Catherine I - biography, information, personal life. Brief biography of Catherine I Decrees of Catherine 1

The future Empress Catherine 1, previously known as Marta Skavronskaya, was born in the Livonian lands, near Kegmus in 1684. There is very little reliable information about her youth. Martha's parents died early and the girl lived with her aunt, and according to another version, with the pastor. At 17 she married Johann Kruse, a dragoon. However, after a few days he left with his regiment and did not return.

In 1702, 400 people, including Matilda, were captured after Marienburg was taken by Sheremetev. There is no exact information about her further fate. According to one version, Martha became Bauer's steward. And according to another version - Sheremetev's mistress. But, later he had to part with the girl at the insistence of Menshikov. Today it is impossible to establish the truth. Met Martha, Peter 1 in the prince's house.

In 1704, Marta, already under the name of Catherine, gave birth to Peter 1, the first-born Peter. And soon the second son - Paul. But both boys died early. Catherine, in 1705, was brought to the house of Natalya Alekseevna (the king's sister). There she learned to read and write. In the same period, Catherine developed a close relationship with the Menshikov family.

In 1707, and, according to some reports, in 1708, Catherine was baptized into Orthodoxy and received the name Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova. In 1708-1709 her daughters Anna and Elizabeth were born. Peter 1, having become attached to a woman, took her with him on the Prussian campaign. There Catherine showed herself very worthy. According to contemporaries, she could calm the headache and fits of anger of the king. According to many, the love affairs of Peter 1 were not at all a secret for Catherine.

Peter 1 and Catherine got married on February 19, 1714. The ceremony took place in the church of John of Dalmitsky. In honor of his wife, Peter established the Order of St. Catherine and awarded her with this order on November 24, 1724. And on May 7, she was crowned Empress in the Assumption Cathedral. Suspecting Catherine in connection with the chamberlain, the king removed his wife from himself and executed the chamberlain. But already in winter, the wife of Peter 1 Catherine spent days and nights at the bedside of Peter the Great when he fell ill. The emperor died in her arms on January 28, 1725.

Peter 1 died, having managed to cancel the previous order of succession, but without appointing an heir. This caused a string of palace coups. The reign of Catherine 1 began on January 28, 1725. She became the first woman to become the ruler of Russia. But, she was not directly involved in management. Serious matters were entrusted to the Supreme Privy Council and Menshikov. The reign of Catherine 1 did not become long. During this time, the Academy of Sciences was able to organize the Bering expedition. Catherine 1 whose biography ended on May 6, 1727 died of a lung disease. Throne inherited

Ekaterina Alekseevna Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya


Coronation:
Predecessor:
Successor:
Birth:

Buried:	Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg
Dynasty:	Romanovs (by marriage)
	According to the most common version, Samuil Skavronsky
	Assume (Anna-) Dorothea Gan
	1) Johann Kruse (or Rabe) 2) Peter I
	Anna Petrovna Elizaveta Petrovna Pyotr Petrovich Natalya Petrovna the rest died in infancy
Monogram:

early years

Origin question

1702-1725 years

Mistress of Peter I

Wife of Peter I

Rise to power

Governing body. 1725-1727 years

Foreign policy

End of reign

Question of succession

Will

Catherine I (Marta Skavronskaya, ; 1684-1727) - the Russian Empress from 1721 as the wife of the reigning emperor, from 1725 as the ruling empress; second wife of Peter I the Great, mother of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.

According to the most common version, the real name of Catherine is Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya, later baptized by Peter I under a new name Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova. She was born in the family of a Baltic (Latvian) peasant, originally from the vicinity of Kegums, captured by Russian troops, became the mistress of Peter I, then his wife and the ruling Empress of Russia. In her honor, Peter I established the Order of St. Catherine (in 1713) and named the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals (in 1723). The name of Catherine I is also the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo (built under her daughter Elizabeth).

early years

Information about the youth of Catherine I is contained mainly in historical anecdotes and is not sufficiently reliable.

The most common version is this. She was born on the territory of modern Latvia, in the historical region of Vidzeme, which was part of Swedish Livonia at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries.

Martha's parents died of the plague in 1684, and her uncle gave the girl to the house of the Lutheran pastor Ernst Gluck, famous for his translation of the Bible into Latvian (after the capture of Marienburg by Russian troops, Gluck, as a learned man, was taken to the Russian service, founded the first gymnasium in Moscow, taught languages and wrote poetry in Russian). Martha was used in the house as a servant, she was not taught literacy.

According to the version set out in the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, Marta's mother, having become a widow, gave her daughter to serve in the family of pastor Gluck, where she was allegedly taught to read and write and needlework.

According to another version, until the age of 12, Katerina lived with her aunt Anna-Maria Veselovskaya before she ended up in the Gluck family.

At the age of 17, Martha was married to a Swedish dragoon named Johann Cruse, just before the Russian advance on Marienburg. A day or two after the wedding, the trumpeter Johann left for the war with his regiment and, according to the widespread version, went missing.

Origin question

The search for Catherine's roots in the Baltics, carried out after the death of Peter I, showed that Catherine had two sisters - Anna and Christina, and two brothers - Karl and Friedrich. Catherine moved their families to St. Petersburg in 1726 (Karl Skavronsky moved even earlier, see Skavronsky). According to A. I. Repnin, who led the search, Khristina Skavronskaya and her husband “ lie", both of them" people are stupid and drunk", Repnin offered to send them" somewhere else, so that there are no big lies from them". Catherine awarded Karl and Friedrich in January 1727 the dignity of a count, without calling them her brothers. In the will of Catherine I, the Skavronskys are vaguely named " close relatives of her own surname". Under Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine's daughter, immediately after her accession to the throne in 1741, the children of Christina (Gendrikova) and the children of Anna (Efimovskaya) were also elevated to count dignity. Later, the official version was that Anna, Christina, Karl and Friedrich were Catherine's brothers and sisters, children of Samuil Skavronsky.

However, since the end of the 19th century, a number of historians have questioned this relationship. It is pointed out that Peter I called Catherine not Skavronskaya, but Veselevskaya or Vasilevskaya, and in 1710, after the capture of Riga, in a letter to the same Repnin, he called completely different names to “my Katerina’s relatives” - “Yagan-Ionus Vasilevsky, Anna Dorothea , also their children. Therefore, other versions of the origin of Catherine were proposed, according to which she is a cousin, and not a sister of the Skavronskys who appeared in 1726.

In connection with Catherine I, another surname is called - Rabe. According to some sources, Rabe (and not Kruse) is the surname of her first dragoon husband (this version got into fiction, for example, A. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the Great”), according to others, this is her maiden name, and someone Johann Rabe was her father.

1702-1725 years

Mistress of Peter I

On August 25, 1702, during the Great Northern War, the army of Russian Field Marshal Sheremetev, fighting against the Swedes in Livonia, took the Swedish fortress of Marienburg (now Aluksne, Latvia). Sheremetev, taking advantage of the departure of the main Swedish army to Poland, subjected the region to merciless ruin. As he himself reported to Tsar Peter I at the end of 1702:

In Marienburg, Sheremetev captured 400 inhabitants. When pastor Gluck, accompanied by his servants, came to intercede about the fate of the inhabitants, Sheremetev noticed the maid Martha Kruse and took her by force as his mistress. After a short time, around August 1703, Prince Menshikov, a friend and ally of Peter I, became its owner. This is how the Frenchman Franz Villebois, who has been in the Russian service in the navy since 1698 and married to the daughter of pastor Gluck, tells. The story of Villebois is confirmed by another source, notes of 1724 from the archive of the Duke of Oldenburg. According to these notes, Sheremetev sent pastor Gluck and all the inhabitants of the Marienburg fortress to Moscow, while Marta left himself. Menshikov, having taken Martha from the elderly field marshal a few months later, had a strong quarrel with Sheremetev.

The Scot Peter Henry Bruce in his "Memoirs" sets out the story (according to others) in a more favorable light for Catherine I. Marta was taken by the colonel of the dragoon regiment Baur (later became a general):

“[Baur] immediately ordered her to be placed in his house, which entrusted her to the cares, giving her the right to dispose of all the servants, and she soon fell in love with the new steward for her manner of household. The General later often said that his house was never as well maintained as in the days of her stay there. Prince Menshikov, who was his patron, once saw her at the general, also noting something extraordinary in her appearance and manners. Asking who she was and whether she knew how to cook, he heard in response the story just told, to which the general added a few words about her worthy position in his house. The prince said that it was in such a woman that he really needed now, for he himself was now served very poorly. To this, the general replied that he owed too much to the prince so as not to immediately fulfill what he only thought of - and immediately calling Catherine, he said that in front of her was Prince Menshikov, who needed just such a servant as she, and that the prince will do everything possible to become, like himself, her friend, adding that he respects her too much to prevent her from receiving her share of honor and a good fate.

