1734 ANNA IVANOVNA Russian Empress Antique Polushka 1/4 Kopek Coin Eagle i56450

Item: i56450
 
 Authentic Coin of:

Russia

Anna Ivanovna – Empress: 30 January 1730 – 28 October 1740
1734 Copper Polushka (1/4 Kopek) 20mm (3.41 grams)
Reference: KM# 187
Royal coat of arms, the crowned imperial double eagle with scepter and orb.
ПОЛУШКА 1734 within decorative wreath.

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Authenticity.

Anna 
Ioannovna (Russian:
Анна Иоанновна; 7 February [O.S. 
28 January] 1693 – 28 October [O.S. 
17 October] 1740), also spelled
Anna Ivanovna and 
sometimes
anglicized
as Anne, was regent of the
duchy of Courland
from 1711 until 1730 and then 
ruled as
empress of Russia
from 1730 to 1740.

Early life

Anna was born in
Moscow
as the daughter of Tsar
Ivan V
by his wife
Praskovia Saltykova
. Although Anna’s father was 
himself Tsar of Russia and co-ruler with his brother
Peter I
, he was mentally disabled and incapable 
of administering the country. Therefore, his younger brother and co-ruler was 
effectively the autocrat of all the Russias. Anna’s father Ivan V died in 
February 1696, when Anna was only three years old, and
her uncle
became the sole ruler of Russia.

Although Anna was the fourth child of her parents, she had only one surviving 
elder sister,
Catherine
, and one younger sister,
Praskovya
. The three girls were raised in a 
disciplined and austere manner by their widowed mother, a very stern lady of 
sterling character. Born into a family of relatively modest means,
Praskovia Saltykova
had been an exemplary wife 
to a mentally challenged man, and expected her daughters to live up to her own 
high standards of morality and virtue. Anna grew up within a milieu which 
cherished womanly virtue and domesticity above all else, and strongly emphasized 
thrift, charity and religious observances. Her education consisted of French, 
German, religious texts and folklore, leavened with some music and dancing. As 
she grew older, she developed into an obstinate girl, with a mean streak, 
earning her the nickname “Iv-anna the Terrible”. Anna was famed for her big 
cheek, “which, as shown in her portraits,” says
Thomas Carlyle
, “was comparable to a
Westphalian
ham”.

In time, her uncle
Peter the great
ordered the family to move from 
Moscow to
St. Petersburg
. This meant a change of not just 
location but also society, and this had a significant effect on Anna. She 
greatly enjoyed the splendor of court and the lavishness of high society, which 
was very different from the austerity preferred by her mother.

Wedding and widowhood

In 1710,
Peter the Great
arranged for the 17-year-old 
Anna to marry
Frederick William
,
Duke of Courland
, who was the same age as her 
Her wedding was held on a grand scale, as per her own inclinations, and her 
uncle gave her a fabulous dowry of 200,000 roubles. At the feast which followed 
the wedding, two dwarfs performed a parody by jumping out of enormous pies and 
dancing on the tables.

The newly wedded couple spent several weeks in Russia before proceeding to 
Courland. Only twenty miles out of St. Petersburg, on the road to Courland, Duke 
Frederick died. The cause of death was uncertain – it has been attributed 
variously to a chill or to the effects of alcohol.

After her husband died, Anna proceeded to
Jelgava
, the capital
Courland
(now western
Latvia
) and ruled that province for almost 
twenty years, from 1711 to 1730. During this period, the Russian resident,
Peter Bestuzhev
, was her adviser (and sometimes 
lover). She never remarried after the death of her husband, but her enemies said 
she conducted a love affair with
Ernst Johann von Biron
, a prominent courtier, 
for many years.

Accession

 

In 1730,
Tsar Peter II
(grandson of
Peter the Great
) died childless at a young age. 
His death made extinct the main line of the
Romanov dynasty
, which had ruled Russia for 
over a century, since 1613. Possible candidates for the throne were the three 
surviving daughters of
Ivan V
, namely
Catherine
(b.1691), Anna (b.1693) and
Praskovya
(b.1694), and the two surviving 
daughters of
Peter the great
, namely
Anna
(b.1708) and
Elizabeth
(b.1709).

Ivan V had been the older brother of Peter the Great and co-ruler with him, 
and by that reckoning, his daughters may be considered to have the prior right. 
However, if seen from the perspective that the successor should be the nearest 
kin of the most recent monarch, then the daughters of Peter the great were 
nearer to the throne, because they were the aunts of the recently deceased
Tsar Peter II
. The dilemma was made greater 
because the daughters of Peter the Great had been born out of wedlock, and had 
been legitimized later by him, after he formally married their mother
Catherine I
, who had previously been a maid in 
his household. On the other hand,
Praskovia Saltykova
, the wife of Ivan V, had 
been a nobleman’s daughter and a devoted wife and mother; moreover, she had been 
a lady greatly respected for her many virtues, not least her chastity.

 

 

Finally, the Russian
Supreme Privy Council
led by Prince
Dmitri Golitzyn
selected Anna, the second 
daughter of Ivan V, to be the new Empress of Russia. She was selected in 
preference to her elder sister
Catherine
even though Catherine was at that 
time resident in Russia whereas Anna was not. There were some reasons for this: 
Anna was a childless widow and there was no immediate danger of an unknown 
foreigner wielding power in Russia; she also had some experience of government, 
because she had been administering her late husband’s duchy of
Courland
for almost two decades. Catherine on 
the other hand was married to the
Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
; she was now 
separated from him and living in Russia, but this was in itself disgraceful; and 
whether her husband was present or absent, his existence could raise problems at 
her very coronation. His intervention at some later point could hardly be 
prevented, especially since Catherine had a daughter by him; and being a ruling 
prince of ancient lineage, he would not be as amenable to the council’s advice 
as a Russian princess. Also, the fact that Catherine had a daughter already 
would provide a certainty of succession which the nobles perhaps preferred not 
to have.

The
Supreme Privy Council
preferred the childless 
and widowed Duchess of Courland. They hoped that she would feel indebted to the 
nobles and remain a figurehead at best, and malleable at worst. To make sure of 
that, the Council convinced Anna to sign a declaration of “Conditions” 
to her accession, modeled after a Swedish precedent, which stated that Anna was 
to govern according to their counsel and was not permitted to start war, call 
for peace, create new taxes or spend the revenue generated by the state without 
their consent. She could not punish nobility without trial, could not make 
grants of estates or villages, could not appoint high officials, and could not 
promote anyone, whether foreigners or Russians, to court offices without the 
consent of the Council.

Anna signed the document of “Conditions” 
on 18 January 1730 at her capital,
Jelgava
in Courland (then known as Mitau), and 
proceeded to the Russian capital. On 20 February 1730, shortly after her 
arrival, Empress Anna exercised her prerogative to do away with her 
predecessor’s Privy Council and dissolved that body. The Supreme Privy Council 
which had stipulated those onerous “Conditions” had been composed largely of the 
families of the princes Dolgorouki and Galitzin. Within a matter of days, 
another faction rose at court which was opposed to the domination of these two 
families. On 7 March 1730, a group of people belonging to this faction 
(numbering between 150 and 800 people, depending on source) arrived at the 
palace and petitioning the empress to repudiate the “Conditions” and assume the 
autocracy of her predecessors. Among those who urged Anna to do so was her elder 
sister
Catherine
. Anna duly repudiated the
document of Conditions
, and for good measure 
sent some of the framers of the document to the scaffold, and many others to
Siberia
. She then assumed autocratic powers and 
ruled as an absolute monarch, in the same fashion as her predecessors.

Policies

 

 

Anna continued lavish architectural advances in St. Petersburg. She completed 
a waterway that began construction under Peter the Great and called for 
seafaring ships to accompany this new canal and continue naval expansion.

Cadet Corps

Anna founded the Cadet Corps in 1731, one year after coming to the throne. 
The Cadet Corps was a group of young boys starting at the age of eight being 
trained for the military. There was a very rigorous training program and this 
also included all the schooling that was necessary for someone to be in an 
important position in the military. As time went on though, the program was 
later improved by other emperors and empresses, such as Catherine the Great. 
They began to include the arts and sciences into their schooling, rather than 
just the knowledge that is considered necessary for only a career in the 
military.

Academy of Science

Started by Peter the Great, Anna continued to fund the
Russian Academy of Science
. The point of this 
school was to further the sciences in Russia and to help bring the country that 
was so far behind up to where the Western Countries were. Some of the sciences 
that were taught were mathematics, astronomy, and botany. The Academy of Science 
was also responsible for a lot of the expeditions, specifically to the Bering 
Sea. The Bering Sea Expedition is one of the more famous ones that was done by 
the Academy of Science. While they were trying to find out if America and Asia 
had been at one point connected, they also studied Siberia and its people, these 
studies were used long after they returned from Siberia. But there were also 
some troubles for the scientists. Oftentimes, the government and the church 
would meddle in their funding and their experiments, changing the data to how 
they wanted to see it. This school of science was very small, never exceeding a 
population of twelve students in the university and barely over a hundred in the 
secondary school. But still it was a huge step forward for education in Russia. 
Many of the teachers and professors were imported from Germany bringing more of 
a Western feeling to what the students were learning about. Some of the students 
to learn from these German professors later became advisors or teachers to some 
of the future leaders, such as Catherine the Great’s tutor, Adodurov. During 
Anna’s reign, the Academy of Science began to include the Arts into their 
program. For not only was there not a school for the arts yet, but Anna was a 
firm supporter of the arts. Theater, architecture, engraving, and journalism 
were all added to the curriculum. During this time, the foundations of what is 
now the world famous Russian Ballet was laid down as well.

The Secret 
Office of Investigation

There have been many rumors since the time of Anna’s reign that Biron had a 
large impact on this office, but truly it was run by the senator A. I. Ushakov. 
This office was resurrected during Anna’s reign to punish those for political 
crimes mostly, but sometimes they would take cases that were not as political. 
The punishments that came from the crimes that were committed, were often very 
painful and disgusting. For example, some people that had supposedly been 
plotting against the government had their noses slit as well as being beaten 
with the knout. Russian authorities listed a total of around 20,000 
Russians—including some of the highest native nobility—fell victim to Biron and 
Anna’s police.

Nobility

Anna gave many privileges to those that were considered the nobility. In 
1730, she made sure that the law of Peter the Great outlawed states from being 
subdivided, the primogeniture law, was repealed. Starting in 1731, landlords 
were responsible for their serfs’ taxes, and their economic bondage was 
tightened again. In 1736, when the age of service changed to 20 with a 25-year 
service time, Anna and her government also determined that if the family had 
more than one son, one could stay behind so that he could work the estate.

Westernization

Westernization continued after Peter the Great’s reign in areas of prominent 
Western culture such as the Academy of Science, cadet corps education, and 
imperial culture including theater and opera. Although not at the fast-paced 
speed of Westernization under her Uncle Peter’s reign, it is evident that a 
culture of the expansion of knowledge continued during Anna’s rule and affected 
mostly nobility. It is argued that this success in Westernization is due to the 
efforts of the German court nobility; the foreigners’ impacts are viewed both 
positively and negatively.

Anna’s reign is different from that of other imperial Russian rulers in one 
respect: her court was almost entirely made up of foreigners, the majority of 
whom were German. Some observers have argued that historians isolate her rule 
from Russian history due to their long-term prejudice towards Germans, towards 
whom Anna seems to have had a soft corner.

There is a lot of mention of Germans throughout the reign of Anna. For 
example, she often gave them ruling positions in her cabinet and other important 
decision making positions. This was because she had very little trust in the 
Russians. It was because of this strong German influence in government that many 
Russians came to resent them.

Foreign affairs

During Anna’s reign, Russia became involved in two major conflicts, the
War of the Polish Succession
and the
Turkish wars
. In the former, Russia worked with
Austria
to support
Augustus II
‘s son
Augustus
against the candidacy of
Stanisław Leszczyński
, who was dependent on the
French
and amiable with
Sweden
and
Turkey
. Russia’s involvement with the conflict 
was quickly over, however, and the
1736–39 Crimean War
was much more important.

In 1732,
Nader Shah
had forced Russia to return parts of 
the lands in the
Northern
and
Southern

Caucasus
and in northern mainland
Persia
that had been taken during Peter the 
Great’s
Russo-Persian War
; this
Treaty of Resht
permitted an alliance against 
the Ottoman Empire and, in any case, the provinces of
Shirvan
,
Ghilan
, and
Mazanderan
had been a net drain on the imperial 
treasury for the entirety of their occupation. Three years later in 1735, 
conforming to the
Treaty of Ganja
, all the rest of the 
territories taken more than a decade earlier from Persia in the North and South 
Caucasus were returned.

The war against the Turks took four and a half years, a hundred thousand men, 
and millions of rubles; its burdens caused great stress on the people of Russia; 
and it only gained Russia the city of

Azov and its environs. Its effects, however, were greater than they 
first appeared. Osterman’s policy of southern expansion prevailed over the 1711
Peace of Pruth
signed by Peter the Great; 
Münnich had given Russia its first campaign against Turkey that had not ended in 
crushing disaster and dissipated the illusion of Ottoman invincibility; he had 
further shown that Russia’s
grenadiers
and
hussars
could defeat twice their number of
janissaries
and
spahis
. The Tatar hordes of the
Crimea
had been exterminated and Russia’s 
signal and unexpected successes greatly increased its prestige within Europe.

The Russians also established a protectorate over the khan of the
Kirghiz
, sending officers to assist his 
short-lived conquest of
Khiva
.

A
Chinese
embassy to her court at St Petersburg 
was the only one ever dispatched to Europe through the late 19th century.

Relationship with 
Biron

 

After being widowed weeks after her wedding, Anna never remarried; as empress 
of Russia she enjoyed the power she held over all men, and may have thought that 
marriage would undermine her power and position. Nevertheless, Anna’s reign is 
often referred to as “The Age of Biron” (Bironovschina), 
after her German lover
Ernst Johann Biron
. Historians aver that Biron 
not only had a strong influence on Anna’s domestic and foreign policies, but 
also that at times, he wielded power solely, without reference to the Empress. 
Anna was attracted to Biron’s personal charm and he proved to be a good 
companion to her, but his name became synonymous with cruelty and terror. In 
public perception, these negative qualities became the hallmark of Anna’s reign.

Death and succession

As her health declined, Anna declared her grandnephew,
Ivan VI
, should succeed her, and appointed 
Biron as regent. This was an attempt to secure the line of her father,
Ivan V
, and exclude the descendants of
Peter the Great
from inheriting the throne. It 
was recorded that she had an ulcer on her kidneys. She continued having attacks 
of gout, and as her condition worsened, her health began to fail.

Anna died on October 17, 1740, from a terrible kidney stone that made for a 
slow and painful death. The tsaritsa’s final words focused on Biron. She died at 
the age of 47 of
kidney disease
.
Ivan VI
was only a two-month-old baby at the 
time, and his mother,
Anna Leopoldovna
, was detested for her German 
counsellors and relations. As a consequence, shortly after Anna’s death
Elizabeth Petrovna
,
Peter I
‘s legitimized daughter managed to gain 
the favor of the populace, locked Ivan VI in a dungeon, and exiled his mother. 
Anna was buried three months later on January 15, 1741, leaving behind 
uncertainty for the future of Russia.

Legacy

 

In the West, Anna’s reign was traditionally looked on as a continuation of 
the transition from the old Muscovy ways to the European court envisioned by
Peter the Great
. Her government, on the whole, 
was prudent, beneficial and even glorious; but it was undoubtedly severe and 
became at last universally unpopular. Within Russia, Anna’s reign is often 
referred to as a “dark era”. The issue with Anna’s reign derives from her 
personality flaws. Even considering the need of Russian rulers to avoid displays 
of weakness, Anna’s rule involved questionable acts towards her subjects. She 
was known to enjoy hunting animals from the palace windows and on more than a 
few occasions humiliated individuals with disabilities. There were continued 
issues with serfdom, peasant and low class slavery, taxation, dishonesty, and 
rule through constant fear. Her empire was described by Lefort, the Saxon 
minister, as being “comparable to a storm-threatened ship, manned by a pilot and 
crew who are all drunk or asleep. . . with no considerable future.” Anna’s war 
with Turkey, economic issues, and conspiracy revolving around her accession all 
bring to light an ominous glow of the empress’s reign. She restored the courts 
in St. Petersburg and brought Russia’s political atmosphere back to where Peter 
the Great had intended progress; the grandeur was almost unmatched in Europe or 
Asia; but such lavish court life was overshadowed by the thousands of men 
slaughtered in war. It is undeniable she had a vast impact in science and 
culture, but it came with a price. The positive aspects of Anna’s reign are 
typically ignored, though it is important to note that she had no more influence 
on domestic and foreign relations and policies than any other 18th-century 
ruler.