Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power by Henri Troyat Page B
Authors: Henri Troyat
her principal collaborator, who had been a lieutenant-colonel. By contrast, receiving a courtesy visit from the members of the Supreme Privy Council, she greeted them with frosty correctness; she pretended to be surprised when the chancellor, Gabriel Golovkin, tried to present her with the Order of St. Andrew, which was hers, by right, as sovereign. “It’s true,” she observed with irony, blocking his gesture, “I had forgotten to take it!” And, calling over one of the men in her entourage, she invited him to hand her the cord, thus snubbing the chancellor, who was flustered by such contempt for customs. On their way out, the members of the Supreme Privy Council must have been thinking, privately, that this tsarina was not going to be as easy to handle as they had thought.
On February 15, 1730, Anna Ivanovna finally made her solemn entrance into Moscow and, on the 19th, oaths to Her Majesty were sworn in the Assumption Cathedral and the main churches of the city. Having been warned of the Empress’s poor opinion of it, the Supreme Privy Council decided to release some ballast and to modify somewhat the traditional text of the commitment, swearing fealty to “Her Majesty and the Empire,” which should calm any apprehensions. Then, after many secret meetings, and taking into account the uncontrolled maneuverings among the officers of the Guard, they resigned themselves to softening still further the wording of the “interdicts” initially envisaged. Enigmatic and smiling as ever, Anna Ivanovna noted these small corrections without comment. She received her cousin Elizabeth Petrovna with apparent fondness, accepted her hand-kissing and affirmed that she felt much solicitude for their common family. Before dismissing her, she even promised to see to it personally, as sovereign, that Elizabeth Petrovna would never lack for anything in her retirement.
However, in spite of this overt subservience and benevolence, she had not lost sight of her goal, in leaving Mitau to return to Russia. Within the Guard and the lesser and middle nobility, her partisans were preparing a brilliant deed. On February 25, 1730, she was sitting on her throne, surrounded by the members of the Supreme Privy Council, with a crowd of courtiers squeezing around them in the grand salon of the Lefortovo Palace; suddenly, a few hundred officers of the Guard barged in, with Prince Alexis Cherkassky, declared champion of the new empress, at their head.
In a rambling speech he struggled to explain that the document signed by Her Majesty, at the instigation of the Supreme Privy Council, was in contradiction with the principles of the monarchy by divine right. In the name of the million subjects devoted to the cause of Holy Russia, he begged the tsarina to denounce this monstrous act, to convoke the Senate, the nobility, the senior officers, and the church fathers as soon as possible, and to dictate to them her own concept of power.
“We want a tsarina-autocrat, we do not want the Supreme Privy Council!” one of the officers shouted, kneeling before her. Anna Ivanovna, a consummate actress, feigned astonishment. She appeared to have discovered, suddenly, that her good faith had been abused. Believing that she was acting for the good of all in renouncing some of her rights, she now found that she had only done a service to the ambitious and the malicious! “What’s this!?” she exclaimed. “When I signed the charter at Mitau, was I not responding to the desires of the entire nation?” And in that moment, the officers of the Guard took a step forward, as if on parade, and exclaimed in unison: “We will not allow laws to be dictated to our sovereign! We are your slaves, but we cannot tolerate rebels taking it upon themselves to control you. Say the word and we will throw their heads at your feet!”
Anna Ivanovna struggled to contain her joy. In a blink of an eye, her triumph repaid all the affronts she had suffered. They thought they could
On February 15, 1730, Anna Ivanovna finally made her solemn entrance into Moscow and, on the 19th, oaths to Her Majesty were sworn in the Assumption Cathedral and the main churches of the city. Having been warned of the Empress’s poor opinion of it, the Supreme Privy Council decided to release some ballast and to modify somewhat the traditional text of the commitment, swearing fealty to “Her Majesty and the Empire,” which should calm any apprehensions. Then, after many secret meetings, and taking into account the uncontrolled maneuverings among the officers of the Guard, they resigned themselves to softening still further the wording of the “interdicts” initially envisaged. Enigmatic and smiling as ever, Anna Ivanovna noted these small corrections without comment. She received her cousin Elizabeth Petrovna with apparent fondness, accepted her hand-kissing and affirmed that she felt much solicitude for their common family. Before dismissing her, she even promised to see to it personally, as sovereign, that Elizabeth Petrovna would never lack for anything in her retirement.
However, in spite of this overt subservience and benevolence, she had not lost sight of her goal, in leaving Mitau to return to Russia. Within the Guard and the lesser and middle nobility, her partisans were preparing a brilliant deed. On February 25, 1730, she was sitting on her throne, surrounded by the members of the Supreme Privy Council, with a crowd of courtiers squeezing around them in the grand salon of the Lefortovo Palace; suddenly, a few hundred officers of the Guard barged in, with Prince Alexis Cherkassky, declared champion of the new empress, at their head.
In a rambling speech he struggled to explain that the document signed by Her Majesty, at the instigation of the Supreme Privy Council, was in contradiction with the principles of the monarchy by divine right. In the name of the million subjects devoted to the cause of Holy Russia, he begged the tsarina to denounce this monstrous act, to convoke the Senate, the nobility, the senior officers, and the church fathers as soon as possible, and to dictate to them her own concept of power.
“We want a tsarina-autocrat, we do not want the Supreme Privy Council!” one of the officers shouted, kneeling before her. Anna Ivanovna, a consummate actress, feigned astonishment. She appeared to have discovered, suddenly, that her good faith had been abused. Believing that she was acting for the good of all in renouncing some of her rights, she now found that she had only done a service to the ambitious and the malicious! “What’s this!?” she exclaimed. “When I signed the charter at Mitau, was I not responding to the desires of the entire nation?” And in that moment, the officers of the Guard took a step forward, as if on parade, and exclaimed in unison: “We will not allow laws to be dictated to our sovereign! We are your slaves, but we cannot tolerate rebels taking it upon themselves to control you. Say the word and we will throw their heads at your feet!”
Anna Ivanovna struggled to contain her joy. In a blink of an eye, her triumph repaid all the affronts she had suffered. They thought they could