In the autumn of 1703, on one of his regular visits to Menshikov in St. Petersburg, Peter I met Marta and soon made her his mistress, calling her in letters Katerina Vasilevskaya (perhaps by the name of her aunt). Franz Villebois relates their first meeting as follows:

“This is how things were when the tsar, traveling by post from St. Petersburg, which was then called Nienschanz, or Noteburg, to Livonia, in order to travel further, stopped at his favorite Menshikov, where he noticed Catherine among the servants who served at the table. He asked where it came from and how he acquired it. And, speaking quietly in his ear with this favorite, who answered him only with a nod of his head, he looked at Catherine for a long time and, teasing her, said that she was smart, and ended his joking speech by telling her, when she went to bed, to take light a candle in his room. It was an order, spoken in a playful tone, but not subject to any objections. Menshikov took it for granted, and the beauty, devoted to her master, spent the night in the king's room ... The next day the king left in the morning to continue his journey. He returned to his favorite what he lent him. The satisfaction of the king, which he received from his nightly conversation with Catherine, cannot be judged by the generosity that he showed. She limited herself to only one ducat, which is equal in value to half of one louis d'or (10 francs), which he thrust into her hand in a military way at parting.

In 1704, Katerina gives birth to her first child, named Peter, the next year, Paul (both died soon after).

In 1705, Peter sent Katerina to the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow, to the house of his sister Tsarevna Natalya Alekseevna, where Katerina Vasilevskaya learned Russian literacy, and, in addition, became friends with the Menshikov family.

When Katerina was baptized into Orthodoxy (1707 or 1708), she changed her name to Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova, since Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich was her godfather, and Peter I himself used the surname Mikhailov if he wanted to remain incognito.

In January 1710, Peter staged a triumphal procession to Moscow on the occasion of the Poltava victory, thousands of Swedish prisoners were held at the parade, among whom, according to the story of Franz Villebois, was Johann Kruse. Johann confessed about his wife, who gave birth one after another to the Russian Tsar, and was immediately exiled to a remote corner of Siberia, where he died in 1721. According to Franz Villebois, the existence of a living legal husband of Catherine during the years of the birth of Anna (1708) and Elizabeth (1709) was later used by opposing factions in disputes over the right to the throne after the death of Catherine I. According to notes from the Duchy of Oldenburg, the Swedish dragoon Kruse died in 1705, however one must keep in mind the interest of the German dukes in the legitimacy of the birth of the daughters of Peter, Anna and Elizabeth, who were looking for suitors among the German specific rulers.

Wife of Peter I

Even before her legal marriage to Peter, Katerina gave birth to daughters Anna and Elizabeth. Katerina alone could cope with the tsar in his fits of anger, knew how to calm Peter's attacks of convulsive headache with kindness and patient attention. According to Bassevich's memoirs:

“In the evening, shortly before his departure, the tsar called them, his sister Natalya Alekseevna, to one house in Preobrazhenskaya Sloboda. There he took his hand and placed before them his mistress Ekaterina Alekseevna. For the future, the tsar said, they should consider her his lawful wife and Russian tsarina. Since now, due to the urgent need to go to the army, he cannot marry her, he takes her with him in order to do this on occasion in more free time. At the same time, the king made it clear that if he died before he had time to marry, then after his death they would have to look at her as his lawful wife. After that, they all congratulated (Ekaterina Alekseevna) and kissed her hand.

In Moldova in July 1711, 190,000 Turks and Crimean Tatars pressed the 38,000th Russian army to the river, completely surrounding it with numerous cavalry. Ekaterina went on a long trip, being 7 months pregnant. According to a well-known legend, she took off all her jewelry in order to bribe the Turkish commander. Peter I was able to conclude the Prut Peace and, having sacrificed the Russian conquests in the south, to withdraw the army from the encirclement. The Danish envoy Just Yul, who was with the Russian army after she left the encirclement, does not report such an act of Catherine, but says that the queen (as everyone now called Catherine) handed out her jewelry to the officers for safekeeping and then collected them. Brigadier Moro de Brazet's notes also do not mention the bribery of the vizier with Catherine's jewels, although the author (the Brigadier Moro de Brazet) knew from the words of Turkish pashas about the exact amount of state sums aimed at bribes to the Turks.

The official wedding of Peter I with Ekaterina Alekseevna took place on February 19, 1712 in the church of St. Isaac of Dalmatsky in St. Petersburg. In 1713, in honor of the worthy behavior of his wife during the unsuccessful Prut campaign, Peter I established the Order of St. Catherine and personally laid the signs of the order on his wife on November 24, 1714. Initially, it was called the Order of Liberation and was intended only for Catherine. Peter I recalled the merits of Catherine during the Prut campaign in his manifesto on the coronation of his wife dated November 15, 1723:

In personal letters, the tsar showed an unusual tenderness for his wife: “ Katerinushka, my friend, hello! I hear that you are bored, but I am not bored either ...» Ekaterina Alekseevna gave birth to her husband 11 children, but almost all of them died in childhood, except for Anna and Elizabeth. Elizabeth later became empress (ruled in 1741-1762), and Anna's direct descendants ruled Russia after the death of Elizabeth, from 1762 to 1917. One of the sons who died in childhood, Peter Petrovich, after the abdication of Alexei Petrovich (Peter's eldest son from Evdokia Lopukhina) from February 1718 until his death in 1719, he was the official heir to the Russian throne.

Foreigners, who followed the Russian court with attention, note the tsar's affection for his wife. Bassevich writes about their relationship in 1721:

In the autumn of 1724, Peter I suspected the empress of adultery with her chamberlain Mons, who was executed for another reason. He stopped talking to her, she was denied access to him. Only once, at the request of his daughter Elizabeth, Peter agreed to dine with Catherine, who had been his inseparable friend for 20 years. Only at death did Peter reconcile with his wife. In January 1725, Catherine spent all her time at the bedside of the dying sovereign, he died in her arms.

Descendants of Peter I from Catherine I

	Year of birth	Year of death	Note
Anna Petrovna			In 1725 she married the German Duke Karl-Friedrich; left for Kiel, where she gave birth to a son, Karl Peter Ulrich (later Russian Emperor Peter III).
Elizaveta Petrovna			Russian empress since 1741.
Natalia Petrovna
Margarita Petrovna
Petr Petrovich			He was considered the official heir to the crown from 1718 until his death.
Pavel Petrovich
Natalia Petrovna

Rise to power

By a manifesto of November 15, 1723, Peter announced the future coronation of Catherine as a token of her special merits.

On May 7 (18), 1724, Peter crowned Catherine the empress in Moscow's Assumption Cathedral. This was the second coronation in Rus' of a female sovereign's wife (after the coronation of Marina Mnishek by False Dmitry I in 1605).

By his law of February 5, 1722, Peter canceled the previous order of succession to the throne by a direct descendant in the male line, replacing it with the personal appointment of the reigning sovereign. Any person worthy, in the opinion of the sovereign, to head the state could become a successor according to the Decree of 1722. Peter died in the early morning of January 28 (February 8), 1725, without having time to name a successor and leaving no sons. In the absence of a strictly defined order of succession to the throne, the throne of Russia was left to chance, and the subsequent time went down in history as the era of palace coups.

The popular majority was in favor of the only male representative of the dynasty - Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich, grandson of Peter I from his eldest son Alexei, who died during interrogations. For Pyotr Alekseevich there was a well-born nobility, who considered him the only legitimate heir, born from a marriage worthy of royal blood. Count Tolstoy, Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky, Chancellor Count Golovkin and Menshikov, at the head of the service nobility, could not hope to retain the power received from Peter I under Peter Alekseevich; on the other hand, the coronation of the empress could be interpreted as Peter's indirect reference to the heiress. When Catherine saw that there was no longer any hope for her husband's recovery, she instructed Menshikov and Tolstoy to act in favor of their rights. The guard was devoted to adoration to the dying emperor; she transferred this attachment to Catherine.

Officers of the Guards from the Preobrazhensky Regiment came to the meeting of the Senate, knocking down the door to the room. They frankly declared that they would smash the heads of the old boyars if they went against their mother Catherine. Suddenly, a drum beat sounded from the square: it turned out that both guards regiments were lined up in front of the palace under arms. Prince Field Marshal Repnin, President of the Military Collegium, angrily asked: Who dared to bring shelves here without my knowledge? Am I not a field marshal?"Buturlin, the commander of the Semenovsky regiment, replied to Repnin that he called the regiments at the behest of the empress, to whom all subjects are obliged to obey," not excluding you he added impressively.

