Catherine 1 is the first Russian empress. Her biography is truly unusual: born into a peasant family, she, by chance, caught the eye of Emperor Peter I and became his wife, gave him heirs and sat on the throne. However, her short reign can hardly be called brilliant: the empress was more interested in outfits than in governing the country, and did not do anything significant for the state.

Early years

Marta Samuilovna Savronskaya was born on April 15, 1684. Any significant details of the biography of Catherine 1 are unknown to historians. There are 3 versions of its origin:

1. She was born on the territory of present-day Latvia in the family of a Latvian or Lithuanian peasant.
2. She was born in what is now Estonia in the family of a local peasant.
3. The surname “Savronskaya” could have Polish roots.

After the death of her parents, Martha ended up in the house of a Lutheran pastor who lived in the Marienburg fortress. The girl was not taught to read and write and was used as a servant. According to another version, Martha’s mother, after the death of her husband, gave her up as a servant.

At the age of 17, the girl married the Swedish dragoon Johann Kruse. The wedding took place on the eve of the entry of Russian soldiers into the city. 1-2 days after the wedding, the young husband went to war and went missing.

See you with Peter I

In August 1702, Count Sheremetyev, during the Northern War, captured Marienburg and subjected it to devastation; he also captured 400 inhabitants. The pastor came to petition for their release, and the count noticed a pretty maid. Sheremetyev forcibly took her as his mistress.

1. A year later, Prince Menshikov became her patron, who even quarreled with Sheremetyev because of this.
2. Martha was taken with him by Dragoon Colonel Baur, who later rose to the rank of general. He placed her in charge of all the servants and entrusted her with the care of the house. One day Prince Menshikov noticed her. Having learned that Marta performed the duties of a servant perfectly, the prince decided to take her with him as the manager of the household.

However, both options do not show the future wife of the Russian emperor in the best light.

Life under the Emperor

Already in the fall of 1703, Martha was noticed by Perth I and made her his mistress. In his letters, he addressed her as Katerina Vasilevskaya.

In 1704, Martha gave birth to her first son, Peter, and the following year to her second son, Pavel, but both died at an early age. In the same 1705, she arrived in Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow, where she studied literacy.

In 1707-1708, Martha was baptized under the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova. Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, the eldest son of Peter the Great and his heir, became her godfather. The surname came from the emperor himself: under it he traveled incognito.

Meanwhile, the emperor became attached to his mistress: she knew how to cope with his tough temper and calm his headaches. In 1711, the emperor ordered that Catherine be considered his future legal wife and queen: due to the need to urgently go to war, the wedding was postponed. He also pointed out the need to obey her in the event of his death.

Catherine went with Peter I on the Prut campaign when she was 7 months pregnant. The war was extremely unsuccessful: Russian soldiers were pressed to the river and surrounded. In honor of the worthy behavior of his future wife, 2 years later Peter the Great established the Order of St. Catherine.

The wedding took place in February 1712. In 1724, the emperor suspected his wife of adultery with the chamberlain and stopped talking to her. Reconciliation occurred only at the death of Peter: he died in the arms of his wife in 1725.

Family and legacy issues

Empress Catherine 1 gave birth to 11 children to Peter, but almost all of them died in infancy. Only 2 girls survived: Anna (1708) and Elizabeth (1709). In 1710, Catherine’s first husband was seen among the captured Swedes, so the legality of their birth and, accordingly, the right to inherit the throne raised some doubts. However, according to official data, the soldier Kruse died in 1705.

After the death of the heir Alexei Petrovich, the first son of Catherine I, Pyotr Petrovich, became the main contender for the throne. He was born at the end of 1715 and died at the age of 4.

After the death of the emperor, the throne passed to Catherine. This became possible thanks to the changes introduced by Peter the Great himself to the order of succession to the throne: from now on, anyone chosen by the monarch himself could become an heir. However, he did not have time to leave a will, and the “old” nobility decided to take advantage of this. They nominated the grandson of Peter the Great, the son of Tsarevich Alexei, Pyotr Alekseevich, as the only legal heir.

However, another group (Counts Tolstoy, Golovkin, Menshikov) decided to act in favor of the emperor’s wife. Having secured the support of the guard, devoted to Peter and, accordingly, his wife, the legal heir, the coronation of Ekaterina Alekseevna took place on February 8, 1725.

Catherine I spent only 2 years on the throne and didn't have time to do anything. However, politics was of little interest to her: being a weak, entertainment-prone person, she preferred to spend her time on entertainment. Many contemporaries talk about this in their descriptions of the ruler. The only exception concerned the fleet: Peter I “infected” his wife with a love of the sea.

She reigned until April 1727, when she fell ill with a severe cold and died a month later. Peter the Second Alekseevich became emperor.

Foreign and domestic policy

Instead, the country was ruled by Prince Menshikov and the Supreme Privy Council. The latter was created at the beginning of 1726 and represented a small circle of selected nobles: it included Princes Menshikov and Golitsyn, Counts Apraksin, Tolstoy and Golovkin, Baron Osterman, Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp. The Supreme Council decided all important issues, Catherine only signed documents without even reading them. The role of the Senate, renamed the High Senate, sharply decreased; local authorities created under Peter the Great were eliminated.

The activities of the Privy Council were mainly limited to resolving minor issues: no reforms were carried out, and important decisions were also postponed. Embezzlement and abuse of power flourished, as did the struggle for power within the Council itself.

The state's finances were in a deplorable state: long wars had devastated the treasury, and bread prices that had risen due to a bad harvest caused discontent.

Several changes took place under Catherine:

1. The poll tax was reduced by 4 kopecks to prevent peasant unrest.
2. Nobles were allowed to build factories and trade goods.
3. The opening of factories in the Urals, where the city was named in her honor - Yekaterinburg.
4. The state monopoly was abolished and duties for merchants were reduced.
5. The Academy of Sciences was opened.
6. Bereng's first expedition to Kamchatka was launched.
7. The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky was established.

There were also no significant changes in foreign policy: in the Caucasus, a corps under the leadership of Prince Dolgorukov tried to recapture Persian territories, taking advantage of the turmoil and war. The Empress defended the interests of her daughter's husband, the Duke of Holstein, who laid claim to the Duchy of Schleswig. In 1726, the Treaty of Vienna was signed with Charles VI, which later became the basis of a military alliance between Russia and Austria.

Despite all the problems and inability, ordinary people loved Catherine the First. She did not refuse small help to those asking, and often acted as a goddaughter to the children of peasants and artisans.

The peasant's daughter Martha, the future Russian Empress Catherine I, is known as the wife of Peter the Great, who managed to cope with his complex character. Her reign was the first in a series of palace coups; the activity itself did not represent anything outstanding. All decisions were made by the Privy Council and did not require the approval of the ruler.

Ekaterina Alekseevna is an empress who became one of the iconic figures in the history of Russia in the 18th century. It was with her that the so-called century of women on the Russian throne began. She was not a person of strong political will or government, but due to her personal qualities she left her mark on the history of the Fatherland. We are talking about Catherine I - first the mistress, then the wife of Peter I, and subsequently the full-fledged ruler of the Russian state.

The first secret. Childhood

If we talk about the early years of this person, then you involuntarily come to the conclusion that there are more mysteries and uncertainties in her biography than genuine information. Her exact place of origin and nationality are still unknown - more than 300 years after her birth, historians cannot give an exact answer.

According to one version, Ekaterina Alekseevna was born on April 5, 1684 into the family of a Lithuanian (or maybe Latvian) peasant in the vicinity of Kegums, which was located in the historical region of Vidzem. At that time, these territories were part of the powerful Swedish state.

Another version testifies to her Estonian roots. It is said that she was allegedly born in the modern city of Tartu, called Dorpat at the end of the 17th century. But it is also indicated that she did not have a high origin, but came from among the peasantry.

In recent years, another version has appeared. Catherine's father was Samuel Skavronsky, who served Kazimierz Jan Sapieha. One day he fled to Livonia, settled in the Marienburg area, where he started a family.

There is one more nuance here. Ekaterina Alekseevna - the Russian princess - did not have the name under which she went down in history. Her real name is Skavronskaya, named Martha, who was the daughter of Samuil. But it was not right for a woman with that name to occupy the Russian throne, so she received new “passport data” and became Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova.

The second secret. Boyhood

In Europe in those early years, the plague was still dangerous. And her family could not avoid this danger. As a result, in the year of Martha’s birth, her parents died from the Black Death. Only the uncle remained, who could not assume the responsibilities of a parent, so he gave the girl to the family of Ernst Gluck, who was a Lutheran pastor. By the way, he is famous for his translation of the Bible into Latvian. In 1700, the Northern War began, the main opposing forces in which were Sweden and Russia. In 1702, the Russian army stormed the impregnable fortress of Marienburg. After which Ernst Gluck and Martha were sent to Moscow as prisoners. After some time, under the signature of Pastor Fagesius, they settled in his house in the German settlement. Marta herself - the future Ekaterina Alekseevna - did not learn to read and write and was in the house as a servant.

The version given in the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary gives other information, according to which her mother did not die from the plague, but lost her husband. Having become a widow, she was forced to give her daughter to the family of the same Gluck. And this version suggests that she studied literacy and various handicrafts.

According to the third version, she came into the Gluck family when she reached the age of 12. Before that, Marta lived with Veselovskaya Anna-Maria, her aunt. At the age of 17, she was married to the Swede Johann Kruse on the eve of the Russian attack on the Marienburg fortress. After 1 or 2 days he had to leave for the war, where he went missing.

Ekaterina Alekseevna shrouded her personality in such secrets of her birth and early years. Her biography does not become 100% clear from this moment; various kinds of blank spots will still appear in it.

Field Marshal Sheremetev in the life of Catherine

Russian troops at the beginning of the Northern War in Livonia were led by Sheremetev. He managed to capture the main one, after which the main forces of the Swedes retreated further. The triumphant subjected the region to merciless plunder. He himself reported to the Russian Tsar as follows: “... he sent in all directions to burn and capture, nothing was left intact. Men and women were taken captive, everything was destroyed and burned. Work horses and other livestock in the amount of 20,000 were taken, the rest was chopped and chopped ".

In the fortress itself, the field marshal captured 400 people. Pastor Ernst Gluck came to Sheremetev with a petition about the fate of the residents, and here Ekaterina Alekseevna, who then had the name Marta Kruse, was noticed by him (Sheremetev). The elderly field marshal sent all the residents and Gluck to Moscow, and took Martha by force as his mistress. For several months she was his concubine, after which, in a heated quarrel, Menshikov took Martha from him, since then her life became associated with a new military and political figure, Peter’s closest ally.

Peter Henry Bruce version

In a more favorable tribute to Catherine herself, the Scotsman Bruce described these events in his memoirs. According to him, after the capture of Marienburg, Martha was taken by Baur, a colonel of the dragoon regiment, and in the future a general.

Placing her in his home, Baur instructed her to do housework. She had the right to completely dispose of the servants. What she did quite skillfully, as a result, she earned the love and respect of her subordinates. Later, the general recalled that his house had never been as well-groomed as under Martha. One day, Prince Menshikov, Baur’s immediate superior, was on a visit to him, during which he noticed a girl, she turned out to be Ekaterina Alekseevna. Photos in those years did not yet exist to capture her, but Menshikov himself noted her extraordinary facial features and manners. He became interested in Martha and asked Baur about her. In particular, does she know how to cook and run a household? To which I received an affirmative answer. Then Prince Menshikov said that his house was in fact without good supervision and needed just such a woman as our heroine.

Baur was greatly obliged to the prince and after these words he called Martha and said that Menshikov was in front of her - her new master. He assured the prince that she would become a good support for him in the household and a friend he could rely on. In addition, Baur greatly respected Martha, so as to hinder her "opportunity to gain a share of honor and good fortune." From that time on, Catherine I Alekseevna began to live in the house of Prince Menshikov. It was 1703.

Peter's first meeting with Catherine

On one of his frequent trips to Menshikov, the Tsar met and then turned Martha into his mistress. There remains written evidence of their first meeting.

Menshikov lived in St. Petersburg (then Nyenschanz). Peter was traveling to Livonia, but wanted to stay with his friend Menshikov. That same evening he saw his chosen one for the first time. She became Ekaterina Alekseevna - the wife (in the future) of Peter the Great. That evening she served at table. The Tsar asked Menshikov who she was, where she came from and where he could buy her. After which Peter looked at Catherine for a long time and intently, eventually jokingly telling her to bring him a candle before bed. However, this joke was an order that could not be refused. They spent this night together. In the morning, Peter left; in gratitude, he left her 1 ducat, military-style, placing it in Martha’s hand when parting.

This was the first meeting of the king with the servant girl who was destined to become the empress. This meeting was very important, because if it had not happened, Peter would never have known about the existence of such an unusual girl.

In 1710, on the occasion of the victory, a triumphal procession was organized in Moscow. The prisoners of the Swedish army were led through the square. Sources report that Catherine's husband Johann Kruse was among them. He reported that the girl who gives birth to children one after another to the king is his wife. The result of these words was his exile to Siberia, where he died in 1721.

