Tsar Peter Fedorovich whose son. Peter III - unknown Russian emperor

Having married the Duke of Holstein Karl-Friedrich, daughter Anna Petrovna lost her rights to the Russian throne. Her son, who was named Karl-Peter-Ulrich at birth, was more fortunate - he, however, for a very short time, became the Russian emperor under the name Peter III (10.02.1728-06.07.1762). His wife, who overthrew him in 1762, an impostor on the Russian throne, Catherine II, did everything to present her husband as a narrow-minded and petty person, largely slandering his memory.

Biography of Peter III

The boy lost both parents early: his mother died in childbirth, his father when the child was only 11 years old. With caregivers he did not find common language and did not receive formal education. Despite the high origin, the future Russian emperor was subjected to cruel corporal punishment, which, in many ways, shaped his character, in which good nature and gentleness alternated with fits of anger. He was fond of playing the violin and achieved almost perfection in performance. In 1742, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna remembered her nephew and ordered him to be brought to Russia. Shortly after his arrival, he was proclaimed heir to the throne. Elizabeth the young man was obliged and the transition to Orthodox faith under the name of Peter Fedorovich. Soon he was married to Princess Sophia Augusta-Frederick of Angelt-Tserbskaya. This is how the future rulers of Russia, Peter III and Catherine II, met. The marriage cannot be called successful, each in it was on its own. Moreover, Peter was deliberately cold with his wife, and she, in turn, sought solace in the arms of other gentlemen. It is not for nothing that the version is so stubbornly held in Russian historiography that the father of the future Emperor Paul I was not Peter III at all, but Count Alexei Saltykov, one of Catherine's many lovers. However, a simple glance at the portraits of both is enough to easily detect a direct relationship, not to mention similar character traits. Peter became emperor after the death of Elizabeth Petrovna. His short reign left an ambiguous impression on his contemporaries and an ambiguous memory on his descendants. Peter did a lot, if not everything, contrary to, in spite of the memory of the late empress. For too long, his pride and lust for power had been infringed, and now nothing and no one held them back. In the end, Peter restored the guard against himself, which turned out to be like death in the literal sense. The deposed emperor was taken to a hunting lodge in Ropsha, where he was kept under guard. There he was, most likely, killed during lunch by one of the Orlov brothers.

Domestic policy of Peter III

Six months - exactly so much was released to Peter to implement his own plans. However, it is very difficult to say that he had any specific program for the reorganization of Russia. The emperor was in a fever and was thrown from one extreme to another. Among the most significant events of that time, one can single out the granting of liberties to the nobility through the Imperial Manifesto, the weakening of church land tenure, the cessation of persecution for the faith (this was especially true of schismatic Old Believers), as well as the liquidation of the Secret Chancellery hated by many. At the same time, Peter began to zealously rebuild the army in the Prussian manner, which was, in the end, a fatal step for him.

Foreign policy of Peter III

If called internal politics Peter's consistent, as noted above, is difficult, then the external, on the contrary, was quite definite. All the successes of Russia in the seven-year war with Prussia were, in fact, nullified by an alliance with the Prussian Emperor Frederick, Peter's idol from his youth.

• The body of the emperor was originally buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, but the son of Peter, Emperor Paul I, who came to power in 1796, ordered that the remains of both parents rest together in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. In retaliation, Pavel ordered one of the alleged murderers, Count Alexei Orlov, to accompany the coffin of his parent.
• The people did not have time to love, not to hate Peter III, unlike the guard.
• Some refused to consider him killed, and on this wave of sentiment, such a phenomenon as imposture revived again. The most famous impostor who took the name of Peter III, of course, was the Yaik Cossack Emelyan Pugachev.

During his short reign, Emperor Peter III managed to develop a vigorous activity. During his reign, he signed almost 200 decrees! Some of the laws were extremely importance.

Peter III carried out decrees that, in general, continued the line of his predecessors, and sometimes he went even further than them. So, many of the undertakings conceived by the emperor are subsequently implemented by his wife - Ekaterina Alekseevna, who took the throne later.

Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility

Secularization Decree

They were in a difficult position in the 60s. XVIII century serfs of church and monastery lands. For 20 years, the number of peasant uprisings in the monastery lands has tripled. The peasants demanded to be transferred to the position of the state. Peter III signed a decree on secularization: the lands with the peasants inhabiting them were confiscated from churches and monasteries and transferred to the ownership of the state. This meant improving the situation of hundreds of thousands of peasants and strengthening the state treasury.

