Pavel I

Emperor of the Russian Empire . He was the only son of Peter III and Catherine II , and the paternal grandfather of Alexander II . He was also the paternal great-grandfather of Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich , Alexander III , and the paternal great-grandfather of Nicholas II .

He was born as the only son of Peter III and Catherine II . There is a rumor that he is the son of Catherine's affair, but it is only a rumor and there is no basis for it.[2] As soon as he was born, he was separated from his parents and raised by Empress Elizaveta .

After his father , Peter III , was dethroned by a coup d'état by his mother, Catherine II, he was the crown prince , but in reality, he was in a politically dangerous position that threatened his mother's throne, and in fact, at the beginning of Catherine II 's reign, several rebellions broke out due to her legitimacy. did. Catherine ousted Peter III because she was a foreigner unrelated to the Romanov dynasty, but because Pavel, who was 9 years old at the time, was young, she crowned herself emperor instead of her son and ruled.[3]

Pavel grew up separated from his parents as soon as he was born. As soon as Empress Yeliza Beta was born, she carried the child without allowing Catherine to see her child, and raised him exclusively on her own. She had little interaction with Catherine. Her political stance was also subtle and she had an uneasy relationship with her biological mother, but she also had affection for Catherine II .[4] She hadn't completely given up on repairing her relationship with her son. When choosing her daughter-in-law for her only legitimate son, Pavel, he personally chose her along with her son in consideration of her beauty, and gave her a lot of money, allowing her to spend it on her mansion and her hobby of milling . I did it. However, it was the Pugachev Rebellion that dealt a decisive blow to her mother-son relationship . This is because Pugachev, the leader of this peasant revolt that devastated southern Russia in a three-year rebellion, impersonated himself as Peter III and used Pavel's enthronement as a justification for the revolt.

Because of this, the relationship between mother and son became strained, and various ambitious people who tried to separate them began to spread the Kadera communication system, which became acrimonious. Moreover, because of this Kadera , Catherine blocked her son's involvement in political affairs and almost drove him out by giving him Gatchina, and when Pavel left the capital and was excluded from political affairs, he made the subjects who had been left behind under Catherine II as his close associates.

In the end, Ekaterina II was reluctant to Pavel, who was her only legitimate son and political opponent, and when her eldest grandson Alexander and second grandson Constantine were born, she was taken away by her son and his wife and raised by herself. So, like his father, Alexander grew up without much affection from his parents, and he planned to have his grandson Alexander enthroned instead of his son for more than 10 years before Catherine's death. As such, Crown Prince Paul ascended the throne as King Paul I.

As soon as he ascended the throne, Pavel attempted to deny everything related to his mother and tried to ban not only the French style prevalent in the Russian imperial court but also foreign customs and objects. In the words of Pavel I, “the only things that were valuable in the Russian Empire were themselves, their troops, and the people who talked to them.” However, the only thing that was valuable to him was the moment he spoke. It is said that he had some mental problems, although not as much as his father.

As soon as the coronation ceremony was held in 1797 , the Act of Succession to the throne was announced, establishing the principle of primogeniture succession . Until then, succession to the throne in Russia involved the emperor directly appointing a successor during his lifetime, but Pavel I made the succession law into a law like in Western Europe. This principle of primogeniture was a measure to determine the successor to the throne in advance and prevent political chaos.[5] This can also be seen as the result of an attempt to succeed to the throne by skipping the throne in protest against his mother's reign.

In foreign policy, he hated the French Revolution so much that he regulated not only ideology but even French-style clothing. At this time, Aleksandr Suvorov , considered one of the best soldiers of the Russian Empire , defeated the French army on the Italian peninsula and lost Malta to Napoleon Bonaparte , leaving a wandering Catholic. He also became a knight commander of the Knights of Malta . Because of this, he was treated as a traitor by the European countries that surrendered to France , but soon everyone except Russia surrendered to France, so he had no choice but to accept peace. As a side note, during his visit to France, Pavel made a courtesy remark to the young Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, daughter of Louis

On the one hand, it sought to expand the influence of the Russian Empire within the European continent, and this achieved success by attracting Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark in 1800, resulting in the creation of the Second Armed Neutral Alliance, due to Britain's indiscriminate censorship of merchant ships. However, due to disruptions in maritime trade, Britain dispatched a fleet under the command of Hyde Parker and Horatio Nelson , and Britain defeated Denmark in the Battle of Copenhagen. The Emperor was indignant , but there was nothing he could do about the British Navy at sea .

