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul's position more difficult. On the birth of his first child in 1777 the Empress gave him an estate, Pavlovsk. Paul and his wife gained leave to travel through western Europe in 1781X1782. In 1783 the Empress granted him another estate at Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian model.

[edit]Ascension to the throne

Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a stroke on 5 November 1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and, if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumouredthat she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the famous Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.

During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the policies of his mother. Although he accused many of Jacobinism and exiled people merely for wearing Parisian dress or reading French books, he allowed Catherine's best known critic, Radishchev, to return from Siberian exile. The army, then poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month of Paul's ascension. His fatherPeter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the St. Michael's Castle reads in Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious allusion to the Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the dedication by Catherine on the 'Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.

[edit]Purported eccentricities

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Apart from Radishchev, he liberated Novikov from the fortress of Shlisselburg, and also Tadeusz KoXciuszko, yetboth liberated persons were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling amedieval chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites Kutaysov, Arakcheyev, Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented toher lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who did not share his chivalric views were dismissed or lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fell into this category.

In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made of his courtly love affair with Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail in his ideal of chivalric manhood.

Morbidly suspicious of democracy and anything Western-European, Paul banned the import of books and censored correspondence with foreigners. He closed down private printing presses and deleted from the Russian dictionary the words meaning: "citizen", "club", "society" and "revolution". In 1797 he dictated a law banning modern dress including round hats, top boots, long pants, and shoes with laces, then sent a couple hundred armed troops onto the streets of St. Petersburg with orders to attack anyone who did not adhere to the new dress code[citation needed].

Emperor Paul also ordered the bones of Grigory Potyomkin, his mother's lover, dug out of their grave and scattered.[1]

[edit]Foreign affairs

Paul's independent conduct of the foreign affairs plunged the country into the War of the Second Coalition against France in 1798, when he sent Suvorov to batter Napoleon in Switzerland and Ushakov to assist Nelson's operations in the Mediterranean. After great hardships endured and great victories won in either campaign, the emperor suddenly changed his mind and turned toward armed neutrality against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

In both cases it seems as if he acted on personal pique, quarrelling with France because he took a "sentimental" interest in the Hospitallers, and then with Britain after it had captured Malta, their traditional home. Besides thepreviously abandoned plans of a joint Russo-French naval assault on the United Kingdom, another of his famous follies was the dispatching of the Cossack expeditionary force to fight the British in India (see Indian March of Paul).

[edit]Assassination

Paul's premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. Although he repealed Catherine's law which allowed the corporal punishment of the free classes and directed reforms which resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organizedXsome months before it was executedXby Counts Petr Alekseevich Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and the half-Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer Admiral Ribas. The death of Ribas delayed the execution. Onthe night of the 23 March [O.S. 11 March] 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the newly built St Michael's Castle by a band of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and GeneralYashvil, a Georgian. They charged into his bedroom, flushed with drink after supping together, and found Paul hiding behind some drapes in the corner.[2] The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, after which he was strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, the 23-year-old Alexander IXwho was actually in the palaceXand to whom General Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins, announced his accession, accompanied by the admonition, "Time to grow up! Go and rule!".

[edit]Legacy

As Dr Michael Foster points out[3]: The popular view of Paul I has long been that he was mad, had a mistress, and accepted the office of Grand Master of the Order of St John, which furthered his delusions. These eccentricities and his unpredictability in other areas naturally led, this view goes, to his assassination. This portrait of Paul was promoted by his assassins and their supporters, and has become accepted wisdom mainly by repetition.

Comparatively recent research has reconsidered and rehabilitated the character of Paul I. In the 1970s, two academic panels provided the assessments of new research into Paul I: one at Montreal in 1973 and the other at St. Louis in 1976. Some of the findings were presented in 1979: Paul I: A reassessment of His Life and Reign, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1979. The reappraisal of Paul I has demonstrated his character as someone of high morals, who followed his conscience. His infidelity is dismissed as unlikely, and the involvement with the Order of St. John is understood against a background of his idealising their history as a lesson in high chivalric ideals which he wished the Russian nobility would adopt. Paul saw in the Russian nobles an element of degeneracy, and introducing the high ideals of the Knights of Malta was his method of reform. Paul suffered a lonely and strict upbringing, and whilst he was eccentric and neurotic, he was not mentally unbalanced. Though an analysis of his biography reveals an obsessive-compulsive personality, he had "characteristics fairly common in the population at large". Where Paul differed was that, by 1796, he had to manage the whole of the Russian Empire. In some Orthodox Christian churches Paul I is even venerated as a saint[citation needed], although he has not been officially canonized.

