S.S. Schukin "Portrait of Emperor Paul I"

Pavel I Petrovich, Emperor of All Russia, son of Peter III and Catherine II, was born on September 20, 1754 in the Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna in St. Petersburg.

Childhood

Immediately after his birth, he came under the full care of his grandmother, Elizaveta Petrovna, who took over all the worries about his upbringing, effectively removing his mother. But Elizabeth was notable for her inconstancy of character and soon cooled off towards the heir, transferring him to the care of nannies, who were only concerned that the child would not catch a cold, hurt himself or be naughty. In early childhood, a boy with an ardent imagination was intimidated by nannies: later he was always afraid of the dark, shuddered at a knock or an incomprehensible rustle, believed in omens, fortune-telling and dreams.

In the fifth year of his life, the boy began to be taught grammar and arithmetic, his first teacher F.D. Bekhteev used an original technique for this: he wrote letters and numbers on wooden and tin soldiers and, lining them up in lines, taught the heir to read and count.

Education

Since 1760, Count N.I. Panin, who was his teacher before the marriage of the heir. Despite the fact that Pavel preferred military sciences more, he received a fairly good education: he easily explained himself in French and German, knew Slavonic and Latin, read Horace in the original, and made extracts from books in the process of reading. He had a rich library, a physics office with a collection of minerals, a lathe for manual labor. He knew how to dance well, fence, was fond of horseback riding.

O.A. Leonov "Paul I"

N.I. Panin, himself a passionate admirer of Frederick the Great, raised his heir in the spirit of admiration for everything Prussian to the detriment of the national Russian. But, according to contemporaries, in his youth, Paul was capable, striving for knowledge, romantically inclined, with an open character, who sincerely believed in the ideals of goodness and justice. After the accession to the throne of the mother in 1762, their relationship was quite close. However, they got worse over time. Catherine feared her son, who had more legal rights to the throne than she herself. Rumors about his accession spread throughout the country, E. I. Pugachev called out to him as a “son”. The Empress tried not to allow the Grand Duke to participate in the discussion of state affairs, and he began to more and more critically evaluate the policy of his mother. Ekaterina simply “did not notice” the age of her son, without marking it in any way.

Maturity

In 1773, Pavel married the Hesse-Darmstadt princess Wilhelmina (baptized Natalia Alekseevna). In this regard, his education was completed, and he had to be involved in state affairs. But Catherine did not consider it necessary.

In October 1766, Natalya Alekseevna, whom Pavel loved very much, died in childbirth with a baby, and Catherine insisted that Pavel marry a second time, which he did, going to Germany. The second wife of Paul is the Württemberg princess Sophia-Dorotea-Augusta-Louise (baptized Maria Feodorovna). The encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron says this about Paul's further position: “And after that, during the whole life of Catherine, the place occupied by Paul in government spheres was the place of an observer, aware of the right to supreme leadership of affairs and deprived of the opportunity to use this right for changes in even the smallest detail in the course of affairs. This situation was especially conducive to the development of a critical mood in Paul, which acquired a particularly sharp and bilious tone due to the personal element that entered him in a wide stream ... "

Russian coat of arms during the reign of Paul I

In 1782, Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna went on a trip abroad and were warmly received in European capitals. Pavel even gained a reputation there as a "Russian Hamlet". During the journey, Paul openly criticized his mother's policies, which she soon became aware of. Upon the return of the grand ducal couple to Russia, the empress gave them Gatchina, where the “small courtyard” moved and where Paul, who inherited from his father a passion for everything military in the Prussian manner, created his small army, conducting endless maneuvers and parades. He languished in inactivity, made plans for his future reign and made repeated and unsuccessful attempts to engage in state activities: in 1774 he submits to the empress a note compiled under the influence of Panin and entitled "Discourse on the state regarding the defense of all limits." Catherine rated her as naive and disapproving of her policies. In 1787, Pavel asks his mother for permission to volunteer for the Russian-Turkish war, but she refuses him under the pretext of the approaching birth of Maria Feodorovna. Finally, in 1788, he takes part in the Russian-Swedish war, but even here Catherine accused him of the fact that the Swedish prince Karl was looking for rapprochement with him - and she recalled her son from the army. It is not surprising that gradually his character becomes suspicious, nervous, bilious and despotic. He retires to Gatchina, where he spends 13 years almost without a break. The only thing left for him is to do what he loves: organizing and training "amusing" regiments, consisting of several hundred soldiers, according to the Prussian model.

Catherine hatched plans to remove him from the throne, citing his bad temper and inability. She saw her grandson Alexander, son of Paul, on the throne. This intention was not destined to come true due to the sudden illness and death of Empress Catherine II in November 1796.

on the throne

The new emperor immediately tried, as it were, to cross out everything done during the 34 years of the reign of Catherine II, to destroy the hated orders of Catherine's reign - this became one of the most important motives for his policy. He also tried to stop the influence of revolutionary France on the minds of Russians. It was in this direction that his policy was deployed.

First of all, he ordered to remove from the crypt of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra the remains of Peter III, his father, who were buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress along with the coffin of Catherine II. On April 4, 1797, Pavel was solemnly crowned in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On the same day, several decrees were promulgated, the most important of which were: the "Law on the Succession to the Throne", which assumed the transfer of the throne according to the principle of pre-Petrine times, and the "Institution on the Imperial Family", which determined the procedure for keeping the persons of the reigning house.

The reign of Paul I lasted 4 years and 4 months. It was somewhat chaotic and inconsistent. He's been "kept on a leash" for too long. And so the leash was removed ... He tried to correct the shortcomings of the hated former regime, but he did it inconsistently: he restored the Petrine collegiums liquidated by Catherine II, limited local self-government, issued a number of laws leading to the destruction of noble privileges ... They could not forgive him for this.

In decrees of 1797, landowners were recommended to perform a 3-day corvee, it was forbidden to use the labor of peasants on Sundays, it was not allowed to sell peasants under the hammer, and Little Russians without land. It was ordered to appear in the regiments of the nobles, fictitiously enlisted in them. Since 1798, noble societies became controlled by the governors, the nobles again began to be subjected to corporal punishment for criminal offenses. But at the same time, the position of the peasants was not alleviated.

Transformations in the army began with the replacement of the "muzhik" uniforms with new ones copied from the Prussian. Wishing to improve discipline in the troops, Paul I was present daily at exercises and divorces and severely punished for the slightest mistake.

Paul I was very afraid of the penetration of the ideas of the Great French Revolution into Russia and introduced some restrictive measures: already in 1797, private printing houses were closed, strict censorship for books was introduced, a ban was imposed on French fashion, young people were forbidden to travel abroad to study.