Mistress of Peter the Great

The next year after the first meeting with the Tsar, Catherine I Alekseevna gave birth to her first child, whom she named Peter, and a year later her second child, Pavel, appeared. Soon they died. The Tsar called her Marta Vasilevskaya, probably after her aunt’s last name. In 1705, he decided to take her for himself and settled her in the house of his sister Natalya in Preobrazhenskoye. There Marta learned Russian literacy and became friends with the Menshikov family.

In 1707 or 1708, Martha Skavronskaya converted to Orthodoxy. After baptism, she received a new name - Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova. She received her patronymic name after her godfather, who turned out to be Tsarevich Alexei, but her surname was given by Peter so that she would remain incognito.

Legal wife of Peter the Great

Catherine was Peter's beloved woman, she was the love of his life. Yes, he had a huge number of novels and affairs, but he loved only one person - his Martha. She saw it. Peter I, as is known from the memoirs of his contemporaries, suffered from severe headaches. Nobody could do anything about them. Ekaterina Alekseevna was his “analgesic”. When the king had another attack, she sat next to him, hugged him and stroked his head, and within a few minutes he fell asleep soundly. After waking up, he felt fresh, invigorated, ready for new achievements.

In the spring of 1711, setting off on the Prut campaign, Peter gathered his loved ones in Preobrazhenskoye, brought his chosen one out in front of them and said that from now on everyone should consider her his legitimate wife and queen. He also said that if he dies before he gets married, then everyone should consider her the legitimate heir to the Russian throne.

The wedding took place only in 1712, on February 19, in the Church of St. Isaac of Dalmatia. From this moment on, Ekaterina Alekseevna is Peter’s wife. The couple were strongly attached to each other, especially Peter. He wanted to see her everywhere: at the launch of a ship, at a military review, at holidays.

Children of Peter and Catherine

Katerina, as the tsar called her, gave birth to 10 children to Peter, however, most of them died in infancy (see table).

	Birth		Additional Information
			Officially unconfirmed children born before marriage
	September 1705
Catherine			The first daughter, born out of wedlock, is named after her mother
			The first child not to die in infancy. In 1711 she was declared a princess, and in 1721 - crown princess. In 1725 she got married and went to Kiel, where her son Karl Peter Ulrich was born (he would later become the Russian Emperor)
Elizabeth			In 1741 she became the Russian Empress and remained so until her death.
Natalya (senior)			The first child born in marriage. Died at the age of 2 years and 2 months
Margarita			She received such a name, atypical for the Romanovs, perhaps in honor of the daughter of Pastor Gluck, with whom she grew up
			Was declared and considered the official heir. Named after the king
			He was born in Germany, Peter himself was in the Netherlands at that time. Lived only one day
Natalya (junior)			Natalya became the last child of Catherine and Peter

The further political history of the Romanov dynasty is connected only with his two daughters. Catherine's daughter ruled the country for more than 20 years, and Anna's descendants ruled Russia from 1762 until the fall of monarchical power in 1917.

Ascension to the throne

As you know, Peter is remembered as a reformer king. Regarding the process of succession to the throne, he did not ignore this issue. In 1722, a reform was carried out in this area, according to which the heir to the throne became not the first male descendant, but the one appointed by the current ruler. As a result, any subject could become a ruler.

On November 15, 1723, Peter issued a Manifesto on the coronation of Catherine. The coronation itself took place on May 7, 1724.

During the last weeks of his life, Peter became very ill. And when Catherine realized that he would not recover from his illness, she summoned Prince Menshikov and Count Tolstoy to her so that they could work to attract those in power to her side, since Peter did not have time to leave a will.

On January 28, 1725, with the support of the guard and most of the nobles, Catherine was proclaimed empress, heir to Peter the Great.

Great Catherine Alekseevna on the Russian throne

The Russian imperial power during the reign of Catherine was not autocratic. Practically, power was in the hands of the Privy Council, although it was argued that all of it was possessed by the Senate, which under Catherine was renamed the Great Senate. Prince Menshikov, the same one who took Martha Skavronskaya from Count Sheremetev, was endowed with unlimited power.

Ekaterina Alekseevna is an empress without state affairs. She was not interested in the state, entrusting all concerns to Menshikov, Tolstoy and the Privy Council created in 1726. She had an interest only in foreign policy and especially in the fleet, which was passed down to her from her husband. During these years the Senate lost its determining influence. All documents were developed by the Privy Council, and the empress’s function was to simply sign them.

Long periods passed in constant wars, the burden of which fell entirely on the shoulders of the common population. It's tired of this. At the same time, there were poor harvests in agriculture, and bread prices increased. A tense situation was created in the country. To somehow defuse it, Catherine reduced the poll tax from 74 to 70 kopecks. Born Marta Skavronskaya, unfortunately, she was not distinguished by her reformist characteristics, which were endowed with her namesake, Empress Catherine 2 Alekseevna, and her state activities were limited to minor matters. While the country was drowning in embezzlement and arbitrariness on the ground.

Poor education and non-participation in government affairs, however, did not deprive her of people's love - she drowned in it. Catherine willingly helped the unfortunate and ordinary people asking for help; others wanted to see her as godfather. As a rule, she did not refuse anyone and gave several ducats to the next godson.

Catherine 1 Alekseevna was in power for only two years - from 1725 to 1727. During this time, the Academy of Sciences was opened, the Bering expedition was organized and carried out, and the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky was introduced.

Departure

After the death of Peter, Catherine’s life began to spin: masquerades, balls, festivities, greatly undermined her health. In April 1727, on the 10th, the empress fell ill, her cough intensified, and signs of lung damage were discovered. The death of Ekaterina Alekseevna was a matter of time. She had less than a month to live.

On May 6, 1727, in the evening, at 9 o’clock, Catherine died. She was 43 years old. Just before her death, a will was drawn up, which the Empress could no longer sign, so it was signed by her daughter Elizabeth. According to the will, the throne was to be taken by Peter Alekseevich, the grandson of Emperor Peter I.

Ekaterina Alekseevna and Peter I were a good couple. They kept each other alive. Catherine had a magical, calming effect on him, while Peter, in turn, restrained her internal energy. After his death, Catherine spent the remaining time in celebrations and drinking bouts. Many eyewitnesses claimed that she simply wanted to forget herself, others talk about her walking nature. In any case, the people loved her, she knew how to win over men and remained an empress, without having any real power in her hands. Ekaterina 1 Alekseevna began the era of women's rule in the Russian Empire, who remained at the helm until the end of the 18th century with short breaks of several years.

The second wife of Peter I did not leave a special mark on the rule of the Russian Empire, since for all two years of leadership of the vast state, the reins of government were given to those close to her. This idle pastime soon brought Catherine I to the grave - the flighty empress was very fond of all kinds of amusements and balls.

Orphan Martha

The history of the ascension to the Russian throne of the Livonian simpleton Martha Skavronskaya, who, by the will of fate, turned into Catherine I, is as complicated and at the same time simple as the principle of relations between high-ranking officials of the Russian state and representatives of the lower classes in the 18th century. They (the relationship), apparently, were extremely simplified at that time. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the reason why an “ordinary” and even illiterate servant became the empress of such a state as Russia in a relatively short time.

Martha's past is rather vague, little is known about her. She was left an orphan early (her parents died of the plague). There are different reports about who raised the future Russian empress, but one thing is clear: from early childhood, Marta was in the “primaki,” that is, essentially, in the service of strangers. At the age of 17, the girl married the Swede Johann Kruse. The young couple did not have time to live, since almost immediately the husband left for the Russian-Swedish war. Afterwards, traces of him are lost. There are two versions of the further fate of the first man, Martha Skavronskaya: 1) he disappeared (died) in the Northern War; 2) Kruse “surfaced” as a prisoner, but on the orders of Peter I he was taken to Siberia, where his would-be husband disappeared.
There is no point in understanding the plausibility of both versions, since Johann Kruse, in any case, did not have any influence on the fate of his young wife.

Maid and kept woman

In the amazing fate of Marta Skavronskaya-Kruse, captivity played a decisive role, oddly enough. Livonian Marienburg, where Martha lived, was taken by the Russians in 1702, and Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev, noticing a pretty German woman, took her as his mistress. Over time, she came into the possession of Prince Alexander Menshikov, a friend of Peter I. Martha, judging by the descriptions of her contemporaries that have reached us, was a “mankai” girl, moderately curpulent (in those days, physical texture was valued). She had that zest that today is called sexuality. Menshikov took Martha to St. Petersburg and mercifully promoted her to a servant.

“Water” and “fire” come together

It was during one of his visits to his friend Menshikov that Peter I noticed Marta. The Tsar (then still a Tsar; Peter would appoint himself Emperor shortly before his death) and his wife Evdokia Lopukhina, in fact, did not live in marriage, although she gave birth to two sons from him. Considering himself free from all marriage conventions, Peter set his sights on the prince’s maid and slept with her on the very first night after meeting her. Menshikov yielded to Marta in a comradely manner.

It is believed that Martha gave birth to her first children (both died in infancy) from Peter. Be that as it may, in 1705 the tsar moved his mistress to his sister’s house, two years later she was baptized and from then on began to be called Catherine. Interestingly, Peter’s eldest son, Tsarevich Alexei, was godfather. The social status for the newly-minted Catherine did not change - for the Tsar she still remained who knows what.

Peter and Catherine were married in 1712. By that time, the wife already had two daughters from Peter, Anna and Elizabeth. Marriage could seem like a complete misalliance if you do not take into account the character of the groom.

Firstly, Peter was (and probably remains) the only ruler of the Russian state, whose degree of simplification had no limits. Or rather, the sovereign installed them himself. Peter preferred to personally delve into many of the intricacies of the state structure, down to the details; everything was interesting to him. In Holland he studied shipbuilding as a simple person, hiding behind the pseudonym “Peter Mikhailov”. Again, he loved to pull out poor people’s bad teeth. It is unlikely that among Russian monarchs there will be a more inquisitive rival to Peter.

Taking all this into account, the autocrat did not care whether his chosen one had a solid social status or not.

Secondly, the Russian Tsar was indefatigable in his violence. Apparently, Peter still suffered from some kind of mental illness, since, according to the recollections of his contemporaries, he systematically, sometimes unmotivated, became enraged and had severe headaches during fits. Catherine alone could appease her husband. And these truly magical abilities of hers had a strong influence on the king.

Stern in life, Peter was unusually affectionate with his wife. Catherine bore him 11 children, but only his premarital sisters remained alive - the other offspring died in childhood. The Tsar was a good woman when it came to women, but his wife forgave everything and didn’t make a scene. She herself had an affair with Chamberlain Mons, whom Peter ultimately executed.

Shined in the light, and then faded

Emperor Peter I crowned his wife in 1723, 2 years before his death. The first crown in the history of the Russian Empire was placed on Catherine's head. After Maria Mnishek (the failed wife of False Dmitry I), she was the second woman crowned to the Russian throne. Peter went against the rules, ignoring the law according to which direct descendants of the royal family in the male line became kings in Rus'.

After the death of her husband, Catherine ascended the throne with the help of her old friend Menshikov and his comrade, an associate of her late husband, the count. Peter Tolstoy. They brought in to “strengthen” the guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, who broke the will of the dissident “old boyars”. The Senate approved Catherine’s candidacy, and the people, although amazed at this situation, remained silent - there were no worries about this.

Catherine's reign did not last long, only two years. The people loved her (the empress was involved in charity work). But the state was actually led by Field Marshal Menshikov and the Supreme Privy Council. Catherine herself loved balls and other entertainment. Perhaps her idle lifestyle led to her death at the age of 43. Historians believe that she was a significant figure only under her husband Peter I.

Despite the fact that many serious scholars dispute the role of chance in history, it cannot be denied that Catherine I ascended the Russian throne largely by accident. She did not rule for long - a little more than two years. However, even despite such a short reign, she remained in history as the first empress.

From laundress to empress

Martha Skavronskaya, who would soon become known to the world as Empress Catherine 1, was born in the territory of today's Lithuania, on the lands of Livonia, in 1684. There is no exact information about her childhood. In general, the future Catherine 1, whose biography is very ambiguous and sometimes contradictory, according to one version, was born into a peasant family. Her parents soon died of the plague, and the girl was sent to the pastor's house as a servant. According to another version, Martha lived with her aunt from the age of twelve, after which she ended up in the family of a local priest, where she served and learned to read and write and handicrafts. Scientists are still arguing about where the future Catherine 1 was born.

Biography

And the origin of the first Russian empress, and the date and place of her birth, have not yet been established by domestic historians. More or less unambiguously, a version has been established in historiography proving that she was the daughter of the Baltic peasant Samuil Skavronsky. The girl was baptized into the Catholic faith by her parents, giving her the name Martha. According to some reports, she was brought up in the Marienburg boarding school, under the supervision of Pastor Gluck.

The future Catherine I was never a diligent student. But they say that she changed gentlemen with amazing frequency. There is even information that Martha, having become pregnant by a certain nobleman, gave birth to a daughter from him. The pastor managed to get her married, but her husband, who was a Swedish dragoon, soon disappeared without a trace during the Northern War.