A recent film on the rule of Paul I was produced by Lenfilm in 2003. Poor, Poor Paul ("XXXXXX, XXXXXX XXXXX") is directed by Vitaliy Mel'nikov and stars Viktor Sukhorukov as Paul and Oleg Yankovsky as Count Pahlen, who headed a conspiracy against him. The film portrays Paul I more compassionately than the long-existing stories about him. The movie won the Michael Tariverdiev Prize for best music to a film at the Open Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr" in 2003.

See also

Manifesto of three-day corvee

Tsars of Russia family tree

[edit]References

^ Farquhar, Michael (2001). A Treasure of Royal Scandals, p.192. Penguin Books, New York. ISBN 0739420259.

^ Alexander II, The last great tsar, by Edvard Radzinsky. Page 16X17. Freepress, 2005.

^ Emperor Paul I of Russia, and his Russian Grand Priory of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. http://www.orderstjohn.org/osj/rgps.htm

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Spouse Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg

Issue

Alexander I

Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich

Archduchess Alexandra of Austria

Elena, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Maria, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Catherine, Queen of Württemberg

Olga Pavlovna

Anna, Queen of the Netherlands

Nikolai I

Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich
--------------------
Do not merge this profile! This is my blood relation. I have a blood relationship with his father. Yet, when you merge this profile, Geni displays no blood relationship. Why? Because there's a problem with the Geni search engine.It displays the first connection it comes to, not the best connection. I've informed Geni management about the problem. I suggest you follow up and get them to fix the problem. I intend to have profiles on Geni that reflect my true relationships even if I have to recreate them everyday all day long. So don't merge this profile or any other related profiles. If you, or any other Curators, Collaborators, etc., etc. etc., have a problem with this, you need to deal with Geni management. That's what I'm doing. it's not my fault the Geni search engine is crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_I_of_Russia

Paul I (Russian: XXXXXX I XXXXXXXXX; Pavel Petrovich) (1 October [O.S. 20 September] 1754 X 23 March [O.S. 11 March] 1801) was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.

Childhood

Paul was born in the Palace of Empress Elisabeth in St Petersburg. He was the son of Elizabeth's heir, her nephew, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor Peter III, and his wife, the Grand Duchess Catherine, later Empress Catherine II. In her memoirs, Catherine strongly implies that Paul's father was not Peter, but one of her lovers, Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and so could not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is possible that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt onPaul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim. He physically resembled the Grand Duke so one might doubt the claims of illegitimacy.[citation needed]

During his infancy, Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy, he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnosed facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the British Ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764. However, others suggest that the Empress, who was usually very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in the charge of a trustworthy governor, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.

Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina Louisa (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), one of the daughters of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1773, and allowed him to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. His tutor, Poroshin, complained of him that he was "always in a hurry," acting and speaking without reflection.

Early life

After his first wife died in childbirth, his mother arranged another marriage on 7 October 1776, with the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, given the new name Maria Feodorovna. At this time he began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination. He also suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken glass to be mingled with his food.

The use made of his name by the rebel Pugachev, who had impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul's position more difficult. On the birth of his first child in 1777 the Empress gave him an estate, Pavlovsk. Paul and his wife gained leave to travel through western Europe in 1781X1782. In 1783 the Empress granted him another estate at Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian model, still an unpopular stance at the time.

Relationship with Catherine the Great

Catherine the Great and her shortly-ruling heir, Paul I, maintained a harsh and distant relationship throughout the formerXs reign. Paul did not see his mother for the first six weeks of his infancy, visiting her only once for prayers. She saw him one year later on Easter. The empress did not mention her son again in her memoirs. It was CatherineXs mother-in-law, the empress Elizabeth, who took up the child as a passing fancy whose novelty soon wore off.[1] After Elizabeth proved an incapable caretaker he was supervised by substantially more inept nannies. Russian historian Roderick McGrew briefly relates the degree of neglect to which the infant heir was subject: XOn one occasionhe fell out of his crib and slept the night away unnoticed on the floor.X[2] Even after this less than attentive childhood and in spite of PaulXs rapacious passion for schooling, relations with Catherine hardly improved throughout her reign; in one instance the empress gave to one of her court favorites fifty-thousand rubles on her birthday; Paul received a cheap watch.[3] PaulXs isolation from his mother caused an irrevocable rift between them which would be later reinforced by his reduced status in the imperial court, her favoritism of certain courtiers, and her eventual decision to remove him from succession. His childhood exclusion reappeared later in his relations to the Imperial Court and caused him to oppose her pet policies, but Catherine IIXs chokehold on his status restricted not only his mobility as a diplomat and servant of the state but his ability to govern as emperor.

