1744 Elizabeth Russian Empress Denga 1/2 Kopek Coin Saint George Dragon i56436

Item: i56436
 
 Authentic Coin of:

Russia
Elizabeth of Russia – Empress 1741-1762 A.D.
1744 Copper Denga (1/2 Kopek) 24mm (6.93 grams)
Reference: KM# 188
Royal coat of arms, the crowned imperial double eagle with scepter and orb.
ДЕНГА 1744 within decorative wreath.

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Authenticity.

Saint 
George, born in Lydda
,
Roman Palestine
, was a soldier in the
Roman
army and was later venerated as a
Christian martyr
. His father was Gerontius, a
Greek

Christian
from
Cappadocia
, and an official in the Roman army. 
His mother, Polychronia was a
Christian
from
Roman Palestine
. Saint George became an officer 
in the Roman army in the Guard of
Diocletian
. In
hagiography
, Saint George is one of the most 
venerated saints in the
Catholic
(Western 
and
Eastern Rites
),
Anglican
,
Eastern Orthodox
, and the
Oriental Orthodox
churches. He is immortalized 
in the tale of
Saint George and the Dragon
and is one of the
Fourteen Holy Helpers
. His memorial is 
celebrated on 23 April (6 May), and he is regarded as one of the most prominent
military saints
.

Many
Patronages of Saint George
exist around the 
world, including:
Georgia
,
England
,
Egypt
,
Bulgaria
,
Aragon
,
Catalonia
,
Romania
,
Ethiopia
,
Greece
,
India
,

Iraq, Lebanon
,
Lithuania
,
Palestine
,
Portugal
,
Sardinia
,
Serbia
,
Macedonia
,
Ukraine
,
Russia
and
Syria
, as well as the cities of
Genoa
,
Amersfoort
,
Beirut
,
Botoşani
,
Drobeta Turnu-Severin
,
Timișoara
,
Fakiha
,
Bteghrine
,
Cáceres
,
Ferrara
,
Freiburg im Breisgau
,
Kragujevac
,
Kumanovo
,
Ljubljana
,
Pérouges
,
Pomorie
,
Preston
,
Qormi
,
Rio de Janeiro
,

Lydda, Lviv
,
Barcelona
,
Moscow
and

Victoria, as well as of
the Scout Movement
and a wide range of 
professions, organizations, and disease sufferers including leprosy, plague, 
herpes and syphilis.

The episode Saint George and the Dragon appended to the
hagiography
of
Saint George
was Eastern in origin, brought 
back with the
Crusaders
and retold with the courtly
appurtenances
belonging to the
genre of Romance
. The earliest known depictions 
of the motif are from tenth- or eleventh-century
Cappadocia
and eleventh-century
Georgia
; previously, in the
iconography
of
Eastern Orthodoxy
, George had been depicted as 
a soldier
since at least the seventh century. The 
earliest known surviving narrative of the dragon episode is an eleventh-century 
Georgian text.

The dragon
motif was first combined with the 
already standardised Passio Georgii in
Vincent of Beauvais
‘ encyclopedic
Speculum Historiale
, and then
Jacobus de Voragine
‘s
Golden Legend
(ca 1260) guaranteed its 
popularity in the later Middle Ages as a literary and pictorial subject. The 
legend gradually became part of the
Christian traditions relating to Saint George
 
and was used in many festivals thereafter.

Saint George
is one of Christianity’s most 
popular saints
, and is highly honored by both the 
Western and Eastern Churches. A wide range of devotions, traditions, and 
prayers to honor the saint have emerged throughout the centuries. He has for 
long been distinguished by the title of “The Great Martyr” and is one of 
the most popular saints to be represented in icons. Devotions to Saint George 
have a large following among Christians, and a large number of churches are 
dedicated to him worldwide.