After the capture of Marienburg by the Russians, Martha, becoming a “trophy of war,” was for some time the mistress of a non-commissioned officer, and later, in August 1702, she ended up in the train of Field Marshal B. Sheremetev. Having noticed her, he took her in as a portomoy - a laundress, later handing her over to A. Menshikov. It was here that she caught the eye of Peter I.

Biographers of the Russian royal family are still wondering how she could captivate the Tsar. After all, Martha was not a beauty. However, she soon became one of his mistresses.

and Ekaterina 1

In 1704, Martha, according to Orthodox custom, was baptized under the name By that time, she was already pregnant. The future empress was baptized by Tsarevich Alexei. Knowing how to easily adapt to any circumstances, Catherine never lost her presence of mind. She perfectly studied the character and habits of Peter, becoming necessary for him both in joy and in sorrow. In March 1705 they already had two sons. However, the future Catherine I still continued to live in Menshikov's house in St. Petersburg. In 1705, the future empress was brought to the house of the Tsar’s sister Natalya Alekseevna. Here the illiterate washerwoman began to learn to write and read. According to some information, it was during this period that the future Catherine I established a fairly close relationship with the Menshikovs.

Gradually, relations with the king became very close. This is evidenced by their correspondence in 1708. Peter had many mistresses. He even discussed them with Catherine, but she did not reproach him for anything, trying to adapt to the royal whims and put up with his increasingly frequent outbursts of anger. She was invariably there during his attacks of epilepsy, sharing with him all the difficulties of camp life and imperceptibly turning into the actual wife of the sovereign. And although the future Catherine I did not take direct part in resolving many political issues, she nevertheless had great influence on the tsar.

From 1709, she accompanied Peter everywhere, including on all his trips. During the Prut campaign of 1711, when Russian troops were surrounded, she saved not only her future husband, but also the army, giving the Turkish vizier all her jewelry in order to persuade him to sign a truce.

Marriage

Upon returning to the capital, on February 20, 1712, Peter 1 and Catherine 1 got married. Their daughters Anna, who had already been born by that time, who later became the wife of the Duke of Holstein, as well as Elizabeth, the future empress, being at the age of three and five years old, performed the duties of maids of honor accompanying the altar at the wedding. The wedding took place almost secretly in a small chapel that belonged to Prince Menshikov.

From that time on, Catherine I acquired a courtyard. She began to receive foreign ambassadors and meet with many European monarchs. Being the wife of the reformer Tsar, Catherine the Great - the 1st Russian Empress - was in no way inferior to her husband in terms of her willpower and endurance. In the period from 1704 to 1723, she gave birth to Peter eleven children, although most of them died in infancy. Such frequent pregnancies did not in the least prevent her from accompanying her husband on his many campaigns: she could live in a tent and sleep on a hard bed without complaining a bit.

Merits

In 1713, Peter I, highly appreciating the worthy behavior of his wife during the Prut campaign, which was unsuccessful for the Russians, established the Order of St. Catherine. He personally laid signs on his wife in November 1714. It was originally called the Order of Liberation and was intended only for Catherine. Peter I also remembered his wife’s merits during the ill-fated Prut campaign in his manifesto on the coronation of his wife in November 1723. Foreigners, who followed with great attention everything that was happening in the Russian court, unanimously noted the tsar’s affection for the empress. And during 1722, Catherine even shaved her head and began wearing a grenadier cap. She and her husband inspected the troops leaving straight for the battlefield.

On December 23, 1721, the boards of the Senate and Synod recognized Catherine as the Russian Empress. A crown was commissioned especially for her coronation in May 1724, which in its splendor surpassed the crown of the king himself. Peter himself placed this imperial symbol on his wife’s head.

Portrait

Opinions about what Catherine looked like are contradictory. If we focus on her male environment, then the opinions are generally positive, but women, being biased towards her, considered her short, fat and black. And indeed, the empress’s appearance did not make much of an impression. One had only to look at her to notice her low origins. The dresses she wore were of an old-fashioned style, trimmed entirely in silver and sequins. She always wore a belt, which was decorated on the front with embroidery of precious stones with an original design in the form of a double-headed eagle. The queen was constantly wearing orders, a dozen icons and amulets. As she walked, all this wealth rang.

Argument

One of their sons, Pyotr Petrovich, who, after the abdication of the emperor's eldest heir, was considered the official heir to the throne since 1718, died in 1719. Therefore, the reformer king began to see only his future successor in his wife. But in the fall of 1724, Peter suspected the empress of treason with the chamber cadet Mons. He executed the latter, and stopped communicating with his wife: he didn’t talk at all, and denied access to her. His passion for others dealt a terrible blow to the king: in anger, he tore up the will, according to which the throne passed to his wife.

And only once, at the insistent request of his daughter Elizabeth, Peter agreed to dinner with Catherine, the woman who had been his inseparable friend and assistant for twenty years. This happened a month before the death of the emperor. In January 1725 he became ill. Catherine was always at the bedside of the dying monarch. On the night of the 28th to the 29th, Peter died in the arms of his wife.

Ascension to the throne

After the death of the husband, who did not have time to declare his last will, the issue of succession to the throne began to be dealt with by the “supreme gentlemen” - members of the Senate, Synod and generals, who had already been in the palace since January twenty-seventh. There were two parties among them. One, consisting of the remnants of the family aristocracy that had remained at the very top of government power, was led by the European-educated Prince D. Golitsyn. In an effort to limit autocracy, the latter demanded that Peter Alekseevich, the young grandson of Peter the Great, be elevated to the throne. It must be said that this kid’s candidacy was very popular among the entire aristocratic class of Russia, who wanted to find in the offspring of the unfortunate prince someone who could restore their past privileges.

Victory

The second party was on Catherine's side. A split was inevitable. With the help of her longtime friend Menshikov, as well as Buturlin and Yaguzhinsky, relying on the guard, she ascended the throne as Catherine 1, the years of whose reign were not marked by anything special for Russia. They were short lived. By agreement with Menshikov, Catherine did not interfere in state affairs; moreover, on February 8, 1726, she transferred control of Russia into the hands of the Supreme Privy Council.

Politics within the country

The state activities of Catherine I were limited for the most part only to the signing of papers. Although it must be said that the empress was interested in the affairs of the Russian fleet. On her behalf, the country was actually ruled by a secret council - a body created shortly before her ascension to the throne. Its members included A. Menshikov, G. Golovkin, F. Apraksin, D. Golitsyn, P. Tolstoy and A. Osterman.
The reign of Catherine 1 began with the fact that taxes were reduced and many prisoners and exiles were pardoned. The first was associated with rising prices and fear of causing discontent among the people. Some of the reforms of Catherine 1 canceled the old ones, adopted by Peter 1. For example, the role of the Senate was significantly reduced and local bodies were abolished, which replaced the power of the governor, a Commission was formed, which included generals and flagships. According to the content of this reform of Catherine 1, it was they who should have taken care of the improvement of the Russian troops.

Peter I. Portrait by P. Delaroche, 1838

In the history of all human societies there are few individuals with such a strange fate as was the fate of our Catherine I, the second wife of Peter the Great. Without any personal desire for self-exaltation, not gifted by nature with brilliant, out-of-the-ordinary abilities, without having received not only an education, but even a superficial upbringing, this woman from the rank of a serf girl was elevated by fate, through gradual steps along the path of life, to the rank of an autocratic possessor one of the largest and most powerful states on the globe. You will involuntarily become perplexed by the many questions that arise about various incidents and relationships in the life of this woman, and you will admit to yourself the complete impossibility of answering these questions, and the very sources for the biography of this first Russian empress are extremely dark. Her very origin is shrouded in darkness: we do not know positively where her homeland is, what nation her parents belonged to, what faith they professed, and in which she herself was originally baptized. Foreign news has been preserved, fragmentary, anecdotal, contradictory and therefore of little scientific merit. Back in the 18th century, during the reign of Catherine II, the German Buesching, who diligently studied Russian antiquity, said: “Everything that historians have claimed about the origins of Catherine I or just given their guesses is all a lie. I myself, being in St. Petersburg, searched in vain and “It seemed to me that I had lost all hope of finding out anything true and correct, when suddenly chance told me what I had been deliberately looking for for a long time.”

What Buesching attached such importance to was the following: Catherine came from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in childhood she professed the Roman Catholic religion of her parents, then, when the latter moved to the Baltic region, she accepted Lutheranism, and after her captivity, when she became close to Peter, accepted Orthodoxy. In addition to this news conveyed to the public by Buesching, one can point out that it is said in the book “Die neuere Geschichte der Chineser, Japaner etc.” that Catherine’s father was from Lithuania and moved to Dorpat; there he had this daughter, whom he baptized, like all his children, into the Roman Catholic faith. The general and contagious disease that was raging in Dorpat prompted him to get out of there to Marienburg with his family. In the book compiled by Schmid-Fieseldeck and published in 1772 in Riga under the title: “Materialen fur die Russische Geschichte”, a curious letter from the Hanoverian envoy to Russia Weber is given, which tells the following: “Catherine’s mother was a serf girl of the landowner Rosen, on his estate Ringen, Dorpat district. This girl gave birth to a female child, then soon died. Her young daughter was taken to be raised by the landowner Rosen, who served in the Swedish army for twenty years and lived on his estate after retirement. With this human act, Rosen brought upon himself suspicion; They thought that he was the real father of an illegitimate child. This teacher himself soon died, the girl was left a homeless orphan; then the local pastor accepted her out of compassion. But fate, which over time was preparing a strange and brilliant future for her, soon sent her another patron: he was preposit, or (as this position is now called) superintendent of the Livonian parishes, Marienburg pastor Ernest Gluck.

According to other news, a different story is told about Catherine’s childhood before her placement with Gluck. Rabutin, who was the Tsar's envoy at the Russian court in the last years of the reign of Peter and during the reign of Catherine I, says that Catherine was the daughter of a serf girl of the Livland landowner Alfendal and was married by her mother to the landowner, who then gave his mistress in marriage to a rich peasant who had subsequently from her several children, already legitimate. Voltaire considers Catherine illegitimate from a peasant girl, but says that her father was a peasant who was engaged in the profession of a gravedigger. The Swedish historian, who was in captivity in Russia under Peter the Great with many captured Swedes, in accordance with the report of the Swedish military commissar von Seth, says that Catherine was the daughter of the Swedish lieutenant colonel Rabe and his wife Elizabeth, née Moritz. Having lost her parents in infancy, she was taken to a Riga orphanage, and from there adopted by the benevolent Pastor Gluck. Another writer, Iversen, in the article “Das Madchen von Marienburg”, says that Catherine was a native of Riga from the Badendak family. Of all these contradictory news, Weber's news is based on such evidence, which gives it comparatively more reliability. Weber says that he heard this from Wurm, who once lived with Gluck as a children's teacher and knew Catherine at the time when she lived as a servant for the Marienburg pastor. For us, the most important thing would be the news gleaned from government acts of that time; but from the files of the state archive we only learn that Catherine was the daughter of the peasant Skovronsky. At the end of the reign of Peter the Great, they began to look for the relatives of the then empress. In this way, Catherine’s brother Karl Skowronsky and his wife were found, who, however, never wanted to go with her husband to Russia. Peter had little confidence that these persons were actually those for whom they pretended to be, and indeed it was impossible to deal with such a matter without extreme caution; There could have been many hunters to become a relative of the Russian empress. He who called himself Catherine's brother was kept under guard: and this clearly proves that Peter did not trust him, otherwise this would not have happened, given Peter's extreme love for his wife. Perhaps, fearing imprisonment, the wife of Karl Skovronsky did not want, as we said above, to go to her husband and stayed in the Livland village of Dogabene, assigned to the town of Vyshki-Ozero, which belonged to the nobleman Laurensky; after much resistance, she finally went to her husband. When Catherine, after the death of Peter, became the autocratic sole possessor of Russia, then there was more trust in applicants for kinship with the empress. Then another woman appeared, calling herself Catherine’s sister; her name was Christina; she was married to the peasant Gendrikov and, together with her husband, was a serf on the estate of the Livonian landowner Wuldenschild or Guldenschild. The request that this woman made to the Russian empress was written in Polish, and this prompts us to consider it probable that Catherine’s parents were immigrants from Lithuania. Christina was taken to St. Petersburg with her husband and four children. Then another woman was found in the Polish “Inflants”, who declared herself another sister of the Russian empress; she was married to the peasant Yakimovich. Her name was Anna, and she, recognized as nee Skovronskaya or Skovoronskaya (Skovoroschanka), was taken to St. Petersburg with her family. Another brother of Catherine, Friedrich Skowronsky, was also found; and he was taken to the Russian capital, but his wife and the children from her first marriage did not go with him. It turned out that Catherine also had a brother, Dirich; he was taken to Russia under Peter among the Swedish prisoners; By order of the sovereign, they looked for him everywhere and did not find him.

Catherine treated her relatives kindly, but who knows if she trusted them all completely, without any shadow of a doubt that they were really her relatives. She could hardly remember them and believe their statements with her own memories. She, however, granted her brother Karl Skowronsky the title of count, and the complete elevation of all her relatives occurred already during the reign of Catherine’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth; then the offspring of Catherine’s sisters received counthood and formed the families of counts Gendrikov and Efimovsky.