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Years of life : February 21 1 728 - June 28, 1762.

(Peter-Ulrich) Emperor of All Russia, son of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp Karl-Friedrich, son of the sister of Charles XII of Sweden, and Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great (born in 1728); he is thus the grandson of two rival sovereigns and could, under certain conditions, be a contender for both the Russian and the Swedish throne. In 1741, after the death of Eleonora Ulrika, he was elected the successor of her husband Frederick, who received the Swedish throne, and on November 15, 1742, he was declared by his aunt Elizaveta Petrovna heir to the Russian throne.

Weak physically and morally, Pyotr Fedorovich was brought up by Marshal Brummer, who was more of a soldier than a teacher. The barracks order of life, established by the latter for his pupil, in connection with severe and humiliating punishments, could not but weaken the health of Pyotr Fedorovich and interfered with the development in him of moral concepts and a sense of human dignity. The young prince was taught a lot, but so clumsily that he got a complete aversion to the sciences: Latin, for example, he got tired of so much that later in St. Petersburg he forbade placing Latin books in his library. They taught him, moreover, preparing him mainly for the occupation of the Swedish throne and, therefore, brought him up in the spirit of the Lutheran religion and Swedish patriotism - and the latter, at that time, was expressed, by the way, in hatred of Russia.

In 1742, after the appointment of Peter Fedorovich as heir to the Russian throne, they began to teach him again, but in a Russian and Orthodox way. However, frequent illnesses and marriage to the princess of Anhalt-Zerbst (the future Catherine II) prevented the systematic conduct of education. Pyotr Fedorovich was not interested in Russia and superstitiously thought that he would find his death here; Academician Shtelin, his new tutor, despite all efforts, could not inspire him with love for his new fatherland, where he always felt like a stranger. Military affairs - the only thing that interested him - was for him not so much a subject of study as fun, and his reverence for Frederick II turned into a desire to imitate him in small things. The heir to the throne, already an adult, preferred fun to business, which every day became more and more strange and unpleasantly amazed everyone around him.

"Peter showed all the signs of a stopped spiritual development", says S.M. Solovyov; "he was an adult child." The empress was struck by the underdevelopment of the heir to the throne. The question of the fate of the Russian throne seriously interested Elizabeth and her courtiers, and they came to various combinations. Some wished that the empress, bypassing her nephew, would pass throne to his son Pavel Petrovich, and as regent, until he came of age, appointed Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, wife of Peter Fedorovich. Such was the opinion of Bestuzhev, Nik. Iv. Panin, Iv. Iv. Shuvalova. Others stood for the proclamation of Catherine the heir to the throne. Elizabeth died , not having time to decide on anything, and on December 25, 1761, Peter Fedorovich ascended the throne under the name of Emperor Peter III. He began his activities by decrees, which, under other conditions, could have brought him popular favor. Such is the decree of February 18, 1762 . about the liberty of the nobility, which removed compulsory service from the nobility and was, as it were, the direct predecessor of Catherine's letter of commendation to the nobility 178 5 AD This decree could make the new government popular among the nobility; another decree on the destruction of the secret office that was in charge of political crimes, it would seem, should have contributed to its popularity among the masses.

It happened, however, differently. Remaining a Lutheran in his soul, Peter III treated the clergy with disdain, closed home churches, addressed insulting decrees to the Synod; by this he aroused the people against him. Surrounded by the Holsteiners, he began to remake the Russian army in a Prussian way and thus armed the guard against him, which at that time was almost exclusively noble in composition. Prompted by his Prussian sympathies, Peter III immediately after his accession to the throne refused to participate in Seven Years' War and at the same time from all Russian conquests in Prussia, and at the end of his reign he began a war with Denmark because of Schleswig, which he wanted to acquire for Holstein. This aroused the people against him, who remained indifferent when the nobility, in the person of the guards, openly rebelled against Peter III and proclaimed Empress Catherine II (June 28, 1762). Peter was removed to Ropsha, where he died on July 7.

Russian Biographical Dictionary / www.rulex.ru / Cf. Brikner "History of Catherine the Great", "Notes of Empress Catherine II" (L., 1888); "Memoirs of the princesse Daschcow" (L., 1810); "Shtelin's Notes" ("Reading the Society of Russian History and Antiquities", 1886, IV); Bilbasov "History of Catherine II" (vols. 1 and 12). M. P-ov.

