Emperor Peter III, life and death

[kmerov]

Emperor Paul I looked very much like his father Peter III, ugly in an unusual way. Paul also acted like his father, that is eratic, tyranical and obsessed with the military. There is little doubt that Peter III is the father since Catherine II was drawn consistently to attractive men rather than unattractive men.

DAP

I thought that the case wasn't so clear cut. I have read that Paul could have gotten his unusual look from the Saltykovs. Sergei Saltykov was considered handsome, but he was an exception in his family. Also the fact that Peter III never had any other children with his many mistresses.
The fact that Paul behaved like his father is not to say anything about his biological father, maybe just a good case-study for a psychologist.

[Romanov_Fan19]

ive always thought   Peter III  Was a very interesting man

[Mischa]

Well, I always wondered if Paul and Peter III resembled each other just because of inherited syphilis. This disease lets people look like pekineses. And so I think physical resemblance isn't a proof at all. And the as far as the psychical resemblance is concerned: Paul wanted Peter III to be his father. He would have been far better of wishing to descend from Saltykow, I think.

M.

[pers]

If one reads the Memoirs of Catherine the Great, she mentions that Serge Saltykov's brother was extremely unattractive/retarded (I cannot remember the exact words).  Also, in her memoirs, she makes it look like Paul is the son of Saltykov and not Peter, due to the severe pressure she was put under by Elizabeth and that it might even have been with Elizabeth's blessing.

Well it is questionable as well whether that is not just for the sake of putting her in a better light.  It would be very interesting if DNA tests could be done on all these people's remains...

[RomanovFan]

It would be very interesting if DNA tests could be done on all these people's remains...

I think so too! But are there any remains left to test?

[Romanov_Fan19]

For some strange  reason  I Think   Peter III Was Pauls Father

[Marc]

Me too...

[toddy]

I think it is intiseresting that Peter III never questioned Paul's legitimacy. which he could have use to discredit his wife who he dispised

[ilyala]

when exactly? when elizabeth was empress, if the adultery indeed happened with her blessing, there was not much to do. and i think he ruled way too little to do something then. remember he didn't even have time to start some sort of divorce proceedings that he wanted to (he wanted to send catherine to the monastery if i'm not mistaken). catherine got there first.

as for catherine, i've said this before: she had every interest to discredit her son. if her son was not paul's, he had no right for the throne other than the one she gave to him.(at that time if i'm not mistaken, the tsar could name his own heirs). because legally catherine was a mere german princess, while paul was the son of a tsar.  or maybe, if you wanna look of it from the personal perspective, maybe she hated peter that much that she simply couldn't stand the idea of having a son of his so she made paul out to be saltykov's son. either way, i wouldn't trust her diaries completely.

[Romanov_fan]

Peter III was defintely more German than Russian. Left alone in Germany, he would have been fine, I think that's correct to state. But when he was autocrat of a huge, unruly Empire, that was a far cry from a tiny German state where he could have been eccentric had he wished, and no one would have cared. He wasn't mentally retarded, he just was backward a bit, and had some strange ideas. His childhood wasn't a good one, and that sometimes scars people. But the best source we have on him is Catherine's memoirs, and I would be sure she didn't want him thought of well, not that he would have been. He was way out of his element in Russia.

[Baby_Julia]

I want to do a presentation about catherine and peter and i'm very interested in the circumstances of his death.
maybe you can recommend me a website???

thank you!!!!

[ilyala]

http://www.nndb.com/people/581/000078347/ - this is a presentation on his reign, definitely a positive interpretation of all his actions. anna is named as his child and so is paul. the author believes catherine agreed to the assasination

[bell_the_cat]

Who else could have done it? 

[Romanov_fan]

She did. But, she didn't want to look like she had done it, so officially it was an accident. She may not have hated her husband so much that she wanted to be rid of him, but she certainly knew that politically he had to go. There was no position for him, even in imprisonment. She could never have had lovers if he had lived anyway, and there would most likely have been factions that would have tried to free him for political purposes. She may have wanted his demise personally, but it was more in the political sphere that she had him killed.

[Tsarina_Liz]

Personally, I doubt she ever said the order outright much less wrote it down - even in correspondance.  But the implications were there and surely she would have welcomed it.  I also think was Orlov and other supporters who realized how necessary a quick assassination was and pushed its importance onto her.  And she was all too willing to go along.  Assassination, at that point in her reign and despite her previous experience in Russia, seems too out of character.  Catherine desperately wanted the Russian throne, but she also wanted to bring Enlightenment to the people.  At the time of her ascension she was still too naive and forward-looking to conceive of something so brutal.  The assassination seems like something only the later, hardened Catherine was capable of.  But, again, that is not saying she was opposed to the idea when it was proposed.  She only lacked the necessary exposure and cultivated bile of her ancestors needed to formulate such a plan.