From this news, preserved not by foreign rumor hunters, but in state documents, it turns out indisputably that Catherine came from the peasant Skovronsky family: if the relatives who declared themselves such were not in fact who they said they were, then all there is no doubt that the nickname of the Skovronskys for the peasants in serfdom was, so to speak, a patent for the title of relatives of the Russian empress, and, therefore, she recognized herself as born Skovronsky and a serf peasant by birth. The very name of the Skovronsky surname is purely Polish, and, probably, the Skovronskys were, as those who moved from Lithuania to Livonia say, peasants, and the request submitted by Catherine’s sister in Polish shows that this resettlement happened in recent times, and therefore the Polish language did not cease be their native language. In those days, relocations from place to place were common occurrences in the life of rural people, who were looking for where they could live more advantageously and prosperously. In this way, of course, the Skovronskys left the Lithuanian possessions and settled in Livonia. But usually the immigrants met at their housewarming party essentially the same thing that they had gotten used to in their former homeland. A peasant, having passed or run away from one owner to another, first enjoyed benefits from the latter, and then here, as in the previous ashes, he had to serve corvee labor, pay taxes arbitrarily imposed by the master, and it turned out that the peasant remained a peasant everywhere, that’s why he and was born into the world to work for someone else; Wherever a man went, his share of dependence on the nobleman trailed behind him. It could have been much worse for him in his new place of residence than it was where he left, especially when war broke out in the region where he chose his housewarming. This is what happened with the Skovronskys.

Catherine I. Portrait of an unknown artist

Where exactly in the Livonia region Catherine’s parents moved when they died, and for what reason her brothers and sisters ended up in different places, and not where she was - we don’t know all this. The only certainty is that in Ringen, Martha Skowronskaya was raised as an orphan by a kister (or by a pastor, according to others). This was the first name of the one who later appeared in history as Ekaterina Alekseevna, empress and autocrat of All Russia. Preposit Ernest Gluck arrived in Ringen, touring the parishes over which he was supposed to supervise as part of his duties. This Ernest Gluck was a remarkable man: he was a true type of such a learned German, who knows how to combine enterprise, tirelessness and the desire to turn his learning to the benefit of as many of his neighbors as possible with armchair learning. He was born in 1652 in Germany, in the Saxon town of Wettin near Magdeburg, and in his youth was brought up in the educational institutions of his homeland. His poetic and good-natured nature was aroused by the thought of becoming a preacher of the word of God and a disseminator of enlightenment among peoples who, although they were baptized, were lower in education than the Germans and other Western Europeans. Livonia seemed closest to Gluck's German heart; after many political upheavals, this country at that time was under the rule of the Swedish crown, but lived an internal German life and always seemed to be the outskirts of the German world, the first outpost of German culture, which, according to the unchanging German tribal catechism, inscribed in every German heart, should move to the east, subjugating and absorbing all nations. The mass of the common people in Livonia consisted of Latvians and Chukhons, although they had adopted both the religion of the Germans and little by little the customs of their life, but had not yet lost their language. The Germans - barons and burghers - looked at the enslaved tribes with the arrogance of exploiters, and therefore the assimilation of Latvians and Chukhons with the Germans was difficult; and this is what saved the nationalities of both of them from premature absorption by the German elements). In addition to Latvians and Chukhons, Russian settlers from schismatics who fled from their fatherland in recent times due to religious persecution should be counted among the simple rural people of the Livonian region. These fugitives from Russia lived in the eastern outskirts of Livonia. Gluck arrived in the Livonian region in 1673 with the desire to be an educator of the common people, no matter what tribe these people belonged to, as long as they were common people. Gluck began to study Latvian and Russian. This man had great abilities; While still in Germany, he successfully studied oriental languages; and in Livonia it went quickly and quickly for him. He learned Latvian in a short time to such an extent that he could begin to translate the Bible into Latvian. But then Gluck saw that he had not yet sufficiently prepared himself in the study of what he had to translate from - in the study of the Hebrew and Greek languages. Gluck goes back to Germany, settles in Hamburg and begins studying with the Orientalist scientist Ezard; This is how things go with him until 1680; then Gluck goes to Livonia again. He accepts the position of parish pastor there, then he is made prepositor; Gluck devotes himself entirely to educational activities for the local population; translates useful books into local dialects and establishes schools to educate common youth - these are his favorite thoughts and intentions, these are the goals of his life. In 1684, Gluck went to Stockholm and presented to the then king a project to establish schools for Latvians in those parishes where the pastors were provosts. The king did not leave without approval another project of Gluck - about the establishment of schools among Russian settlers living in Swedish possessions, and their mass was not limited only to schismatics who had recently left for Livonia; At that time, there were enough Russian subjects who belonged to the Swedish crown in those lands that were ceded by Russia to Sweden under the Stolbovo Treaty. The project related to the training of Russians was not, however, put into execution as long as Livonia and the Russian regions, which constituted the property of ancient Veliky Novgorod, were under the rule of the Swedes. Meanwhile, Gluck, in anticipation of the establishment of Russian schools, began to study in Russian. In his own words (Pekarsky, “The Science of Liter, under Peter I”), Gluck saw the extreme poverty of public education among the Russians subordinate to the Swedish scepter, but even worse ignorance was shown among those who remained under Moscow rule. “Although,” says the pastor, “they have the entire Slavic Bible, the Russian dialect (vernacule rossica) differs so far from the Slavic dialect that the Russian commoner will not understand a single period of Slavic speech. “I,” continues Gluck, “heartily surrendered desire to learn Russian, and God sent me ways for this, although he had no intentions and did not realize how Providence could direct me to serve a brilliant goal." With the study of the Russian language, Gluck undertook experiments in translating the Slavic Bible into simple Russian and composed prayers in this language. He was helped by a Russian monk, whom Gluck invited to live with him and undertook to support him, and he had to work together with his master in his scientific works. This monk was taken from the Pichugovsky monastery, which was located within Russian borders, not far from the Livonian border. Engaging in Russian translation of the Holy Scriptures led Gluck to correspond with Golovin, the Russian envoy in 1690. It was this pastor Gluck, living in the city of Marienburg with his family and holding the post of prepositor, touring the parishes and stopping in Ringen to see the pastor or kister. He saw an orphan girl and asked: who is she?

- Poor orphan; I accepted him out of Christian compassion, although I myself have little income. It’s a pity that I won’t be able to raise her as I would like,” said the Ringen kister (or pastor).

Gluck caressed the girl, talked to her and said: “I will take this orphan to myself. She will look after my children.”

And the preposit left for Marienburg, taking with him little Martha Skowronskaya.

Martha grew up in Gluck's house from then on. She looked after his children, dressed them, cleaned them, took them to the church, and cleaned the rooms in the house; She was a servant, but, with the kindness and complacency of her owner, her position was much better than the position of a servant in a German house could have been at that time. It seems that little attention was paid to her mental education; at least later, when her fate miraculously changed, she, as they say, remained illiterate. But Martha grew prettier day by day as she entered her years; The young men of Marienburg began to stare at her in the church, where she appeared every Sunday with the children of her master. She had shiny, sparkling black eyes, a white face, black hair (they said later that she was their ink). Repairing all sorts of work in the master's house, she could not be distinguished either by the softness and tenderness of the skin on her hands, or by graceful techniques, like a lady or a rich city woman, but in the peasant circle she could be considered a real beauty.

When Martha turned eighteen, she was seen in the church by a Swedish dragoon who served in a military garrison located in Marienburg; his name was Johann Rabe. He was twenty-two years old; he was curly-haired, well-built, stately, dexterous, and quite a fine fellow. He really liked Martha, and Martha liked him too. Whether he explained it to the girl somewhere or not, we don’t know. Living with a strictly moral pastor, Martha did not go to field work, nor was she in places where young people of both sexes usually get together, and therefore it could very well be that the soldier’s acquaintance with the pastor’s maid was limited to the fact that he saw her in the church Yes, perhaps he exchanged fleeting expressions of courtesy and courtesy with her as he left the church. Rabe turned to the mediation of one respectable person, who is called a relative of Gluck, although such a relationship can be doubted, since Gluck was a stranger in the Livonia region and hardly had relatives there. Rabe asked this respectable person to take the trouble to talk with the pastor about his desire to marry his maid. This gentleman fulfilled the soldier's order.

Pastor Gluck told him:

– Martha has reached adulthood and can decide her own destiny. Of course, I am not a rich man; I have many children of my own, and now difficult times are coming: the war with the Russians has begun. The enemies are coming to our region with a strong army and may not get here today or tomorrow. Such dangerous times have come that the father of a family can envy someone who has no children. I don’t force my servant to marry and I won’t stop her. Let her do as she wants! But I should ask his commander about this dragoon.

The garrison at Marienburg was commanded by Major Tiljo von Tilsau; he was on good terms with Gluck and visited the pastor. When the major came to him, Gluck reported on the proposal made on behalf of the dragoon, and asked what kind of person this dragoon was and whether his commander thought it appropriate for him to marry.

“This dragoon is a very good man,” said the commander, “and he is doing well in wanting to get married.” I will not only allow him to marry your maid, but for good behavior I will promote him to corporal!

Gluck called Marta and said:

- Johann Rabe will woo you from the local garrison of dragoons. Do you want to go for him?

“Yes,” answered Martha.

Both the pastor and the major realized that the soldier’s beauty pinched the girl’s heart. They called a dragoon and got engaged that same evening. The soldier groom said then:

“I ask that our marriage be consummated as soon as possible and not be delayed for a long time.” They might send us somewhere. It's war time. Our brother cannot hope to remain in one place for long.

“He’s telling the truth,” said the major, “the Russians are fifteen miles away and can head for Marienburg.” We must prepare to defend ourselves against uninvited guests. Will we have fun when the enemies appear in sight of the city?

They decided to marry Johann Rabe with Martha Skowronskaya on the third day after the engagement.

This third day has come. At the end of the service, Gluck united the dragoon with his maid in a marital union. The major and three officers were present, and the major’s wife, along with other women, cleaned up the bride and escorted her to church. After the ceremony, the newlyweds and all the guests went to the preposite’s house and feasted until nightfall.

There is different news about how long these newlyweds had to live together. Some of this news is conveyed by those who claim that they heard about the details of the event from the newlywed herself later, when she was the wife not of a Swedish dragoon, but of a Russian captain-tsar: they say that the news of the approach of the Russian army came on the very day of the wedding and dispersed the guests who were feasting in Gluck’s house. But according to other news, the young couple lived together for eight days. Be that as it may, the separation of the newlyweds due to the approach of the Russian army followed very soon after the marriage. Dragoon Rabe with ten other dragoons, on the orders of the major, went on reconnaissance and never saw his wife again.

Sheremetev and his army approached Marienburg. His invasion of Livonia was a terrible disaster for the region. It resumed the forgotten times of the 16th century, when outrageous atrocities were committed against the local residents, which throughout Europe were described in the then brochures (which played the role of newspapers) in the brightest colors and, perhaps, with exaggeration, in order to arouse widespread disgust for the semi-savage Muscovites. And now the descendants turned out to be no more merciful than their ancestors. Sheremetev, in his report to Peter, boasted that he had devastated everything around him, nothing was left intact, there were ashes and corpses everywhere, and there were so many captive people that the leader did not know what to do with them. The Tsar approved this way of waging war, and ordered the prisoners to be driven to Russia. Then tens of thousands of Germans, Latvians and Chukhons were driven to settle in the depths of Russia, where, having mixed with the Russian people, their offspring were to disappear without a trace from history.

Sheremetev approached Marienburg in August 1702. The city of Marienburg was located on the shore of a spacious lake, eighteen miles in circumference and five miles in width. Opposite the city on the lake, an old castle rose out of the water, a product of knightly centuries, connected to the city by a bridge across the water. It was built in 1340 for the purpose of defense against the Russians, who were already making attacks on the Livonian region, indignant that the Germans had settled there as masters and masters of the Latvians and Chukhons. Cut off from the city and the shore by water, the castle seemed impregnable given the then methods of warfare; however, in 1390, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas mastered it not through courage, but through cunning: he disguised himself as a knight and found an opportunity to enter the castle, and then let his army in. In 1560, during the war between Tsar Ivan and the Livonian Germans, Marienburg Castle was again taken by the Russians. During the time of Sheremetev’s invasion that we are describing, this castle could not defend the city, but it was suitable to be a temporary refuge for the besieged until large forces could come to their rescue. The then sovereign of the Livonians, the Swedish king, ordered that in Livonia, where Peter’s aggressive aspirations were mainly directed, not enough troops were left and the command over this army was given to the worst generals.

