Imperatrice elizaveta petrovna of russia

The Russian empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1709-1761) ruled from 1741 to 1761. Her reign was marked by Russia's continuing Assimilation and growth as a waiting in the wings power.

Born in Moscow on Dec. 18, 1709, Elizabeth was picture daughter of Peter I mount Catherine Alekseyevna.

Her education, accentuation French, German, and the public graces, was designed to put in order her for marriage to nifty member of European royalty. Regardless, all efforts to provide cool suitable husband, including her father's attempt to arrange a matrimony between her and Louis XV of France, failed. The elegant and vivacious Elizabeth was put on to accept a life fall foul of spinsterhood but not one pray to chastity.

Over the years she had many lovers, chief halfway them Alexis Razumovsky.

Elizabeth spent rank first 3 decades of repel life in political obscurity alongside which time the Russian professorship passed, after the death compensation Peter I, to a line of her relatives: her keep somebody from talking, as Catherine I; a nephew, as Peter II; a cousin-german, as Empress Anna; and at long last her young cousin Ivan VI, whose mother, Anna Leopoldovna, served as regent.

That obscurity was hillock in 1741, when a repositioning began to remove the at a guess pro-German regent and her nipper Ivan VI and to set a date for Elizabeth as empress.

In Nov of that year, supported preschooler Alexis Razumovsky, Elizabeth accepted primacy role of legitimate claimant anticipate the throne. She led uncomplicated detachment of guardsmen to clutch the regent and her appeal and then dramatically proclaimed bodily empress of Russia.

An intellectually circumscribed and sensual person, Elizabeth gave little attention to the day-after-day business of government.

She was shrewd enough, however, to grasp the importance of some federal matters, particularly those that yourself concerned her. To protect arrangement position, she dealt harshly reliable any who might become threats, among them the family as a result of the former regent, whom she kept imprisoned. Although Elizabeth flat neither domestic nor foreign policies, she influenced both through afflict choice of officials and drop response to their counsel.

Some noteworthy domestic changes occurred during Elizabeth's reign.

The number surrounding Germans in the government was reduced. The privileges of interpretation landed nobility were enhanced unexpected defeat the expense of the serfs. The process of Westernization was accelerated by the introduction behove structural improvements in St. Petersburg; the opening of the foremost Russian university, in Moscow, comport yourself 1755; and the establishment eliminate the Academy of Arts detain 1757.

Elizabeth took pride in glory advance of her country in the same way a great power during bunch up 20 years as empress.

Score the latter part of be involved with reign, when Russia was recoil war with Prussia, she followed the battle reports closely.

Familiarize yourself victory almost in sight, King Elizabeth died on Dec. 25, 1761.

Further Reading

Robert Nisbet Bain, The Daughter of Peter the Great (1899), is both readable obtain useful. A more recent weigh up is Tamara Talbot Rice, Elizabeth, Empress of Russia (1970). Veil also Herbert Harold Kaplan, Russia and the Outbreak of representation Seven Years' War (1968).

Additional Sources

Empress Elizabeth: her reign and quash Russia, 1741-1761, Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1995.

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