Thanks to the support of the guards regiments, it was possible to convince all the opponents of Catherine to give her their vote. The Senate “unanimously” elevated her to the throne, calling her “ Most Gracious, Most Powerful Grand Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, Autocrat of All Russia”and in justification announcing the will of the late sovereign interpreted by the Senate. The people were very surprised by the accession for the first time in Russian history to the throne of a woman, but there was no unrest.

On January 28 (February 8), 1725, Catherine I ascended the throne of the Russian Empire thanks to the support of the guards and nobles who rose under Peter. In Russia, the era of the reign of empresses began, when, until the end of the 18th century, only women ruled, with the exception of a few years.

Governing body. 1725-1727 years

The actual power in the reign of Catherine was concentrated by Prince and Field Marshal Menshikov, as well as the Supreme Privy Council. Catherine was completely satisfied with the role of the first mistress of Tsarskoye Selo, relying on her advisers in matters of state administration. She was only interested in the affairs of the fleet - Peter's love for the sea also touched her.

The nobles wanted to rule with a woman, and now they really achieved their goal.

From the "History of Russia" S.M. Solovyov:

Under Peter, she did not shine with her own light, but with a light borrowed from the great man of whom she was a companion; she had the ability to keep herself at a certain height, to show attention and sympathy for the movement that took place around her; she was initiated into all the secrets, the secrets of the personal relationships of the people around her. Her position, her fear for the future, kept her mental and moral powers in constant and intense tension. But the climbing plant reached its height only thanks to that giant of the forests around which it twisted; the giant is slain - and the weak plant is spread on the ground. Catherine retained a knowledge of faces and relationships between them, retained the habit of wading between these relationships; but she had neither due attention to matters, especially internal ones, and their details, nor the ability to initiate and direct.

On the initiative of Count P. A. Tolstoy, in February 1726, a new body of state power, the Supreme Privy Council, was created, where a narrow circle of chief dignitaries could govern the Russian Empire under the formal chairmanship of a semi-literate empress. The Council included Field Marshal Prince Menshikov, Admiral General Count Apraksin, Chancellor Count Golovkin, Count Tolstoy, Prince Golitsyn, and Vice Chancellor Baron Osterman. Of the six members of the new institution, only Prince D. M. Golitsyn was a descendant of noble nobles. In April, the young prince I. A. Dolgoruky was admitted to the Supreme Privy Council.

As a result, the role of the Senate declined sharply, although it was renamed the "High Senate". The leaders jointly decided all important matters, and Catherine only signed the papers they sent. The Supreme Council liquidated the local authorities created by Peter and restored the power of the governor.

The long wars waged by Russia affected the country's finances. Due to crop failures, the price of bread rose, and discontent grew in the country. To prevent uprisings, the poll tax was reduced (from 74 to 70 kopecks).

The activity of the Catherine's government was limited mainly to petty issues, while embezzlement, arbitrariness and abuse flourished. There was no talk of any reforms and transformations; there was a struggle for power within the Council.

Despite this, the common people loved the empress because she sympathized with the unfortunate and willingly helped them. Soldiers, sailors and artisans were constantly crowding in her front rooms: some were looking for help, others asked the queen to be their godfather. She refused no one and usually gave each of her godsons a few chervonets.

During the reign of Catherine I, the Academy of Sciences was opened, the expedition of V. Bering was organized, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky was established.

Foreign policy

During the 2 years of the reign of Catherine I, Russia did not wage major wars, only in the Caucasus a separate corps operated under the command of Prince Dolgorukov, trying to recapture the Persian territories, while Persia was in a state of unrest, and Turkey unsuccessfully fought against the Persian rebels. In Europe, the matter was limited to diplomatic activity in defending the interests of the Duke of Holstein (husband of Anna Petrovna, daughter of Catherine I) against Denmark.

Russia waged war with the Turks in Dagestan and Georgia. Catherine's plan to return Schleswig taken by the Danes to the Duke of Holstein led to military operations against Russia from Denmark and England. In relation to Poland, Russia tried to pursue a peaceful policy.

End of reign

Catherine I ruled for a short time. Balls, festivities, feasts and revels, which followed a continuous series, undermined her health, and on April 10, 1727, the empress fell ill. The cough, previously weak, began to intensify, a fever was discovered, the patient began to weaken day by day, signs of damage to the lung appeared. Therefore, the government had to urgently resolve the issue of succession to the throne.

Question of succession

Catherine was easily enthroned due to the infancy of Peter Alekseevich, however, in Russian society there were strong sentiments in favor of the grown-up Peter, the direct heir to the Romanov dynasty in the male line. The empress, alarmed by anonymous letters sent against the decree of Peter I of 1722 (by which the reigning sovereign had the right to appoint any successor for himself), turned to her advisers for help.

Vice-Chancellor Osterman proposed, in order to reconcile the interests of the noble and new serving nobility, to marry Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich to Princess Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine's daughter. Their close relationship served as an obstacle, Elizabeth was Peter's own aunt. In order to avoid a possible divorce in the future, Osterman proposed to determine the order of succession to the throne more strictly when entering into a marriage.

Catherine, wanting to appoint her daughter Elizabeth (according to other sources - Anna), did not dare to accept Osterman's project and continued to insist on her right to appoint her successor, hoping that the issue would be resolved over time. Meanwhile, the main supporter of Ekaterina Menshikov, having assessed the prospect of Peter becoming the Russian emperor, went over to the camp of his adherents. Moreover, Menshikov managed to get Catherine's consent to the marriage of Maria, Menshikov's daughter, with Peter Alekseevich.

The party led by Tolstoy, which most of all contributed to the enthronement of Catherine, could hope that Catherine would live for a long time and circumstances might change in their favor. Osterman threatened people with uprisings for Peter as the only legitimate heir; they could answer him that the army was on the side of Catherine, that it would also be on the side of her daughters. Catherine, for her part, tried to win the affection of the troops with her attention.

Menshikov managed to take advantage of the illness of Catherine, who signed on May 6, 1727, a few hours before her death, an accusatory decree against Menshikov's enemies, and on the same day Count Tolstoy and other high-ranking enemies of Menshikov were sent into exile.

Will

When the empress fell dangerously ill, members of the highest government institutions gathered in the palace to decide on a successor: the Supreme Privy Council, the Senate and the Synod. Guards officers were also invited. The Supreme Council resolutely insisted on the appointment of the infant grandson of Peter I, Peter Alekseevich, as the heir. Before his death, Bassevich hastily compiled a will, signed by Elizabeth instead of the infirm mother empress. According to the will, the throne was inherited by the grandson of Peter I, Peter Alekseevich.

Subsequent articles dealt with the guardianship of a minor emperor; determined the power of the Supreme Council, the order of succession to the throne in the event of the death of Peter Alekseevich. According to the will, in the event of Peter's childless death, Anna Petrovna and her descendants ("descendents") became his successor, then her younger sister Elizaveta Petrovna and her descendants, and only then Peter II's sister Natalya Alekseevna. At the same time, those applicants for the throne who were not Orthodox or already reigned abroad were excluded from the order of succession. It was to the will of Catherine I that 14 years later Elizaveta Petrovna referred in the manifesto, setting out her rights to the throne after the palace coup of 1741.

Such an article clearly testified to the person who participated in the preparation of the will, however, for Russian society, the right of Peter Alekseevich to the throne - the main article of the will - was indisputable, and there were no unrest.

Later, Empress Anna Ioannovna ordered Chancellor Golovkin to burn the spiritual Catherine I. He did, nevertheless keeping a copy of the will.

The Russian Empress Catherine I was born on April 5 (15), 1684 in Livonia, probably in Dorpat (now Tartu in Estonia). Much in the history of the young Catherine remains unclear, her origin is not exactly known. Some historians claim that Catherine is a Swede, the daughter of a Swedish quartermaster, others are sure that she was born in the family of a Latvian (or Lithuanian) peasant Samuil Skavronsky and was named Martha during baptism according to the Catholic rite. There is also a version that her mother belonged to the Livonian nobleman von Alvendahl, who made her his mistress. The girl seemed to be the fruit of this connection. For sure, we can only say that Martha was not born into a noble family and belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Having lost her parents at the age of 3, she found shelter with her aunt Veselovskaya, who lived in Kreutzburg, from whom, at the age of 12, she entered the service of the Marienburg superintendent Gluck and grew up with his children. There Martha converted to Lutheranism. A Protestant theologian and learned linguist, Gluck raised her in the rules of the Lutheran faith, but he never learned to read and write.