At home, he was losing popularity due to his oppressive policies. Above all, it received a lot of backlash for restricting the privileges of nobles . During the reign of his mother , Catherine II, to make up for his weak legitimacy by gaining popularity with the military and nobility, he strengthened the privileges of serfdom by giving away state-owned serfs . Pavel recovered the state-owned serfs that had been distributed to his subjects during the time of Empress Catherine II and kicked out the empress's mistresses from the court. At the same time, he shortened the serfs' obligation to serve their landowners for four days a week to three days and left the remaining serfs. During the time, we tried to put it into national farms. Simple arithmetic means that the landowners' income is reduced by a quarter. Of course, this does not mean that they were merciful to the serfs, but they spread serfdom to the newly developed southern part of Russia and distributed serfs to the subjects who supported them faster than Catherine II.

In addition, in the military, after Yelizaveta Petrovna, she even tried to reform the military system by dressing the Russian Imperial Army , which was allergic to German styles, in the Prussian Kingdom Army uniform , which was her hobby . They even treated Grand Marshal Suvorov, an invincible general, with disdain and even banned him from holding a triumphal ceremony. After returning to his homeland, Grand Marshal Suvorov died in vain after suffering at his home.

As a result, a coup d'état was openly rumored among the nobles, and in order to further arouse the suspicions of the suspicious Pavel, the opposition spread rumors that his wife and sons, Alexander and Constantine, were planning to kill the emperor. In response, Pavel kicks his family out of the palace.

Pavel I, who had been separated from his family as the suspected illness became increasingly severe, had his bodyguard regiment stationed at the palace, but an incident occurred on the night that the commander of the bodyguard regiment was sent out. Leonty Leontijevich Bennigsen and his officers raided his bedroom and forced him to abdicate. When Pavel I refused, Nikolai Alexandrovich Zubov killed Pavel I with a sword.

It is said that Leonti Leontijevich Bennigsen led the charge, but there are also rumors of British support, and it was not an independent crime. It has been a long time since we lost the favor of the nobles. As the story goes, Leonty Leontyevich Bennigsen said to Aleksandr , who was crying after not being able to sleep for three days in a row after the news became known, "Stop crying and rule!" It is said that he was angry. Later, Alexander neither rewarded nor expelled those who participated in the coup, but simply dismissed them.

In fact, it is said that the sons, Alexander I , and the second son, Archduke Constantine , were aware of the assassination plot in advance. It is still unclear whether he even agreed to the assassination, but the prevailing theory is that at least he agreed to his father's abdication, and there was an agreement to the extent of "no harm".

Thanks to this, Alexander heard strong suspicions and reprimands from his mother, Maria Fyodorovna, for killing his father, and it is said that he suffered from guilt for killing his father throughout his reign.

However, Paul I, too, fell into a conspiracy theory that his family would assassinate him, divorced his decent wife, remarried the mistress, and even attempted to deprive Alexander and his brothers of the succession rights, who were born to Empress Maria Feodorovna .[6] In the end, from Alexander's point of view, there would have been no room for opposition to political elimination, even if it wasn't until his father's assassination.

Until recently, most of the negative evaluations were in Russia because they were hidden by Yekaterina and Alexander I and were assassinated in short reigns . However, even if he seriously wanted to reform, he was highly regarded in a liberal state like the UK , just by touching the farmer , and the drip of Tolstoy would have been more peaceful if the Emperor Pavel had lived . Both Yekaterina II and Alexander I have a liberal tendency, but after the crown, the adults are reacted to the circumstances of adults.

Above all, there are too many people who turn into enemies. In particular, Grand Marshal Suvorov, a famous Russian leader , showed a shameful and petty attitude, unable to distinguish between public and private matters, such as refusing to even attend the triumphal ceremony or an audience simply because he was his mother's person. Even when Suvorov died, they prevented him from holding a funeral worthy of a grand marshal, who had achieved unprecedented feats, and insulted him to the end, holding the ceremony in the manner of a general marshal. Many analyzes say that she enjoys taking male lovers and that, as the eldest son, she is revenge for her neglectful mother.

Just before his death, he ordered his Cossack troops to attack British-controlled India and drive out British forces from India. There were many opinions ridiculing this, calling it madness suffering from unrealistic delusions, but recent research results show that it was not such a reckless and foolish order, and some believe that it had its own potential. Europe was in the throes of the Napoleonic Wars, so Britain was at its wit's end, and Napoleon's Russian expedition had not yet materialized, and the southeastern territory of the Russian Empire almost bordered northern India, so it was not a completely unexpected structure. Therefore, the conspiracy theory that Britain was involved in his assassination is also linked to this action.