Since the Middle ages, the story of the life of Saint George, both as fact 
and legend, has come to symbolize the victory of good over evil, and become part 
of local Christian traditions, festivals and celebrations that continue to date. 
Saint George has been widely represented in Christian art in multiple media and 
forms, from paintings and sculptures to stained glass and reliefs, through the 
ages and has become the subject or multiple prayers and devotions. This article 
traces the origins, development and growth of the Christian devotions, 
traditions, and prayers to Saint George.

Elizaveta Petrovna (Russian:
Елизаве́та (Елисаве́т) Петро́вна) (29 
December [O.S. 
18 December] 1709 – 5 January 1762 [O.S. 
25 December 1761]), also known as Yelisavet and Elizabeth, 
was the
Empress of Russia
from 1741 until her death. She led the country into the 
two major European conflicts of her time: the
War of Austrian Succession
(1740–48) and the
Seven Years’ War
(1756–63). On the eve of her death, Russia spanned almost 
6,250,000 square miles (16,200,000 km²).

Her domestic policies allowed the nobles to gain dominance in local 
government while shortening their terms of service to the
state
. She encouraged
Mikhail Lomonosov
‘s establishment of the
University of Moscow
and
Ivan 
Shuvalov
‘s foundation of the
Imperial Academy of Arts
in
Saint Petersburg
. She also spent exorbitant sums of money on the grandiose 
baroque projects of her favourite architect,
Bartolomeo Rastrelli
, particularly in
Peterhof
and
Tsarskoye Selo
. The
Winter Palace
and the
Smolny Cathedral
in Saint Petersburg are among the chief monuments of her 
reign. She remains one of the most popular
Russian monarchs
due to her strong opposition to
Prussian
 
policies and her decision not to execute a single person during her reign.

Early life

Elizabeth, the second-oldest surviving daughter of
Peter the Great
and
Catherine I
, was born at
Kolomenskoye
, near
Moscow
, on 18 
December 1709 (O.S.). 
Her parents had secretly married in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in
St. Petersburg
in November 1707. 
The marriage was made public in February 1712. 
As her parents’ marriage had not been publicly acknowledged at the time of her 
birth, political opponents Elizabeth’s would later user her “illegitimacy” to 
challenge her right to the throne. On 6 March 1711, she was proclaimed a
Tsarevna
, 
and on 23 December 1721, a
Tsesarevna
.

 

The portrait of Elizabeth as
Venus
, painted in the 1710s for the Grand
Peterhof Palace
.

Of Peter and Catherine’s five sons and seven daughters, only two daughters,
Anna
(born 1708) and Elizabeth survived. 
In 1724 Anna became betrothed to the
Duke of Holstein-Gottorp
, nephew of the late King
Charles XII of Sweden
, Peter’s old adversary. 
Her father had tried to find Elizabeth an equally impressive match with the
French

Royal court
when he paid a visit there. It was Peter’s intention to marry his 
second daughter to the young French King
Louis XV
, but the
Bourbons
declined the offer, as they deemed her mother’s origin too obscure. 
Elizabeth had been betrothed to
Prince Karl Augustus of Holstein-Gottorp
, 
son of
Christian Augustus, Prince of Eutin
. Politically, it appeared a useful and 
respectable alliance. 
A few days after the betrothal, Karl Augustus died 
(31 May 1727). At the time of Peter’s death in 1725, no marriage plan had 
succeeded.

As a child, Elizabeth was bright, if not brilliant, but received only an 
imperfect and desultory formal education. Her father adored her. She resembled 
him both physically and temperamentally. 
Peter had no leisure to devote to her training, and her mother was too 
uneducated to superintend her formal studies. She had a French governess and was 
fluent in
Italian
,
German
and
French
. 
She was also an excellent dancer and rider. 
From her earliest years, she delighted everyone with her extraordinary beauty 
and vivacity. She was commonly known as the leading beauty of the
Russian Empire
.