Paul IXs tutor, Count N.I. Panin, was brutally honest in relating to his pupil his station in the Russian court, calling him Xa bastard who owed his position to his motherXs sufferance.X[4] This insult set the general tone of PaulXs relationship with Catherine II, a woman who allowed nothing to undermine her control of the empire. This is evident in PaulXs status in the court, which was never of great consequence until he ascended the throne. Grigorii Orlov, one of CatherineXs more favored lovers, went into quarantine shortly following an outbreak of the Moscow plague. For the period that he was gone (late 1772 to 1773) Catherine initiated a XrapprochementX with her son, granting him at last the motherly affection denied him throughout his entire life. McGrew describes the new relationship as follows: XThey spent hours together, laughing, talking, and strolling arm in arm. So enraptured was PaulXthat he refused even at dinner to be separated from her.X[5] On one occasion he was found altering the place-cards so that he could sit beside her for the evening. In spite of this rise in motherly fondness, Catherine proved to be cold and calculating in earning her sonXs affections. Her motives were exclusively political; being that Paul was soon reaching majority and a marriageable age, the empress thought it best if she knew her son better. The rekindling of motherly love was little more than a tactic to establish better connections should disaster occur.[6] When Paul turned eighteen, he was appointed Fleet Admiral of the Russian navy and colonel of the Cuirassier regiment, the latter of which was already granted him in 1762.[7] It is clear that Catherine II had no intention of sharing her power. PaulXs mother was not alone in treating him with unkindness and disrespect; the nobility proved equally adept in makinga fool out of their future emperor.

Though Russian rulersX status as autocrat hinged on the nobilityXs contentment, it was equally important for courtiers to remain in the emperorXs favor. This was no different in Catherine IIXs reign. CatherineXs absolute power and the delicate balance of courtier-status greatly influenced the courtly relationship with the Paul, who openly disregarded his motherXs opinions. Paul adamantly protested his motherXs policies, writing a veiled criticism in his Reflections, a dissertation on military reform.[8] In it, he directly disparaged expansionist warfare in favor of a more defensive military policy. Unenthusiastically received by his mother, Reflections appeared a threat to her authority and added weight to her suspicion of an internal conspiracy. For a courtier to have openly supported or shown intimacy towards Paul, especially following this publication would have been suicide. McGrew enumerates on the courtiersX attitudes towards the crown prince of Russia:

XIt was more common, however, for CatherineXs favourites to denigrate Paul, or even to insult him. On one occasion when Catherine was discussing a point with Platon ZubovXshe asked what PaulXs opinion was. He replied that he thought as Zubov did, whereupon Zubov mimed surprise and cried, XDid I say something stupid then?XX[9]

Paul spent his later years away from the Imperial Court, contented to remain at his private estates at Gatchina and perform drill exercises. As Catherine II grew older she became less concerned that her son attend court functions, her attentions focused primarily on ensuring that Alexander I succeed the throne instead of his father.

It was not until 1787 that Catherine II officially determined to exclude her son from succession.[10] After PaulXs sons Alexander and Constantine were born, she immediately had them placed under her charge, a much more enthusiastic approach than she had made with her own son. That Catherine grew to favor Alexander as sovereign of Russia rather than Paul is unsurprising: the empress made no effort to understand her son until he turned eighteen, and gave him no responsibilities through which to prove him a capable leader and diplomat. During his marriage to Mariia Feodorovna, CatherineXs hostility towards Paul is fueled by a scandalous affair between him and Mariia FeodorovnaXs maidof honor, Catherine Nelidova. There could be little in the empressX mind to support the thought of PaulXs reign. Secretly, she met with AlexanderXs tutor LaHarpe to discuss his pupilXs ascension, and attempted to convince Mariia to sign a proposal authorizing her sonXs legitimacy as immediate heir. Both efforts proved fruitless, and though Alexander agreed to his grandmotherXs wishes he remained respectful of his fatherXs position as successor.

Accession to the throne

Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a stroke on 5 November 1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and, if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumouredthat she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.

The army, then poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month of Paul's ascension. His father Peter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the St. Michael's Castle reads in Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious allusion to the Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the dedication by Catherine on the 'Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.

Purported eccentricities

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Both qualities, it must be added, which the Russian people greatly favoured as typical of benevolent autocrats of the time. During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the harsh policies of his mother. Although he accused many of Jacobinism, he allowed Catherine's best known critic, Radishchev, to return from Siberian exile. Along with Radishchev, he liberated Novikov from the fortress of Shlisselburg, and also Tadeusz KoXciuszko, yet both liberated persons were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling a medieval chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites Kutusov, Arakcheyev, Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented to her lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who did not share his chivalric views were dismissedor lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fell into this category.

In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made of his courtly love affair with Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail in his ideal of chivalric manhood.