Portrait of the future Emperor Peter III by G. K. Groot, 1743

Genealogical tree- proof of family ties between Peter III and Catherine II

The history of the greatest Russian empress begins in 1729 in Stettin. She was born under the name Sophia Augusta Federica of Anhalt-Zerbst. In 1744, Elizabeth Alekseevna invited Catherine II to St. Petersburg, where she converted to Orthodoxy. She did not agree with her fate, but her upbringing and humility took over. Soon, Grand Duke Peter Ulrich was married to a young lady as a bride. The wedding of Peter III and Catherine II took place on September 1, 1745.

Childhood and education

Mother of Peter III - Anna Petrovna

Father of Peter III - Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp

The husband of Catherine II was born in 1728 in the German town of Kiel. They named him Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, since childhood he was supposed to inherit the Swedish throne. In 1742, Elizaveta Alekseevna declared Karl the heir to the Russian throne, he remained the only descendant of Peter I the Great. Peter Ulrich arrived in St. Petersburg, where he was christened and given the name Pyotr Fedorovich. The procedure went through with great effort, the young heir opposed Orthodoxy and openly declared his dislike for Russia. Upbringing and education were not given importance, this was reflected in the future views of the emperor.

Tsesarevich Peter Fedorovich and grand duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, 1740s G.K. Groot

Portrait of Peter III - Antropov A.P. 1762

The strong-willed, ambitious, fair Empress of Russia was not lucky with her husband. The husband of Catherine II was not a worthy person, not too physically and mentally developed. When Peter III and Catherine II first met, she was outraged by his ignorance and lack of education. But the young people had no choice, the future was predetermined by Elizaveta Petrovna. Marriage did not bring Pyotr Fedorovich to his senses, on the contrary, he expanded the circle of his amusements and hobbies. He was a man with strange preferences. The emperor could run around the room for hours with a whip or gather all the lackeys in order to play soldiers. Pyotr Fedorovich had a genuine interest in military service, but only in a playful way, he was not going to seriously engage in this.

Relationships between spouses

The husband of Catherine the Great turned out to be cold, indifferent and even hostile towards her. For example, he could wake her up at night to eat oysters or talk about the lady he liked. Pyotr Fedorovich was tactless, not only to his wife, but also to those around him. Even after the birth of his son Pavel Petrovich in 1754, Peter remained a big child. Catherine all this time was engaged in self-development and education. Even during the reign of Elizabeth, she occupied her worthy niche at court, where she soon found like-minded people and minions. People saw in her the future for the Russian Empire, many were close to her liberal views. Her husband's inattention was one of the reasons that pushed the future empress into the arms of her first lovers and favorites.

Ekaterina Alekseevna conducted diplomatic correspondence, interfered in state affairs, tried to influence them. And this did not go unnoticed by Elizabeth Petrovna and the husband of Catherine the Great, in order to avoid exile, she began to play her game secretly, convincing the court of her simplicity and harmlessness. If it were not for the sudden death of Pyotr Fedorovich's aunt, he would not have ascended the throne, because the conspiracy already existed. With the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, the old branch of the Romanov family was interrupted.

Peter III with Catherine II and son - G.K. Groot

Sudden reign

Peter III began his reign with the destruction of the "secret office", gave liberties to the nobles in 1762, pardoned many people. But this did not endear the people to the emperor. His desire to reform the church and the return of all the lands conquered from Prussia in the Seven Years' War made the emperor the subject of popular indignation. Catherine II took advantage of her dislike for her husband, all the while preparing a coup, by the day of which there were 10,000 soldiers and supporters among the nobles behind her, including the Orlov brothers. Which, while the husband of Catherine the Great was in Oranienbaum, secretly brought her to St. Petersburg and proclaimed Empress, and Paul I in the future, heir to the Russian crown on July 9, 1762.

The next day, Peter III abdicated the throne. A letter from Peter III to his wife who overthrew him has been preserved.

Despite this request, during his imprisonment in Ropsha, he died under unclear circumstances, according to one version - from a blow to the head during a drinking bout, according to another - he was poisoned. It was announced to the people that he had died of "hemorrhoidal colic." This was the beginning of the era of the reign of Catherine II the Great.

