Terrible tsarinas

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Terrible Tsarinas too - such a thoughtful, disciplined, industrious nation, so rich in military and commercial professionals, so well-endowed with princes and princesses in need of marriage partners! Could Elizabeth fish, according to her needs, in both of these ponds? Should she really refrain from employing experienced men, simply in order to Russianize everything? Her dream would be to reconcile the local customs with new ideas from abroad, to enrich the ways of the Russophiles, so much in love with their past, by bringing in contributions from the West, to create a German or French Russia without betraying the traditions of the fatherland.

While pondering which way to turn, under pressure from the Marquis de La Chetardie (pleading in favor of France), Mardefeld (promoting Germany’s interests), and Bestuzhev (a resolute Russian traditionalist), she had to decide on domestic policies of every sort, questions that seemed to her to be of great importance as well. She therefore reorganized the old Senate so that it would wield the legislature and the judiciary powers from that point forward; she replaced the dysfunctional Cabinet with Her Majesty’s private Chancellery, and she increased various fines; she raised the octroi taxes and encouraged settlement by foreign colonists to populate the uninhabited regions of southern Russia. But these strictly administrative measures did not ease her main worry.

How could she ensure the future of the dynasty? What would become of the country if, for one reason or another, she had to “pass on the torch”?

Since she did not have a child of her own, she was deeply afraid that after she died - or as a result of some conspiracy - the young ex-tsar Ivan VI, now dethroned, would succeed her. For the moment, the baby and his parents were safely tucked away in Riga. But they were liable to come back into favor some day, through one of those political upheavals that had become so common in Russia. To preclude any such possibility, Elizabeth could