The reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna, niece of Peter the Great, is sometimes called the era of foreign dominance. Let us quote Vasily Klyuchevsky: “Germans poured into Russia like chaff from a torn sack, swarming the court, besieging the throne, climbing into all lucrative administrative positions… Biron and his creatures crept stealthily like thieves behind the throne.” Anna’s rule came to be known as the “Bironovshchina,” named after the empress’s favorite.

However, some researchers believe that this era should not be called Bironovshchina but rather Lipmanovshchina, since among those close to the favorite was the influential Jewish banker Levi Lipman. According to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s version, presented in his book “Two Hundred Years Together,” Biron allegedly “handed over all financial management to Lipman” and “consulted him on matters of Russian state affairs.” Other memoirists go even further, claiming that both Biron and his patron Empress Anna Ioannovna were puppets in the skillful hands of this puppeteer, who was the real ruler of Russia.

Anna was the daughter of Peter’s elder brother, the feeble-minded Ivan. But her young husband, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Courland, suddenly died in January 1711 from excessive drinking, and Anna, now the newly minted Duchess of Courland, moved to Mitau. “She loves pomp to excess,” people said of her.

Anatoly Glazunov claims that in Courland Anna was surrounded only by “Germans and Jews.” However, no Jews are found in the entourage of the newly minted duchess. And where would they have come from? The sons of Israel lived in the region in a semi-legal status. Moreover, the low social standing of Jews did not encourage interaction with them, and such contact was hardly possible.

However, there is an exception to every rule: her chamberlain and close friend Ernst Johann Biron, wishing to please the luxury-loving Anna, during his stay in St. Petersburg on ducal business, introduced her to the financial magnate, the unbaptized Jew Levi Lipman. He was the court Jew of Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp—a descendant of Swedish kings. Karl Friedrich was not plagued by phobias and readily used the services of Jewish financiers.

Peter the Great linked geopolitical interests of the empire with this claimant to the Swedish throne, betrothed his daughter to him, and in the summer of 1721 warmly received him in Russia. His Highness arrived in Muscovy with his retinue, which included court Jews who had received special permission to enter the country as attendants of the august person. The first mention of Levi dates precisely to this time. Holstein chamberlain Friedrich Wilhelm Bergholz, in his “Diary” dated June 23, 1721, reports stopping on the way to St. Petersburg at the well-known inn Red Tavern, 15 versts from the city: “The Golitsyn court Jew Lipman traveled post from Reval to Petersburg” (some historians believe it should read “Holstein” rather than “Golitsyn,” meaning he served Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp). At that time, the future Russian Empress Anna Ioannovna lived in Courland, greatly in need of money, and it is possible that Lipman managed her finances. The duke’s stay in Russia lasted a long six years: he married the emperor’s eldest daughter, Tsarevna Anna Petrovna, and became a member of the Supreme Privy Council. It was thanks to his patron that Lipman gained useful connections in this country.

As a result, Levi earned the favor of the imperial court and remained in St. Petersburg. Notably, according to a decree signed by Menshikov on June 26, 1727, “to the Jew Lipman” was paid 6,000 rubles “for three orders of Saint Catherine with diamonds made.” Through Lipman, young Peter II and his august sister Natalia Alexeyevna received fabulously expensive rings and “various gold and silver items with diamonds.” Levi was also recognized as an authoritative connoisseur of jewelry: after the death of Tsarevna Natalia Alexeyevna, he was entrusted with appraising all the jewels she left behind.

Historian Mendel Bobe, in his book “Jews of Latvia,” claims that Lipman achieved such favor with Anna that he “managed all the finances of the duchy.” A more logical version is presented by the respected historian Julius Hessen: the duchess was then in great need of money, and Lipman was able to be useful to her.

For the unbaptized Jew Levi Lipman under Empress Anna, it seemed a starry hour had come. Apparently, despite all her flaws, this monarch was grateful and remembered kindness. As the Dane Peder von Haven noted, “As soon as the empress ascended the throne, she especially generously rewarded certain merchants who dared to lend money.” One of them was Levi. Most likely, those historians who believe he was Biron’s protégé and that Anna Ioannovna was favorable to him only because she supposedly dared not oppose her favorite are mistaken. In reality, her religious anti-Semitism was soothed by gratitude to Levi for his past services, and her intolerance was broken by the desire not to lag behind Europe in luxury. Thus, the scales tipped in favor of the “useful” Jew Lipman. Already in the first years of her reign, Lipman was paid hundreds of thousands of rubles by the empress for diamond items, rings, and orders “taken by him to the highest court.”

In 1734, an important event occurred in Lipman’s life—the Jew became a supplier to the court not only de facto but also de jure, receiving the official court position of Ober-Hof-Kommissar, and in 1736, chamber agent. Historian Prince Pyotr Dolgorukov notes that these positions “were created especially for Lipman.” In fact, it was quite the opposite: Lipman was created for the positions so needed by the newly formed Russian court. Moreover, Lipman was a well-known figure: his bills were paid in Vienna and Madrid.

And so, like his fellow bankers, Levi became Ober-Hof-Kommissar, chamber agent, and performed similar work. He dealt with jewelry, transferred money to Russian diplomats for urgent needs, financed the Russian army abroad; traded wine and potash, and even handled negotiations for hiring foreign theater troupes and specialist doctors, etc. Lipman financed the construction of magnificent Baroque palaces in Mitau and Rundale designed by the famous Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli. The court granted him increasingly impressive sums. It is enough to say that in 1734 alone he received 95,000 rubles!