First, the Russian vanguard under the command of Yuda Boltin approached Marienburg, then Sheremetev’s entire corps, divided into four regiments. Sheremetev had just defeated the Swedish general Schlippenbach and struck fear into the entire region both with his successes and even more so with his hard-heartedness and mercilessness towards the defeated and conquered. Major Tillo had a few dragoons in the castle. As the Russians approached, residents rushed to the castle to escape, but it was impossible for everyone to fit there for a long time. Sheremetev settled down on the shore of the lake and decided to take both the city and the castle. The field marshal sent to the besieged to demand voluntary surrender, but the besieged did not surrender. Sheremetev stood for ten days. There was no help for the Swedes from anywhere. The crowded conditions in the castle threatened the emergence of diseases, as happens in such cases. Sheremetev ordered the rafts to be prepared and intended, having placed three regiments of his army on them: Balka, Anglerov and Murzenkov, to attack the castle from both sides. For some time the enterprise failed: the dragoons and besieged residents actively fought back from the walls and ramparts, many Russian soldiers were shot, others were maimed. “But God,” as Sheremetev put it in his report to his sovereign, “and the Most Holy Theotokos with your high happiness pardoned that two bombs flew to one place on the island in a chamber that was attached to the city wall near the new earthen wall, where their cannons were launched stood, the city wall tore out and collapsed about five fathoms, and they, not allowing them to land on the island, beat the drums and asked for a deadline and sent a letter" (Ustr. Ist. p. V. IV, 2, 248). In their letter, the besieged asked Sheremetev to stop the attack on the castle on such conditions that the residents would be left with their property and lives, and the army would be allowed to leave with weapons and banners flying. But Sheremetev felt like a complete winner and did not agree to proposals that would be appropriate only when both parties at war with each other had enough strength to force themselves to be respected. The Russian commander, in his own words, “refused them sternly,” demanded unconditional surrender to the mercy of the victors and, in the eyes of the envoys sent to him, ordered the cannons to be fired into the breach made, and the soldiers to storm the castle. Angler moved forward with his regiment; behind him were soldiers of other regiments. Then drumming was heard again from the besieged side, again showing their desire to enter into negotiations. This time the communication was of a different kind: the commandant, Major Tillo von Tilsau, appeared, and with him the entire officer: two captains, two lieutenants, a provisions supervisor, an engineer and a pharmacist; they gave the field marshal their swords and were declared prisoners of war. They asked for mercy for everyone. But not all the military men who were then in the castle decided to surrender to the Russian force: one artillery ensign, along with one bayonet cadet and several soldiers remained in the castle, did not announce to anyone what they wanted to do, and secretly decided on a bold and desperate undertaking .

Behind the military men who surrendered, a crowd of residents of both sexes with children and servants followed into the Russian camp. Then Ernest Gluck appeared before the winner and presented with his family and servants. The venerable pastor knew that the formidable warlike Russian Tsar valued people who devoted themselves to science and thought about enlightening his subjects. Gluck took with him a translation of the Bible into Russian and presented it to Sheremetev. The field marshal received him kindly; he saw that this captive would be especially to the liking of Peter and would be useful to the sovereign in the education of Russian society. Then the Russians captured Gluck and his family, his children’s teacher Johann Wurm and their former nanny Martha Rabe, who so soon after marriage lost her husband and her freedom. According to some news, Sheremetev distributed the prisoners to the initial people and Martha Rabe went to Colonel Balk, and he assigned her to wash clothes for his soldiers along with other captured women. Subsequently, Sheremetev noticed it and took it from Valk for himself. According to other news, at the very hour when Gluck and his family came to Sheremetev, the Russian field marshal noticed Marta, was struck by her beauty and asked Gluck: what kind of woman is he?

- This is a poor orphan! - said the pastor. “I took her as a child and kept her until she came of age, and recently married her to a Swedish dragoon.

- It doesn’t interfere! - Sheremetev said. - She will stay with me. And the rest of you will go to Moscow. You will be accommodated there.

And the field marshal ordered to get a decent dress from the wife of one of his subordinate officers and dress the prisoner. By order of Sheremetev, she sat down at the table to dine with others, and during this dinner there was a deafening explosion; Marienburg Castle perished in ruins.

Be that as it may, whether immediately after Gluck’s arrival in the Russian camp Martha was abandoned by Sheremetev or, having first gone to Balku, was later taken by the field marshal, it is certain that Marienburg died a few hours after the garrison and residents of the city surrendered to the victors. An artillery ensign, nicknamed Wulf, a bayonet-cadet and soldiers entered that chamber, “where there was gunpowder and hand cannonballs and all sorts of supplies, and he himself and those who were with him lit the gunpowder and killed many people with him” ( Arranged. I.P.V., IV, 248). “God saved us too!” Sheremetev continues in his report. “Glory to Almighty God that the bridge did not allow us any closer: it was burned! And if not for the bridge, many of us would have died; and it’s a pity that there was no junk, everything was lost, there was 1,500 poods of rye bread and other things, so many shops were burned! And those who were taken cursed that damned one." They say (Phiseldek, 210) that Wulf, having decided on a desperate act, revealed his intention to Gluck and gave him advice to save himself, and Gluck, having learned Wulf’s intention, convinced both by word and example of other residents to leave the castle and surrender to the mercy of the winner.

So Marienburg, or Marinburg, long known to the Russians under the native name Alyst, died at the hands of a handful of brave Swedes who decided to choose death over captivity. But the ruins of the castle remained on the island. Sheremetev ordered everything to be destroyed to the ground. “I will,” he wrote to the Tsar, “will stand until I have dug up the whole place. But it was impossible to hold it: everything around it was deserted, and the extravagant one blew it up with gunpowder.”

The winner was then hampered by the abundance of prisoners. “I am sad,” he wrote to Peter, “where should I put the taken prisoner? The prisons are full of people everywhere, it’s dangerous that people are so angry! You know how many reasons they have already done, not sparing themselves; so that what tricks do not they did it: they wouldn’t light gunpowder in the cellars, and they wouldn’t start dying because of the cramped conditions, and there would be a lot of money for food. But one regiment is not enough to accompany you to Moscow.” Meanwhile, the tsar valued not only the Germans, but also the Chukhns and Latvians; The Livonian natives, although they seemed uneducated in the eyes of Europeans, were still more cultured than the people of that time in Russia. Of the hundred families sent by Sheremetev to Russia from near Marienburg, there were up to four hundred souls who “are skilled with an axe, and some other artists (Ustr. IV, 2 – 249 – 250) are suitable for the Azov parcel.”

Sheremetev, having taken Marienburg at the end of August 1702, sent all prisoners to Moscow at the disposal of Tikhon Nikitich Streshnev. The field marshal tried to be able to deliver them as quickly as possible, before the autumn cold set in. Then Gluck was sent to Moscow with many others. The pious and enlightened pastor looked upon the event that happened to him as one of the ways in which Providence was directing him to his calling. The name Gluck was not unfamiliar to Peter, and the Russian Tsar was very pleased when he had this man in his power, capable, even against his own will, of benefiting the Russian people. Brought to Moscow, the pastor was placed in the German settlement and lived there for the winter. On March 4, 1703, the Tsar indicated his appointment: Peter granted him an annual allowance of three thousand rubles and ordered him to open a school in Moscow for the children of commoners, leaving him at his discretion to choose teachers in various subjects of scientific teaching. Gluck faced significant difficulties: there were neither Russian teachers nor Russian manuals. Fortunately, Moscow was not poor in foreigners who had become accustomed to both Russian life and the Russian language. Gluck recruited six of these individuals. It was planned to teach philosophy, geography, rhetoric, Latin, French and German languages, as well as the rudiments of Greek and Hebrew in the newly founded school. The foreigners who became teachers were Germans, with the exception of two, who seemed to belong to the French nation. Wurm, who was the home teacher of the Marienburg preposit, now became one of the teachers at this school. Ernest Gluck himself, who had previously thoroughly studied as much as he could of the Russian language, now began to compile manuals and translations: he completed the translation of the Holy Scriptures - he translated the New Testament, translated the Lutheran catechism, wrote a prayer book in Russian in rhymed verse, compiled a vestibulum, or dictionary to the knowledge of the languages ​​of Russian, German, Latin and French, translated Komenya "Janua linguaram", translated "Orbis pictus", compiled a geography textbook, preserved in manuscript - with an appeal in the sense of dedication to Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and with an invitation to Russian laws, " like soft clay, pleasing to every image." The Russian language, in which Ernest Gluck wrote, is a mixture of folk Russian speech with Slavic-ecclesiastical speech. Gluck, apparently, although he studied Slavic speech well, did not reach a clear understanding of the line that exists in nature itself between the Slavic-ecclesiastical and folk-Russian dialects. And to demand this from a foreigner under the conditions under which Gluck could study the Russian language would be too strict, while people of purely Russian origin could not always understand and observe this line. Gluck was given a room for school on Pokrovka, in the Naryshkins’ house. The venerable activity of this man continued until 1705, and this year on May 5, Gluck died, leaving behind a large family.

Peter, patronizing all mental activity in general, due to his personal sympathies, could not find in Gluck a completely suitable figure in the field of education that he wanted to spread in Russia under his control. Peter was a realist to the extreme, so that his transformative plans could find an executor in a German pastor who was thinking of starting Latin schools for the masses of the common people. Peter needed knowledgeable sailors, engineers, and technicians in Russia, and not philologists, Hellenists and Ebraists. That is why the appearance of Gluck and his school in the history of the spiritual transformation of Russia, undertaken by Peter, did not take root and remained somewhat episodic.

Such was the fate of the Marienburg preposit. Another was determined from above for his maid Martha. When she was with Sheremetev, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov arrived and, seeing Marta, expressed a desire to take her as his own. Sheremetev did not like this, he reluctantly gave up the beautiful captive; but he yielded, although, according to his custom, he could not refrain from using rude words; He did not dare to give in, because Menshikov was the Tsar’s first favorite and was becoming an all-powerful man in Russia. Alexander Danilovich, having taken the Livonian captive as his property, sent her to Moscow, to his own house, a rich one, distinguished by a large number of domestic and court servants, as it should have been, according to the customs of that time, to be the home of a noble Russian nobleman.

We don’t know how long the Marienburg captive lived with her new master before a change happened to her again. Tsar Peter lived for some time in Moscow and, visiting the house of his favorite, saw his beautiful maid there. It seems that this was in the winter of 1703/1704, since we know for certain that Peter spent some time in Moscow that winter. More than once, after completing his year's work, the tsar visited Moscow for the winter and there organized celebrations and festivities regarding his recent successes. The year 1703 was marked by important events for Peter and Russia: this year, on May 27, Tsar Peter, together with his favorite Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, founded the Peter and Paul Fortress on the Neva and thereby laid the foundation for St. Petersburg, the first Russian city on the Baltic Sea. Peter liked the place where the new city was founded; soon he began to call the newly built city his paradise and prepared a great future for it. There was a reason to have fun the following winter. Menshikov went out of his way, as they say, trying to amuse his sovereign, and organized feasts and celebrations in his house. At one of these feasts, Peter, having already drunk quite a bit, as usual, saw Martha. She, as a servant, served something to the sovereign. Peter was struck by her face and posture - the sovereign immediately liked her.

-Who is this beauty you have? – Peter asked Menshikov.

Menshikov explained to the tsar that she was a Livonian captive, a rootless orphan, who served with the pastor and was taken with him in Marienburg.

Peter, having stayed overnight at Menshikov’s, ordered her to take him to the bedroom. He loved pretty women and allowed himself fleeting amusements; many beauties visited him without leaving any trace in his heart. And Martha, apparently, was supposed to be nothing more than one of such many. But it didn't turn out that way.

Peter was not content with just this acquaintance with her. Soon the sovereign liked Martha so much that he made her his permanent mistress. Peter's rapprochement with Martha coincided with the cooling that arose towards his former beloved Anna Mons.

We will have to leave unresolved the question of what exactly cooled Peter to this German woman, for whose sake he removed his legal wife from himself and imprisoned him; it is better to leave it unresolved than to repeat conjectures and raise them into factual truths.

We don’t know whether the reason for this change was the discovery of Anna’s love letter in the pocket of the drowned Polish-Saxon envoy Koenigsek, as reported by Lady Rondeau, or, as others say, the reason for the breakup was that Anna Mons preferred the position of the legal wife of the Prussian envoy to the position of the royal mistress Keyserling. Menshikov cunningly led her to express this kind of desire, and then slandered her to the Tsar; he hated Anna Mons: it seemed to him that she took away from the tsar the affection that Peter would have undividedly shown to Menshikov. The truth of both news can equally be assumed based on their credibility, but neither one nor the other has any certainty behind it. The only thing that is true is that the time when Peter became friends with Martha closely coincides with the time when he broke up with Anna.

We don’t know for sure when exactly this new rapprochement between the king took place, and we can only guess that the day he first recognized Martha was September 28 - probably 1703. We assume this on the basis that in 1711 Peter from Carlsbad wrote to this Martha, who had already become his wife, and, putting September 28, added: “the beginning of a new day for our good.” But this is only an assumption on our part, because perhaps Peter was hinting at something else, noting the day of September 28. After Peter decided to take Martha as his mistress, he ordered her to move to him, and some time later Martha accepted the Orthodox faith and was named Catherine; Her successor was Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, and that is why she was named Alekseevna. When exactly this conversion to Orthodoxy of the Marienburg captive happened, there is no data to determine. Martha, now Ekaterina, lived from then on for several years in Moscow, more often in Preobrazhenskoye, in the community of the Arsenyev girls (one of whom, Daria Mikhailovna, was later Menshikov’s wife), Menshikov’s sister and Anisya Tolstoy. There is a letter dated October 6, 1705, in which all these women signed, and Peter’s mistress called herself “the third herself,” which proves that at that time she already had two children from Peter.

