Выбрать главу

But, as luck would have it, Ivan V had produced only female progeny. So that even in that case, they would have to accept a woman ruler for Russia. Wasn’t that dangerous? Another harsh debate broke out over the advantages and disadvantages of a “gynocracy.” Admittedly, Catherine I had recently proven that a woman can be courageous, determined and clear-minded when circumstances require. However, as everyone knows, “that sex” is slave to the senses. Thus a female sovereign would be likely to sacrifice the grandeur of the fatherland for the pleasures dispensed by her lover. Those who supported this thesis bolstered it by citing Menshikov who, they pointed out, had led Catherine by the nose. But wouldn’t a tsar be as weak as the tsarina had been in the hands of the Most Serene, if he had a lover who was as adept and skilful at both loving and intrigues? Didn’t Peter II himself demonstrate complete abdication of authority under the wiles of female seduction? So that what mattered, when it came to choosing whom to place on the throne, was not the gender per

«64»

The Surprise Accession of Anna Ivanovna se so much as the character of the individual in whom the country was placing its confidence. Under these conditions, asserted Dmitri Golitsyn, a matriarchy would be entirely acceptable, provided that the individual being offered such an honor was worthy to assume it.

This principle having been accepted by everyone present, he went on to consider the remaining candidates. From the very beginning, he brushed aside the absurd idea of installing Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter II’s aunt, since in his opinion she would have given up the success ion implicitly by leaving the capital to live as a recluse in the countryside, bad-mouthing all her relatives and complaining about everything. All three daughters of Ivan V seemed more promising, to him, than this daughter of Peter the Great. However, the eldest, Catherine Ivanovna, was known for her strange moods and crotchety temperament. Moreover her husband, Prince Charles Leopold of Mecklenburg, was a nervous and unstable man, an eternal rebel, always ready to fight - be it against his neighbors or his subjects. The fact that Catherine Ivanovna had lived apart from him for ten years was not a sufficient guarantee for, if she were proclaimed empress, he would return to her at a gallop and would never stop dragging the country into costly and useless wars. The youngest, Praskovya Ivanovna, rickety and scrofulous, had neither the health, the clear thinking, nor the moral balance required to manage public affairs. That left the second, Anna Ivanovna. She admitted to being 37 years old, and seemed to have plenty of energy. Widowed since 1711 by Frederick William, Duke of Courland, she was still living in Annenhof, near Mitau, in dignity and destitution. She had failed to marry Maurice of Saxony, but had recently become enamored of a small landed proprietor in Courland, Johann-Ernest Buhren. During his presentation, Dmitri Golitsyn glossed over this detail and promised that, in any event, if the Supreme Council required it,

«65»

Terrible Tsarinas she would drop her lover without regret and come running back to Russia.

This suggestion seemed to be convincing. Golitsyn then pressed his point, saying, “We agree on Anna Ivanovna. But we should trim her wings a bit!” Golitsyn had in mind subtly reducing the ruler’s powers and extending those of the Supreme Privy Council; everyone agreed. The representatives of Russia’s oldest families, brought together in a conclave, saw this initiative as a God-sent occasion to reinforce the political influence of the old- stock nobility vis-a-vis the hereditary monarchy and its temporary servants. By this juggling act, they could relieve Her Majesty of a share of the crown, even while pretending to help her adjust it on her head. After a succession of Byzantine discussions, the initiators of this idea agreed that Anna Ivanovna should be recognized as tsarina, but that her prerogative should be limited by a series of conditions to which she must subscribe beforehand.

Upstairs, the members of the Supreme Privy Council removed to the grand salon in the palace, where a multitude of civil, military and ecclesiastical dignitaries awaited the results of their deliberations. Learning of the decision taken by the supreme advisers, Bishop Feofan Prokopovich timidly recollected the will of Catherine I according to which, after the death of Peter II, the crown should revert to his aunt Elizabeth, as a daughter of Peter I and of the late empress. Never mind that the child was born before the parents were married: her mother had transmitted to her the blood of the Romanovs, he said, and nothing else counted when the future of Holy Russia was concerned! Dmitri Golitsyn, indignant at such a speech, shouted, “We will not have any bastards!”1 Shocked by this attack, Feofan Prokopovich swallowed his objections; the discussion moved on to a consideration of the “practical conditions.” The enumeration of the limits to imperial

«66»

The Surprise Accession of Anna Ivanovna power ended with an oath to be sworn by the candidate: “If I do not keep these commitments, I agree to forfeit my crown.” According to the charter envisaged by the supreme council, the new empress would commit to work to expand the Orthodox faith, not to marry, not to designate an heir and to work closely with the Supreme Privy Council - whose assent would be required in order to declare war, to conclude peace, to raise taxes, to interfere in the affairs of the nobility, to fill key positions in the administration of the empire, to distribute lands, villages, and serfs, and to monitor her personal expenditure of State funds.

This cascade of interdicts astounded the assembly. Wasn’t the Council going too far? Weren’t they committing a crime of lese-majesty? Those who feared that the powers of the future empress were being reduced without regard for tradition ran afoul of those who were delighted to see this reinforcement of the role of the real boyars in the conduct of Russian political affairs. The second group very quickly drowned out the first. Even the bishop, overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the majority, kept his mouth shut and ruminated over his fears, alone in a corner. Sure that they had the entire country behind them, the Supreme Privy Council charged Prince Vasily Lukich Dolgoruky, Prince Dmitri Golitsyn and General Leontiev with bearing a message to Anna Ivanovna, in her retirement at Mitau, specifying the conditions under which she would accede to the throne.

Meanwhile, however, Elizabeth Petrovna was being kept abreast of the discussions and the stipulations being bandied about at the Supreme Council. Her doctor and confidant, Armand Lestocq, warned her of the machinations going on in Moscow and begged her “to take action.” But she refused to make the least effort to exercise her rights to the succession of Peter II. She had no children and did not wish to have any. In her eyes, her nephew Charles Peter Ulrich, the son of her sister Anna and Duke Charles

«67»

Terrible Tsarinas Frederick of Holstein, was the legitimate heir. But little Charles Peter Ulrich’s mother had died, and the baby was only a few months old. Drowning in sorrow, Elizabeth hesitated to look beyond this mourning. After a number of disappointing adventures, broken engagements, evaporated hopes, she had taken a dislike to the Russian court and preferred the isolation and even the boredom of the countryside to the bustling din and superficial glitter of the palaces.

While she reflected thus, with a melancholy mixed with bitterness, on an imperial future that no longer concerned her, the emissaries of the Council were hastening to bring word to her cousin Anna Ivanovna. She received them with a mocking benevolence. In truth, her spies and the well-wishers that she still had at the court had already informed her of the contents of the letters which the delegation would bring her. Nevertheless, she did not indicate in any way what her intentions might be; without batting an eye, she read the list of rights that the guardians of the regime dictated she should renounce, and said that she would agree to it all. She did not even seem to mind being required to break with her lover, Johann Buhren.