His first wife was Princess Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt, a German, whom he married in 1773 while he was archduke . After Wilhelmine married into the Russian imperial family, she was called Natalia Alexeyevna. It is said that Pavel loved Natalia passionately. However, Natalya ended up having an affair with her husband Pavel's best friend. When Catherine II found out about this and sent the lover abroad, Pavel tried to protect his friend, so it seems that he thought the affair was just a rumor. Natalia died during childbirth in 1776 (age 22).

Since then , he has remarried with Zopido Temana in Burstemberg in 1776 , and in the meantime, Alexander (born in 1777), the second son Constantine (born 1779) , Alexandra (born in 1783), Yelena (born 1784), Mariya (born 1786), Yekaterina (born 1788), Only six daughters, including Olga (born in 1792) and Anna (born in 1795), were born, and Nikolai (born 1796) and four -year -old Mihail (born 1798) were born.

However, Olga died young in 1795, and Alexandra and Yelena died in childbirth. After Paul I , the Salic law was revised for the succession of the Russian Empire . Of the four sons, the eldest son, Alexander I, left only two daughters, the second son, Constantine, had only illegitimate children and married a nobleman, and the fourth son, Mikhail, also had five daughters. Because of this, the genealogy of the Romanov family continues only through the lineage of the third son , Nicholas I.

Looking at the portrait , you can see that Pavel I was close to an ugly man . In contrast, his second wife, Princess Sophie Dorothea of ​​Württemberg, was so beautiful that it is said that she brought Württemberg's good looks to the Romanov family, and she was even taller than the short, ugly man Pavel . Thanks to this, in contrast to Pavel I, his son Nicholas I became one of the most handsome men of his time, to the point where he was called the most handsome man in Europe . Thanks to Sophie Dorothea's upgrading of the appearance of the Romanov family(?), the grand dukes of the Romanov dynasty after Nicholas I were tall and had very good looks.

Strictly speaking, in the case of the Pavlovic/Pavlovna generation, there are children who inherited the outstanding appearance of their mother, Sophie Dorothea, and some children who inherited the looks of the ugly son Pavel I, but the son Nikolai I inherited the mother's appearance . And from the children and descendants of Nicholas I, who was also married to Charlotte of Prussia, who was also an outstanding beauty, there were many tall and handsome women.

Like Queen Victoria of England and King Christian IX of Denmark , his descendants are leading European monarchs. His second daughter Yelena , third daughter Maria , sixth daughter Anna , and third son Nicholas I became the ancestors of the kings of England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden, respectively.[13]

After the death of Pavel I , Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to take Pavel's fourth daughter, Catherine Pavlovna, as his second wife, but Empress Maria was furiously opposed to the idea that Napoleon, the leader of the European mob, would become her son-in-law, and Alexander I, who, according to Russian custom, could not win over his mother in this matter, quickly married his half-cousin, Duke George of Oldenburg . He sent Catherine away in marriage.[14]

Of course, he had to send a rejection letter to Napoleon, but since the aristocratic etiquette at the time did not include direct rejection or criticism, what he said to Napoleon, who was 40 years old and in urgent need of an heir, was, "Instead of the fourth sister, I have the youngest sister, Anna Pavlovna, who is 14 years old . Please wait until she grows up." Even so, this letter arrived after Napoleon invaded Austria and proposed marriage to Princess Maria Ludovica, daughter of Franz II, in Vienna. Naturally, Napoleon accepted this quite uncomfortably, and a rumor was spread among the royal family that "If Napoleon had obediently offered his sister as a tribute, there would have been no Russian expedition , no fall of Napoleon, and the history of Europe would have changed."

6th daughter, Anna Pavlovna, was born in the Netherlands She became the queen of King Willem II, and although they had different religions and tastes, her husband respected the Orthodox faith, so there was no particular problem in her life. However, their children were raised as Protestants by marriage contract. From the 19th century, when religious colors were fading in Europe, when marriages between countries or families of different religions, one party converted or agreed to raise children in a particular religion, so religious differences did not become as big a problem as in previous times . . Ironically, from Peter III, the father of Paul I, to Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor , almost all of them intermarried with non-Orthodox German princely families.[15]