Messages

1

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Did Catherine the Great lie

« on: February 26, 2017, 12:41:19 PM »

Anna was the fourth child of Peter the Great but the oldest one to reach adulthood. She died at 21 giving birth to Peter III who eventually married Catherine the Great. Poor Peter III was in line to inherit the Russian throne and Swedish throne but was ugly, abusive and was  retarded according to his wife. By law he could not rule both but Russia was the wrong choice for him.  OK his mother Anna was sensible, bright and quiet, some say Peter was going to leave her the throne when he was dying.  Peter III was not astute politically but with Anna as his mother it is doubtful that he was as bad as Catherine II said.

2

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Emperor Alexander I vs Fedor Kuzmitch

« on: February 26, 2017, 12:26:01 PM »

There is evidence that the Tzar Alexander I was the same as Fyodor Kuzmitch. The coffin of Tzar Alexander was opened and nothing was found inside or so they say but wood. The evidence points in this direction but perhaps I have been misinformed.

3

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Peter II homosexuality in the palace

« on: February 26, 2017, 12:18:18 PM »

It has been said that Peter II who dies at 15 was of course obliged to marry and both the Maria daughter of Menshikov were being fostered on him and the sister of Ivan Dolgorukov, Catherine. He like Elizabeth the daughter of Peter who was proposed for him by Peter Tolstoy  as well. He called the sister of Ivan a porcelain doll. But it is said that he loved ivan Dolgorukov who was handsome and it was even suggested that he and Elizabeth both shared him. Is this true?

4

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Re: Family of Tsarevitch Alexei Petrovitch

« on: February 26, 2017, 12:08:51 PM »

Charlotte was not pretty. She had scars from smallpox and had she been so would not have married the crown prince of Russia.Her sister Elizabeth married the head of Austria. They said he was a fool with mistresses but she treated him well.Her family was well connected and very ambitious. Of course Alexei who was a jerk treated her horribly. He did not even give her enough money to fix the roof in her bedroom. But they were both dogmatic and slow. She never learned Russian, and treated the Russian court with contempt. He was generally regarded as a fool but was deeply nationalistic except for his mistress who was from Finland. Anyway Alexei and Charlotte did their duty and had two kids, Natalya and Peter. She died after giving birth to Peter. The two kids lived to age  14 when she died of tuberculosis and 15 when he died of smallpox on his wedding day after being king for two years. Alexei also had two illegitimate kids and I know nothing of them. His girlfriend was pregnant after the death of Charlotte and no one knows what became of the child. As for her, Peter gave his mistress the largest stipend in his history after the death of Alexis and she married a member of his guard and died at 42. I do not know if they had kids.

5

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Re: Empress Catherine II

« on: February 26, 2017, 11:52:08 AM »

She was obviously bright and self serving. Her morganic husband Potempkin said the key to getting along with her was to give her lots of compliments. He is well known for setting up Potempkin villages, that is cleaning up Russia and even setting up fake villages when she went on tour. She understood politics. Her power depended on the support of nobles since she was a foreigner and had no right to the throne. So she read a lot and learned Russian well. She sympathized with philosophy of the enlightenment but in the end did nothing against the interests of her patrons. What she did was to expand the territory of Russia greatly by adding a third of Poland which mean Ukraine and Belarus and beat the Ottoman Empire for the first time gaining access tot he Black Sea. She hated Jews and there were none in Russia. When she took Poland suddenly she had millions of them so devised 'the Pale" areas where they could live and made trade   very hard for them. During the American Revolution she refused twice to help England as she wanted direct trade with the colonies and yet did not want to encourage the rights of commoners in Russia. She named herself the Great after Peter but the title stuck as she increased the size and strength of Russia. Her son hated her guts and declared n woman could rule again when he was in charge (he was assassinated but the ruling stuck). I do not like her but many do.

6

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Re: Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna

« on: February 25, 2017, 11:12:44 AM »

Also Catherine the Great wrote about her in a somewhat nasty way, which may not have been true. She was the aunt of her husband who she also wanted to present badly. But she did say she was beautiful by standards of the day.

7

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Re: Family of Tsarevitch Alexei Petrovitch

« on: February 24, 2017, 09:20:51 PM »

I thought she died of tuberculosis.

8

Imperial Russian History / Re: The First Romanov Tsar...

« on: February 24, 2017, 04:02:40 PM »

The first one to use this term was Ivan II the grandfather of Ivan the Terrible but only in correspondence.

9

Imperial Russian History / Re: "Marriages" with other dynasties

« on: February 24, 2017, 03:56:16 PM »

Until the Romanovs started intermarrying with Peter the Great this had not been done for a long long time. I do not think this was a rule as Tzar Fyodo married a Polish girl but it was the custom to marry a girl from minor nobility and the princess or sisters and daughtters of the Tzar could not marry as no one was up to their status. The Romanov started to intermarry with the nobles of Europe under Peter the Great. They were a low status family in the 1700s and only ugly girls or well connected noble families with no money would consider them, though they tried. They wanted a marrisge of the daughter of Peter to someone high in France. No one would marry but she eventually became ruler of Russia and settled down with a good looking choir boy from Ukraine. At any rate his son married a girl from Germany he famously hated but had 2 kids. His nieces married the ruler of Courland in Latvia at his order who died on the way back and who owed him a huge favor, his other niece married a wretched old man as his third wife in wife and then after having a baby left him. Shortly thereafter the Tzars were hardly Russian. Tzar Nicholas II had a mother who was the sister of the ruler of England. They were mistaken for one another. His wife was the grand daughter of Queen Victoria. They were a club and there was almost no Russian in the royal. I figured it out once and there was like 1 100 part Russian in the last Tzar. They kept marrying Germans.