 

Elizabeth in the 1720s (as painted by
Ivan Nikitich Nikitin
)

So long as
Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov
remained in power (until September 1727), the 
government of Elizabeth’s adolescent half-nephew
Peter II
(reigned 1727-1730) treated her with liberality and distinction. 
The
Dolgorukovs
, an ancient boyar family, deeply resented Menshikov. 
With Peter II’s attachment to Prince Ivan Dolgorukov, and with two of their 
family members on the Supreme State Council, they had the leverage for a 
successful coup. Menshikov was arrested, stripped of all his honours and 
properties and exiled to northern
Siberia
, 
where he died in November 1729. 
The Dolgorukovs hated the memory of Peter the Great, and practically banished 
his daughter from Court.

With the death of her father in 1725 and the later accession of the
Empress Anna
in 1730, no royal court or noble house in
Europe
could 
allow a son to pay court to Elizabeth, as it would be seen as an unfriendly act 
to the Empress. 
Marriage to a commoner was not possible as it would cost Elizabeth not only her 
title, but also her property rights and her claim to the throne. 
Elizabeth’s response was to make a lover of Alexis Shubin, a handsome sergeant 
in the
Semyonovsky Guards regiment
. 
After Shubin’s banishment to
Siberia
 
(having previously been relieved of his tongue) by Anna’s order, she turned to a 
coachman and then to a waiter. 
Eventually she consoled herself with a young
Ukrainian
 
peasant with a good
bass voice
,
Alexis Razumovsky
, who had been brought to Saint Petersburg by a nobleman 
for a church choir. Elizabeth acquired him for her own choir. 
Razumovsky, a good and simple-minded man, showed no personal ambition. 
Elizabeth was devoted to him, and there is reason to believe that she might have 
married him in a secret ceremony. 
Razumovsky would later become known as “the Emperor of the Night” 
and Elizabeth would make him a
Prince
 
and
Field Marshal
(1756) after she became Empress in 1741. The
Holy Roman Emperor
made Razumovsky a
Count
of the
Holy Roman Empire
 
in 1742.

1741 coup

 

Coronation procession of Empress Elizabeth, Moscow 1742

During the reign of her cousin
Anna
(1730–1740), Elizabeth was gathering support in the background; but 
after the death of Empress Anna, the regency of
Anna Leopoldovna
for the infant
Ivan VI
was marked by high taxes and economic problems. Elizabeth, being the 
daughter of Peter the Great, enjoyed much support from the Russian guards 
regiments. 
Elizabeth often visited the regiments, marking special events with the officers 
and acting as godmother to their children. 
The guards repaid her kindness when on the night of 25 November 1741, Elizabeth 
seized power with the help of the
Preobrazhensky Regiment
. Arriving at the regimental headquarters dressed in 
a metal breastplate over her dress and grasping a silver cross she stated, “Who 
do you want to serve? Me, the natural sovereign, or those who have stolen my 
inheritance?” 
After winning the regiment over, the troops marched to the Winter Palace where 
they arrested the infant Emperor, his parents and their own lieutenant-colonel,
Count von Munnich
. It was a daring coup and passed without bloodshed. 
Elizabeth had vowed that if she became Empress that she would not sign a single 
death sentence, an unusual promise that she—notably—kept to throughout her life.

Policies

Domestic

At the age of thirty-three, this naturally indolent and self-indulgent woman, 
with little knowledge and no experience of affairs, found herself at the head of 
a great empire at one of the most critical periods of its existence. Her 
proclamation as Empress Elizabeth I explained that the preceding reigns had led 
Russia to ruin:

“The Russian people have been groaning under the enemies of the
Christian
 
faith, but she has delivered them from the degrading foreign oppression.”

Russia had been under the domination of
German
 
advisers and Elizabeth exiled the most unpopular of them, including
Heinrich Ostermann
,
Burkhard von Munnich
and Carl Gustav Lowenwolde. 
Elizabeth crowned herself Empress in the
Dormition Cathedral
on 25 April 1742.

Fortunately for herself and for Russia, Elizabeth Petrovna, with all her 
shortcomings (documents often waited months for her signature), 
had inherited some of her father’s genius for government. Her usually keen 
judgment and her diplomatic tact again and again recalled Peter the Great. What 
sometimes appeared as irresolution and procrastination, was most often a wise 
suspension of judgment under exceptionally difficult circumstances.