V. Borovikovsky "Paul I in the uniform of Colonel of the Preobrazhensky Regiment"

Upon accession to the throne, Paul, in order to emphasize the contrast with his mother, declared peacefulness and non-interference in European affairs. However, when in 1798 there was a threat of the restoration of an independent Polish state by Napoleon, Russia took an active part in organizing the anti-French coalition. In the same year, Paul assumed the duties of the Master of the Order of Malta, thus challenging the French emperor, who had captured Malta. In this regard, the Maltese octagonal cross was included in the state emblem. In 1798-1800, Russian troops successfully fought in Italy, and the Russian fleet fought in the Mediterranean, which caused concern from Austria and England. Relations with these countries finally deteriorated in the spring of 1800. At the same time, rapprochement with France began, and a plan for a joint campaign against India was even discussed. Without waiting for the signing of the corresponding agreement, Pavel ordered the Don Cossacks to set out on a campaign, which were already stopped by Alexander I.

V.L. Borovikovsky "Portrait of Paul I in the crown, dalmatics and signs of the Order of Malta"

Despite the solemn promise to maintain peaceful relations with other states, given upon accession to the throne, he took an active part in the coalition with England, Austria, the Kingdom of Naples and Turkey against France. The Russian squadron under the leadership of F. Ushakov was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, where, with the Turkish squadron, they liberated the Ionian Islands from the French. In Northern Italy and Switzerland, Russian troops under the command of A.V. Suvorov won a number of brilliant victories.

The last palace coup of a bygone era

Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg, where Paul I was killed

The main reasons for the coup and the death of Paul I were the infringement of the interests of the nobility and unpredictability in the actions of the emperor. Sometimes he exiled or sent people to prison for the slightest offense.

He planned to declare the 13-year-old nephew of Maria Feodorovna the heir to the throne, adopting him, and to imprison his eldest sons, Alexander and Konstantin, in a fortress. In March 1801, a ban was issued on trade with the British, which threatened damage to the landowners.

On the night of March 11-12, 1801, Pavel I Petrovich was killed by conspiring officers in the newly built Mikhailovsky Castle: the conspirators, mostly guard officers, burst into the bedroom of Paul I demanding to abdicate. When the emperor tried to object and even hit one of them, one of the rebels began to choke him with his scarf, and the other hit him on the temple with a massive snuffbox. It was announced to the people that Paul I had died of apoplexy.

Paul I and Maria Feodorovna had 10 children:

Born on September 20, 1754. From an early age he was taught literacy and various sciences. The future Emperor studied history, mathematics, foreign languages ​​and geography.

According to the recollections of his teachers, Paul was a man of a lively mind, beautifully gifted by nature. His childhood was difficult, he lost his father early. Moreover, he lost, as he himself believed, through the fault of his mother. Pavel loved Pyotr Fedorovich very much, and could not forgive his mother for his death.

At the age of 17, Catherine II married her son to Princess Wilgemina, who was named Natalya Alekseevna at baptism. During childbirth, Natalia died.

In 1776, Paul I married for the second time. The wife of the heir to the Russian throne was Sophia-Dorota, who at baptism took the name Maria Feodorovna. Maria Feodorovna was related to the Prussian king. Apparently under the influence of his wife, he began to like many German customs.

Meanwhile, relations between Pavel Petrovich and Catherine II became more and more cool. After the wedding, Catherine II presented the spouses with Gatchina. In fact, this was a real link, an attempt to remove the heir from the court.

Here in Gatchina, Paul I has his own army, he is sent half a company of sailors, an infantry battalion, a cuirassier regiment. Pavel Petrovich devotes a lot of time to his soldiers. Organizes various exercises and reviews.

In 1777 he had a son named Alexander. The boy was immediately taken away from his parents, and people appointed by the empress herself were engaged in his upbringing.

Paul and Mary could visit their son only on special days. Pavel tried to participate in the political life of the country, but his mother stopped any of his undertakings and initiatives.

After the death of Catherine II, Paul I was crowned king. Pavel Petrovich entered the throne without having great skills in public administration. When he became monarch, he was already 42 years old. He was already an established, bright and outstanding personality.

His very first act on the Russian throne was the coronation of Peter III. The ashes of the father were removed from the grave, the coronation ceremony was held, and the subsequent reburial of Peter III in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, next to Catherine II.

Domestic policy of Paul I

On April 5, 1797, Paul I was anointed king. On the same day, a decree on succession to the throne was issued. Now the direct descendants of the monarch in the male line became the heirs of the Russian throne. Women could take the Russian throne only in the absence of male representatives from the ruling dynasty

Paul I restored the State Council, created under Catherine II, but not functioning for a long time. Increased the number of council members from 7 to 17 people. In 1796, the Senate was also reformed, which could not cope with its duties due to the increased number of cases.

The number of the Senate has increased, new rules of office work have appeared, aimed at speeding up the work of the Senate. The internal policy of Paul I caused dissatisfaction among the nobles, because. the emperor tried to alleviate the situation of the peasantry. Such actions caused certain discontent in the nobility.

He also with his decrees canceled Catherine's "charter to the nobility". Now the nobles were forbidden to ask for resignation if they had served in the rank of officer for less than a year. Noble assemblies were abolished. Great dissatisfaction was caused by the reform of the army carried out by Paul I. Prussian orders were established in the Russian army, an uncomfortable uniform was introduced. The army lived by one combat training, in conditions of the strictest discipline.

Foreign policy of Paul I

In his foreign policy, Paul I at first decided to defend only the interests of Russia. But the location of forces in Europe obliged the Russian Empire to actively participate in the affairs of European states. In alliance with Turkey, the Russian army and navy took Corfu, under the leadership of Fedor Fedorovich Ushakov. And Suvorov smashed the French on the continent, making incredible crossings through the Alps.

At that time, dissatisfaction with the emperor grew more and more among the courtiers. So, on the night of March 11-12, 1801, a group of conspirators broke into his chambers and demanded that he abdicate the throne. Paul I refused and, in the ensuing fight, was killed by the conspirators. His son, Alexander I Pavlovich, was proclaimed the new Russian emperor. On the personality of Paul I, the "Era of palace coups" ended.

Results

Pavel Petrovich is of great interest to historians, and is the subject of many disputes. Some sincerely consider him a tyrant, others - a wonderful reformer. It is impossible to unambiguously answer the question of who Emperor Paul I was. Many characterize the period of his reign as knightly autocracy. In fact, he was a man of honor.

Unfortunately, the Emperor's psyche was really not all right. But there is an explanation for this. In childhood, he lost his father, whom he loved very much. Throughout his life, he was afraid that he would share the fate of Pyotr Fedorovich. During his reign, the distrust and caution of the entire court reached its climax.

The Russian Empire was overflowing with various spies and scammers who praised themselves before the emperor and denounced others. Paul I was a changeable person, and often made conflicting decisions. People quickly fell out of favor with him, and just as quickly became his favorites. Paul I ruled Russia for only 5 years.