She spent her childhood in Marienburg (now the city of Aluksne in Latvia). She did not receive any education and in the pastor's house she was in the miserable role of a pupil, a girl in the kitchen and laundry. The girl grew up in this house that sheltered her and tried to be useful, helped in the household and looked after the children. It is also probable that the pastor's boarders enjoyed her favor. From one of them, the Lithuanian nobleman Tizenhausen, Marta even gave birth to a daughter who died a few months later. Shortly before the siege of Marienburg, pastor Gluck decided to put an end to her debauchery by marrying off his 18-year-old pupil. But her husband or fiance - it is not known exactly - the Swedish dragoon Johann Kruse, disappeared after the capture of the city by the Russians in 1702. This happened either before or immediately after marriage.

On August 25, 1702, during the Northern War, the Russian troops of Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetev besieged the Marienburg fortress. The commandant, seeing the senselessness of the defense, signed an agreement on the surrender of the fortress: the Russians occupied the fortifications, and the inhabitants were free to leave the city and go to Riga, the capital of Swedish Livonia. But at that moment one of the officers of the garrison... blew up the powder magazine. Seeing that the stones were falling on the heads of his soldiers, Sheremetev broke the contract, the city was given over to be plundered. Soldiers seized prisoners, robbed property... Marta Skavronskaya, the future Empress Catherine I, was among the prisoners... If anyone had prevented the insane act of a Swedish officer, the fortress would not have been blown up, the inhabitants would have left Marienburg, among them would be Marta... And how would Russian history go?

The soldier who grabbed the 18-year-old Martha sold her to a non-commissioned officer who often beat her. In the convoy of Russian soldiers, she was seen by the commander of the troops B.P. Sheremetev; the non-commissioned officer had to "give" her to the 50-year-old field marshal, who made her a concubine and a laundress. Then General Bour fell in love with Martha, but from Sheremetev she did not get Bour, but the influential favorite of Peter I, Prince Alexander Menshikov. It is from A.D. Menshikova Martha came to Peter I.

The tsar noticed Marta on one of his visits to Menshikov and was immediately captivated by her, although according to modern ideas she was not a beauty, her facial features are incorrect. But in her full cheeks, her upturned nose, in her velvety, sometimes languid, sometimes burning eyes, in her scarlet lips and round chin, there was so much burning passion, in her magnificent bust there was so much grace of forms, that it is not surprising to understand how Peter completely surrendered to this heartfelt feeling. . Most likely, Peter was attracted by her brisk movements and witty answers to his questions. Martha became one of the tsar's mistresses, whom Peter took with him everywhere. The people and soldiers expressed dissatisfaction with the connection of the king with the unknown beauty. "Inconveniently said" rumors rolled around Moscow. “She and Prince Menshikov circled his Majesty with a root,” the old soldiers said, “so quickly she stood out from other women, so much she fell in love with her, a simple laundress-tailor, the king. This happened no later than 1703, because already in 1704 Marta was pregnant by Peter, and in March 1705 she had two sons - Peter and Pavel. However, this did not lead to any change in Martha's life at first. For a long time she continued to live in the Menshikov house in St. Petersburg with her sisters Varvara and Daria Arseniev and Anisya Tolstaya. All of them were something like a common harem of Peter and his favorite. Soon, in 1705, Peter placed her in the village of Preobrazhensky near Moscow among the court maidens of Princess Natalia, where she again changed her faith, converted to Orthodoxy, and was named Ekaterina Alekseevna Vasilevskaya, since her godfather was the prince. On December 28, 1706, the new relationship of the sovereign was consolidated by the birth of his daughter.

Gradually, the relationship between Peter and Catherine became closer and closer. Knowing how to easily adapt to all kinds of circumstances, Catherine acquired an enormous influence on Peter, having studied his character and habits and becoming necessary for him both in joy and in sorrow. Prior to that, the personal life of the tsar was developing poorly, his marriage with Evdokia Lopukhina, an old Moscow woman, and besides, stubborn and proud, turned out to be unsuccessful. The romance between the tsar and the German woman Anna Mons also ended dramatically - the blond resident of the Moscow German settlement did not love Peter, did not want to be a queen, but only dreamed of a quiet life as a wealthy lady. Therefore, she betrayed Peter, and the king rejected her forever. It was then that Marta appeared, who, with her kindness, disinterested humility, eventually won the heart of the king. She imperceptibly became irreplaceable for the sovereign. Peter began to miss her - this can already be seen in his letters of 1708.

The king had many mistresses, whom he discussed with her, she did not reproach him, put up with his outbursts of anger, knew how to help during epileptic attacks, shared with him the difficulties of camp life, becoming in fact the wife of the king. It is known that sometimes the tsar had terrible convulsions and then everyone ran after Catherine. Her voice captivated the king. He lay down on her knees, she quietly said something to him, Peter fell asleep and after 3-4 hours he was completely healthy, cheerful and calm. He loved her at first as a simple favorite, but then he fell in love with her as a woman who subtly mastered his character. The very great influence that Catherine had on her husband depended, according to contemporaries, partly on her ability to calm him down in moments of anger. At that moment, everyone hid from the king in horror. Only Catherine approached him without fear, and her very voice already had a calming effect on him. She alone mastered the art of calming her quick-tempered husband. She did not try to take direct part in solving political issues. Since 1709, Catherine no longer left the tsar, accompanying Peter on all campaigns and trips. In the Prut campaign of 1711, when the Russian troops were surrounded, she saved her husband and the army by giving the Turkish vizier her jewels and persuading him to sign a truce. Peter never forgot about this service of hers.

On the eve of the campaign against the Turks in the spring of 1711, Peter announced his engagement to Catherine, and upon his return, on February 19, 1712, a modest wedding was played in St. Petersburg by Admiral Peter Mikhailov (the tsar's naval pseudonym). At the same time, everyone knew that it was not a clownish wedding - Catherine became a real queen. At the same time, their daughters were legalized - Anna (later the wife of the Duke of Holstein) and Elizabeth (future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna). Both of their daughters, then aged 3 and 5, performed the duties of ladies-in-waiting at the wedding and received the official status of princesses. The marriage was almost secret, performed in a small chapel that belonged to Prince Menshikov.

From that time on, Catherine acquired a court, received foreign ambassadors, and met with European monarchs. Her descriptions, left by foreigners, said that she "does not know how to dress," her "low birth is conspicuous, and her court ladies are ridiculous." But the clumsy wife of the reformer tsar was not inferior in willpower and endurance to her husband: from 1704 to 1723 she bore him 11 children, most of whom died in infancy, but frequent pregnancies passed almost imperceptibly for her and did not interfere with accompanying her husband on his wanderings. She was a real "camping officer's wife", able to sleep on a hard bed, live in a tent and make long transitions on horseback. During the Persian campaign of 1722-1723, she shaved her head and wore a grenadier cap. Together with her husband, she reviewed the troops, rode through the ranks before the battle, encouraging the soldiers with words and giving them a glass of vodka. The bullets that whistled over her head hardly bothered her. In her character, tender femininity was combined with purely masculine energy. In 1714, in memory of the Prut campaign, the tsar established the Order of St. Catherine and awarded his wife on her name day.

The magical transformation did not change the character of the Livonian Cinderella - she remained the same sweet, modest, unpretentious fighting friend of the king. Catherine was distinguished by a cheerful, even, affectionate character; she did not have grace, beauty, a special mind, but she had the charm of Hera - the goddess of home comfort and warmth. Not only deprived of any education, but even illiterate, she was so able to show her husband grief to his grief, joy to his joy, and general interest in his needs and concerns, that Peter constantly found that his wife was smart, and gladly shared with her political news, reflections on current and future events. Peter was crazy about Katerinushka, his "friend of the heart": she became the mother of his beloved children, the keeper of the hearth, which the tsar had never had before. The letters of the spouses that have come down to us have preserved intimacy and warmth, a deep mutual feeling that has connected them for more than 20 years. Hints and jokes, understandable only to them, touching worries about health, constant melancholy and boredom without a loved one: "No matter how I go out," SHE writes about the Summer Garden, "I often regret that I am not walking with you." “And what do you write,” HE answers, “that it’s boring to walk alone, although the garden is good, I believe that, because the same news is behind me - just pray to God that this summer will already be the last in separation, and henceforth to be together” . And SHE picks up: "Only we pray to God, give us, so that this summer is the last to be in such separation."

A stern despot, a man with an iron character, who calmly looked at the torture of his own son, Peter in his relationship with Catherine was unrecognizable: he sent letter after letter to her, one more tender than the other, and each full of love and care. Peter missed her. "I miss you much," he wrote to her from Vilna; but because "there is no one to sew and wash ..." "For God's sake, come soon," the sovereign invited the "womb" to St. Petersburg on the day of his own arrival. that I don’t hear, I don’t see you ... ”Invitations to come“ soon, so as not to be bored, ”regrets about separation, wishes for good health and a quick meeting were full of almost every letter of the 42-year-old tsar.