The substantial changes made by Elizabeth’s father, Peter the Great, had not 
exercised a really formative influence on the intellectual attitudes of the 
ruling classes as a whole. 
Elizabeth made considerable impact and laid the groundwork for its completion by 
her eventual successor,
Catherine II
.

Foreign

Bestuzhev

 

Empress Elizabeth by
Vigilius Eriksen

Elizabeth abolished the cabinet council system that had been used under Anna, 
and reconstituted the
senate
as it had been under Peter the Great, with the chiefs of the 
departments of state (none of them Germans) attending. Her first task after this 
was to address the war with
Sweden
. On 23 
January 1743, direct negotiations between the two powers were opened at
Åbo (Turku)
. In 
the Treaty of Åbo
, on 7 August 1743, Sweden ceded to Russia all of southern
Finland
east 
of the
Kymmene River
, which became the boundary between the two states. The treaty 
also gave Russia the fortresses of
Villmanstrand
and
Fredrikshamn
.

This triumphant issue can be credited to the diplomatic ability of the new 
vice chancellor,
Aleksey Bestuzhev-Ryumin
. His policies would have been impossible without 
her support. 
Elizabeth had wisely placed Bestuzhev at the head of foreign affairs immediately 
after her accession. He represented the anti-Franco-Prussian portion of her 
council, and his object was to bring about an Anglo-Austro-Russian alliance 
which, at that time, was undoubtedly Russia’s proper system. Hence the bogus
Lopukhina Conspiracy
and other attempts of
Frederick the Great
and
Louis XV
to get rid of Bestuzhev (making the Russian court the centre of a 
tangle of intrigue during the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign).^[9]

 

Promenade of Elizaveta Petrovna through the streets of Saint 
Petersburg (1903), watercolour by
Alexandre Benois
.

Ultimately, the minister’s strong support from Elizabeth prevailed. 
His faultless diplomacy, and an auxiliary Russian corps of 30,000 men sent to 
the Rhine
, 
greatly accelerated the peace negotiations, leading to the
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
(18 October 1748). By sheer tenacity of purpose, 
Bestuzhev had extricated his country from the Swedish imbroglio; reconciled his 
imperial mistress with the courts of
Vienna
and 
London; enabled Russia to assert herself effectually in
Poland
,
Turkey
and
Sweden
; and 
isolated the King of
Prussia
by 
forcing him into hostile alliances. All this would have been impossible without 
the steady support of Elizabeth who trusted him completely in spite of the 
Chancellor’s many enemies, most of whom were her personal friends.

However, on 14 February 1758, Chancellor Bestuzhev was removed from office. 
The future Catherine II recorded, “He was relieved of all his decorations and 
rank, without a soul being able to reveal for what crimes or transgressions the 
first gentleman of the Empire was so despoiled, and sent back to his house as a 
prisoner.”^[16] 
No specific crime was ever pinned on Bestuzhev. Instead it was inferred that he 
had attempted to sow discord between the Empress and her heir and his consort. 
Bestuzhev’s enemies were his rivals, the Shuvalov family, Vice-Chancellor
Mikhail Vorontsov
, and the Austrian and French ambassadors.

Seven Years’ War

 

Elizabeth on Horseback, Attended by a Page.

The great event of Elizabeth’s later years was the
Seven Years’ War
. Elizabeth regarded the
treaty of Westminster
( 16 January 1756, whereby
Great 
Britain
and Prussia
agreed to unite their forces to oppose the entry into, or the 
passage through, Germany
of the troops of every foreign power) as utterly subversive of the 
previous conventions between Great Britain and Russia. Elizabeth sided against 
Prussia over a personal dislike of
Frederick the Great
. 
She wanted him reduced within proper limits, so that he might no longer be a 
danger to the empire. Elizabeth acceded to the treaty of Versailles thus 
entering into an alliance with France and
Austria
 
against Prussia. On 17 May 1757 the Russian army, 85,000 strong, advanced 
against Königsberg
.