• There are three versions of the origin of Emperor Paul I. He is the son of Peter III and Catherine II.
• Son of Catherine II and Count Sergei Saltykov.
• Son of unknown Chukhons parents.
  

There is a historical anecdote. Alexander III instructed Chief Prosecutor Pobedonostsev to clarify who is the father of Paul I: Catherine II's lover Sergei Saltykov or her lawful husband Peter III. The dignitary first informed the emperor that the rumors about Saltykov's paternity were confirmed, to which he replied: "Thank God, we are Russians!" However, Pobedonostsev later found evidence in favor of Peter III. To this, Alexander III no less joyfully declared: “Thank God, we are legal!”.

Save Russia!

The aging Elizabeth Petrovna was increasingly aware that by choosing Peter III (the grandson of Peter the Great) as heir to the throne, she had made a mistake. The offspring of the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty was stubbornly not interested in state affairs, moreover, he worshiped the Prussians, messed around and drank heavily.
Elizabeth's only hope was to wait for the birth of a son in a crowned couple in order to formally remove Peter from power. But that's the whole problem. After the marriage of Peter and Catherine, 8 years have passed, and there was still no heir.
Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin was well aware that one could wait until the end of the century, and therefore reported to the Empress: Peter does not sleep with Catherine, and therefore you should not count on a child. Elizabeth allegedly reacted to this: "Save Russia, save the state, save everything, figure out what to do - act as you see fit."
The cunning chancellor came up with a way out. He offered to bring the handsome chamberlain Sergei Saltykov closer to Catherine, who was languishing in solitude, and ordered her half-witted husband to be moved to the back of the palace. In order to finally separate Catherine and Peter into different bedrooms, Elizabeth gave him the Lyubertsy estate near Moscow.
“Sergey Saltykov made me understand what was the reason for his frequent visits,” Catherine recalled. “I kept listening to him, he was as beautiful as day, and of course no one could compare to him at court. He was 25 years old, in general and by birth, and in many other qualities he was an outstanding gentleman. I resisted all spring and part of the summer.”
Further, Catherine describes in detail all the stages of her novel, up to the rapprochement with Saltykov in the summer of 1752. In December of this year, she became pregnant, which ended in a miscarriage on the way to Moscow, a new pregnancy and miscarriage befell her already in May 1753. In the future, the relationship of the lovers went wrong, and in April 1754 Saltykov was removed from the court. And in September 1754, the long-awaited first-born was born to the Grand Duchess.

Compromising evidence

Catherine's notes, albeit indirectly, but still hint that Peter III has nothing to do with Paul. Emperor Alexander II was so impressed by the revelations of his great-grandmother that he tried to shed light on the difficult question of his ancestry in conversations with old courtiers.
Rumors that Paul was Catherine's illegitimate son were largely fueled by the fact that the heir appeared only for the 10th year of the fruitless union. In addition, Ekaterina hinted in her diary that her husband suffered from phimosis before the surgery, which could seriously impede intimate contacts between the spouses.
Peter was more interested not in the charms of the young Catherine, but in military maneuvers. He was also not indifferent to the weaker sex, but he gave preference to stupid ugly women. As a fact, until the summer of 1752, Catherine was still an involuntary virgin.
On Easter 1752, the maid of honor Choglokova introduced two handsome men to the Grand Duchess - Sergei Saltykov and Lev Naryshkin. Both began to vigorously court the still impregnable princess. Choglokova, in order to somehow stir up Catherine, noted that adultery, of course, is a condemned thing, but there are “positions of a higher order for which an exception should be made.” And Catherine made her choice.
Another document, in addition to Catherine's memoirs, the text of the report of Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin to Empress Elizabeth, may also indicate that the mission entrusted to Saltykov was fulfilled. There are the following lines:
“The inscribed, according to the most wise consideration of Your Majesty, took on a good and desirable beginning, - the presence of the executor of the highest will of Your Majesty is now not only not necessary here, but even to achieve perfect fulfillment and concealment for eternity of mystery would be harmful. With respect for these considerations, kindly, most merciful empress, order Chamberlain Saltykov to be Your Majesty's ambassador in Stockholm to the King of Sweden.
In simple terms, it sounds like this: "the Moor has done his job, the Moor can leave." At that time, an honorary exile was awarded to a person who did a good job in the interests of the state.
The version of the paternity of Sergei Saltykov was supported by the Soviet historian Nikolai Pavlenko, who in particular wrote: “Other courtiers, who observed the family life of the grand ducal couple, whispered that the baby should be called not Petrovich, but Sergeevich. That's probably how it was."

Chukhon version

Over time, the hype with the story of the birth of Paul I went away, but the mystery was never resolved. There were new rumors. One of them was distributed by the writer Alexander Herzen in 1861 during his "London sitting". In the 20th century, he was resurrected by the writer Nathan Eidelman, who published the historical essay Reverse Providence in the Novy Mir magazine.
According to this version, the third child, whom Catherine conceived from Saltykov, was born dead. And then the desperate Elizabeth ordered to urgently replace the baby. A living child was found nearby, in the village of Kotly, in a Chukhonian family.
So that Catherine would not suspect substitution, the Empress did not let her look at her son for more than a month. Exhausted by childbirth, the Grand Duchess was abandoned to the mercy of fate, leaving without proper care. According to Herzen, "the empty and evil Empress Elisaveta" wanted the woman in labor to die.
No matter how fantastic this story looks, it had witnesses. At that time, near the village of Kotly, there was the estate of Karl Tizenhausen. The young aristocrat remembered very well that in one night the village was wiped off the face of the earth, and its inhabitants were loaded onto carts and taken to Kamchatka.
In the early 1820s, an event occurred that can also confirm the "Chukhon legend". From Kamchatka, a certain Athanasius arrived in St. Petersburg, declaring himself the brother of the late Paul I. The too talkative old man, of course, was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress.
However, a member of the State Duma, Dmitry Lanskoy, told his nephew, writer Alexander Odoevsky, that Emperor Alexander Pavlovich secretly visited an old man who looked like his late father at night, talked to him about something for a long time and often sighed.