Catherine placed all monetary gifts from her husband and other persons in an Amsterdam bank - and this was also different from the wives of the kings before her. She tried to restrain all kinds of excesses that Peter indulged in: nightly orgies and drunkenness. At the same time, Catherine did not make any claims to interfere in state affairs, did not start any intrigues. The only role she has taken upon herself in recent years is to intercede for those on whom the tsar, formidable and quick to punish, brought down his wrath.

On December 23, 1721, the Senate and the Synod recognized her as empress. For her coronation on May 7, 1724, a crown was made that surpassed the crown of the king in splendor, Peter himself laid it on the head of his wife, yesterday's Baltic washerwoman. The coronation took place in Moscow in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. A few days after that, they gave water and treats to the people, and then for a long time there were holidays, masquerades, and feasts at the court. Until now, none of the Russian queens, except for Marina Mniszek, has received such an honor.

It is believed that Peter was going to officially proclaim her his successor, but did not do this when he learned about his wife's betrayal with chamberlain Willy Mons. Peter was much older than Catherine, he spent the last years in an unceasing struggle with the disease, while his wife retained the health and hot blood of youth. As her friend aged, Catherine apparently moved away from him. Since 1716, Willy Mons, a dexterous, cheerful and helpful person, has become the closest person to the queen. His sister Modesta Balk became the Empress' closest confidante. The success of the young Mons was no secret to anyone in St. Petersburg. His friendship and patronage were sought by dignitaries, ministers, envoys and bishops. Only Peter did not suspect anything about his wife's affair, perhaps because he could not even imagine betrayal on her part. He learned about the opponent almost by accident from an anonymous denunciation that did not even directly concern Mons. But, taking up the search, Peter very soon found out the whole ins and outs of the case. When Mons was arrested, Petersburg society was as if struck by thunder; many now expected imminent punishment. But the fears were in vain, the emperor limited himself to Mons. Peter was furious. Mons was charged with bribery, and on November 16, 1724, on Trinity Square, at 10 am, Willim Mons was beheaded. Catherine was very cheerful that day. On the evening of the day of the execution of her favorite, Peter rolled the queen in a carriage past the pillar on which the head of Mons was planted. The empress, lowering her eyes, said: "How sad that the courtiers have so many corruptions."

Relations between Peter and Catherine became strained. Peter forbade the boards to accept orders and recommendations from the empress, and a "questor" was imposed on her personal funds. Catherine suddenly found herself in such a cramped position that she had to resort to the help of court ladies to pay her debts. According to Y. Lefort, they no longer spoke to each other, did not dine, did not sleep together. However, Peter did not make any direct reproaches or accusations to his wife of treason. If there were any explanations between them about this, they passed completely unnoticed by the courtiers. At the beginning of January 1725, their daughter Elizabeth was able to bring her father and mother together and arrange, at least outwardly, their reconciliation. "The queen knelt before the king for a long time, asking for forgiveness for all her misdeeds; the conversation lasted more than three hours, after which they had dinner together and dispersed" (J. Lefort).

The betrayal of the “friend of the heart” painfully hit Peter - the tsar had no more hope for the future: he did not know to whom now to transfer his great CASE so that it would not become the property of any rogue who jumped into Catherine’s bed. Soon Peter fell ill. All the time of his illness, Catherine was at the bedside of the dying man and, it seems, only then was she able to finally reconcile with him. Meanwhile, she did not forget about herself. Her position was very uncertain, since she had no legal rights to the Russian throne. Fortunately for Catherine, the fate of the entire new aristocracy was also in danger. If the opponents of the reforms, who advocated the young Peter, the son of the executed, took the upper hand, then people like A.D. Menshikov, P.I. Yaguzhinsky, A.V. Makarov, A.I. Osterman had to lose everything. P.A. Tolstoy and Count Apraksin, due to their involvement in the execution of Alexei, also stuck to this party. Thus, the most influential people from Peter's entourage were forced to help Catherine. Catherine managed to take their advice. During the day preceding the death of her husband, she often left the head of the dying man and locked herself in her office. All the majors and captains of the guard visited here in turn, and then the commander of the Semenovsky regiment I.I. Buturlin. The Empress promised them an immediate payment of their salaries, which had been delayed for 18 months, and a reward of 30 rubles for each soldier. However, no special reward was required - the guards loved the dying emperor and were ready to act in the interests of his wife.

At 5 am on January 28, 1725, without appointing a successor, Peter the Great died. And at 8 o'clock, senators, members of the Synod and the so-called generals - officials belonging to the first four classes of the table of ranks - gathered to resolve the issue of succession to the throne. According to the established order of succession, the throne after Peter was supposed to pass to his son from his first marriage, Tsarevich Alexei. However, Peter executed his son because he was among the opponents of his reforms. In addition, Peter did not love Alexei, the son of his wife Evdokia, who had been rejected by him, and wanted to leave the throne to Catherine's offspring. When Catherine bore him a son, Pyotr Petrovich, he began to pursue Alexei even more persistently. Catherine also dreamed of leaving the throne after Peter I for her children. But Pyotr Petrovich died before reaching the age of five. There was still a young grandson, Peter Alekseevich, the son of the executed prince. The daughter from her second marriage, Elizabeth, could also claim the throne after her older sister, Anna, renounced her rights to the Russian throne upon marriage. Among the heirs were also Peter's nieces, daughters of Ivan V. The second wife of the emperor, Catherine, had no grounds for inheriting the throne.

Princes Repnin, Golitsyn, Dolgorukov defended the rights to the throne of the grandson of Peter I as the direct male heir. Menshikov, Tolstoy and Apraksin stood for the proclamation of Catherine Alekseevna as the ruling empress. Before dawn, it is not known how in the hall where the meeting was held, there were guards officers who demanded the accession of Catherine as an ultimatum, and on the square in front of the palace two guards regiments were lined up under arms, expressing support for the empress by drumming. This forced the dispute to end. Catherine was recognized as empress. The grandson of Peter I by his first marriage, the son of Tsarevich Alexei, Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich, was declared the heir to the throne. So, through the efforts of A.D. Menshikov, I.I. Buturlina, P.I. Yaguzhinsky, relying on the guards, by virtue of the acts of 1722 and 1724, she was enthroned under the name of Catherine I. So for the first time a woman sat on the Russian throne, and even a foreigner of simple origin who had come from nowhere, who became the wife of the tsar on very dubious legal grounds.

By agreement with Menshikov, Catherine was not involved in state affairs. Since she herself did not have the abilities and knowledge of a statesman, on February 8, 1726, she transferred control of the country to the Supreme Privy Council (1726-1730) of six persons, headed by A.D. Menshikov. The new empress, without looking, signed decrees. Before accession to the throne, she could neither read nor write, three months later she learned to sign papers. This, in fact, limited her state activity. Her thoughts and desires were far from state affairs. And only when it came to the fleet, Catherine brightened up: her husband's love for the sea touched her too. For the first time she was free, but nothing but fun and entertainment, she did not care. She desperately wasted her last health and time, surrounded by young friends and old jesters. Catherine indulged in revelry all night long with her chosen ones, who changed every night: Yaguzhinsky, Levenvold, Devier, Count Sapega ... All Catherine's friends and confidantes, all her ladies tried to keep up with their ruler. Thus, the Russian court was a picture of the most obvious, undisguised debauchery.

According to the Saxon Freksdorf, the morning of the Empress began with a visit by Menshikov. The conversation was invariably preceded by the question: "What would we like to drink?" Immediately emptied several glasses of vodka. Then she went out to the reception room, where soldiers, sailors and artisans were constantly crowded, she distributed alms to all of them, and if anyone asked the queen to be the foster mother of his child, she never refused and usually gave each of her godson a few chervonets. Sometimes she was present at the guards' exercises and herself distributed vodka to the soldiers. The day ended with a party in the circle of a constant company, and the queen spent the night with one of her lovers. Lefort wrote in one of his dispatches: “There is no way to determine the behavior of this court. Day turns into night, everything stands still, nothing is done ... Everywhere there are intrigues, searching, decay ...” Holidays, drinking parties, walks occupied all her time. On solemn days, she appeared in all her splendor and beauty, in a golden carriage. It was so breathtakingly beautiful. Power, glory, the delight of loyal subjects - what else could she dream of? But... sometimes the Empress, having enjoyed her glory, would go down to the kitchen and, as it is written in the court journal, "we cooked in the kitchen ourselves."

Among the most significant events of this time, carried out in accordance with the plans of Peter I, were the opening of the Academy of Sciences on November 19, 1725, the dispatch of an expedition by Vitus Bering to Kamchatka to decide whether Asia is connected to North America by an isthmus; improvement of diplomatic relations with Austria, the establishment of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky. There were almost no deviations from Peter's traditions in foreign policy. Catherine demanded from Denmark the return of Schleswig to her son-in-law the Duke of Holstein, and when the demand was rejected, she entered into an alliance with Austria, and Russia was almost drawn into the war. From Persia and Turkey, Russia obtained confirmation of the concessions made under Peter in the Caucasus, and acquired the Shirvan region. Friendly relations were established with China through Count Raguzinsky. Russia also acquired exceptional influence in Courland, preventing Moritz of Saxony from taking the throne in it.

