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Their instructions were simple: every living person within the country must be rendered incapable of doing harm. The most famous dignitaries were, on the basis of their prominence in itself, the most highly suspect in the view of the chancellery’s henchmen. It was practically a crime not to have German or Baltic ancestors in one’s lineage.

Frightened and indignant, Anna Ivanovna’s subjects certainly considered Buhren responsible for these evils, but they also blamed the ts arina. The boldest dared to mutter among themselves that a woman is congenitally unable to govern an empire and that the curse inherent in her gender had been communicated to the Russian nation, guilty of imprudently entrusting its destiny to her.

Even the errors of international politics were blamed on her; of course, that was actually Ostermann’s area of responsibility.

This character of such limited capability and such unlimited ambition was cocksure of his diplomatic genius. His initiatives in this field cost the country dearly. For one thing, in order to please Austria, he intervened in Poland - thus making trouble with France, favored the candidature of Stanislaw Leszczynski. Then, after the crowning of Augustus III, he thought it would be an astute maneuver to swear never to partition the country; this did not convince anyone and did not earn him any gratitude. Moreover, counting on support from Austria - which as usual would let him down - he went to war with Turkey. Munnich achieved a series of successes on the battlefield, but the losses were so heavy that Os termann was constrained to sign a peace accord. At

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The Extravagant Anna the Congress of Belgrade, in 1739, he even asked France to mediate - meanwhile trying to bribe the envoy from Versailles - but the results he obtained were contemptible: he managed to hang onto Russia’s rights in the Azov peninsula, with the proviso that the area not be fortified, and he gained a few acres of steppe between the Dniepr and the southernmost Bug. In exchange, Russia promised to demolish the fortifications at Taganrog and to give up its merchant fleet and warships in the Black Sea, leaving all free navigation to the Turkish fleet. Russia’s only territorial gain during Anna’s reign was the effective annexation of Ukraine, which was placed under Russian control in 1734.

Internationally, Russia was seen as a weak and disoriented nation, but inside the country new and absurd aspirants to the throne were cropping up everywhere. This phenomenon was nothing new. Since the epidemic of false Dmitris appeared at the death of Ivan the Terrible, the obsession with miraculously resurrected tsareviches had become an endemic and national disease.

Nevertheless, this turmoil in public opinion, however ludicrous it might be, was starting to disturb Anna Ivanovna. She saw the trend as an increasingly specific threat to her legitimacy, and Buhren encouraged that view.

She feared above all that her aunt Elizabeth Petrovna might have a belated renewal of popularity, since she was the sole living daughter of Peter the Great. There was a chance that among the nobility the same specious arguments that (thankfully) had failed to compromise her own coronation might enjoy a resurgence, and not so innocuously this time. Moreover, she found her rival’s beauty and natural grace intolerable. It was not enough for her to eject the tsarevna from the palace in the hope that the court, and everyone else, would end up forgetting all about this spoilsport.

To forestall any attempt to transfer power to another lineage, she even thought, in 1731, of an authoritative modification of the fam«87»

Terrible Tsarinas ily rights in the house of Romanov. Having no child of her own and being extremely concerned over the future of the monarchy, she adopted her young niece, the only daughter of her elder sister Catherine Ivanovna and Charles Leopold, prince of Mecklenburg.

The little princess was brought to Russia in the twinkling of an eye. The gamine was only 13 years old at the time. Lutheran by confession, she was re-baptized as an Orthodox and had her first name changed from Elizabeth to Anna Leopoldovna; she became the second most eminent figure in the empire, after her aunt Anna Ivanovna. She grew into an insipid teenager with a fair complexion; there wasn’t much sparkle in her eye, but she had enough brains to manage a conversation (provided that the subject was not too serious). As soon as she reached the age of 19, her aunt, the tsarina, who was a good judge of a woman’s physical and moral resources, decreed that she was ready for marriage. Suitable prospects were hastily sought.

Of course, Anna Ivanovna turned her attention first toward what she liked to think of as her homeland, Germany. That land of discipline and virtue was the only place to find husbands and wives worthy of reigning over barbarian Muscovy. Charged with discovering a rara avis amidst the flocks of crowing roosters, Karl Gustav Loewenwolde went out to see what he could see. Upon his return, he recommended either Margrave Charles of Prussia or Prince Anthony Ulrich of Bevern, of the house of Brunswick, brother-in-law of the crown prince in Prussia. Personally, he was inclined in favor of the second candidate, whereas Ostermann, with his special interest in foreign relations, was inclined toward the first. The advantages and disadvantages of the two champions were debated before Anna Ivanovna, without consulting the interested party who would, however, have her word to say, for she was already over the age of 20.

To tell the truth, the empress had only one goal in all this

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The Extravagant Anna political-marital machination: to have her niece bring a child into the world as soon as possible, in order to make it heir to the crown, which would cut short any maneuvers by external parties.

But who would be more likely to impregnate sweet Anna Leopoldovna faster, Charles of Prussia or Prince Anthony Ulrich?

Hesitating, they had Anthony Ulrich brought in to be presented to Her Majesty. One glance was enough for the Empress to evaluate the applicant: a decent young man, polished, weak. Certainly not appropriate for her niece - nor for the country, for that matter. But the omniscient Buhren was anxious to build him up. And time was of the essence, for the girl was not sitting idle, herself.

She had recently fallen in love with Count Charles Maurice of Lynar, Saxon minister at St. Petersburg. Fortunately, the king of Saxony had recalled the diplomat and posted him to another station. Heartbroken, Anna Leopoldovna immediately threw herself into another passion. This time, it was a woman: Baroness Julie Mengden. They quickly became inseparable. How far did they take their intimacy? They were the chief butt of gossip at the court and in the embassies; “a lover’s passion for a new mistress is nothing, compared to this,” noted the English minister Edward Finch.6 On the other hand, the Prussian minister Axel of Mardefeld was more skeptical; he wrote to his king, in French: “Nobody can understand the source of the Grand Duchess’s [Anna Leopoldovna] supernatural attraction to Juliette [Julie Mengden]; so I am not surprised that the public accuses this girl of following the tastes of the famous Sapho… a black calumny,… for the late empress, on similar charges, made this young lady undergo a rigorous examination,… and the commission’s report was favorable in that they found that she is a girl in every part, without any appearance of maleness [sic].”7 Given the danger that this deviant love represented, Anna Ivanovna decided that it was time to take action. A bad marriage

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Terrible Tsarinas would be better than a prolonged delay. As for the virgin’s tender feelings, Her Majesty laughed them off. This little person, whose grace and innocence had charmed her at first, had become annoying over the years; she had become demanding, and had a disappointingly obstinate temperament. Certainly, she had adopted Anna not to make her happy, as she had claimed hundreds of times, but to put more distance between the throne and Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna, whom she hated. Anna Leopoldovna’s only value in her eyes was as a smokescreen, a last resort, or a convenient womb to be used. So let her settle for someone like Anthony Ulrich for husband! Even that was too good for an airhead like her!