Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power by Henri Troyat

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 Bühren. During his presentation, Dmitri Golitsyn glossed over this detail and promised that, in any event, if the Supreme Council required it, 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 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 lèse-majesté? 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