Doubts remain

Many researchers, including Sergei Aldanov, are sure that Catherine in her notes deliberately created the feeling that Pavel's father was not her husband. Far from everyone trusts what Catherine wrote. So, the historian Yakov Barskov wrote: “The lie was the main tool of the queen: all her life from early childhood to old age, she used this tool, owned it like a virtuoso.”
According to historians, Catherine had to justify her seizure of power in various ways. After her husband's overthrow, she made up so many stories about him and their relationship that it is extremely difficult to separate truth from fiction in them. Catherine benefited from her son's bad reputation as a direct competitor in the struggle for the throne. And feeding rumors about his illegitimacy in this sense was a powerful weapon.
Alexander Mylnikov, the author of a book about Peter III, notes that Catherine was afraid of potential supporters of Paul, who could demand the throne for a ruler with royal blood in exchange for a foreigner who had usurped power and had no right to it. The historian has no doubt that Catherine knew perfectly well who Paul's real father was, which is why she behaved very formally and coldly with him.
Peter III himself, of course, considered Paul his son. If he stated this so confidently, then there was still an intimate relationship between him and Catherine. Melnikov in his book compares the notice of the birth of his son, sent by Peter Frederick II, with a similar notice of the birth of his daughter Anna, who was from Catherine's next lover, Stanislav Poniatovsky. There is a huge difference between them.
Paul himself repeatedly heard gossip about his origin, and this left an indelible imprint on his personality. Chulkov wrote in his book "Emperors: Psychological Portraits": "He himself was convinced that Peter III was really his father."
It is enough to compare the portraits of Peter III and Sergei Saltykov to understand who Pavel looks more like. Many of Pavel's contemporaries argue that Ekaterina and Saltykov, "both as beautiful as the day," could not give birth to such an ugly offspring, whom Admiral Chichagov called "a snub-nosed Chukhonian with automatic movements."
There is one more thing. As can be seen from the date of birth (September 20), Paul most likely was the fruit of the New Year holidays. And they, as you know, the spouses celebrated together. However, the final verdict on this urgent issue could be made by a genetic examination of the remains of our courtiers. However, it is unlikely that they will do it, as long as there is even the slightest suspicion that Paul I was not of Romanov blood.

LECTURE III

The reign of Paul I. - His place in history. - Biographical information. —The general character of Paul's governmental activities. - The peasant question under Paul. - Paul's attitude towards other estates. - The attitude of society towards Paul. - The state of finance in the reign of Paul and his foreign policy. - Results of the reign.

Significance of Paul's reign

Portrait of Emperor Paul. Artist S. Schukin

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries lies the four-year reign of Paul.

This short period, which until recently was in many respects under the censorship ban, has long aroused the curiosity of the public, like everything mysterious and forbidden. On the other hand, historians, psychologists, biographers, playwrights, and novelists were naturally attracted to the original personality of the married psychopath and the exceptional setting in which his drama, which ended so tragically, took place.

From the point of view from which we consider historical events, this reign is, however, of secondary importance. Although it lies at the turn of the XVIII and XIX centuries. and separates the “age of Catherine” from the “age of Alexander”, in no case can it be considered as transitional. On the contrary, in the historical process of the development of the Russian people that interests us, it is some kind of sudden invasion, some kind of unexpected squall that swooped in from outside, confused everything, turned everything temporarily upside down, but could not interrupt or profoundly change the natural the course of the ongoing process. In view of the significance of the reign of Paul and Alexander, as soon as he ascended the throne, there was no choice but to cross out almost everything done by his father and, having quickly healed the shallow but painful wounds inflicted by him on the state organism, to start from the place where Ekaterina's hand, weakened and wavering under old age, stopped.

Such a view of this reign does not, of course, prevent us from being fully aware of the profound influence that his horrors had personally on the emperor Alexander and on the final formation of his character. But more on that ahead. We also do not deny the significance of some individual government acts of Paul and do not deny the unfortunate influence on Alexander, and then on Nicholas, of that court-military parade ground system that has since been established at the Russian court. But even these circumstances do not, of course, convey to the reign of Paul the significance of a transitional, connecting era between two adjacent reigns ...

In any case, the reign of Paul itself is interesting for us not for its tragicomic phenomena, but for the changes that nevertheless took place at that time in the position of the population, and for the movement in the minds that the terror of government power caused in society. Even more important for us is international relations, which were conditioned, on the one hand, by the peculiarities of Paul's character, and, on the other hand, by the great events that took place in the West.

Personality of Emperor Paul

Therefore, we will not deal here with a detailed presentation of Paul's biography and refer everyone who is interested in it to the well-known work of Schilder, who dealt specifically with Paul's personal biography, and to another, shorter biography, compiled to a large extent according to Schilder, Mr. Shumigorsky. Actually, for our purposes, the following brief biographical information will suffice. Pavel was born in 1754, eight years before Catherine's accession to the throne. His childhood passed in completely abnormal conditions: Empress Elizabeth took him away from his parents as soon as he was born, and took up his upbringing herself. As a child, he was surrounded by various mothers and nannies, and all his upbringing was of a hothouse character. Soon, however, a person was assigned to him, who in himself was an outstanding personality, namely c. Nikita Ivanovich Panin. Panin was a statesman, with a very broad mind, but he was not a thoughtful teacher and was not attentive enough to his work.

Catherine was distrustful of Panin, and it was clear to her that he was a bad teacher, but she was afraid to eliminate him, because, having taken the throne not by right, she was afraid of the rumors that circulated in well-known circles that she wanted to eliminate Paul completely . Fearing to give rise to these rumors and knowing that public opinion was such that Pavel was safe as long as he was in Panin's care, Catherine did not dare to eliminate Panin, and he remained Pavel's tutor with her. Pavel grew up, but Catherine did not feel any closeness to him, she had a low opinion of his mental and spiritual properties. She did not allow him to participate in state affairs; she even removed him from the affairs of military administration, to which he had a great inclination. Paul's first marriage was short-lived and unsuccessful, and his wife, who died from childbirth, managed to further spoil the already bad relationship between Paul and Catherine. When Pavel married for the second time to the Württemberg princess, who received the name Maria Feodorovna during the transition to Orthodoxy, Catherine gave Gatchina to the young couple and left them to lead the lives of private people in it; but when they had children, she acted towards Paul and his wife in the same way as Elizabeth had done to her herself, that is, she selected the children from the very birth of them and brought them up herself. The removal of Paul from public affairs and the disrespectful treatment of him by the empress's favorites, especially Potemkin, constantly added fuel to the fire and aroused in Paul hatred for the entire Catherine's court. He waited impatiently for thirty years when, finally, he himself would have to reign and manage in his own way.

Portrait of Maria Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Paul. Painter Jean-Louis Voile, 1790s

It must be added that at the end of the reign of Catherine, Paul even began to fear that Catherine would remove him from the throne; it is now known that such a plan was indeed outlined and did not materialize, apparently only because Alexander did not want or did not dare to take the throne in addition to his father, and this circumstance made it difficult to implement Catherine's already ripened intentions.