What kind of Ober-Hof-Kommissar was Lipman? It is hard to find a more repulsive figure in historical fiction. Just look at Lipman’s appearance as painted by Ivan Lazhechnikov in the novel “The Ice House,” so the reader can feel disgust toward this character: “Lipman’s shoulders-extracted head, with its half-disc of reddish hair, radiating golden rays from under a black sable hat, with an open mouth, with watchful eyes as if ready to seize and devour its prey… His eyes clutched like the devil’s claws into the soul.” He had “a pale elongated face, eyes emitting a phosphorescent gleam,” “orangutan-like ears moving back and forth,” and he smiled “with his huge lips, so that in hell’s audience, of course, they would applaud this artistic arch-devilish smile.” However, for some reason, we do not want to applaud the writer who gave free rein to his inflamed imagination: no portraits of the Hof-Kommissar have survived, so the author could not have painted him from life and fell captive to hackneyed anti-Semitic clichés. “An intriguer and a complete scoundrel,” “a Christ-seller,” calls Lipman the hero of Vasily Avenarius’s story “Bironovshchina,” who “grimaced angrily at the name of the court banker Lipman, who was at the same time a spy, informer, and Biron’s closest adviser.” However, these baseless accusations and insults against the Hof-Kommissar crumble to dust when confronted with historical material. Notably, the Spanish ambassador, Duke Jacobo Francisco de Liria y Herica—who was known for his anti-Semitism and considered Jews “a dirty and swinish people”—called Lipman “an honest Jew,” and such praise is priceless! Indeed, Levi was always ready to lend a helping hand to those in need. At a critical moment, he supported, quite selflessly, the young jeweler, the Swiss Jeremey Posier, when he owed a considerable sum to someone and planned to flee abroad. Levi not only encouraged him and convinced him to stay in Russia but also paid off his debt and provided profitable orders. According to Posier, Lipman allegedly told him that in Russia he could “honestly earn quite decent money.” Thanks to Levi, the young jeweler became personally known to Anna Ioannovna, and his affairs prospered. There is evidence that Lipman kept his word firmly, was reliable in business, and—everyone knew this—he could always be counted on. He knew the value of money and performed his work impeccably and on time.

In the case of Posier, another quality of Levi manifested—insight, the gift of recognizing people. After all, he guessed in him the future “Fabergé of the 18th century.”

Lipman was also quick to do good to co-religionists in trouble. In 1734, the Shklov Jew Kushnel Girshov’s young son, Berk, was kidnapped by Lieutenant Bekelman and soldier Ivanchin. Then came a personal decree from the empress dated November 19—to return the son to his father and punish the kidnappers. Consider the very fact: in Russia, a law prohibits Jews from residing in the empire, yet the empress suddenly took an interest in the fate of some Jew and intervened. This was exclusively thanks to Lipman: a copy of this decree was later sent to him. One can only guess how much diplomacy, tact, and courage Levi used to persuade the Russian autocrat to help his unfortunate co-religionists!

He petitioned the throne for his co-religionists and often managed to accomplish something. According to a contemporary, he received permission from the empress “to keep as many Jews as he wished, although generally they were forbidden to live in Petersburg and Moscow.” Historian Lev Tikhomirov claims that thanks to Lipman, a whole Jewish colony firmly established itself in the capitals. Facts testify that Levi’s figure became a kind of center of Jewish life, as was customary in Europe, where religious communities usually gathered around court Jews.

And here is another remarkable fact: after Biron’s fall from grace, his alleged closest collaborator Lipman was for some reason left untouched. Meanwhile, the regent who replaced Biron, Anna Leopoldovna, dealt with the duke’s entire entourage. When news of the financier’s dismissal appeared in foreign newspapers, the St. Petersburg Gazette of January 13, 1741, denied it. “Ober-Kommissar, Mr. Lipman,” the newspaper reported, “continues his commerce as before and is present at all public occasions at the local Imperial Court.” The reason for Levi’s “unsinkability” lies elsewhere—the monarchs desperately needed his services. It is enough to say that during Anna Leopoldovna’s one-year reign, the Brunswick family acquired diamonds and jewelry worth more than one hundred and fifty thousand rubles through the Jew’s mediation.

With Elizabeth’s accession to power, everything changed. The first thing was to expel Lipman from the court along with all his financial agents, and the positions of Hof-Kommissar and chamber agent were abolished because Her Majesty would not “have a single Jew in Her service.” However, the St. Petersburg Gazette in 1743 wrote that Lipman, despite everything, retained his position. It reported that the famous Jew was still at court as Oberhofkommissar. But many historians believe this was just a journalistic error.

How the life of this remarkable man ended is unknown. It is assumed he died in 1745, leaving historians only to guess what happened to the fabulous wealth that Lipman could not have failed to accumulate during his long and successful financial career. History has not preserved any portraits of Lipman. Apparently, as a true Jew, he did not allow artists to paint him. However, contemporaries remembered him in splendid attire befitting a minister. Writer Leonty Rakovsky, in his novel “The Amazed Captain,” describes a conversation among Jewish innkeepers about him: “Lipman is dressed no worse than royal ministers. What, does he have such a beautiful zhupan? Leyzer smiled—Zhupan. Ha! He doesn’t have a zhupan but a caftan with golden buttons. If I had just the buttons from his caftan, I swear, I would wear a clean shirt every Saturday!”

Sources:

Lev Berdnikov, Notes on Jewish History

Alina Iosifovna Rebel, Jews in Russia: The Most Influential and Wealthy