But Catherine was not constantly, not always in Moscow, often the tsar demanded her to come to him, and she traveled with him for some time in his restless life, and then returned to Moscow again. She bore the name Ekaterina Vasilevskaya, but then they changed her nickname and began to call her Katerina Mikhailovna, because Peter served through official ranks under the name Mikhailov. At a time when Catherine was not with the tsar, Peter constantly wrote to her and in his letters called her mother, meaning that she was the mother of his children, and Anisya Tolstoy, who was close to her, was aunt, sometimes adding the epithet “thoughtful”; She jokingly called herself “the stupid aunt.” This Anisya Tolstaya in the early years was, it seems, something of a supervisor to Peter’s mistress. Ekaterina maintained respect for Menshikov, her former master and master, for several years, and Menshikov still treated her noticeably with the tone of a person who stood above her, who, on occasion, could influence her fate. But these relations changed in 1711. Until then, Menshikov wrote to her: “Katerina Alekseevna! Long live in the Lord!”, but in a letter on April 30, 1711 he wrote to her: “The most merciful empress queen,” and called her daughters empress princesses. This showed that Peter already recognized her as his legal wife and all his subjects had to recognize her in this title. Peter himself, in his letters to Catherine on envelopes, began to title her as queen, and when addressing her, he expressed himself: “Katerinushka, my dear friend!” The marriage of Peter and Catherine took place in 1712 on February 19, at 9 o'clock in the morning in St. Petersburg, in the Church of Isaac of Dalmatia (see notes by A.F. Bychkov, "Old and New. Ross." 1877, vol. I, p. 323 – 324). Subsequently, the tsar publicly announced to his people some important merits rendered by Catherine during the Prut affair, when the sovereign with his military forces found himself in a critical situation, but what exactly these merits of Catherine consisted of was not announced by her royal husband, and from all the surviving modern descriptions of the Prut affair, nothing can be deduced that could indicate an important participation of Catherine. The unclear testimony of Peter himself about Catherine’s participation in the Prut affair subsequently gave rise to arbitrary fabrications. It was believed that Catherine, in moments of general danger, donated all her jewelry for gifts intended to persuade the vizier to peace and thereby be able to lead the entire Russian army out of the hopeless situation in which it was then located. This is how it was told in the Venice history of Peter the Great and in Voltaire; from them this story passed to Golikov; the same thing was repeated by many. These stories became an anecdotal fable, on a par, for example, with the fable about the rescue of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich by Susanin, and many other similar historical fables that were accepted without a strict investigation of their authenticity. We, for our part, cannot resort to any assumptions about this. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Catherine knew how to express herself at these moments and please Peter. Many years after that, when the sovereign, having already accepted the title of emperor, intended to crown his wife with the imperial crown, in a decree about this he testified to the important services provided to the fatherland by Catherine in 1711 during the Prut affair. It remains unknown to us by what exact participation in the Prut affair Catherine gained such fame, but we have no right to reject the authenticity of this participation after we hear about such participation from Peter himself.

Since the Prut campaign, Peter’s relationship with Catherine has somehow elevated and ennobled. We often see Catherine as Peter's inseparable companion. She made a trip abroad with him to Western Europe, although she did not accompany her husband to France and remained in Holland while Peter visited this country. In 1722, Catherine accompanied Peter on the Persian campaign, sharing the glory of his successes, just as eleven years earlier she shared the sorrow of failure in the Turkish War. Most of Peter's letters to Catherine and Catherine to Peter, written during those periods of time when circumstances forced the spouses to be separated, date back to the period from 1711 to the death of Peter, or from the time when Catherine began to be recognized by everyone as the queen and the legal wife of the Russian sovereign , until those minutes when, having become a widow, she became the only and complete autocrat in Russia. History would have suffered an irreplaceable loss if this correspondence between the spouses had not reached posterity (Letters of Russian Sovereigns. M. 1861, Part I). The personality of Peter the Great would have remained not only in the shadows, but also in the wrong light. Peter here is like a family man, and, moreover, a happy family man - this is not at all like Peter is a political figure or Peter, who is married to a person whom he is not able to love. In his letters to Catherine there is not even a shadow of those traits of severity and callousness that accompanied all the activities of the sovereign outside of his relationship with his beloved wife and his family. His tenderest affection is visible in everything and everywhere. He misses her when business distracts him from the family hearth, and she misses him. “I hear,” he wrote to Catherine in August 1712 from abroad, “that you are bored, and I am not bored, but you can reason that there is no need to change things for boredom.” In 1717, when Peter was traveling to France, and Catherine remained in Holland at that time, he wrote to her: “And what you write, so that I come quickly, that you are very bored, I believe that; I’m just lashing out at the informer (i.e., the bearer of the letter), which is what it’s like for me without you, and I can say that, besides the days that I was in Versailles and Marly, the days since 12 have had such a great plaisir” (p. 71) ". One can see his tender care for his wife, which manifested itself especially when Catherine had to set off on the road. In 1712, he wrote: “I’m not going to go see you soon from here (from Greichwalde); and if your horses have arrived, then go with those three battalions that were ordered to go to Anklam, only for God’s sake ride carefully and don’t go a hundred fathoms away from the battalions, for there are a lot of enemy ships in Gaf and are constantly coming out in large numbers, and for you those you can’t avoid the forests” (p. 22). In 1718 (p. 75) he wrote to the queen: “I declare to you that you should not travel at all along the road that I took from Novgorod, since the ice is bad and we have traveled much in need and are forced to spend the night for one night. Why did I write , having driven twenty miles from Novgorod, to the commandant, so that he orders you to put the carts along the old road.” In 1723, he wrote, having returned to St. Petersburg before her: “It’s very boring without you. The promising road is very bad, and especially across high bridges, which cross many rivers that are not strong; for this reason, it’s better to cross on foot or ride in a one-wheeler” (with 137). Often spouses, being separated from each other, sent gifts to each other.

When the sovereign was abroad, Catherine sent him beer (pp. 29 - 30), freshly pickled cucumbers (p. 132), and he sent her Hungarian wine, expressing the desire that she drink to her health, and informing that he was with those who were then with him will drink to her health, and whoever does not drink will be ordered to impose a fine on him. In 1717, Peter thanked Catherine for the present he had sent and wrote to her: “So I am sending from here to you in return. Really, worthy presents on both sides: you sent me to help my old age, and I am sending them to decorate your youth” (p. 45). Probably, to help her old age, Catherine then sent Peter wine, and he sent her some clothes. The following year, 1717, Peter from Brussels sent Catherine lace (p. 62), and Catherine gave him wine. While in the same year on the waters of Spa, Peter wrote: “Just now Lyubras brought a letter from you, in which you congratulate each other on these days (it was the anniversary of the Poltava victory) and about the same grieving that we are not together, and also a gift for two strong bottles. And what you write is for the reason that I sent little because we don’t drink much when we have water, and it’s true, I don’t drink more than five in total a day, but one or two strong ones, but not always, another reason is that this wine is strong, and another for the fact that it is rare." Catherine herself, showing concern for her husband’s health, wrote to him (p. 165) that she was sending “him only two bottles of strong wine, and that she didn’t send more wine, and that’s because when drinking water, tea, you can’t have too much.” eat". The spouses also sent each other berries and fruits: Catherine in July 1719 sent Peter, who was then on a sea voyage against the Swedes, “strawberries, oranges, citrons” along with a barrel of herrings (p. 111), and Peter sent her fruit from the “Revel vegetable garden" (p. 91). As a caring wife, Catherine sent her husband clothes and linen. Once, from abroad, he wrote to her that at a party arranged he was dressed in a camisole, which she had previously sent him, and another time, from France, he wrote to her about the state of the linen sent to him: “Although we have portomoi, however, you sent the shirts" (p. 59). Among the gifts sent to Catherine, Peter once sent his cut hair (p. 78), and in 1719 he sent her a flower and mint from Revel, which, having previously been with Peter in Reval, she herself planted (p. 79 ); and Catherine answered him: “It’s not dear to me that I planted it myself; I’m pleased that it came from your hands.” Often correspondence between spouses concerned household matters. Peter, while abroad, entrusted his wife with supervision of business establishments. So, by the way, she supervised the construction of Peterhof ponds and fountains. In July 1719, Catherine wrote to Peter (p. 106): “They deigned to mention to me about the pool that water does not hold in it, and so that, having taken out the old clay, fill it with Peterhof clay, and even then it will not hold, then put a slab with se- cop, and to this, my father, I convey the truth: as if I knew before your writing, I ordered this Peterhof clay to be transported, just because I wanted to lay it with bricks. Now they are taking out the old yellow clay, then I will do it according to your wishes." With particular liveliness, Catherine wrote about her children, informed Peter about the health of the princesses and the prince, the favorite of both parents, whom they nicknamed Shishechka. “I report,” Catherine wrote in August 1718, “that with God’s help I am with our dear Shishechka and everyone in good health. Our dear Shishechka often mentions his trembling father, and with the help of God he is in his condition and is constantly having fun with his exercises.” soldiers and cannon fire" (p. 81). In important family matters, as can be seen, Catherine always asked her husband’s decisions, and in general, as many features show, she did not dare to go beyond his will. So, for example, in 1718, she found it difficult, not knowing the will and desire of her father, to baptize her daughter and wrote to her husband, who was then outside Russia: “If you don’t want to come to us soon, then I ask that you please notify me about the baptism of our newborn daughter (whose name pleases your grace?) either to do it without you, or to wait for your happy arrival here, which the Lord God grants soon” (p. 84). Peter shared with his wife, as with his true friend, news of victories won and sent her information about battles and political affairs. So, in July 1719, he informs Catherine about the victorious exploits of General Lessie over the Swedes (p. 110): “There was a battle with the enemy, and with the help of God they beat the enemy and took seven cannons. And how was the battle and what kind of devastation did this general then cause to the enemy , I am sending him a detailed statement - a copy of his letter and hereby we congratulate you." Catherine answered Peter: “I especially congratulate your honor on this happy victory, sincerely wishing that Almighty God, by his usual mercy towards us, would deign to bring a happy end to this long war” (p. 115). Here Catherine does not express her own views and desires regarding the war, but adapts to the then direction of Peter, who really wanted peace, but for the benefit of Russia. News of victories over the enemy of Russia gave rise to celebrations and feasts not only for Peter, but also for Catherine when she was separated from her husband. In 1719, Catherine wrote: “For that past Victoria and for your future happiness, let’s have fun tomorrow” (p. 108). Adapting to the image of Peter’s expressions, Catherine (p. 109) writes: “I congratulate you again on your happy victory at the sea of ​​the past, and for your special work at that time we gave thanksgiving to God this day, then we will have fun and will not leave Ivashka Khmelnitsky.” More than once in the correspondence of the spouses there is a humorous tone on the part of both, or korzweilwort, as they said at that time. In 1716, when Peter tried to arrange an alliance with Denmark, England and the German states against Sweden, wanting to express the idea that the enterprise was not succeeding, Peter wrote to Catherine: “About here we declare that we are dangling tuna; for as young horses in a carriage are ours the united, and especially the indigenous ones, want the bastard, but the indigenous ones do not think: why do I intend to leave soon to you” (p. 49). In 1719, he wrote: “Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Admiral, having written out the extract, I am sending this, from which you will see that our above-mentioned Mr. Admiral has corrupted almost all of Sweden with his great spiron” (p. 113). In the same year, Catherine, informing her husband about the unexpected death of some French gardener, expressed herself this way: “A Frenchman was making new flower beds, he was walking across the canal at night, poor thing, met him opposite Ivashka Khmelnitsky and, somehow, pushed him off the bridge , sent to the next world to make flower beds" (p. 96). In 1720, Catherine wrote to Peter about some Leo, who brought her a letter from the sovereign: “This is not a lion, but a mangy cat brought a letter from a dear lion, whatever I want” (p. 123). In his letters, Peter called himself an old man. On this occasion, Catherine, in a letter to her husband, says: “It was in vain that the old man was started, for I can provide witnesses from my old sisters, and I hope that again such a dear old man will be willingly found” (p. 97). Here Catherine makes allusion to various women with whom Peter accidentally struck up fleeting connections. In this regard, something even cynical is noticeable between the spouses. In 1717, from Spa, where Peter used healing waters, he wrote to Catherine: “Because it is forbidden to use medicine while drinking water at home, for this reason I sent my metres to you, for I could not resist if I had it with me” ( p. 70). Catherine answered him (p. 166): “What do you deign to write, that you released your little lady here for your abstinence, that it is impossible to have fun with her in the waters, and I believe that, but I think more that you deigned to release her because of her illness , in which she still remains and deigned to go to Gaga for treatment, and I would not have wished (from which God forbid) that the galan of that little lady would arrive as healthy as she arrived. And in another of your writings you deign to congratulate the old man’s name day and the cones, and I believe that if this old man were here, then the other cone would have ripened next year!” Here Catherine wants to say that if she were constantly with her husband, then she would soon become pregnant and could give birth to another child the next year. And this is said immediately after the speech about the “babe”!

This kind of “Korzweilworth” in the correspondence between Peter and Catherine explains a lot in the characters of both and, together with other traits, contribute to solving the question: what could have tied Peter to this woman to such an extent?