When Paul ascended the throne, then the hatred accumulated in his soul for everything that his mother did began to be realized. Not having a clear idea of ​​the real needs of the state, Pavel began to indiscriminately cancel everything that his mother had done, and with feverish speed to carry out his semi-fantastic plans, worked out by him in Gatchina seclusion. In appearance, in some respects, he was returning to the old. Thus, he restored almost all the old economic colleges, but did not give them a properly delimited competence, and meanwhile their old competence was completely destroyed by the establishment of state chambers and other local institutions. He had long ago come up with a special plan for the reorganization of the entire central administration; but this plan, in essence, amounted to the abolition of all state institutions and the concentration of the entire administration directly in the hands of the sovereign himself, and could hardly be carried out in practice.

Emperor Paul's reign

At the beginning of Paul's reign, however, two serious government measures were taken, the significance of which has been preserved for the future. The first of these measures was the law on succession to the throne, which Pavel worked out when he was his heir and which was published by him on April 5, 1797. This law had in mind to eliminate that arbitrariness in the appointment of the heir to the throne, which had dominated Russia since the time of Peter and thanks to which happened in the 18th century. so many palace coups. The law issued by Paul, which was in force with minor additions until recently, introduced a really strict procedure for the succession to the imperial throne in Russia, mainly through the male line. In this regard, a detailed regulation on the imperial family was issued, and in the types of material support for its members, a special economic institution was formed under the name "destinies", in whose jurisdiction were listed those palace peasants who had previously been exploited for the needs of the imperial court and to whom individual estates belonging to members of the royal family were now included. All these peasants received the name "appanage", and special institutions and special rules were created to manage them, thanks to which later their situation turned out to be more satisfactory than that of ordinary serfs and even state peasants, who were in charge of the zemstvo police shamelessly exploiting them.

Especially persistently Paul sought to destroy all those rights and privileges that were granted by Catherine to certain estates. So, he canceled letters of grant to cities and the nobility and not only destroyed the right of noble societies to file petitions about their needs, but even canceled the release of nobles from corporal punishment by court.

There is an opinion that Paul, being completely negative about the privileges of the upper classes, was sympathetic to the people and even allegedly sought to free the people from the arbitrariness of the landowners and oppressors.

Measures of Emperor Paul against the peasants

Perhaps he had some good intentions, but one can hardly ascribe to him any seriously thought-out system in this respect. Usually, as proof of the correctness of such a view of Paul, they point to the manifesto of April 5, 1797, which established Sunday rest and a three-day corvee, but this manifesto is not quite accurately conveyed. They were categorically forbidden only to work on holidays for the landowner, and then, already in the form of a maxim, it was said that even three days of corvée was enough to maintain the landowner's economy. The very form of expression of this desire, in the absence of any sanction, indicates that it was not in essence a specific law establishing a three-day corvee, although it was subsequently interpreted as such. On the other hand, it must be said that, for example, in Little Russia, a three-day corvee would not have been beneficial for the peasants, since there, according to custom, a two-day corvee was practiced. Another law issued by Paul on the initiative of Chancellor Bezborodko in favor of the peasants - on the prohibition of the sale of serfs without land - applied only to Little Russia.

Extremely characteristic is the position that Paul took in relation to the peasant unrest and the complaints of the serfs about the oppression of the landowners. At the beginning of Paul's reign, peasant unrest broke out in 32 provinces. Pavel sent whole large detachments to pacify them with Field Marshal Prince. Repnin at the head. Repnin very quickly pacified the peasants, taking extremely drastic measures. During the pacification in the Oryol province of 12 thousand peasants, the landowners Apraksin and Prince. Golitsyn, a whole battle took place, and from the peasants there were 20 people killed and up to 70 wounded. Repnin ordered the dead peasants to be buried outside the cemetery fence, and on a stake placed over their common grave, he wrote: “Here lie criminals before God, the sovereign and the landowner, justly punished according to the law of God.” The houses of these peasants were destroyed and razed to the ground. Pavel not only approved all these actions, but also issued a special manifesto on January 29, 1797, which, under the threat of such measures, ordered the uncomplaining obedience of the serfs to the landowners.

In another case, the yard people of some landowners living in St. Petersburg tried to complain to Pavel about the cruelty and oppression they were suffering from. Pavel, without investigating the case, ordered the complainants to be sent to the square and punished with a whip "as much as their landlords themselves want."

In general, Paul is hardly guilty of striving to seriously improve the position of the landowning peasants. He looked at the landlords as if they were free police chiefs - he believed that as long as there were 100 thousand of these police chiefs in Russia, the tranquility of the state was guaranteed, and he was not averse to even feasibly increasing this number, distributing state peasants to private individuals with a wide hand: in four years he managed to in this way, to distribute 530 thousand souls of both sexes of state peasants to various landowners and officials, seriously asserting that he was doing these peasants a good deed, since, in his opinion, the position of the peasants under state administration was worse than under the landlords, with which, of course, could not agree. The significance of the given figure of state peasants distributed into private hands can be judged from the data given above on the number of peasants of different categories; but this figure is even more striking if we remember that Catherine, who willingly rewarded her favorites and other persons with peasants, nevertheless managed to distribute no more than 800 thousand souls of both sexes in all 34 years of her reign, and Paul distributed 530 thousand .

To this it should be added that at the very beginning of Paul's reign, another act was issued against the freedom of the peasants: by a decree on December 12, 1796, the transfer of peasants who settled on private lands among the Cossack lands in the Don region and in the provinces of Yekaterinoslav, Voznesenskaya, Caucasian and Tauride.

Russian education and clergy in the reign of Paul

Of the rest of the estates, the clergy, to whom Paul favored, or at least wanted to favor, had more reason to be pleased with Paul than others. Being a religious man and considering himself to be the head of the Orthodox Church, Paul cared about the position of the clergy, but even here the results were sometimes strange. These concerns of his were sometimes ambiguous, so that one of his former mentors, his clergyman - and at that time already the Moscow metropolitan - Platon, to whom Paul in his youth, and even then, after his accession to the throne, treated with great respect, was among the protesters against some of the measures that Paul took. The protest with which Plato had to speak concerned, among other things, a strange innovation - the awarding of clergy with orders. It seemed to Plato that from a canonical point of view it was completely unacceptable for civil authorities to reward the ministers of the church, not to mention the fact that wearing orders in general does not at all correspond to the significance of the priestly, and even more so, the monastic dignity. The Metropolitan asked on his knees that Paul not award him the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, but in the end he had to accept it. In itself, this circumstance does not seem to be particularly important, but it is characteristic of Paul's attitude towards the class that he most honored.

Much more important in a positive sense is Paul's attitude towards spiritual educational institutions. He did quite a lot for them - he allocated a significant amount of money for them from the income from the estates that previously belonged to bishops' houses and monasteries and confiscated by Catherine.

Under him, two theological academies were reopened - in St. Petersburg and Kazan - and eight seminaries, and both the newly opened and the former educational institutions were provided with regular amounts: the academies began to receive from 10 to 12 thousand rubles. per year, and seminaries on average from 3 to 4 thousand, i.e., almost twice as much as compared to what was released to them under Catherine.