Emperor Paul also ordered the bones of Grigory Potyomkin, one of his mother's lovers, dug out of their grave and scattered.[11]

Foreign affairs

Paul came to power following the death of his mother, Catherine the Great, in late 1796, and his early policies can largely be seen as reactions against hers. In foreign policy, this meant that he opposed to the many expansionarywars that she fought and instead preferred to pursue a more peaceful, diplomatic path. Immediately upon taking the throne, he recalled all troops outside Russian borders, including the struggling expedition Catherine II had sent to conquer Iran through the Caucasus and the 60,000 men she had promised to England and Austria to help them defeat the French.[12] Paul hated the French before their revolution, and afterwards, with their republican and anti-religious views, he detested them even more.[13] In addition to this, he knew French expansion hurt Russian interests, but he recalled his motherXs troops primarily because he firmly opposed wars of expansion. He also believed that Russia needed substantial governmental and military reforms to avoid an economic collapse and a revolution, before Russia could wage war on foreign soil.[14]

Paul offered to mediate between Austria and France through Prussia and pushed Austria to make peace, but the two countries made peace without his assistance, signing the Treaty of Campoformio in October 1797.[15] This treaty, with its affirmation of French control over islands in the Mediterranean and the partitioning of the Venetian republic, upset Paul, who saw it as creating more instability in the region and displaying FranceXs ambitions in the Mediterranean.[16] In response, he offered asylum to the Prince de Condé and his army, as well as Louis XVIII, both of whom had been forced out of Austria by the treaty.[17] By this point, Bonaparte had seized Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, establishing republics with constitutions in each, and Paul felt that Russia now needed to play an active role in Europe in order to overthrow what the republic had created and restore traditional authorities.[18] In this goal he found a willing ally in the Austrian chancellor Baron Thugut, who hated the French and loudly criticized revolutionary principles. The English and the Ottoman Empire joined the Austrians and the Russians in order tostop French expansion, free territories under their control and re-establish the old monarchies. The only major power in Europe who did not join Paul in his anti-French campaign was Prussia, whose historic neutrality with Bonaparte, distrust of Austria, and the security they got from their current relationship with France prevented them from joining the coalition.[19] Despite the PrussiansX reluctance, Paul decided to move ahead with the war, promising 60,000 men to support Austria in Italy and 45,000 men to help England in North Germany and the Netherlands.[20]

Another important factor in PaulXs decision to go to war with France was the situation with the Island of Malta, the fortress that served as the home for the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, a Catholic order of knights dedicated to fighting the influence of Muslims in the Mediterranean that had existed since the first crusade. In addition to Malta, the Order also owned several pieces of land, called priories, scattered across Europe that paid taxes to the Order. In 1796, the Order approached Paul about the state of the Polish priory, now on Russian land, which had been in a state of disrepair and had paid no taxes for 100 years.[21] In response, Paul, who as a child had read all oftheir histories and was impressed by their honor and connection to the old order it represented, moved the Polish priories to St. Petersburg in January 1797.[22] The knights responded by making him a protector of the Order in August of that same year, an honor he had not expected but that he happily accepted.[23] Bonaparte's taking of the Island of Malta in June 1798 without firing a shot outraged Paul, now a protector of the Order.[24] The priory of St. Petersburg responded to this action by, in September, declaring that the current grand master of the Order, Ferdinand Hompesch, betrayed the Order by selling the island to Napoleon and they followed this act a month later by electing Paul grand master of the Order.[25] It was some time before either the Vatican or any of the other priories of Europe approved this election of the sovereign of an Orthodox nation as the head of a Catholic order, and this delay created a political issue between Paul, who insisted on defending his legitimacy, and the prioriesX respective nations.[26] Though recognition of PaulXs election would become a more divisive issue later in his reign, the election immediately gave Paul, as Grandmaster of the Order, another reason to war against the French Republic: he warred to reclaim the OrderXs ancestral home.

The Russian army in Italy technically played the role of an auxiliary force sent to support the Austrians, though the Austrians offered the position of chief commander over all the allied armies to Alexander Suvorov, a distinguished Russian general who was almost seventy years old and was known for his quick and decisive attacks. Under Suvorov, the allies managed to push the French out of Italy, though they suffered heavy losses.[27] However, by this point in time, cracks had started to appear in the Russo-Austrian alliance, due to their different goals in Italy. While Paul and Suvorov wanted the liberation and restoration of the Italian monarchies, the Austrians sought territorial acquisitions in Italy, and were willing to sacrifice later Russian support to acquire them.[28] The Austrians, therefore, happily saw Suvorov and his army out of Italy in 1799 to go meet up with the army of Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov, at the ti

OR "PAVEL"; TSAR OF RUSSIA 1796-1801