Catherine I Alekseevna reigned prosperously and even cheerfully, not engaging in affairs in which she was poorly versed. She sat up at feasts among close people, launched a department in which "everyone thinks only about how to steal." She ruled for a short time. Balls, festivities, feasts and revels, which followed a continuous succession, undermined her health. In March 1727, a tumor appeared on the Empress's legs, which quickly grew along her thighs. In April, she fell ill, Catherine's health was weakening hour by hour. The medical doctor Blumentrost wrote about the illness of the Empress: “Her Imperial Majesty fell into a fever on the 10th of April, then the cough, which she had previously had, only not very great, began to multiply, and the febra (fever) also happened to be more powerless began to come, and the sign announced that there should have been some damage to the lung, and the opinion gave that there was a fomica (abscess) in the lung, which, four days before Her Majesty's death, clearly turned out to be, after a great cough, direct pus, in in a great multitude, Her Majesty began to spit out that before Her Majesty the death did not stop, and from that fomiki, on the 6th day of May, she passed away with great peace.

They say that shortly before her death, she dreamed that the shadow of Peter appeared at the table where she was feasting with her friends. He beckoned her to follow him, and they flew away together under the clouds... one of his servants drowned in a drunken affair, "to water flower beds in the next world." She wanted to transfer the throne to her daughter, Elizabeth Petrovna, but before her death, at the insistence of Menshikov, she signed a will on the transfer of the throne to the grandson of Peter I, Peter II Alekseevich, who was represented by representatives of the clan nobility. As soon as she died, Prince Menshikov set guard at all the entrances of the palace, and the next day, in the morning, he announced the will of the Empress. At the very beginning of her will, she declared the aforementioned prince, the grandson of her husband, her sole heir. All who were in the congregation, having heard this, immediately shouted "Hurrah!" His aunt, the Duchess of Holstein, was the first to fall at his feet, and after her all the others, and immediately swore allegiance. A new emperor, Peter II, ascended the Russian throne at the age of eleven and a half. Soon he was betrothed to the daughter of His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov, Maria. The daughters of Peter I Anna and Elizabeth were declared regents under the young emperor until his 16th birthday. In September 1727, as a result of court intrigues, princes Dolgorukovs, close to Peter I, accused Menshikov of seeking to usurp power and succeeded in exiling him to Siberia, to the town of Berezov, where the once all-powerful favorite of Peter I died. In the same place, the bride of Peter II, the daughter of Menshikov, Princess Maria, died at the age of 18. Peter II declared himself an opponent of the reforms of Peter I and liquidated the institutions created by his grandfather. All fullness of power passed to the Supreme Privy Council. Foreign ambassadors wrote that "everything in Russia is in a terrible mess." In January 1730, Emperor Peter II fell ill with smallpox and died soon after. With the death of Peter II, the Romanov family came to an end in the male line.

Catherine was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. In the still unfinished cathedral, a tightly sealed coffin with the body of the empress was placed on a hearse under a canopy upholstered in gold fabric, next to the coffins of Peter I and his daughter Natalia Petrovna, who died back in 1825. All three coffins were interred at the same time - at 11 am on May 29, 1731. This happened in the absence of Anna Ioannovna (who was in Moscow on the occasion of the coronation) with "a specially established ceremony in the presence of gentlemen from the generals, the admiralty and many college officials." The place of the burial day of Empress Catherine I was determined in the southern nave of the cathedral, in front of the iconostasis, next to her great father. During the burial, fifty-one cannon shots were fired.

The second wife of Peter I and the first Russian Empress Catherine I Alekseevna (who ruled the country from January 28, 1725 to May 6, 1727) was not among the prominent statesmen; she reigned but did not rule. Nevertheless, Catherine, of course, can be called an outstanding personality. Former "portomoy", she became the wife of Tsar Peter I, and after his death she was elevated to the Russian throne. Her reign lasted only 27 months, however, the real rulers were Menshikov and other temporary workers. The common people loved the empress because she sympathized with the unfortunate and willingly helped them. This, at first glance, clumsy woman of little seductive appearance was not inferior to Peter himself in willpower and endurance, and morally was much more balanced than him. The activities of the Catherine's government were limited to trifles. The state of state affairs was deplorable, embezzlement of public funds, arbitrariness and abuse flourished everywhere. In the last year of her life, she spent more than six million rubles on her whims, while there was no money in the state treasury. There was no talk of any reforms or transformations.

Catherine I (Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya, married to Kruse; after the adoption of Orthodoxy - Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova). She was born on April 5 (15), 1684 in Dorpat (Livonia) - she died on May 6 (17), 1727 in St. Petersburg. Russian empress since 1721, ruling empress since 1725. Second wife of Peter I. Mother of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.

In honor of Catherine I in 1713, Peter I established the Order of St. Catherine, and in 1723 the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals was named. The Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo (built under her daughter Elizabeth Petrovna) also bears the name of Catherine I.

Martha Skavronskaya, who became known as Catherine I, was born on April 5 (15 according to the new style) in 1684 in Dorpat (Livonia - now Tartu, Estonia).

The place of her birth is questioned by some historians. There is a version that she was born on the territory of modern Latvia - in the historical region of Vidzeme, which was part of Swedish Livonia at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries.

Father - an Estonian peasant, according to another version - a Latvian or Lithuanian peasant, originally from the vicinity of Kegums.

It should be noted that the surname "Skowrońska" is also typical for people of Polish origin.

Martha's parents died of the plague in 1684. Her uncle gave the girl to the house of the Lutheran pastor Ernst Gluck, known for his translation of the Bible into Latvian. After the capture of Marienburg by Russian troops, Gluck, as a learned person, was taken into Russian service, founded the first gymnasium in Moscow, taught languages and wrote poetry in Russian.

Martha was used in Gluck's house as a servant, she was not taught to read and write.

According to another version, in particular, set forth in the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, after the death of her father, Marta's mother gave her daughter to serve in the family of pastor Gluck, where she was allegedly taught to read and write and needlework.

There is another version - until the age of 12, Martha lived with her aunt Anna-Maria Veselovskaya, and only then ended up in the Gluck family.

She had two sisters - Anna and Christina, as well as two brothers - Karl and Friedrich. In 1726, Catherine moved their families to St. Petersburg with the help of Jan Casimir Sapieha, who received the highest state award for personal services to the Empress. It is believed that he moved her family from his possessions in Minsk. Catherine awarded Charles and Friedrich in January 1727 the dignity of a count, without calling them her brothers. In the will of Catherine I, the Skavronskys are vaguely named "close relatives of her own surname." Under Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine's daughter, immediately after her accession to the throne in 1741, the children of Christina (Gendrikova) and the children of Anna (Efimovskaya) were also elevated to count dignity. Later, the official version was that Anna, Christina, Karl and Friedrich were Catherine's brothers and sisters, children of Samuil Skavronsky.

At the same time, since the end of the 19th century, a number of historians have questioned this relationship. They pointed to the fact that they called Catherine not Skavronskaya, but Veselevskaya or Vasilevskaya, and in 1710, after the capture of Riga, in a letter to the same Repnin, he called completely different names to “my Katerina’s relatives” - “Yagan-Ionus Vasilevsky, Anna Dorothea, also their children". Therefore, other versions of the origin of Catherine were proposed, according to which she is a cousin, and not a sister of the Skavronskys who appeared in 1726.

Personal life of Catherine I:

According to some reports, the spouse bore the surname Rabe, and not Kruse (this version ended up in fiction - for example, in the novel "Peter the Great").

On August 25, 1702, during the Northern War, the army of Russian Field Marshal Sheremetev, fighting against the Swedes in Livonia, took the Swedish fortress of Marienburg (now Aluksne, Latvia). Sheremetev, taking advantage of the departure of the main Swedish army to Poland, subjected the region to merciless ruin.

After a short time, around August 1703, the prince, a friend and ally of Peter I, became her patron. So says the Frenchman Franz Villebois, who has been in the Russian service in the navy since 1698 and is married to the daughter of pastor Gluck. Villebois' story is confirmed by another source - notes of 1724 from the archive of the Duke of Oldenburg. According to these notes, Sheremetev sent pastor Gluck and all the inhabitants of the Marienburg fortress to Moscow, while Marta left himself. Menshikov, having taken Martha from the elderly field marshal a few months later, had a strong quarrel with Sheremetev.