Here we should also note the favorable attitude of Paul towards the non-Orthodox clergy, even non-Christian ones, and in particular his favorable attitude towards the Catholic clergy. This is due, perhaps, to his sincere religiosity in general and his lofty conception of pastoral duties; as for the Catholic clergy proper, their attitude towards the Maltese spiritual order of chivalry was still of great importance. Pavel not only assumed the supreme patronage of this order, but even allowed him to form a special priory in St. Petersburg. This circumstance, explained by the strange fantasies of Paul, later led, as we shall see, to very important consequences in the field of international relations.

Portrait of Paul I in the crown, attire and insignia of the Order of Malta. Artist V. L. Borovikovsky, circa 1800

Another important fact in the sphere of church life under Paul was his rather peaceful attitude towards schismatics. In this one respect, Paul continued the policy of Catherine, the traces of whose reign he tried with such energy to destroy with all his other measures. At the request of Metropolitan Platon, he agreed to take a rather important measure - namely, he allowed the Old Believers to publicly celebrate divine services in the so-called congregational churches, thanks to which, for the first time, a serious opportunity was opened for reconciliation of the most peaceful groups of the Old Believers with the Orthodox Church.

As for Paul's attitude to secular education, his activity in this direction was clearly reactionary and, one might say, downright destructive. Even at the end of the reign of Catherine, private printing houses were closed, and then the publication of books was already extremely reduced. Under Paul, the number of published books was reduced, especially in the last two years of his reign, to a completely negligible number, and the very nature of the books also changed a lot - textbooks and books of practical content began to be published almost exclusively. The import of books published abroad was completely banned at the end of the reign; since 1800, everything printed abroad, regardless of content, even musical notes, had no access to Russia. Even earlier, at the very beginning of the reign, the free entry of foreigners into Russia was prohibited.

Another measure was even more important - namely, the call to Russia of all young people who studied abroad, of which there were 65 people in Jena, 36 in Leipzig, and the prohibition of young people to travel to foreign lands for educational purposes, in return for which it was supposed to open a university in Dorpat.

Government oppression in the reign of Paul

Out of hatred for revolutionary ideas and for liberalism in general, Paul, with the persistence of a maniac, pursued all external manifestations of liberalism. Hence the war against the round hats and cuffed boots worn in France, against tailcoats and tricolor ribbons. Quite peaceful persons were subjected to the most serious punishments, officials were expelled from service, individuals were arrested, many were deported from the capitals and even sometimes to places more or less remote. The same penalties were imposed for violating that strange etiquette, the observance of which was mandatory when meeting with the emperor. Thanks to this etiquette, a meeting with the sovereign was considered a misfortune, which they tried to avoid in every possible way: when they saw the sovereign, subjects hurried to hide behind gates, fences, etc.

Under such circumstances, those exiled, imprisoned and in fortresses, and in general those who suffered under Paul for trifles, were considered thousands, so that when Alexander, upon accession to the throne, rehabilitated such persons, according to some sources, they turned out to be 15 thousand, according to others - more than 12 thousand people.

The oppression of the Pavlovian reign was especially hard on the army, starting with soldiers and ending with officers and generals. Endless drill, severe punishments for the slightest errors in the fruit, senseless teaching methods, the most uncomfortable clothes, extremely embarrassing for the common man, especially when marching, which then had to be brought almost to the ballet art; finally, the obligatory wearing of curls and braids, smeared with lard and sprinkled with flour or brick powder - all this complicated the difficulty of the already difficult soldier's service, which then lasted 25 years.

Officers and generals had to tremble every hour for their fate, since the slightest malfunction of one of the subordinates could lead to the most cruel consequences for them if the emperor was out of sorts.

Assessment of Paul's reign by Karamzin

Such were the manifestations of government oppression, which developed under Paul to its highest limits. An interesting review about Pavel, made 10 years after his death by a strict conservative and a staunch supporter of the autocracy N.M. Karamzin in his "Note on Ancient and New Russia", presented to Alexander I in 1811 in the form of an objection to the liberal reforms that Alexander then planned. Being an antagonist of the liberal emperor, Karamzin, however, described the reign of his predecessor as follows: “Paul came to the throne at that favorable time for autocracy, when the horrors of the French Revolution cured Europe of the dreams of civil liberty and equality; but what the Jacobins did in relation to the republics, Paul did in relation to the autocracy; forced to hate the abuse thereof. By a miserable delusion of mind and as a result of many personal displeasures he endured, he wanted to be John IV; but the Russians already had Catherine II, they knew that the sovereign must fulfill his sacred duties no less than his subjects, the violation of which destroys the ancient covenants of power with obedience and overthrows the people from the degree of citizenship into the chaos of private natural law. The son of Catherine could be strict and deserve the gratitude of the fatherland; to the inexplicable surprise of the Russians, he began to reign in general horror, not following any charters, except for his whim; considered us not subjects, but slaves; he executed without guilt, rewarded without merit, took away the shame from the execution, from the reward - the charm, humiliated the ranks and ribbons with wastefulness in them; frivolously destroyed the long-term fruits of state wisdom, hating in them the work of his mother; killed in our regiments the noble spirit of the military, brought up by Catherine, and replaced it with the spirit of corporalism. Heroes, accustomed to victories, taught to march, turned the nobles away from military service; despising the soul, respected hats and collars; having, like a man, a natural inclination for doing good, he fed on the bile of evil: daily he invented ways to frighten people and he himself was more afraid of everyone; I thought of building an impregnable palace for myself - and built a tomb ... Let's note, - adds Karamzin, - a feature that is curious for the observer: in this reign of horror, according to foreigners, Russians were even afraid to think; No! they spoke and boldly, falling silent only from boredom and frequent repetition, trusted each other and were not deceived. Some spirit of sincere brotherhood dominated the capitals; the common calamity brought the hearts together, and the generous frenzy against the abuse of power drowned out the voice of personal caution. There are similar comments in the notes of Vigel and Grech, also people of the conservative camp...

It should, however, be said that the "generous frenzy" by no means turned into action. Society did not even try to express its attitude towards Paul by any public protest. It hated in silence, but, of course, it was precisely this mood that gave the few leaders of the coup on March 11, 1801, the courage to suddenly eliminate Paul.

