Elizabeth of Russia

Yelizaveta (Yelisavet) Petrovna (?????????? (?????????) ?????????) (December 29 1709 - January 5, 1762), also known as Elizabeth, was an Empress of Russia (1741 - 1762) who took the country into the War of Austrian succession (1740 - 1748) and the Seven Years War (1756-63). Her domestic policies allowed the nobles to gain dominance in local government while shortening their terms of service to the state. She encouraged Lomonosov's establishment of the University of Moscow and Shuvalov's foundation of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. She also spent exorbitant sums of money on the grandiose baroque projects of her favourite architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, particularly in Peterhof and Tsarskoye Selo. The Winter Palace and the Smolny Cathedral remain the chief monuments of her reign in St Petersburg. Generally, she was one of the best loved Russian monarchs, because she didn't allow Germans in the government and not a single person was executed during her reign.

Life before becoming Empress

Elizabeth, the youngest daughter of Peter the Great and Martha Skavronskaya, was born at Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, on the 18th of December 1709. As her parents were not married at that time, her illegitimacy would be used by political opponents to challenge her right to the throne.

Related Topics:
Peter the Great - Martha Skavronskaya - Kolomenskoye - Moscow - 1709

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Even as a child her parts were good, if not brilliant, but unfortunately her education was both imperfect and desultory. Her father had no leisure to devote to her training, and her mother was too illiterate to superintend her studies. She had a French governess, however, and at a later day picked up some Italian, German and Swedish, and could converse in these languages with more fluency than accuracy. From her earliest years she delighted every one by her extraordinary beauty and vivacity.

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It was Peter's intention to marry his second daughter to the young French king Louis XV, but the pride of the Bourbons revolted against any such alliance. Other connubial speculations foundered on the personal dislike of the princess for the various suitors proposed to her, so that on the death of her mother (May 1727) and the departure to Holstein of her beloved sister Anne, her only remaining near relation, the princess found herself at the age of eighteen practically her own mistress.

Related Topics:
Louis XV - Bourbons - Holstein

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So long as Menshikov remained in power, she was treated with liberality and distinction by the government of her adolescent nephew Peter II, who was rumoured to be her lover. The Dolgorukovs, who supplanted Menshikov and hated the memory of Peter the Great, practically banished Peter's daughter from court. Elizabeth had inherited her fathers sensual temperament and, being free from all control, abandoned herself to her appetites without reserve.

Related Topics:
Menshikov - Peter II - Dolgorukov

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While still in her teens, she made a lover of Alexis Shubin, a sergeant in the Semyonovsky Guards regiment, and after his banishment to Siberia, minus his tongue, by order of the empress Anne, consoled herself with a handsome young Cossack, Alexis Razumovski, who, there is good reason to believe, subsequently became her husband.

Related Topics:
Guards - Siberia - Anne - Cossack - Alexis Razumovski

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