From his adolescence, Peter learned not to restrain his desires and actions for anyone or anything; This is probably why he could not get along with his first wife, Evdokia. And he could not get along with any other wife except Catherine. If this wife had been the daughter of some foreign sovereign or prince, he would not have dared to send his “babe” to her; if this second wife were the daughter of some Russian boyar or nobleman, she would not react to such antics of her husband with the Kortsweilworths: let this husband be her king and master, but still, at the same time, he would be her legal husband, having in relation to her, duties imposed on him not by worldly laws, depending on the will of the tsar, but by the statutes of the Orthodox Church, which for the Russian heart and mind has long been above all earthly authorities. Only such a plump foreign orphan as Catherine, a former servant, then a pitiful captive, obliged by her rank to meekly obey every master who had the right, like a thing, to transfer her to another - only such a woman was fit to be the wife of a man who, without paying paying no attention to anyone, he considered himself allowed to do whatever came into his head, and to have fun with whatever his unbridled sensuality might lead him to. Peter not only did not tolerate contradiction to himself, he did not even tolerate restrained, not directly expressed disapproval of his actions. Peter wanted everyone around him to recognize everything he did as good. This is how Catherine treated Peter. This was her first virtue. In addition to this virtue, Catherine possessed another. Often, exposed to anger, Peter went into a frenzy: everything fled from him, as from a ferocious wild beast; but Catherine, by her innate feminine ability, was able to notice and master such methods of treating her husband as were possible to calm his ferocity. Contemporary Bassevich says that at such moments, Catherine alone could approach him without fear: the mere sound of her voice calmed Peter; She sat him down, took him by the head, scratched him caressing him and thereby put him into a restful sleep. Sometimes he would rest like this on her chest for two or three hours and wake up fresh and alert: without this, his irritation would lead to a severe headache. When she succeeded in this means several times, Catherine became a necessary being for Peter; As soon as those close to the Tsar noticed convulsive movements of the mouth in his face, harbingers of fits of ferocity, they immediately called Catherine: it was as if there was something magnetic, healing in her. Taking advantage of this significance for her husband, it seemed easy for her to become the guardian angel of many, the intercessor of the unfortunate who suffered the royal wrath; but Catherine, naturally gifted with great feminine tact, did not abuse her property and allowed herself to turn to Peter with intercessions only when she noticed that her intercession would not only not be rejected, but would in itself please the Tsar. And even here it happened that Catherine, with all her worldly prudence, was mistaken. And in this case, having received a refusal, she did not dare to repeat her request and did not allow her husband to notice her displeasure that Peter did not act as she would have liked; on the contrary, she was in a hurry to show complete indifference to the fate of the guilty person for whom she was trying to plead, and recognized the sovereign’s court as unconditionally right. From the correspondence of the royal spouses that has reached us and was published in print, it is clear that Catherine tried to think about everything as Peter thought, to be interested in what Peter was interested in, to love what he loved, to joke about what he joked about, and to hate what which he hated. Catherine had no original personality left: to such an extent she subordinated herself in everything to the will of Peter. The sovereign, however, treats her not as a despot treats a slave, but as a ruler treats his best, most faithful friend. Judging by his letters, he considered her capable of being his adviser in matters not only domestic, but also social and political: he informs her about various political events and assumptions that occupied him, sends her descriptions of battles. In this area too, Catherine behaved with remarkable tact and restraint: she declared her joy about the successes of Russian weapons, about the exploits of the newly created fleet by Peter, about everything that led to the increase in the glory and benefit of Russia, but did not indulge in advice and reasoning, even and in household affairs, which by their very essence belonged to the woman more than other matters; Catherine always sought Peter's orders and submitted to his will in everything. Peter liked this restraint, and the more modest Catherine behaved in this regard, the more he considered her worthy to be his comrade in everything. Such natures as Peter love to turn to advisers, but these advisers are liked and seem worthy the more, the less they express their own opinions, but only reverently agree with what is communicated to them. In this regard, Peter found in Catherine the true ideal of a wife for himself. But he, in addition to the most tender marital love, showed attention to her, wanting to perpetuate her name in posterity: thus, he established the Order of St. Catherine in memory of the services rendered by her beloved wife during the Prut campaign; established pleasure gardens in St. Petersburg and Reval (Ekaterinenhof and Katarinenthal), named a sixty-gun ship after her, established a cavalry guard company for her person (in 1724), and finally, with great honor and triumph, placed the imperial crown on her.

A few years after the Turkish War and the Prut disaster, Catherine gave birth to Peter a son, Tsarevich Peter Petrovich, dear “Shishechka,” as his parents called him. This event tied the spouses closer to each other. Peter had only daughters alive from Catherine; Although male children were born, they died in infancy. The son of his first wife, Evdokia Lopukhina, who was hated by Peter, Tsarevich Alexei, who did not at all share Peter’s aspirations or tastes, remained the legal heir, who was supposed to take the throne after his father’s death. Peter wanted to give the inheritance to dear “Shishechka” instead. We will not here not only repeat, but also recall the tragic events of the death of the unfortunate prince, described by us in the article “Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich.” The desire of the sovereign to deliver after himself the Russian throne to “Shishechka” coincided with Alexei’s inability to be Peter’s successor as the transformer of Russia; The father was aware of this inability, and it was impossible for such a great mind not to be aware of it. What role did Catherine play here?

The spineless, insignificant prince, having fled from his father to Vienna, in a conversation with the imperial chancellor pointed to Catherine as the main person hostile to himself and attributed his parent’s dislike to himself to the evil influence of his stepmother; but this same prince, upon arriving in his fatherland, lay at the feet of this stepmother and begged her for intercession before his irritated parent. We do not know the slightest trait on her part by which we could draw any conclusion about how exactly Catherine behaved at the time when this whole tragedy was happening before her eyes. Did she make any petition to Peter on behalf of the prince or on behalf of any of the many who suffered in his case? There is no trace of that anywhere. But the truth must be told: it is not clear that Catherine exerted an opposite influence on Peter, which increased his cruelty in this matter. With her everyday tact, having accustomed herself not to interfere in such matters where her voice could not have weight, Catherine prudently withdrew here too and behaved in such a way that her person was not at all visible in all this deplorable matter. The prince was gone. Much blood was shed for him; many Russian heads were displayed on the stakes; all this was leading to dear “Shishechka” becoming Peter I’s successor on the Russian throne. And Peter Petrovich, Catherine’s son, appeared in the eyes of the whole world as the only legitimate heir: after the death of Alexei, no one in the world, it seemed, could challenge his rights. How can Catherine not be pleased with this in her soul? Her offspring benefited from Alexei's death. This circumstance involuntarily arouses the suspicion that Catherine was pleased with the tragic fate of her stepson and the removal of the latter’s son from succession to the throne. But there is not the slightest historical evidence that could confirm such a suspicion.

But “Shishechka” went to the next world on April 25, 1718. The late Tsarevich Alexei had two children left: a boy Peter and a girl Natalya. The boy was now made the legal heir. Already all over Russia they were talking about this in whispers, they saw in the death of Tsarevich Peter Petrovich God's justice, punishing the tsar and his entire family for the death of the innocent first-born son and returning the rightful inheritance to the baby to whom it belonged by birth.

They say that Peter himself hesitated. The death of Alexei did not remain without traces on his conscience, whose voice could not be lulled either by the vigorous activity in the work on the state system, or by the noisy orgies of the most drunken cathedral. At times the sovereign became gloomy and thoughtful. Catherine, even if she was completely innocent in the death of Alexei Petrovich, must have felt a constant burden on her heart with the thought that after the death of her husband, a child could be proclaimed sovereign if his educators had taught him from childhood that his parent’s enemy was the latter’s stepmother. On February 5, 1722, Peter took another step, although it somewhat protected Catherine from this threatening danger. Peter issued a law on succession to the throne, according to which he determined the right of the reigning sovereign to appoint a successor for himself, guided by his personal will. With such a law, the children of Alexei Petrovich no longer had the right to the throne by their birthright. Catherine was still young and could have given birth to a male child, to whom Peter could have passed on his throne in his will, and even if Catherine had not given birth to a son, it still remained in Peter’s will to arrange after himself such an order of things in which his widow would not would be in danger.

The Persian War came. Peter himself went on a campaign and took Catherine with him, just as he took her during the Turkish War. But during the Persian War, nothing appeared such that it was possible to point out the feat of Catherine, as after the Prut affair; at least Catherine was now a participant in her husband’s military labors.

Upon returning from the expedition, Peter intended to elevate his wife to the highest degree of honor: to crown her with the imperial crown and perform the very coronation ceremony in the Mother See of Russia. A manifesto informing the people of the royal intention was published on November 15, 1723: in this manifesto, the sovereign notified all his subjects that his most kind wife, Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, “was an assistant in all his labors and in many military actions, putting aside female infirmity, with the will of “I was present and helped him as much as possible, and especially in the Prut campaign with the Turks, almost in desperate times, how manly and not feminine she acted, the whole army knows about this, and from it, undoubtedly, the whole state.” For such important services provided by the queen, the sovereign, “according to the autocracy given to him by God,” in gratitude, intended to crown her with the imperial crown. The time for the coronation celebration was set in advance for May 1724; To this celebration, Peter invited all members of the august house and even his nieces, the daughters of his brother Petrov, Catherine of Mecklenburg and Anna of Courland, the future Russian empress, who had left it through marriage to foreign princes. Only the young children of Tsarevich Alexei were not invited. But all the foreign representatives of the courts who were then in Russia were invited to the celebration, and one of these gentlemen, the minister of the Duke of Holstein, who was then courting Peter’s daughter, Bassevich reports on a very important incident. “Peter,” says Bassevich, “used to visit the most distinguished foreign merchants with his trusted nobles, and he came to one such merchant, an Englishman, on the eve of the coronation celebration. Among the guests who were then with the tsar at the merchant’s place were two bishops: the Novgorod Archbishop of Theodosius Yanovsky and Pskov Bishop Feofan Prokopovich. The first was a long-time favorite of the tsar, who had recently lost the tsar’s trust, the second Peter recognized more and more, brought closer to himself and appreciated for his extraordinary intelligence and versatile education. The great chancellor was also there Golovkin: “The coronation scheduled for tomorrow,” said the sovereign, “is more important than many people think. I crown Catherine with the imperial crown in order to give her the right to rule the state after me. She saved the empire, which almost became prey to the Turks on the banks of the Prut, and therefore she is worthy to reign after me. I hope that she will preserve all my institutions and make the state happy." No one dared to object to Peter, and the silence of the interlocutors was then recognized as a sign of universal approval of the sovereign’s words.

Preparing a brilliant celebration for his wife, Peter established a special detachment of bodyguards; it was a company of cavalry guards, consisting at first of sixty nobles. The captain of this company was the sovereign himself, and Peter appointed Yaguzhinsky, lieutenant general and prosecutor general, as captain-lieutenant; The sovereign had previously granted him the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. This company was supposed to accompany Catherine on the day of her coronation for the first time.

For three days before the celebration, Catherine observed strict fasting and remained in prayer. It was in Moscow, and it was necessary for the Russian people to believe in the devotion to Orthodoxy of that person who, as it were, received the right to reign and rule the state autocratically. The coronation ceremony took place on May 7 in the Assumption Cathedral with those ceremonies that were prescribed by church rite for royal weddings. Catherine walked out of the palace at the sound of bells, dressed in a rich dress, specially ordered for this day in Paris. She was led by the arm of the Duke of Holstein; Behind her, dressed in a blue caftan, embroidered by his wife’s hands, walked Peter, along with Menshikov and Prince. Repnin; cavalry guards escorted high-ranking persons. Those who saw Catherine then noticed that tears were appearing in her eyes. It is clear that she must have experienced moments of strong inner sensations; in her memories a long series of previous events of her strange life should have unfolded, starting from the gloomy days of orphanhood and poverty and ending in bright moments of triumph and greatness. In the Assumption Cathedral, Peter himself placed the crown on Catherine, and then, taking the state apple, or orb, from the Novgorod archbishop, he handed it to Catherine. The Emperor held the scepter in one hand throughout the ceremony. After the coronation, Catherine was anointed to the throne, and at the end of the liturgy, with the ringing of bells, she walked from the Assumption Cathedral to the Archangel Cathedral and the Ascension Monastery to venerate the ashes of the old Russian kings and queens. This followed the ancient rite of a royal wedding.

Portrait of Catherine I by J.-M. Nattier, 1717

Lunch that day was held in the Faceted Chamber. The sovereign and the newly crowned empress had to sit at a separate table from all other participants in the feast. In front of the palace, artificial fountains were built, spewing out white and red wine, and roasted bulls stuffed inside with various poultry were placed. It was a treat for the people. At dinner, the sovereign could not bear to sit for a long time in front of the guests, jumped up from his table, went to the window and began to watch the movement of the crowd. The nobles began to join the sovereign. Peter, standing at the window, spoke for half an hour, then, noticing that dinner was stopping, and meanwhile another change of dishes was being served, he said: “Go, sit down and laugh at your sovereigns!” This was said in the sense of wit over the vulgarity of generally accepted court receptions, which required compliance with ceremonies, which, under the guise of honors, only embarrass high-ranking persons.