The Scotsman Peter Henry Bruce in his Memoirs states (according to others) the version that Martha was taken by the colonel of the dragoon regiment Baur (later becoming a general): “Baur immediately ordered her to be placed in his house, who entrusted her to the cares, giving her the right to dispose of all the servants , and she soon fell in love with the new ruler for her manner of household. The General later often said that his house was never as well maintained as in the days of her stay there. Prince Menshikov, who was his patron, once saw her at the general, also noting something extraordinary in her appearance and manners. Asking who she was and whether she knew how to cook, he heard in response the story just told, to which the general added a few words about her worthy position in his house. The prince said that it was in such a woman that he really needed now, for he himself was now served very poorly. To this, the general replied that he owed too much to the prince so as not to immediately fulfill what he only thought of - and immediately calling Catherine, he said that in front of her was Prince Menshikov, who needed just such a servant as she, and that the prince will do everything possible to become, like himself, her friend, adding that he respects her too much to prevent her from receiving her share of honor and a good fate.

In the autumn of 1703, on one of his regular visits to Menshikov in St. Petersburg, Peter I met Martha and soon made her his mistress, calling her Katerina Vasilevskaya in letters (perhaps by the name of her aunt).

Franz Villebois relates their first meeting as follows: “This is how things were when the tsar, driving by post from St. Petersburg, which was then called Nyenschanz, or Noteburg, to Livonia, in order to go further, stopped at his favorite Menshikov, where he noticed Catherine among the servants who served at the table. He asked where it came from and how he acquired it. And, speaking softly in his ear with this favorite, who answered him only with a nod of his head, he looked at Catherine for a long time and, teasing her, said that she was smart, and ended his joking speech by telling her, when she went to bed, to take light a candle in his room. It was an order, spoken in a playful tone, but not subject to any objections. Menshikov took it for granted, and the beauty, devoted to her master, spent the night in the Tsar's room... The next day the Tsar left in the morning to continue his journey. He returned to his favorite what he lent him. The satisfaction of the king, which he received from his nightly conversation with Catherine, cannot be judged by the generosity that he showed. She limited herself to only one ducat, which is equal in value to half of one louis d'or (10 francs), which he thrust into her hand in a military way at parting.

In 1704, Katerina will give birth to her first child, named Peter. The next year - Paul (soon both died).

According to Franz Villebois, the existence of a living legal husband of Catherine during the years of the birth of Anna (1708) and Elizabeth (1709) was later used by opposing factions in disputes over the right to the throne after the death of Catherine I. According to notes from the Duchy of Oldenburg, the Swedish dragoon Kruse died in 1705, however one must keep in mind the interest of the German dukes in the legitimacy of the birth of the daughters of Peter, Anna and Elizabeth, who were looking for suitors among the German specific rulers.

Even before the legal marriage to Peter, Catherine gave birth to daughters Anna and Elizabeth. Katerina alone could cope with the tsar in his fits of anger, knew how to calm Peter's attacks of convulsive headache with kindness and patient attention. According to Bassevich's memoirs: “The sound of Katerina's voice calmed Peter; then she sat him down and took him, caressing him, by the head, which she scratched lightly. This had a magical effect on him, he fell asleep in a few minutes. In order not to disturb his sleep, she held his head on her breast, sitting motionless for two or three hours. After that, he woke up completely fresh and vigorous.

In the spring of 1711, Peter, having become attached to a charming and light-tempered former maid, ordered Catherine to be considered his wife and took her on the Prut campaign, which was unfortunate for the Russian army. The Danish envoy Yust Yul, according to the words of the princesses (nieces of Peter I), recorded this story as follows: “In the evening, shortly before his departure, the tsar called them, his sister Natalya Alekseevna, to one house in Preobrazhenskaya Sloboda. There he took his hand and placed before them his mistress Ekaterina Alekseevna. For the future, the tsar said, they should consider her his lawful wife and Russian tsarina. Since now, due to the urgent need to go to the army, he cannot marry her, he takes her with him in order to do this on occasion in more free time. At the same time, the king made it clear that if he died before he had time to marry, then after his death they would have to look at her as his lawful wife. After that, they all congratulated (Ekaterina Alekseevna) and kissed her hand.

Peter I was able to conclude the Prut Peace and, having sacrificed the Russian conquests in the south, to withdraw the army from the encirclement. The Danish envoy Just Yul, who was with the Russian army after she left the encirclement, does not report such an act of Catherine, but says that the queen (as everyone now called Catherine) handed out her jewelry to the officers for safekeeping and then collected them. Brigadier Moro de Brazet's notes also do not mention the bribery of the vizier with Catherine's jewels, although the author (the Brigadier Moro de Brazet) knew from the words of Turkish pashas about the exact amount of state sums aimed at bribes to the Turks.

The official wedding of Peter I with Ekaterina Alekseevna took place on February 19, 1712 in the church of St. Isaac of Dalmatsky in St. Petersburg.

In 1713, in honor of the worthy behavior of his wife during the unsuccessful Prut campaign, Peter I established the Order of St. Catherine and personally laid the signs of the order on his wife on November 24, 1714. Initially, it was called the Order of Liberation and was intended only for Catherine.

Peter I recalled the merits of Catherine during the Prut campaign in his manifesto on the coronation of his wife dated November 15, 1723: she was present with us by will and helped us a lot, and most of all in the Prut campaign with the Turks, read the desperate time, how she acted masculinely, and not femininely, our entire army is aware of that.

In personal letters, the tsar showed unusual tenderness for his wife: “Katerinushka, my friend, hello! I hear that you are bored, but I am not bored either. Ekaterina Alekseevna gave birth to her husband 11 children, but almost all of them died in childhood, except for Anna and Elizabeth. Elizabeth later became empress (ruled in 1741-1762), and Anna's direct descendants ruled Russia after the death of Elizabeth, from 1762 to 1917. One of the sons who died in childhood, Peter Petrovich, after the abdication of Alexei Petrovich (Peter's eldest son from Evdokia Lopukhina) from February 1718 until his death in 1719, he was the official heir to the Russian throne.

Children of Peter I and Catherine I:

Anna Petrovna(February 7, 1708 - May 15, 1728). In 1725 she married the German Duke Karl-Friedrich; left for Kiel, where she gave birth to a son, Karl Peter Ulrich (later Russian Emperor Peter III).

Pyotr Petrovich(November 19, 1715 – April 19, 1719) Considered the official heir to the crown from 1718 until his death.

Foreigners, who followed the Russian court with attention, note the tsar's affection for his wife. Bassevich writes of their relationship in 1721: “He liked to see her everywhere. There was no military review, the launching of a ship, a ceremony or a holiday at which she would not appear ... Catherine, confident in the heart of her husband, laughed at his frequent love affairs, like Livia at the intrigues of Augustus; but on the other hand, when he told her about them, he always ended with the words: nothing can compare with you.

In the autumn of 1724, Peter I suspected the empress of adultery with her chamberlain Mons, who was executed for another reason. The tsar brought the head of the executed man to Catherine on a tray. He stopped talking to her, access to him was forbidden to her. Only once, at the request of his daughter Elizabeth, Peter agreed to dine with Catherine, who had been his inseparable friend for 20 years.

Only at death did Peter reconcile with his wife. The rights to the throne were owned by: Catherine, the son of Tsarevich Alexei Peter and daughters Anna and Elizabeth. But Catherine was crowned by Peter I in 1724. In January 1725, Catherine spent all her time at the bedside of the dying sovereign, he died in her arms.

Appearance of Catherine I:

Opinions about the appearance of Catherine are contradictory. If we focus on male eyewitnesses, then, in general, they are more than positive, and, on the contrary, women were sometimes biased towards her: “She was short, fat and black; her whole appearance did not make a favorable impression. It was worth looking at her to immediately notice that she was of low birth. The dress she was wearing was in all probability bought from a shop in the market; it was of an old-fashioned style, and all trimmed with silver and sequins. From her outfit, one could mistake her for a German itinerant artist. She wore a sash adorned on the front with an embroidery of precious stones, a very original design in the form of a double-headed eagle, the wings of which were studded with small precious stones in a bad setting. About a dozen orders and the same number of icons and amulets were hung on the queen, and when she walked, everything rang, as if a dressed up mule had passed ”(Wilhelmina of Bayretskaya).

The reign of Catherine I (1725-1727)

By a manifesto of November 15, 1723, Peter announced the future coronation of Catherine as a token of her special merits. The ceremony took place in the Assumption Cathedral on May 7 (18), 1724. Especially for this occasion, the first crown in the history of the Russian Empire was made. This was the second coronation in Rus' of a female sovereign's wife (after the coronation of Marina Mnishek by False Dmitry I in 1606).