The economic and financial situation of Russia in the reign of Paul

The economic situation of the country could not change too much under Paul, in view of the brevity of his reign; the financial position of Russia under him was highly dependent on his foreign policy and those bizarre changes that took place in it. Paul began by making peace with Persia and abolishing the enlistment of Catherine; refused to send 40 thousand army against the French Republic, to which Catherine agreed in 1795 thanks to the insistence of the English ambassador Whitworth, and demanded back the Russian ships sent to help the English fleet. Then a start was made on the repayment of the assigned debt. The government decided to withdraw part of the banknotes put on the market; a solemn burning took place in the presence of Paul himself of banknotes in the amount of 6 million rubles. Thus, the total number of banknotes issued decreased from 157 million rubles. to 151 million rubles, i.e., by less than 4%, but in this area, of course, any, even a small, reduction is important, because it indicates the government's intention to pay off debts, and not increase them. At the same time, measures were taken to establish a stable exchange rate for the silver coin; a constant weight of the silver ruble was established, which was recognized as equal to the weight of four silver francs. Then the restoration of the relatively free customs tariff of 1782 was of great importance. At the same time, Paul was guided, however, not by sympathy for free trade, but did so out of a desire to destroy the tariff of 1793 issued by Catherine.

The introduction of a new tariff was supposed to serve to develop trade relations. For large-scale industry, the discovery of coal in the Donets Basin was of great importance. This discovery, made in the south of Russia, in a country poor in forests, immediately affected the state of industry in the Novorossiysk Territory. Important for the development of internal trade relations and for the transportation of certain products to the ports was the digging of new channels under Paul, partly begun under Catherine. In 1797, the Oginsky Canal was started and completed under Paul, connecting the Dniester basin with the Neman; Sievers dug a channel to bypass about. Ilmen; one of the Ladoga Syassky canals was started and work continued on the construction of the Mariinsky Canal. Under him, a porto franco was established in the Crimea, beneficial for the revival of the Southern Territory.

The foreign policy of Emperor Paul

But the improvement in the economic situation of the country did not last long, and public finances soon had to experience new fluctuations. In 1798, the peaceful course of affairs suddenly stopped. Just at this time, Napoleon Bonaparte went on his campaign to Egypt and in passing captured the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Malta, which belonged to the Order of Malta, had an impregnable fortress, but the grand master of the order, for unknown reasons (treason was suspected), surrendered the fortress without a fight, took the archive, orders and jewelry and retired to Venice, the St. for some time, to everyone's surprise, Paul, who considered himself the head of the Orthodox Church, personally assumed the grand mastership in this Catholic order, subordinate to the pope. There was a tradition that this strange step in Paul's mind was connected with a fantastic enterprise - with the universal destruction of the revolution at the root by uniting all the nobles of all countries of the world in the Order of Malta. Whether this was so is difficult to decide; but, of course, this idea did not come to fruition. Declaring war on France and not wanting to act alone, Paul helped the English minister Pete to create a fairly strong coalition against France. He entered into an alliance with Austria and England, which were then in hostile or strained relations with France, then the kingdom of Sardinia and even Turkey, which suffered from Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria, were drawn into the coalition. The alliance with Turkey was concluded on very favorable terms for Russia and, with a consistent policy, could be of great importance. In view of the fact that various Turkish lands were occupied by French troops (among others, the Ionian Islands), it was decided to expel the French from there by combined forces, and for this the Port agreed to let through and for the future let through the Straits of Constantinople and the Dardanelles not only Russian merchant ships, but also warships, at the same time assuming the obligation not to let foreign warships into the Black Sea. The force of this treaty was to last eight years, after which it could be renewed by mutual agreement of the contracting parties. The Russian fleet immediately took advantage of this right and, having carried a significant landing force through the straits on warships, occupied the Ionian Islands, which after that were under the rule of the Russians until the Treaty of Tilsit (that is, until 1807).

On the continent of Europe, it was necessary to act against the French armies in alliance with the Austrians and the British. Pavel, following the advice of the Austrian emperor, appointed Suvorov to command the combined armies of Russia and Austria. Suvorov at that time was in disgrace and lived on his estate under police supervision: he had a negative attitude towards Paul's military innovations and knew how to let him feel it under the guise of jokes and foolishness, for which he paid with disgrace and exile.

Now Pavel turned to Suvorov on his own behalf and on behalf of the Austrian emperor. Suvorov gladly accepted command of the army. This campaign was marked by brilliant victories in northern Italy over the French troops and the famous crossing of the Alps.

But when northern Italy was cleared of the French, Austria decided that this was enough for her, and refused to support Suvorov in his further plans. Thus, Suvorov could not carry out his intention to invade France and march on Paris. This "Austrian betrayal" led to the defeat of the Russian detachment of General Rimsky-Korsakov by the French. Pavel became extremely indignant, withdrew the army, and thus the war between Russia and France actually stopped here. The Russian corps sent against the French in Holland was not sufficiently reinforced by the British, who did not pay timely and monetary subsidies, to which they were obliged by the agreement, which also aroused the indignation of Paul, who withdrew his troops from this point.

Meanwhile, Napoleon Bonaparte returned from Egypt to carry out his first coup d'etat: on Brumaire 18, he overthrew the legitimate government of the directory and became the first consul, that is, in essence, the actual sovereign in France. Paul, seeing that things were thus moving towards the restoration of monarchical power, albeit from the side of the "usurper", changed his attitude towards France, expecting that Napoleon would deal with the remnants of the revolution. Napoleon, for his part, deftly pleased him, sending without exchange all Russian prisoners to their homeland at the French expense and providing them with gifts. This touched the knightly heart of Paul, and, hoping that Napoleon would turn out to be his like-minded person in all other matters, Paul entered into negotiations with him about peace and an alliance against England, to which Paul attributed the failure of his troops in Holland. It was all the easier for Napoleon to restore it against England, because at that time the British took Malta from the French, but did not return it to the order.

Immediately, ignoring all international treatises, Paul imposed an embargo (arrest) on all English merchant ships, introduced drastic changes in the customs tariff, and in the end completely banned the export and import of goods into Russia, not only from England, but also from Prussia, since Prussia was in contact with England. With these measures directed against the English, Paul caused a shock in all Russian trade. He did not confine himself to customs restraints, but ordered even in the shops to seize all English goods, which was never done in such circumstances. Instigated by Napoleon and not content with this series of hostile actions against England, Paul finally decided to stab her in the most painful place: he decided to conquer India, believing that he would do it easily by sending only Cossacks there. And so, on his orders, 40 regiments of Don Cossacks suddenly set off to conquer India, taking with them a double set of horses, but without fodder, in winter, without true maps, through impenetrable steppes. Of course, this army was doomed to perish. The senselessness of this act was so obvious to Paul's contemporaries that Princess Liven, the wife of Pavel's close adjutant general, even claims in her memoirs that this undertaking was undertaken by Paul with the aim of deliberately destroying the Cossack army, in which he suspected a freedom-loving spirit. This assumption, of course, is wrong, but it shows what thoughts could be attributed to Paul by his associates. Fortunately, this campaign began two months before the elimination of Paul, and Alexander, having barely ascended the throne, on the very night of the coup, hastened to send a courier to return the ill-fated Cossacks; it turned out that the Cossacks had not yet managed to reach the Russian border, but had already managed to lose a significant part of their horses ...