Neither the serious illness of the Empress, which began with a fainting-fit 
at
Tsarskoe Selo
(19 September 1757), nor the fall of Bestuzhev ( 21 February 
1758), nor the cabals and intrigues of the various foreign powers at
Saint Petersburg
, interfered with the progress of the war, and the crushing 
defeat of
Kunersdorf
(12 August 1759) 
at last brought Frederick to the verge of ruin. From that day forth he despaired 
of success, though he was saved for the moment by the jealousies of the Russian 
and Austrian commanders, which ruined the military plans of the allies.

On the other hand, it is not too much to say that, from the end of 1759 to 
the end of 1761, the unshakable firmness of the Russian Empress was the one 
constraining political force which held together the heterogeneous, incessantly 
jarring elements of the anti-Prussian combination. From the Russian point of 
view, Elizabeth’s greatness as a stateswoman consists in her steady appreciation 
of Russian interests, and her determination to promote them at all hazards. She 
insisted throughout that the King of Prussia must be rendered harmless to his 
neighbors for the future, and that the only way to bring this about was to 
reduce him to the rank of a
Prince-Elector
.

Frederick himself was quite alive to his danger. “I’m at the end of my 
resources”, he wrote at the beginning of 1760, “the continuance of this war 
means for me utter ruin. Things may drag on perhaps till July, but then a 
catastrophe must come.” On 21 May 1760 a fresh convention was signed between 
Russia and Austria, a secret clause of which, never communicated to the court of
Versailles
, guaranteed
East 
Prussia
to Russia, as an indemnity for war expenses. The failure of the 
campaign of 1760, wielded by the inept
Count Buturlin
, induced the court of Versailles, on the evening of 22 
January 1761, to present to the court of Saint Petersburg a dispatch to the 
effect that the king of France by reason of the condition of his dominions 
absolutely desired peace. The Russian empress’s reply was delivered to the two 
ambassadors on 12 February. It was inspired by the most uncompromising hostility 
towards the king of Prussia. Elizabeth would not consent to any pacific 
overtures until the original object of the league had been accomplished.

 

Elizaveta Petrovna in
Tsarskoe Selo
(1905), painting by
Eugene Lanceray
, now in the
Tretyakov Gallery
.

Simultaneously, Elizabeth had conveyed to
Louis XV
a confidential letter in which she proposed the signature of a new 
treaty of alliance of a more comprehensive and explicit nature than the 
preceding treaties between the two powers, without the knowledge of Austria. 
Elizabeth’s object in this mysterious negotiation seems to have been to 
reconcile France and Great Britain, in return for which signal service France 
was to throw all her forces into the German war. This project, which lacked 
neither ability nor audacity, foundered upon Louis XV’s invincible jealousy of 
the growth of Russian influence in eastern Europe and his fear of offending the
Porte
. It was finally arranged by the allies that their envoys at
Paris
should fix 
the date for the assembling of a peace congress, and that, in the meantime, the 
war against Prussia should be vigorously prosecuted. In 1760, a Russian
flying column
briefly occupied
Berlin
. 
Russian victories placed Prussia in serious danger.

The campaign of 1761 was almost as abortive as the campaign of 1760. 
Frederick acted on the defensive with consummate skill, and the capture of the 
Prussian fortress of
Kolberg
on Christmas Day 1761, by
Rumyantsev
, 
was the sole Russian success. Frederick, however, was now at the last gasp. On 6 
January 1762, he wrote to
Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein
, “We ought now to think of 
preserving for my nephew, by way of negotiation, whatever fragments of my 
territory we can save from the avidity of my enemies”, which means, if words 
mean anything, that he was resolved to seek a soldier’s death on the first 
opportunity. A fortnight later he wrote to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, “The 
sky begins to clear. Courage, my dear fellow. I have received the news of a 
great event.” The
great event which snatched him from destruction
was the death of the Russian 
empress (5 January 1762 (N.S.)).

