The story of Paul 1 actually began with the fact that Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, the premarital daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine the First (who was supposedly a B altic peasant by origin), having no children of her own, invited her future father to Russia Paul. He was a native of the German city of Kiel, K. P. Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, the duke, who received the name Peter at baptism. This fourteen-year-old (at the time of the invitation) young man was Elizabeth's nephew and had rights to both the Swedish and Russian thrones.
Who was the father of Paul the First - a mystery
Tsar Paul 1, like all people, could not choose his parents. His future mother arrived in Russia from Prussia at the age of 15, on the recommendation of Frederick II, as a potential bride for Duke Ulrich. Here she gotOrthodox name Ekaterina (Alekseevna), married in 1745 and only nine years later gave birth to a son, Paul. History has left a double opinion about the possible father of Paul the First. Some believe that Catherine hated her husband, so paternity is attributed to Catherine's lover Sergei S altykov. Others believe that Ulrich (Peter the Third) was still the father, since there is an obvious portrait resemblance, and Catherine’s strong dislike for her son is also known, which may have arisen from hatred for his father. Pavel disliked his mother, too, throughout his life. A genetic examination of the remains of Paul has not yet been carried out, so it is not possible to accurately establish paternity for this Russian tsar.
Birth celebrated throughout the year
Future Emperor Paul 1 was deprived of parental love and attention since childhood, since his grandmother Elizabeth, immediately after his birth, took Catherine's son away and placed her in the care of nannies and teachers. He was a long-awaited child for the whole country, since after Peter the Great, the Russian autocrats had problems with the succession of power due to the lack of heirs. Festivities and fireworks on occasion of his birth in Russia continued for a whole year.
The first victim of the palace conspiracy
Elizaveta thanked Catherine for the birth of a child with a very large amount - 100 thousand rubles, but showed her son to her mother only six months after his birth. Due to the absence of a mother nearby and the stupidity of an overzealous attendantstaff Pavel 1, whose domestic and foreign policy in the future did not differ in logic, grew up very impressionable, painful and nervous. At the age of 8 (in 1862), the young prince lost his father, who, having come to power in 1861 after the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, was killed a year later as a result of a palace plot.
More than thirty years before legitimacy
Tsar Paul 1 received a very decent education for his time, which he could not put into practice for many years. From the age of four, even under Elizabeth, he was taught to read and write, then he mastered several foreign languages, knowledge of mathematics, applied sciences and history. Among his teachers were F. Bekhteev, S. Poroshin, N. Panin, and the future Metropolitan of Moscow Platon taught him the laws. By birthright, Pavel already in 1862 had the right to the throne, but his mother, instead of regency, came to power herself with the help of the guard, declared herself Catherine II and ruled for 34 years.
Emperor Paul 1 was married twice. The first time was at the age of 19 on Augustine-Wilhelmina (Natalya Alekseevna), who died in childbirth with her child. The second time - in the year of the death of the first wife (at the insistence of Catherine) on Sophia-August-Louise, the Wurttember princess (Maria Feodorovna), who will give birth to Paul's ten children. His older children will suffer the same fate as his own - they will be taken to their upbringing by the reigning grandmother, and he will rarely see them. In addition to children born in a church marriage, Pavel had a son Semyon from his first love - the maid of honor Sofya Ushakova and a daughter from L. Bagart.
Mother wanted to dethrone him
Pavel 1 Romanov ascended the throne at the age of 42, after the death of his mother (Catherine died of a stroke) in November 1796. By this time, he had a set of views and habits that determined his future and the future of Russia until 1801. Thirteen years before the death of Catherine, in 1783, he reduced his relationship with his mother to a minimum (it was rumored that she wanted to deprive him of the right to the throne) and in Pavlovsk began to build his own model of the state. At the age of 30, at the insistence of Catherine, he got acquainted with the works of Voltaire, Hume, Montesquieu, and others. As a result, his point of view became the following: in the state there should be “bliss for everyone and for everyone,” but only under a monarchical form of government.
Coalitions with Europe during government
At the same time, in Gatchina, removed from business at that time, the future emperor was training military battalions. His love for military affairs and discipline will partly determine what will be the foreign policy of Paul 1. And it will be quite peaceful, compared to the time of Catherine II, but inconsistent. First, Pavel fought against revolutionary France (with the participation of A. V. Suvorov) together with Britain, Turkey, Austria, and others, then broke off the alliance with Austria and withdrew troops from Europe. Attempts to go with the expedition together with England to the Netherlands were unsuccessful.
Paul 1 defended the Order of M alta
After Bonaparte in France in 1799concentrated all power in his hands and the probability of the spread of the revolution disappeared, he began to look for allies in other states. And I found them, including in the face of the Russian emperor. At that time, a coalition of joint fleets was discussed with France. The foreign policy of Paul 1 towards the end of his reign was connected with the final formation of a coalition against Britain, which became too aggressive at sea (attacked M alta, while Paul was the Grand Master of the Order of M alta). So, in 1800, an alliance was concluded between Russia and a number of European states, which led a policy of armed neutrality towards England.
Utopian military projects
Paul 1, whose domestic and foreign policy was not always clear even to his entourage, wanted to harm Britain and its Indian possessions at that time. He equipped an expedition to Central Asia from the Don army (about 22,5 thousand people) and set the task for them to go to the Indus and Ganges region and “disturb” the British there, without touching those who oppose the British. By that time, there were not even maps of that area, so the campaign to India was stopped in 1801, after the death of Pavel, and the soldiers were returned from the steppes near Astrakhan, where they had already managed to reach.
