Terrible tsarinas

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Terrible Tsarinas mercilessly. The initial punishment was considered to have been too soft; a legal commission was established to handle the matter.

The commission began by arresting the unmasked des pot’s three secretaries. Then Menshikov was given a twenty-point questionnaire, and ordered to respond “as soon as possible.”

However, whereas they had agreed on the need for eliminating Menshikov, the members of the Supreme Privy Council were bickering among themselves as to how to distribute the power after his downfall. Ostermann had initially taken charge of current affairs; but the Dolgorukys, on the strength of their family’s seniority, became increasingly impatient to supplant “the Westphalian.” Their direct rivals were the Golitsyns, whose family tree was, according to them, at least equally glorious. Each party was grasping for as much as it could get, without overly concerning themselves about Peter II nor Russia. Since the tsar’s only preoccupation was to have fun, there was no reason for the great servants of the State to tax themselves overmuch in defending the welfare and the prosperity of the country instead of looking to their own interests. The Dolgorukys counted on young Ivan, so attractive and seductive, to turn the tsar against his aunt Elizabeth and her sister Natalya, whose ambitions seemed suspicious.

For his part, Dmitri Golitsyn charged his son-in-law, the elegant and none too scrupulous Alexander Buturlin, with engaging His Majesty in varied enough pleasures to keep his mind off politics.

But Elizabeth and Natalya suspected what the Dolgorukys and Golitsyns were up to. Together, they tried to open the young tsar’s eyes, alerting him to the dangers that lurked behind those pleasant smiles with the sharp teeth.

However, Peter had inherited his ancestors’ inability to tolerate any restraint, and he took every argument as an insult to his dignity. He rebuffed his sister and his aunt. Natalya did not insist; as for Elizabeth, she went over to the enemy. As a conse«46»

Machinations around the Throne quence of spending so much time with her nephew’s friends, she fell in love with the very same Alexander Buturlin that she had intended to combat. Giving in to the unrestrained license of her nephew, she readily joined him in every manifestation of frivolity.

Hunting and lovemaking became, for her as well as for him, the two poles of their activity. And who better than Buturlin could satisfy their common taste for the unpredictable and the provocative? Of course, the Supreme Privy Council and, through it, all the court and all the embassies, were kept abreast of the tsar’s extravagances. They began to think it was high time to give him the crown and make him settle down. It was in this atmosphere of libertinage and infighting that the political leaders of Russia prepared the coronation ceremonies in Moscow.

On January 9, 1728, Peter set out at the head of a procession as grand as one can imagine for such an exodus, with all of St. Petersburg in his wake. Through the cold and the snow, the nobility and the high officials of the new capital slowly headed off for the pomp and celebrations at the old Kremlin. But in Tver, halfway to Moscow, the tsar was taken ill. It was feared that he might have measles; the doctors recommended at least two weeks’ bed rest.

Only on February 4 did the young sovereign, finally recovered, make his solemn entry into a Moscow bedecked in flags and bunting, overflowing with cheers and thundering with cannon blasts and the ringing of bells. His first stop, according to protocol, was to pay a visit his grandmother, the empress Eudoxia. He felt no emotion toward this old woman, tired and driveling, and he was even irritated when she reproached him for his dissolute life and recommended he marry as soon as possible a wise and wellborn girl. Cutting short the interview, he curtly sent her back to her prayers and her good works. This reaction did not surprise the wife repudiated by Peter the Great. It was clear to her that the teenager had inherited his grandfather’s independence of mind,