Selecting an heir

 

Elisabeths donation to the Russian lieutenant general Balthasar 
Freiherr von
Campenhausen
, 27. May 1756

As an unmarried and childless Empress, it was imperative for Elizabeth to 
find a legitimate heir to secure the
Romanov dynasty
. She chose her nephew,
Peter of Holstein-Gottorp
. Elizabeth was only too aware that the deposed
Ivan VI
, whom she had imprisoned in the Schlusselburg Fortress and placed in 
solitary confinement, was a threat to her throne. Elizabeth feared a coup in his 
favour and set about destroying all papers, coins or anything else depicting or 
mentioning Ivan. 
Elizabeth had issued an order that, should any attempt be made for him to 
escape, he was to be eliminated.
Catherine II
upheld the order and when an attempt was made he was killed and 
secretly buried within the fortress.

The young Peter had lost his mother, Elizabeth’s sister Anna, at three months 
old and his father at the age of eleven. Elizabeth invited her young nephew to 
Saint Petersburg, where he was received into the
Orthodox Church
and proclaimed heir on 7 November 1742. 
Elizabeth gave him at once Russian tutors. Keen to see the dynasty secured, 
Elizabeth settled on
Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst
as a bride for her nephew. On her 
conversion to the
Russian Orthodox Church
, Sophie was given the name of Catherine in memory of 
Elizabeth’s mother. The marriage took place on 21 August 1745 with a son, the 
future
Paul I
, finally born on 20 September 1754.

There is considerable speculation as to the actual paternity of Paul I. It is 
suggested that he was not Peter’s son at all, but that his mother had engaged in 
an affair—to which Elizabeth had consented—with a young officer named Serge 
Saltykov, and that he was Paul’s real father. 
In any case, Peter never gave any indication that he believed Paul to have been 
fathered by anyone but himself. He also did not take any interest in parenthood. 
Elizabeth though most certainly took an active interest. She removed the young 
Paul and acted as if she were his mother and not Catherine. 
The Empress had ordered the midwife to take the baby and to follow her. 
Catherine was not to see her child for another month and then on the second time 
briefly for the churching ceremony. 
Six months later Elizabeth let Catherine see the child again. The child had in 
effect become a ward of the state and in a larger sense, the property of the 
state. 
In her infinite capacity for self-deception, Elizabeth had made the decision to 
bring up the baby as she believed he should be—as a true heir and great-grandson 
of her father, Peter the Great.

Death

In the late 1750s, Elizabeth’s health started to decline. She began to suffer 
a series of
dizzy spells
and refused to take the prescribed medicines. She forbade the 
word “death” in her presence. 
Knowing she was dying, Elizabeth used her last remaining strength to make her 
confession, to recite with her confessor the prayer for the dying and to say 
good-bye to those few people who wished to be with her including Peter and 
Catherine and Counts
Alexey
and
Kirill Razumovsky
. Finally on 25 December 1761, the Empress died. 
She was buried in the
Peter and Paul Cathedral
in Saint Petersburg on 3 February 1762, after six 
weeks lying in state.

The Court of the 
Empress

 

Elizabeth of Russia

 

Imperial Monogram

Under the reign of Elizabeth, the Russian court was one of the most splendid 
in all Europe. 
Foreigners were amazed at the sheer luxury of the sumptuous balls and 
masquerades. Russian court had steadily increased in importance throughout the 
18th century and came to hold more cultural significance than many of its 
Western counterparts due its inclusive nature: any “well to do inhabitants” were 
welcome at Court. The Court, like most Imperial Courts, was considered a 
reflection of the ruler at its center and Elizabeth was said to be “the laziest, 
most extravagant and most amorous of sovereigns.” 
Elizabeth was intelligent but lacked the discipline and early education 
necessary to flourish as an intellectual; she found the reading of secular 
literature to be “injurious to health.”  
She was kind and warm-hearted for the emotion’s sake alone, once going so far as 
to offer to finance the reconstruction of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake 
destroyed the Portuguese city despite having and wanting no diplomatic 
relationship with the nation. 
She hated bloodshed and conflict and went to great lengths to alter the Russian 
system of punishment, even outlawing capital punishment. 
In court, this peacemaker spirit also made itself evident. According to 
historian Robert Nisbet Bain, it was one of Elizabeth’s “chief glories that, so 
far as she was able, she put a stop to that mischievous contention of rival 
ambitions at Court, which had disgraced the reigns of Peter II, Anne and Ivan 
VI, and enabled foreign powers to freely interfere in the domestic affairs of 
Russia.”  
She was also deeply religious, passing several pieces of legislation that undid 
much of the work her father had done to limit the power of the church. 
Yet of all her various characteristics manifested in the structure of Court 
life, the most evident were her extravagance; her vanity, and her gaiety and 
playful nature.