The reign of Paul 1 is marked by the fact that during these five years no foreign invasions were made into the territory of Russia, but no conquests were made either. In addition, the emperor, taking care of the interestsknights in M alta, almost dragged the country into direct conflict with the most powerful maritime power of that time - England. The British were perhaps his greatest enemies, while he had great sympathy for Prussia, considering the organization of the army and life in those lands his ideal (which is not surprising, given his origin).
Reducing public debt by fire
The domestic policy of Paul 1 was aimed at trying to improve life and strengthen order in Russian reality. In particular, he believed that the treasury belongs to the country, and not to him personally, as the sovereign. Therefore, he gave the order to melt down some silver sets from the Winter Palace into coins and burn part of the paper money for two million rubles in order to reduce the state debt. He was more open to the people than his predecessors, and even his followers, hanging on the fence of his palace a box for sending petitions addressed to him, where caricatures of the king himself and libels often fell.
Strange ceremonies with dead bodies
The reign of Paul 1 was also marked by reforms in the army, where he introduced a single uniform, charter, single weapons, believing that in his mother's time the army was not an army, but simply a crowd. In general, historians believe that much of what Paul did, he did in spite of his deceased mother. There were even more than strange cases. For example, having come to power, he removed the remains of his murdered father, Peter III, from the grave. After that, he crowned the ashes of his father and the corpse of his mother, placing the crown on the coffin of his father, while his wife, Maria Fedorovnaput another crown on the deceased Catherine. After that, both coffins were transported to the Peter and Paul Cathedral, while the murderer of Peter the Third, Count Orlov, carried the imperial crown in front of his coffin. The remains were buried with a single burial date.
Paul 1, whose years of reign were short-lived, due to such events earned misunderstanding among many. And the innovations he introduced in various areas did not arouse support from the environment. The emperor demanded from all the fulfillment of their duties. A story is known when he gave the rank of officer to his batman because the first one did not independently carry his military ammunition. After such cases, discipline in the troops began to increase. Pavel also tried to instill strict rules in the civilian population, introducing bans on wearing certain styles of dress and demanding to wear German-style clothes of a certain color with a given collar size.
The domestic policy of Paul 1 also touched on the sphere of education, in which, as expected, he contributed to the improvement of the position of the Russian language. After accession to the throne, the emperor banned ornate phrases, ordering to express himself in writing with the utmost clarity and simplicity. He reduced French influence on Russian society by banning books in this language (revolutionary, as he considered it), even forbidding playing cards. In addition, during his reign, it was decided to open many schools and colleges, restore the university in Dorpat, and open the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Among his companions were both gloomy personalities, likeArakcheeva, and G. Derzhavin, A. Suvorov, N. S altykov, M. Speransky and others.
How the tsar helped the peasants
However, Paul 1, whose years of reign - 1796-1801, was rather unpopular than popular with his contemporaries. Taking care of the peasants, whom he reasonably considered the breadwinners of all other classes of society, he introduced a three-day corvee, freed the farmers from work on Sunday. By this, he incurred the discontent of the landowners, for example, in Russia, and the discontent of the peasants in Ukraine, where there was no corvee at that time, but it appeared for three days. The landowners were also dissatisfied with the ban on separating peasant families during the sale, the ban on cruel treatment, the removal of duties from peasants to keep horses for the army and the sale of bread and s alt from state stocks at reduced prices. Pavel 1, whose domestic and foreign policy was contradictory, at the same time ordered the peasants to obey the landowners in everything under pain of punishment.
Infringement of the privileges of the nobility
The Russian autocrat tossed between prohibitions and permits, which, perhaps, led to the subsequent assassination of Paul 1. He closed all private printing houses so that it would not be possible to spread the ideas of the French revolution, but at the same time he gave shelter to high-ranking French nobles, like the prince Conde or the future Ludwig VIII. He forbade corporal punishment for the nobles, but introduced for them twenty rubles per soul and a tax on the maintenance of local governments.
The short reign of Paul 1 included such events as the prohibitionfor the resignation for nobles who served less than a year, a ban on filing collective petitions of the nobility, the abolition of noble assemblies in the provinces, lawsuits against nobles who evaded service. The emperor also allowed state-owned peasants to register as tradesmen and merchants, which caused discontent among the latter.
Actually founded dog breeding in Russia
What other deeds did Paul 1 go down in history, whose domestic and foreign policy is a thirst for large-scale transformations? This Russian tsar allowed the construction of churches according to the Old Believer faith (everywhere), forgave the Poles who participated in the Kosciuszko uprising, began to buy new breeds of dogs and sheep abroad, in fact, founding dog breeding. Important is his law on succession to the throne, which excluded the possibility of women ascending the throne and established the order of the regency.
However, with all the positive aspects, the emperor was unpopular among the people, which created the prerequisites for repeated attempts on his life. The murder of Paul 1 was committed by officers from several regiments in March 1801. It is believed that the conspiracy against the emperor was subsidized by the government of England, which did not want the strengthening of Russia in the M altese region. The involvement of his sons in this action was not proven, however, in the 19th century, some restrictions were introduced on the study in Russia of the reign of this emperor.