The day after the coronation, Catherine accepted congratulations. Peter himself, with the rank of general and admiral, congratulated her. At his request, it was not he, but she, the empress, who granted the dignity of count to Peter Tolstoy. They say that at this time Catherine, thinking that now Peter would not refuse her any request, petitioned for pardon for Shafirov, who had been convicted and was in exile in Novgorod. Peter not only did not fulfill her wishes, but said that he should not be reminded of this man. Nothing could affect his heart when it was irritated against someone.

For eight days Moscow rejoiced over the crowning of Catherine. There were many who were secretly dissatisfied with Peter’s action, tempted by Catherine’s low origins; However, Rus' was too aware of the menacing, inexorable “poverty,” as the Preobrazhensky Order was called, and everyone was afraid to incur suspicion that they did not approve of the actions of the sovereign. Everyone, however, was convinced that by coronating Catherine, Peter wanted to show his desire to leave her behind as a Russian empress and autocrat. The crowning of a woman was a new, unusual phenomenon, as was the reigning of a woman without a husband. Previous Russian history could present only one case of such a coronation: this was the coronation of Maria Mniszech, arranged by the said Dmitry before his marriage to her. But this example could not serve as a model, since neither Marina nor Dmitry were subsequently considered to have the right to the throne. Foreigners who were in Russia during the coronation of Catherine saw in this act of Peter a direct intention to give his wife the right to be his successor to the throne.

In 1724, in November, an event occurred that was told by foreigners in such a sense as if discord was about to arise between the royal spouses. Catherine had the ruler of the chancellery, who was in charge of affairs on the empress’s estates, William Mons, the brother of Anna Mons, who was once Peter’s mistress. They say that Peter was jealous of his wife, but, not allowing anyone to see the real reason for his dislike for this man, he found fault with him for his abuses in managing the affairs of the empress and condemned him to death. Catherine tried to ask for mercy for the condemned man, but Peter became so furious that he smashed the rich mirror into pieces and said: “This thing was the best decoration of my palace, but I wanted to and destroyed it!” With these words, Peter wanted to hint at the fate of Catherine herself; she had to understand that Peter, who raised her to a height, could also overthrow her from this height and deal with her in the same way as he would have dealt with a precious mirror. Having long been accustomed to such antics of annoyance, Catherine, with her usual calmness, which she considered appropriate to maintain in such moments, meekly said: “Has your palace become any better because of this?” Mons was executed; the head of the executed man was displayed to the public on top of a pillar. Then Peter, together with Catherine, rode in a carriage past this pillar, observing what kind of emotional movement would appear on the face of his wife. Catherine, who always knew how to control herself, did not change her calmness and said: “How sad that the courtiers can have so much depravity!” This is what foreigners say (see Lefort: “Russian. Historical. General. Collection.”, vol. III, 387).

For us, in fact, this tragedy remains unclear.

Based on some signs, one can guess that jealousy entered Peter’s heart about Catherine’s location and trust in Mons, but it is impossible to solve this. From the case carried out against Mons, it is only clear that he was really convicted of bribery and various abuses; taking advantage of the favors of Catherine and Peter himself, he became arrogant, as many temporary workers were arrogant, and when all his lawless tricks were revealed, it is clear that Peter was very irritated against him; It was not for nothing that the sovereign spent his entire life pursuing bribe-takers and embezzlers: such irritation could explain the scene with the mirror, if it really happened. In any case, if Peter’s anger for abuse was mixed with secret jealousy, then it is hardly possible to allow Catherine, with her short treatment of Mons, to give rise to such jealousy. Let us even assume that Catherine did not have so much love for her husband that such love could keep her faithful to her husband; but there is no doubt that Catherine was very prudent and should have understood that from such a person as Peter was, it was impossible, as they say, to hide the awl in the bag and trick him so that he calmly believed in the love of a woman who would deceive him. Finally, her own safety should have guided Catherine’s behavior: if Peter’s wife had indulged in criminal pranks, she would have had a very bad time when such a husband found out about it. The extent to which Peter was demanding in such matters was shown by the example of Evdokia and Glebov. Peter had no right to Evdokia, after he himself rejected her, and many years passed after the separation from her husband, when she got together with Glebov; meanwhile, when Peter found out that they had a love affair with each other, he did not forgive them both. One can conclude from this what would have awaited Catherine if she had discovered betrayal of her husband, with whom she lived and to whom she bore children. Therefore, the guesses and suspicions of foreigners about Catherine’s relationship with Mons have no basis. At least, the good relations of the sovereign towards his wife and the influential position of the empress at court continued to be shown until the death of Peter. Catherine reconciled the widow of Tsar Ivan Alekseevich, Tsarina Praskrviu, with her daughter Anna, and only at Catherine’s petition did the mother express forgiveness to her daughter: Catherine’s personality was so highly valued in the royal family! In November 1724, after the execution of Mons, the Duke of Holstein became engaged to the daughter of Peter and Catherine, Anna: this was done at the insistence of Catherine, who had long been in favor of the Duke, but Peter hesitated to give his decisive consent to this marriage for political reasons at that time . Finally, if Peter did not fulfill Catherine’s request to pardon Mons, he showed mercy to others through her intercession. So, he returned his favor to Menshikov and his cabinet secretary Makarov, with whom he was angry. On the other hand, it should be noted that even before the story of Mons, Peter did not always show mercy to the condemned when Catherine asked for them: so, we saw that he did not forgive Shafirov at her request, even in such moments when he most showed his disposition and respect for your spouse. The envoy of the Polish king Augustus II, Lefort, who was at the Russian court, reports, of course, from rumors, that in December 1724, Peter and Catherine had some kind of disagreement, and on December 16, Catherine asked Peter for forgiveness for something; the spouses explained to each other for three hours, after which complete agreement was restored between them. If this is not an idle product of rumor, which often invents fables about high-ranking persons, then it is still unlikely that what was being told about what happened between the spouses could have been a consequence of the story with Mons, since more than a month had passed since the execution of Mons and the spouses at that time were between yourself on friendly terms.

Finally, the most fatal, most shocking event in Catherine’s life came. Peter fell mortally ill. Signs of the illness had been felt for a long time, but appeared with uncontrollable force in January 1725. The symptoms of this painful condition were urinary retention. Dr. Blumentrost, who treated the sovereign, mistook these signs for a bladder disease and thought that the sovereign was developing a stone disease. Peter did not tolerate treatment when it was necessary to comply with doctor's orders, and did not follow them well. Already feeling sick, on January 3, 1725, Peter made the choice of a new “prince-pope” of his all-buffoonish and all-drunk cathedral and, together with the members of this buffoonish council, drank immoderately and fooled around according to his custom. This damaged his health. In mid-January, increasing pain forced him to call other doctors for advice. One of these doctors, the Italian Lazariti, having examined the emperor, found that Peter’s illness came from an internal ulcer formed at the neck of the urinary canal, and the sticky matter accumulated there interfered with the passage of urine. Lazariti advised first releasing the accumulated urine and then treating the ulcer. Blumentrost was annoyed that it was not he, but another who attacked such a discovery; he resisted and continued to treat the sovereign in his own way, until the patient’s suffering reached such an extent that he screamed terribly in pain, and not only his painful cry was heard throughout the palace, but was heard outside the outer walls of the palace. Peter, turning to those around him, said: “Learn from me what a pitiful animal man is!” Catherine did not leave her husband for a minute. On January 22, Peter wished for a mobile church to be built near his bedroom and for divine services to be held. After that, the sovereign confessed and received Holy Communion.

Then the doctors came together again. Lazariti still insisted that urine should be artificially released and then the ulcer in the canal should be treated. Blumentrost had to give in to him this time, as other doctors joined the Italian. The operation was performed the next day by the English doctor Horn; the sovereign immediately felt better; everyone was happy. The news of such relief spread among the people, who then gathered in crowds in churches to pray for the sovereign’s recovery. Doctor Horn announced to those around him that the sovereign did not have any stone in his bladder and his suffering was due to an ulcer, as Lazariti guessed.

The next night Peter slept peacefully. Hope for recovery increased. But on January 26, Tuesday, the sovereign asked for food; He was given oatmeal, and as soon as he ate a few spoons, he began to have convulsions, then feverish attacks set in; The doctors examined the patient and found that there was no longer any salvation: the ulcer in the urinary canal had become gangrenous. Lazarity reported this to Tolstoy, and Tolstoy to Catherine. It was necessary to think about the state while Peter was still in his memory. Senators and nobles were allowed to see Peter.

It is not clear that at this time Peter spoke to them about the state of the state, in which it should have been in the event of the death of the sovereign. But Peter then remembered the ancient custom of his ancestors: when they were struck by a serious illness and they felt the proximity of death, they hurried to do some good deed in order to appease God for their sins. And Peter, having deviated all his life from the habits and customs of his fathers, now wanted to follow in the footsteps of the old men: he ordered the release of all criminals sentenced to hard labor, excluding, however, those guilty of murder or convicted on the first two counts: for crimes against religion and the supreme authorities. On the same day, in the afternoon, the bishops, members of the Synod, performed the consecration of oil over the sick man.

Peter spent the next night restlessly. He became delirious; he jumped out of bed and was restrained with great difficulty.

On January 27, Peter ordered mercy to be shown to criminals sentenced to death or hard labor by a military court, except for those guilty of the first two counts and murderers. At the same time, forgiveness was given to the nobles who did not appear at the inspection by royal decree and, according to the law, were subject to the loss of movable and immovable property. Those pardoned by the sovereign were supposed to pray to God for his recovery as a sign of gratitude. On this day, at the end of the second hour in the afternoon, Peter expressed his intention to express his last will. He was given writing materials. Peter began to write, but could not: he wrote some illegible signs, which later, according to guesses, were interpreted as the words: “give everything...” The Emperor said that they would call Tsarevna Anna Petrovna to him, but when she appeared to her father, the latter was no longer able to utter a single word (Zap. Bassevich, "Russian Arch." 1865, 621).

According to the news reported by the foreign envoys who were then in Russia, Lefort and Campredon, from that time until his death, Peter was in a state of agony, without a tongue. But Golikov, guided by the story of Feofan Prokopovich, says that the sovereign after that listened to the admonitions of clergy and uttered several pious sayings. The reliability of such news can be strongly doubted: if the sovereign had been able to say a few words to the bishops, he could have expressed his last will on the succession to the throne. With a high probability, we can assume another news transmitted by the same Golikov. Already at night, when Peter was apparently weakening, the Trinity archimandrite invited him to once again partake of the Holy Mysteries and, if he agreed, asked him to move his hand. Peter was unable to speak, but with difficulty he moved his hand, and then he was given Holy Communion. Immediately after that the agony began.

Tver Archbishop Theophylact Lopatinsky read the sick note over him until the sick man no longer showed signs of breathing. Then Catherine closed his eyes and, exhausted, fell into the arms of those surrounding the bed of the deceased emperor. It was five hours and a quarter after midnight on January 28th.

Peter I on his deathbed. Painting by I. Nikitin, 1725

When writing the article, I used the essay by N. I. Kostomarov “Ekaterina Alekseevna, the first Russian Empress”

Reemuth - for geography, active philosophy, ifics, politics, Latin rhetoric with oratorical exercises and with explanations of examples from the historians Curtius and Justin and the poets Virgil and Horace. Christian Bernard Gluck - for Cartesian philosophy, also for the languages ​​of Greek, Hebrew and Chaldean. Johann-August Wurm - for German and Latin grammar and for an explanation of the dictionary (Vestibulum) and an introduction to the Latin language (Janua linguarum). Otto Birkan - for basic reading and writing of Latin and for arithmetic.

Merla - for French grammar and Rambourg - for the art of dancing and the steps of German and French politeness (Pek. Science and literature under P. Vel., 122).

There is no reason to reject this news, as Ustryalov does. Ustryalov’s most compelling remark against its reliability is that the source from which it was drawn contains a lot of obviously false news. But other instructions from Ustryalov are easily refuted. He notices that Gordon and Player are silent about this news, but Gordon and Player might not have heard it, or maybe someone heard it, but took it for walking gossip. It goes without saying that the love letter taken from the pocket of the drowned Koenigsek was not published - Peter, Anna, and people close to them knew about it, and rumors from them were already spreading, no doubt, with variations. Ustryalov, in refuting this news, also points to the fact that after the death of Koenigsek, Anna Mons was in a friendly relationship with the tsar, which is proven by her letter to Peter dated October 11, 1703, in which she asks for a decree to be sent to the patrimony granted to her by the tsar. But this can be explained by the fact that, as Player’s report to his court testifies, the corpse of the drowned Koenigsek in the summer of 1703 had not yet been found, therefore, Peter might not yet know about his mistress’s letter to Koenigsek, or she, sending the letter to the Tsar, did not knew that the king knew her tricks.

Anna Menshikova (sister of Alexander Danilovich), Varvara (Arsenyeva), senseless aunt (Anisya Tolstaya), Katerina herself is the third, Daria is stupid (wife of Alexander Danilovich).

More correctly, Veselovskaya, named after her aunt, her mother’s sister; this aunt accepted Catherine as a child after the death of her parents, and from her Catherine passed to the pastor, or kister, from whom Gluck took her to him.