10

Imperial Russian History / Re: Peter the Great Prison Settlements / Katorga

« on: February 24, 2017, 03:31:10 PM »

He was in the habit of using prisoners for his projects. He brought some to Voronezh in the Ukraine to build boats, others to build St Petersburg.  Later after conquering Estonia he sent them to the port at Rågervik. He put them to work in Azov with their families which he had just conquered. They were to be rowers. Peter also sent people to settle Siberia and branded them or cut off their noses so they could not escape and go to the city. .

11

Imperial Russian History / Re: Ivan the Terrible - Bloodiest Tsar?

« on: February 24, 2017, 01:31:42 PM »

There is no doubt he was crazy. They say he had rheumatoid arthritis and the "cure" at the time was to drink mercury, which he kept in his room. This made him increasingly crazier and he ruled  for 37 years. He never trusted the aristocrats and became crazier as he got older. He had the Oprinchnina kill them and confiscate their estate. He stopped when he wanted to be king of Poland so his reputation would be better. He killed all the people of Novgorod because he thought their independence was dangerous. The number he killed is somewhere between 60,000 and his number of 3750 that he said he killed. In contrast they say Anna Ivanovna killed 20,000 but all for stupid reasons. She killed those who talked about her.  Elizabeth the Empress said she would kill none. Her father Peter the Great is quite miss categorized here as a modern Saddam Hussein which is totally untrue. But he was the ruler during the Great Northern War and so who knows how many deaths he caused on both sides. His men went out of control and killed everyone in the second battle of Narva and plague and hunger killed millions in Latvia, Finland  and Estonia. He directly killed those who were corrupt and who opposed his changes but he was not  at all irrational or as he said cruel. He was harsh but not a psychopath in any sense. 

12

Imperial Russian History / Re: The End of Peter the Great's Road?

« on: February 24, 2017, 01:07:00 PM »

I would like to think that Russia has taken a temporary hitch on the road because of the glory days of communism when they were feared and respected as empire builders. It is much more important to me that the present ruler is corrupt and his daughter has 2 billion dollars and is a dancer. Peter the Great did not take a cent in bribes he lived in culture of corruption. The strides he made can not be turned around. He changed the alphabet, agriculture, socializing and the dress if Russians. He did not interfere in matters of sex except to say that prostitutes could not hang around the corners of St Petersburg when his special troops caught the clap from visiting them and could not show up for duty. At present Russians are confused but it seems that this is only going to last this generation. Russia may go in a different direction when the Putin genration dies and the younger generation start to demand more of their government.

13

Imperial Russian History / Re: Peter the great and Alexey

« on: March 12, 2016, 12:02:06 AM »

I personally would question any sort of "confession" obtained under torture. It's been a long time since I read a biography of Peter (the one I did read was a huge tome whose author's name I forget) but IMO it was a foregone conclusion that Alexis was going to be killed the moment he was arrested. IIRC his only crime was planning to turn back the clock of Peter's reforms when he did gain the throne, I can't remember if ever was planning a coup, it's doubtful considering how much power Peter wielded. Certainly Alexander I was guilty of much more against his father and in some circles he's become a romantic even mystical figure.

Peter's a difficult figure, in one respect he pulled his country kicking and screaming forward and tied it to Europe instead of Asia, in another respect I view him as more of a monster (how many died to create his vanity project of St.Petersburg or his wars with Sweden?) than
the more villified figures of Paul I or Nicholas II could have even dreamt of being.  

As for Catherine, who knows what she thought. She certainly didn't try to change the succession to the throne (which was in her rights just as Peter had made her instead ruling Empress after his death) and let Alexis' son Peter II inherit instead of her daughters. One also would have thought that Peter would have taken more of an interest in his sole Romanov grandson (especially after basically killing the boy's father) but apparently did not. It is well known that Peter hated his first wife and his son from that marriage (Alexis), maybe he would have preffered that line didn't exist. I wonder if Peter the Great had lived longer if the young Peter II would have shared a similar fate to his father?

14

Imperial Russian History / Re: Peter the great and Alexey

« on: September 04, 2015, 05:42:48 PM »

Great summary

15

Rulers Prior to Nicholas II / Re: Empress Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great

« on: November 29, 2014, 09:01:37 PM »

It is hard to know about this relationship, etc. I think it is possible they weren't lovers, as Catherine might have known how Peter the great would react to that, I would think. He would not have anything to do with his once mistress Anna Mons after finding out about her infidelity. Surely Catherine knew that would be a dumb thing to do, I would think. But, she was a very brave woman, and not very inhibited as her short reign proved, so maybe she thought she could get away with something or thought she would could be lovers with him, and it would not hurt. Both she and Peter did drink, but that didn't prevent Peter from accomplishing much.

It is thought Willem was in love with Anna not her mother. Catherine was however involved in he and his sister's corruption scheme. This was never a matter of infidelity, this was a rumor of diplomats in the court. But Peter had fought corruption all his life and then found his closest companion was part of it.