Any person worthy, in the opinion of the sovereign, to head the state could become a successor according to the Decree of 1722. Peter died in the early morning of January 28 (February 8), 1725, without having time to name a successor and leaving no sons. In the absence of a strictly defined order of succession to the throne, the throne of Russia was left to chance, and the subsequent time went down in history as the era of palace coups.

Count Tolstoy, Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky, Chancellor Count Golovkin and Menshikov, at the head of the service nobility, could not hope to retain the power received from Peter I under Peter Alekseevich. On the other hand, the coronation of the empress could be interpreted as an indirect reference by Peter to the heiress. When Catherine saw that there was no longer any hope for her husband's recovery, she instructed Menshikov and Tolstoy to act in favor of their rights. The guards were devoted to adoration to the dying emperor, and she transferred this affection to Catherine.

Officers of the Guards from the Preobrazhensky Regiment came to the meeting of the Senate, knocking down the door to the room. They frankly declared that they would smash the heads of the old boyars if they went against their mother Catherine. Suddenly, a drum beat sounded from the square: it turned out that both guards regiments were lined up in front of the palace under arms. Prince Field Marshal Repnin, President of the Military Collegium, angrily asked: “Who dared to bring regiments here without my knowledge? Am I not a field marshal? Buturlin, the commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, replied to Repnin that he had called up the regiments at the behest of the Empress, to whom all subjects were obliged to obey, "not excluding you," he added impressively.

Thanks to the support of the guards regiments, it was possible to convince all the opponents of Catherine to give her their vote. The Senate “unanimously” elevated her to the throne, calling her “the most illustrious, most powerful great empress, Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, the autocrat of all Russia” and, in justification, announcing the will of the late sovereign interpreted by the Senate. The people were very surprised by the accession for the first time in Russian history to the throne of a woman, but there was no unrest.

January 28 (February 8), 1725 Catherine I ascended the throne of the Russian Empire thanks to the support of the guards and nobles who rose under Peter. In Russia, the era of the reign of empresses began, when, until the end of the 18th century, only women ruled, with the exception of a few years.

On the initiative of Count P. A. Tolstoy, in February 1726, a new body of state power, the Supreme Privy Council, was created, where a narrow circle of chief dignitaries could govern the Russian Empire under the formal chairmanship of a semi-literate empress. The Council included Field Marshal Prince Menshikov, Admiral General Count Apraksin, Chancellor Count Golovkin, Count Tolstoy, Prince Golitsyn, and Vice Chancellor Baron Osterman. Of the six members of the new institution, only Prince D. M. Golitsyn was a descendant of noble nobles. A month later, the son-in-law of the Empress, Duke of Holstein Karl-Friedrich (1700-1739) was included in the number of members of the Supreme Privy Council.

As a result, the role of the Senate fell sharply, although it was renamed the "High Senate". The leaders jointly decided all important matters, and Catherine only signed the papers they sent. The Supreme Council liquidated the local authorities created by Peter and restored the power of the governor.

During the reign of Catherine I, the expedition of V. Bering was organized, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky was established.

During the 2 years of the reign of Catherine I, Russia did not wage major wars, only in the Caucasus a separate corps operated under the command of Prince Dolgorukov, trying to recapture the Persian territories, while Persia was in a state of unrest, and Turkey unsuccessfully fought against the Persian rebels. In Europe, Russia was diplomatically active in defending the interests of the Duke of Holstein (husband of Anna Petrovna, daughter of Catherine I) against Denmark. The preparation of an expedition by Russia to return Schleswig, taken by the Danes, to the Duke of Holstein led to a military demonstration in the Baltic by Denmark and England.

Another direction of Russian policy under Catherine was to ensure the guarantees of the Nishtad peace and the creation of an anti-Turkish bloc. In 1726, the government of Catherine I concluded the Treaty of Vienna with the government of Charles VI, which became the basis of the Russian-Austrian military-political alliance in the second quarter of the 18th century.

The queen died in May 1727 from complications of a lung abscess. According to another unlikely version, death came from a severe attack of rheumatism.

Catherine I

The government had to urgently resolve the issue of succession to the throne.

Subsequent articles dealt with the guardianship of a minor emperor; determined the power of the Supreme Council, the order of succession to the throne in the event of the death of Peter Alekseevich. According to the will, in the event of Peter's childless death, Anna Petrovna and her descendants ("descendents") became his successor, then her younger sister Elizaveta Petrovna and her descendants, and only then Peter II's sister Natalya Alekseevna. At the same time, those applicants for the throne who were not Orthodox or already reigned abroad were excluded from the order of succession. 14 years later, Elizaveta Petrovna referred to the will of Catherine I in her manifesto, which outlined her rights to the throne after the palace coup of 1741.

The 11th article of the will amazed those present. It ordered all the nobles to contribute to the betrothal of Peter Alekseevich with one of the daughters of Prince Menshikov, and then, upon reaching adulthood, to promote their marriage. Literally: “our princesses and the government of the administration also have to try to arrange a marriage between his love (Grand Duke Peter) and one princess of Prince Menshikov.” Such an article clearly testified to the person who participated in the preparation of the will, however, for Russian society, the right of Peter Alekseevich to the throne - the main article of the will - was indisputable, and there were no unrest.

Later, Empress Anna Ioannovna ordered Chancellor Golovkin to burn the spiritual Catherine I. He did, nevertheless keeping a copy of the will.

The image of Catherine I in the cinema:

1938 - Peter the Great (performed the role)

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Biography, life story of Catherine I

Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya (Kruse), whom we know as the Russian Empress Catherine I, was born in Livonia on April 5, 1684. Having lost her parents who died of the plague in early infancy, she was given by her own uncle to the house of the Lutheran priest Ernst Gluck, who, being a very educated person, later became the founder of the first gymnasium in Moscow. Martha lived in the pastor's service until the age of 17.

First marriage

Martha was married off in 1702. Her husband was the Swedish dragoon Johann Kruse, who soon left with his regiment for the war with Russia, where he went missing. On August 25 of the same year, Martha Kruse became a war trophy, as Russian troops took the Swedish fortress of Marienburg, where the future Russian Empress lived at that time. First, the pastor's maid ended up in the convoy with the commander of the army, Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetyev, and then was given into the service of A.D. Menshikov.

In 1703, Martha Kruse was seen by the Russian Emperor. The crowned lady was so impressed by her beauty that soon Martha became one of his mistresses. Gradually, their relationship grew into something more. Over the next two years, she gave birth to two sons, who soon died.

In 1705, Marta Kruse was sent by the emperor to Preobrazhenskoye to her sister Natalya Alekseevna. There, the tsar's passion learned Russian and became friends with the Menshikov family. A few years later, she was baptized into Orthodoxy. Since her godfather was Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, she took the name Ekaterina Alekseevna. The surname Mikhailov was borrowed from the emperor himself, who used it in those cases when he wished to remain unrecognized.

In January 1710, she met her first husband, Johann Kruse, who, being a prisoner, immediately spoke about his wife cohabiting with the emperor. Such a confession could not go unnoticed - the Swedish dragoon was immediately exiled to Siberia, where he spent the rest of his life until 1721.

CONTINUED BELOW

Second marriage

Returning from another military campaign in St. Petersburg, the emperor almost immediately legalized relations with Catherine, who by that time had managed to give birth to two more daughters - Anna and Elizabeth. The wedding took place on February 19, 1712, after which their daughters were given the opportunity to officially be called princesses.

The following year, in honor of his wife, the tsar established the Order of Liberation, which later became known as the Order of St. Catherine. It was with this insignia that the emperor awarded his own wife for her worthy behavior during the Prut campaign, which ended very unsuccessfully for the Russian army.

In the autumn of 1724, a quarrel broke out between the spouses. Its cause was the emperor's suspicions of his wife's infidelity with her chamberlain Mons, who was executed shortly thereafter on a far-fetched pretext. Only being mortally ill, the tsar reconciled with his wife, passing away in January 1725 in her arms.

empress

After the death of the sovereign, the reins of government were transferred to his wife, who became Empress Catherine I. Accession to the throne did not happen without the active help of Menshikov, who organized the Supreme Privy Council, which exercised the real control of the country. Menshikov himself became the head of this executive body. To some extent, this was a forced measure, since the empress did not have the knowledge and skills of a statesman.

In addition to unbridled entertainment, the 16-month period of the reign of Catherine I was remembered for the opening of the Academy of Sciences, the dispatch of the Vitus Bering expedition and the establishment of the Order of the Saint. In addition, during this time, the country practically did not fight with its neighbors, while conducting active diplomatic activities. It was during her reign that the Treaty of Vienna was concluded with Austria, which became the basis for the military-political alliance of the two countries until the second half of the 18th century.

On April 10, 1727, the Empress fell seriously ill, dying from complications of a lung abscess on May 6 of that year.