Coronation of Catherine II in the Assumption Cathedral. 1762. According to the drawing by J.-L. Devilly and M. Makhaeva

Versions of the murder

According to one version, Alexei Orlov was called the killer. Three letters of Alexei to Catherine from Ropsha are known, of which the first two exist in the original.

“Our freak became very ill and an unexpected colic seized him, and I’m dangerous that he doesn’t die tonight, but I’m more afraid that he doesn’t come to life ...”

“I’m afraid of your Majesty’s wrath, so that you didn’t deign to think furiously at us and so that we weren’t the parable of the death of your villain<…>he himself is so sick now that I don’t think that he survived until the evening and is almost completely unconscious, which the whole team here knows and prays to God that he get out of our hands as soon as possible. »

From these two letters, the researchers realized that the abdicated sovereign suddenly fell ill. The guardsmen did not need to forcibly take his life due to the transience of a serious illness.

The third letter speaks of the violent nature of the death of Peter III:

“Mother, he is not in the world, but no one thought of this, and how can we think of raising our hands against the Sovereign. But, madam, a disaster happened: we were drunk, and he too, he argued with Prince Fyodor [Baryatinsky]; we didn’t have time to separate, but he was gone.”

The third letter is the only documentary evidence known to date of the murder of the deposed emperor. This letter has come down to us in a copy made by F. V. Rostopchin. The original letter was allegedly destroyed by Emperor Paul I in the early days of his reign.

In Russian history, perhaps, there is no ruler more blasphemed by historians than Emperor Peter III. Even about the crazy sadist Ivan the Terrible, the authors of historical studies speak better than about the unfortunate emperor. What kind of epithets historians did not reward Peter III with: "spiritual insignificance", "reveler", "drunkard", "Holstein martinet" and so on and so forth. How did the emperor, who reigned for only half a year (from December 1761 to June 1762), guilty of pundits?

Holstein Prince

The future Emperor Peter III was born on February 10 (21 - according to the new style) February 1728 in the German city of Kiel. His father was Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp, the ruler of the North German land of Holstein, and his mother was the daughter of Peter I, Anna Petrovna. Even as a child, Prince Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp (that was the name of Peter III) was declared heir to the Swedish throne.

Emperor Peter III

However, at the beginning of 1742, at the request of the Russian Empress Elizeveta Petrovna, the prince was taken to St. Petersburg. As the only descendant of Peter the Great, he was declared heir to the Russian throne. The young Duke of Holstein-Gottorp converted to Orthodoxy and was named Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich.

In August 1745, the empress married the heir to the German princess Sophia Frederick Augusta, daughter of the prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who was in the military service of the Prussian king. Having converted to Orthodoxy, the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst began to be called Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna.

Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna - future Empress Catherine II

The heir and his wife could not stand each other. Pyotr Fedorovich had mistresses. His last passion was Countess Elizaveta Vorontsova, daughter of General-in-Chief Roman Illarionovich Vorontsov. Ekaterina Alekseevna had three constant lovers - Count Sergei Saltykov, Count Stanislav Poniatovsky and Count Chernyshev.

Soon, the officer of the Life Guards Grigory Orlov became the favorite of the Grand Duchess. However, she often had fun with other guards officers.
September 24, 1754 Catherine gave birth to a son, who was named Paul. It was rumored at court that the real father of the future emperor was Catherine's lover, Count Saltykov.

Pyotr Fyodorovich himself smiled bitterly:
- God knows where my wife gets her pregnancy from. I don't really know if this is my child or if I should take it personally...

Short reign

On December 25, 1761, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna reposed in the Bose. Peter Fedorovich - Emperor Peter III came to the throne.

First of all, the new sovereign stopped the war with Prussia and withdrew Russian troops from Berlin. For this, Peter was hated by the guards officers, who craved military glory and military awards. Dissatisfied with the actions of the emperor and historians: pundits complain that de Peter III "brought to naught the results of Russian victories."
It would be interesting to know what kind of results the respected researchers have in mind?

As you know, the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763 was caused by the intensification of the struggle between France and England for overseas colonies. For various reasons, seven more states were drawn into the war (in particular, Prussia, which was in conflict with France and Austria). But what interests the Russian Empire pursued, speaking in this war on the side of France and Austria, is completely incomprehensible. It turned out that Russian soldiers died for the right of the French to rob the colonial peoples. Peter III stopped this senseless slaughter. For which he received a "severe reprimand with an entry" from grateful descendants.