This fact especially vividly depicts the madness of Paul and the terrible consequences that the measures that he took could have had. On the state of finances, all these campaigns and wars of the last two years of Paul's reign, of course, were reflected in the most detrimental way. At the beginning of his reign, Paul burned, as we have seen, 6 million banknotes, but the war required emergency expenses. Paul had to resort again to issuing banknotes, since there were no other means for waging war. Thus, by the end of his reign, the total amount of banknotes issued from 151 million rose to 212 million rubles, which finally dropped the exchange rate of the paper ruble.

Results of the reign of Paul

Summing up now the results of Paul's reign, we see that the borders of the state territory remained under him in their former form. True, the Georgian king, pressed by Persia, in January 1801 announced his desire to become Russian citizenship, but the final annexation of Georgia took place already under Alexander.

As for the condition of the population, however harmful many of the measures taken by Paul were, they could not produce profound changes in four years. The saddest change in the position of the peasants was, of course, the transfer from state peasants to serfs of those 530 thousand souls that Pavel managed to distribute to private individuals,

As for trade and industry, despite a number of favorable conditions at the beginning of the reign, by the end of his reign, foreign trade was completely ruined, while domestic was in the most chaotic state. Even greater chaos turned out in the state of higher and provincial government.

Such was the state of the state when Paul ceased to exist.

See Paul's note about this, found in 1826 in the papers of imp. Alexandra. It is printed in vol. 90. “Collection. Rus. ist. general.», pp. 1–4. Currently, Paul's government activities are being re-examined and revised in the book prof. V. M. Klochkova, treated her very favorably. Despite the significant material collected by Mr. Klochkov in support of his apologetic attitude towards this activity, I cannot recognize his conclusions as convincing and, in general, I remain with my previous view of the reign of Paul. I expressed my opinion about the work of Mr. Klochkov in a special review published in Russian Thought, 1917, No. 2.

Here it should be mentioned, however, that among the cancellations of the measures taken by Catherine were good deeds. These include: the release of Novikov from Shlisselburg, the return of Radishchev from exile to Ilimsk, and the solemn release from captivity with special honors of Kosciuszka and other captive Poles held in St. Petersburg.

Pavel really sought to regulate and improve the position of the state peasants, as can be seen from the study of Mr. Klochkov, but all the assumptions related to this remained, in essence, only on paper until the formation under imp. Nicolae of the Ministry of State Property with c. Kiselev at the head.

The first volume of Op. Storch's "Gemälde des Russischen Reichs" was published in 1797 in Riga, the rest of the volumes were printed abroad; but Storch was persona grata at the court of Paul: he was the personal reader of imp. Maria Fedorovna and dedicated his book (volume 1) to Pavel.

"Russian Archive" for 1870, pp. 2267–2268. There is a separate edition, ed. Sipovsky. SPb., 1913.

He could not have children due to chronic alcoholism and, interested in the birth of an heir, closed her eyes to the closeness of her daughter-in-law, first with Choglokov, and then with the chamberlain of the grand duke's court, Saltykov. A number of historians consider Saltykov's paternity an undoubted fact. Later it was even asserted that Paul was not Catherine's son either. In "Materials for the biography of Emperor Paul I" (Leipzig, 1874) it is reported that allegedly a dead child was born from Saltykov, who was replaced by a Chukhon boy, that is, Paul I is not only not the son of his parents, but not even Russian.

In 1773, before reaching the age of 20, he married the Hesse-Darmstadt princess Wilhelmina (in Orthodoxy - Natalia Alekseevna), but three years later she died in childbirth, and in the same 1776, Paul married a second time, Princess Sophia of Württemberg - Dorothea (in Orthodoxy - Maria Feodorovna). Catherine II tried not to allow the Grand Duke to participate in the discussion of state affairs, and he, in turn, began to more and more critically evaluate the policy of his mother. Pavel believed that this policy was based on love of glory and pretense, dreamed of establishing in Russia, under the auspices of the autocracy, strictly legal administration, limiting the rights of the nobility, and introducing the strictest, Prussian-style, discipline in the army.

Biography of Empress Catherine II the GreatThe reign of Catherine II lasted more than three and a half decades, from 1762 to 1796. It was filled with many events in internal and external affairs, the implementation of plans that continued what was being done under Peter the Great.

In 1794, the empress decided to remove her son from the throne and hand him over to her eldest grandson Alexander Pavlovich, but did not meet with sympathy from the highest state dignitaries. The death of Catherine II on November 6, 1796 opened the way for Paul to the throne.

The new emperor immediately tried to cross out what had been done during the thirty-four years of the reign of Catherine II, and this became one of the most important motives for his policy.

The emperor sought to replace the collegial principle of organizing management with a sole one. An important legislative act of Paul was the law on the order of succession issued in 1797, which was in force in Russia until 1917.

In the army, Paul sought to introduce the Prussian military order. He believed that the army is a machine and the main thing in it is the mechanical coherence of the troops and diligence. In the field of class politics, the main goal was to turn the Russian nobility into a disciplined, all-serving estate. Contradictory was the policy of Paul in relation to the peasantry. During the four years of his reign, he gave away about 600 thousand serfs, sincerely believing that they would live better with the landowner.

In everyday life, certain styles of clothing, hairstyles, and dances were banned, in which the emperor saw manifestations of free thought. Strict censorship was introduced, the import of books from abroad was prohibited.

The foreign policy of Paul I was unsystematic. Russia constantly changed allies in Europe. In 1798, Paul joined the second coalition against France; at the insistence of the allies, he put Alexander Suvorov at the head of the Russian army, under whose command the heroic Italian and Swiss campaigns were carried out.

The capture of Malta by the British, which Paul took under his protection, having accepted in 1798 the title of Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Order of Malta), quarreled him with England. Russian troops were withdrawn, and in 1800 the coalition finally broke up. Not satisfied with this, Paul began to draw closer to France and conceived a joint struggle with her against England.

On January 12, 1801, Pavel sent the order to the ataman of the Don army, General Orlov, to march with the whole army on a campaign against India. A month later, with a little Cossacks began a campaign in the number of 22,507 people. This event, accompanied by terrible hardships, was not, however, brought to an end.

Paul's policy, combined with his despotic nature, unpredictability and eccentricity, caused discontent in a variety of social strata. Soon after his accession, a conspiracy began to mature against him. On the night of March 11 (23), 1801, Paul I was strangled in his own bedroom in the Mikhailovsky Castle. The conspirators broke into the chambers of the emperor demanding to abdicate the throne. As a result of the skirmish, Paul I was killed. It was announced to the people that the Emperor had died of apoplexy.

The body of Paul I was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources