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Russia
Elizabeth of Russia – Empress 1741-1762 A.D.
1748 Copper Denga (1/2 Kopek) 24mm (5.79 grams)
Reference: KM# 188
Royal coat of arms, the crowned imperial double eagle with scepter and orb.
ДЕНГА 1748 within decorative wreath.
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Authenticity.
 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).
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
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.
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