Palace Embankment, 32, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 190000
On the night of November 25, 1741, Anna Leopoldovna woke up to the noise and clatter of soldiers' boots. Enemies had come for her and her family. In the "Brief Report" by Shetardi, it is narrated that upon seeing Elizabeth and the soldiers, "the ruler, seized with horror, obeyed her orders, begging not to give the command to commit violence against her and her family, as well as against the lady-in-waiting Mengden, whom she wished to keep with her. The Empress promised her everything she asked for" and even made a grenadier swear on the cross that they would not shed a drop of blood. Another report from November 28 states that the ruler was immediately separated from her children and husband, and all of them were taken in different sledges to Elizabeth’s palace. "They say," continued Shetardi, "that upon arriving at her former palace, the Empress took the prince (the already deposed young emperor) in her arms and said, kissing him several times: 'Poor child, you are innocent, but your parents are guilty.'" According to all sources, it is clear that the ruler offered no resistance to the violence, dressed, and meekly allowed herself to be taken from the Winter Palace. As is known, the ancients always watched for omens, signs, those sometimes barely noticeable marks of fate that could tell a person something about their future. Later, the centuries of rationalism, pragmatism, atheism, and dizzying technological advances made these habits seem ridiculous and unserious to us. We remain in this ignorant state even now, only occasionally marveling at the insight of the elders or the secret voice of our own premonitions. A sign of fate was given to Anna Leopoldovna as well. On the eve of the coup, an unfortunate incident happened to her: approaching the tsesarevna, the ruler tripped over a carpet and suddenly, in front of the entire court, fell at the feet of Elizabeth, who was standing before her. This was a bad omen.
Prince Anton Ulrich was not allowed to dress and was carried half-naked wrapped in a sheet (in other sources, either a blanket or a fur coat) to the sledges. This was done deliberately: this was how Biron was taken, as well as his brother, a general, and many high-ranking victims of other coups (it is recalled that when Lavrentiy Beria was arrested right in the Kremlin, all the buttons on his trousers were immediately cut off and his belt taken away). The calculation here is simple — without a uniform and trousers, it’s hard to give orders, even if you are a generalissimo! During the "arrest" of the one-year-old emperor, there was a delay. According to Korf’s version, the soldiers were given strict orders not to make noise and to take the child only when he woke up. So for about an hour they stood silently by the cradle until the boy opened his eyes and cried out in fear at the sight of the fierce faces of the grenadiers. Moreover, in the chaos of packing, the emperor’s four-month-old sister, Princess Catherine, was dropped on the floor in the bedroom. It was later found that she lost her hearing because of this. But no one paid attention to this — little Catherine turned out to be the only victim of Elizabeth’s bloodless revolution.
Although Elizabeth seized power, her position was initially extremely unstable: she had no support among the nobility, there were doubts about the loyalty of the army and the guard (after all, only three hundred soldiers and no officers followed her). It was unclear what to do with the emperor and his parents. The coup was bloodless, the palace did not have to be stormed, so the members of the Brunswick family could not have died supposedly by accident.
Everyone understood that Elizabeth had overthrown the legitimate ruler of the Russian Empire — a relative of many crowned heads, including Frederick II and the Danish King Christian VI. The new empress’s deliberations were brief — the joy of a quick and easy victory made her head spin, and she simply decided to exile the Brunswick family to Germany, out of sight. Perhaps pangs of conscience prompted the new empress to show the magnanimity of a victor. The arrested family was held in Elizabeth’s palace for four days, then placed in closed wagons and taken along the Riga road.
During this time, Elizabeth and her entourage were solving the main task — how to ideologically justify the coup and the overthrow of the legitimate government. The manifesto of November 25 explained that during the previous reign there had allegedly been "both external and internal disturbances and disorders in the state, and consequently considerable devastation to the entire state." However, loyal subjects, "especially our life-guards regiment, most humbly and unanimously begged us to, in order to stop all those past and future feared disturbances and disorders, as being closer by blood, most graciously accept our fatherly throne... and by that our lawful right by proximity of blood" to Peter the Great himself and Empress Catherine I. Thus, two reasons were put forward for overthrowing the previous power: the request of the subjects and "closeness of blood." The manifesto of November 28, 1741, stated that according to Catherine I’s will, Elizabeth was the only lawful heir after the death of Peter II, but "by the treacherous intrigues of Osterman," Elizabeth’s spiritual mother was hidden, and Anna Ioannovna ascended the throne, who in 1740, "already in extreme weakness," passed the throne to the Brunswick family. All these basically lawful actions (as mentioned above) were portrayed in the manifesto as intrigues and violations of the rights of Peter’s daughter. At the same time, Anna Leopoldovna "did not hesitate to call herself the Grand Duchess of All Russia, from which not only great disorders, extreme oppression, and offenses began." What was meant here remains a mystery, as does why there was not a word about Biron’s regency. But further in the manifesto there is outright falsehood: "...but they even dared to proclaim Princess Anna Empress of All Russia while her son was still alive."
By this manifesto, both the ruler and her son the emperor were immediately "demoted" in status and henceforth were called in official papers, respectively, "princess" and "prince." Moreover, later the ruler (but not her foreign husband) was forced to sign an oath sheet, usual for ordinary subjects of the Russian Empire. Thus, she was recognized as a subject of the Russian Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and the wife of a foreign prince ("Princess Anna of Brunswick-Lüneburg"), with whom she was to follow abroad. At the end of the manifesto, a sentence was essentially passed: "And although she, Princess Anna, and her son, Prince John, and their daughter, Princess Catherine, have no slightest claim or right to the inheritance of the All-Russian throne, nevertheless, considering their relation, the princess and her prince Ulrich of Brunswick, to Emperor Peter II by maternal ties and out of our special natural imperial mercy to them, not wishing to cause them grief, with due honor and worthy satisfaction, pardoning all their above-mentioned various reprehensible acts to us to the utmost oblivion, have ordered all of them to be most graciously sent to their homeland." This was the entire "legal basis" for their exile abroad.
Almost immediately, a nationwide campaign began to eradicate the memory of the year of Emperor Ivan III’s reign. His name and title, as well as the name and title of the ruler, were forbidden to be mentioned anywhere (such was considered a state crime), and if necessary, euphemisms were used in documents: "...the former reign of known persons." On December 31, 1741, it was ordered to withdraw all coins minted under Ivan. Since then, the "Ivan ruble" became a dangerous find in change received by a person. All decrees, manifestos, official papers, all printed materials mentioning the emperor and the ruler were withdrawn from record-keeping, and oath sheets were publicly destroyed.
Source:
Anisimov Evgeny Viktorovich: Secrets of the Forbidden Emperor