The notorious extravagance of Elizabeth came to define the Court in many 
respects. Elizabeth created a world in which aesthetics reigned supreme, 
producing a Court in which an understood competition existed amongst courtiers 
to see who could look best, second only to Her Majesty. As historian
Mikhail Shcherbatov
stated, her court was “arrayed in cloth of gold, her 
nobles satisfied with only the most luxurious garments, the most expensive 
foods, the rarest drinks, that largest number of servants and they applied this 
standard of lavishness to their dress as well.”  
Clothing soon became the chosen means in Court by which to display wealth and 
social standing. Elizabeth is reported to have owned 15,000 dresses, several 
thousand pairs of shoes, and a seemingly unlimited number of stockings. 
She was known to never wear a dress twice and to change outfits anywhere from 
two to six times a day. Since the Empress did this, her courtiers did as well. 
It is reported that to ensure no one wore a dress more than once to any ball or 
notably formal occasion, the Empress had her guards stamp each gown with special 
ink.^[36] 
Men at court were known to wear diamond buttons, own jeweled snuff boxes, and 
adorn their servants in uniforms made of gold. It was also during her reign that 
a great number of silver and gold objects were produced, the most the country 
had seen thus far in its history. 
Elizabeth’s extravagance was also clearly displayed in the foods eaten at Court. 
It was not unheard of for Elizabeth to order over a thousand bottles of French 
champagnes and wines at any given time to be served at one event and present 
pineapple at all of her receptions, despite the difficulty of procuring the 
fruit in such quantities. 
However, it was thanks to Elizabeth’s incredible extravagance and adoration of 
exotic goods that ended up greatly benefiting the country’s infrastructure. 
Needing goods shipped from all over, the postal system and roads were modernized 
in order to fulfill the Empress’s many desires.

Elizabeth’s vanity and the attention paid to her personal appearance also had 
indelible ramifications on Court life. Elizabeth was an incredibly attractive 
woman and in turn, she desired to be the most attractive amongst any company at 
all times. In order to ensure this was the case, Elizabeth passed various 
decrees outlining what was acceptable of her courtiers in regards to appearance 
in relation to the Empress. These edicts included a law against wearing the same 
hairstyle, dress, or accessory as the Empress. One woman, Natalya Lopukhina, 
accidentally wore the same item as the Empress and was lashed across the face 
for her offense. 
Another law created by Elizabeth was that any French fabric salesman had to 
first sell to her before attempting to sell to anyone else; those who 
disregarded this law were arrested. 
One famous story exemplifying the Empress’s vanity is that, once, Elizabeth got 
a bit of powder in her hair and was unable to remove it. She was therefore 
obligated to cut her hair to rid herself of the splotch and in turn she made all 
of the ladies at Court do the same, which they did “with tears in their eyes.”  
This aggressive vanity became a tenet of Elizabeth’s Court throughout the 
entirety of her reign, particularly as she grew older. Accoding to the historian
Tamara Talbot Rice
, “Later in life her outbursts of anger were directed 
either against people who were thought to have endangered Russia’s security or 
against women whose beauty rivaled her own.”

Arts and Culture at 
Court

Despite Elizabeth’s volatile, often violent reactions in regards to her 
appearance, the Empress was ebullient in most other matters particularly when it 
came to Court entertainment. Elizabeth was renowned throughout and beyond Russia 
for the balls she held and her fierce commitment to the arts, particularly 
music, theater, and architecture. It is reported that Elizabeth threw two balls 
a week. One would be a large event with an average of 800 guests in attendance, 
most of whom were the nation’s leading merchants, members of the lower nobility, 
and guards stationed in and around the city of the event. The other ball was a 
much smaller affair reserved for Elizabeth’s closest friends as well as members 
of the highest echelons of nobility. 
These smaller gatherings began as masked balls but evolved into the famous 
Metamorphoses balls by 1744. 
At these Metamorphoses balls, guests were expected to dress as the opposite sex, 
with Elizabeth often dressing up as Cossack or carpenter in honor of her father. 
The costumes not permitted at the event were those of pilgrims and harlequins, 
which the Empress considered profane and indecent respectively. 
Most members of court thoroughly disliked these balls since most looked 
ridiculous but Elizabeth adored them. As Catherine the Great’s advisor Potemkin 
posited, this adoration was due to the fact that she was “the only woman who 
looked truly fine, and completely a man… As she was tall and powerful, male 
attire suited her.”  
Though the balls were by far her most personally beloved and lavish events, 
Elizabeth often threw children’s birthday parties and wedding receptions for 
those affiliated with her Court, going so far as to provide dowries for each of 
her ladies-in-waiting. 
The other court pastimes most enjoyed by Elizabeth and therefore most revered in 
Court were theatre, music, and architecture. The Empress’s had a longstanding 
love of theatre and had a stage erected in the palace to enjoy the countless 
performances she sanctioned. Though countless domestic and foreign works were 
shown, the French plays quickly became the most popular, often being performed 
twice a week. In tandem with Elizabeth’s love of theatre, music came to be of 
high importance in Court. 
Many attribute its popularity to Elizabeth’s relationship with Alexei 
Razumovsky, a Ukrainian Cossack and the supposed husband of the Empress, who 
reportedly relished music. Regardless of the reasoning behind its introduction, 
Elizabeth transformed “her court into the country’s leading musical center.”  
She would spare no expense in its regard, importing leading musical talents from 
Germany, France, and Italy. 
As to the Empress’s love of architecture, she financed many construction 
projects during her reign. Her most famous creations were the
Winter Palace
, which she commissioned and oversaw the construction of but 
died before its completion, and the
Smolny Convent
. The Convent, built when Elizabeth considered becoming a nun, 
was one of the many religious buildings erected at her behest and on her (the 
nation’s) dime. According to Robert Nisbet Bain, “No other Russian sovereign 
ever erected so many churches.”

Titles and Styles

• 29 December 1709 – 6 December 1741: Her Imperial Highness 
  Grand Duchess Elizaveta Petrovna of Russia
• 6 December 1741 – 5 January 1762: Her Imperial Majesty The 
  Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias

Elizabeth in 
popular culture

• Empress Elizabeth has appeared numerous times in dramatizations of 
  Catherine II’s life. The
  1934
  film
  Catherine the Great
  (based on the play
  The Czarina
  by
  Lajos 
  Bíró
  and
  Melchior Lengyel
  ) stars
  Flora Robson
  as Elizabeth. 1934 also saw the release of
  The Scarlet Empress
  , another filmed version of Catherine the Great’s 
  story, this time with
  Louise Dresser
  in the role of Elizabeth. The 1991 TV
  miniseries
  
  Young Catherine
  features
  Vanessa Redgrave
  in the role.
  Jeanne Moreau
  portrayed Elizabeth in the 1995
  television movie
  
  Catherine the Great
  . She is also a major character in several 
  episodes of the Japanese animated series,
  Le Chevalier D’Eon
  .
• Elizabeth appears as a character in the historical-fiction novel “The 
  Winter Palace” by Eva Stachniak and as a character in the novel “The 
  Mirrored World” by Debra Dean.
• Elizabeth appears as a character in the historical novel “A Princess at 
  the Court of Russia” by Eva Martens.