Soldiers of the army of Peter III

After the end of the war, the emperor settled in Oranienbaum, where, according to historians, he "indulged in drunkenness" with his Holstein companions. However, judging by the documents, from time to time Peter was also involved in state affairs. In particular, the emperor wrote and published a number of manifestos on the transformation of the state system.

Here is a list of the first events that Peter III outlined:

Firstly, the Secret Chancellery was abolished - the famous secret state police, which terrified all the subjects of the empire without exception, from commoners to high-born nobles. According to one denunciation, agents of the Secret Chancellery could seize any person, imprison him in casemates, betray him to the most terrible torture, and execute him. The emperor freed his subjects from this arbitrariness. After his death, Catherine II restored the secret police - under the name "Secret Expedition".

Secondly, Peter declared freedom of religion for all his subjects: "let them pray to whom they want, but - do not have them in reproach or in a curse." It was an almost unthinkable step for that time. Even in enlightened Europe there was still no complete freedom of religion.

After the death of the emperor, Catherine II, a friend of the French enlighteners and a "philosopher on the throne", canceled the decree on freedom of conscience.
Third, Peter abolished ecclesiastical oversight of personal life subjects: "for the sin of adulterous not to have condemnation for anyone, for even Christ did not condemn." After the death of the king, church espionage was revived.

Fourth, realizing the principle of freedom of conscience, Peter stopped the persecution of the Old Believers. After his death, the government resumed religious persecution.

Fifthly, Peter announced the release of all monastic serfs. He subordinated the monastic estates to civil collegiums, gave arable land to the former monastic peasants for perpetual use and overlaid them with only ruble dues. For the maintenance of the clergy, the king appointed "his own salary."

Sixth, Peter allowed the nobles to freely travel abroad. After his death, the "iron curtain" was restored.

Seventh, Peter announced the introduction of Russian Empire public court. Catherine canceled the publicity of legal proceedings.

Eighth, Peter issued a decree on the "non-silverness of service", forbidding senators and state officials to present gifts with peasant souls and state lands. Only orders and medals were supposed to be signs of encouragement for senior officials. Having ascended the throne, Catherine first of all endowed her associates and favorites with peasants and estates.

One of the manifestos of Peter III

In addition, the emperor prepared a host of other manifestos and decrees, including on limiting the personal dependence of peasants on landlords, on the optionality of military service, on the optionality of observing religious fasts, etc.

And all this was done in less than six months of the reign! Knowing this, how can one believe the fables about the "unrestrained drunkenness" of Peter III?
Obviously, the reforms that Peter intended to implement were far ahead of their time. Could their author, who dreamed of establishing the principles of freedom and civic dignity, be a "spiritual nonentity" and a "Holstein martinet"?

So, the emperor was engaged in state affairs, in between which, according to historians, he smoked in Oranienbaum.
And what was the young empress doing at that time?

Ekaterina Alekseevna with her numerous lovers and hangers-on settled in Peterhof. There she actively intrigued against her husband: she gathered supporters, spread rumors through her lovers and their drinking companions, attracted officers to her side. By the summer of 1762, a conspiracy arose, the soul of which was the empress.

Influential dignitaries and commanders were involved in the conspiracy:

Count Nikita Panin, Acting Privy Councilor, chamberlain, senator, tutor of Tsarevich Pavel;
his brother Count Pyotr Panin, General-in-Chief, hero of the Seven Years' War;
Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, nee Countess Vorontsova, Ekaterina's closest friend and companion;

her husband, Prince Mikhail Dashkov, one of the leaders of the St. Petersburg Masonic organization; Count Kirill Razumovsky, marshal, commander of the Izmailovsky regiment, hetman of Ukraine, president of the Academy of Sciences;
Prince Mikhail Volkonsky, diplomat and commander of the Seven Years' War;
Baron Korf, head of the St. Petersburg police, as well as numerous officers of the Life Guards, led by the Orlov brothers.

According to a number of historians, influential Masonic circles were involved in the conspiracy. In Catherine's inner circle, the "freemasons" were represented by a certain mysterious "Mr. Odar". According to an eyewitness to the events of the Danish envoy A. Schumacher, under this name the famous adventurer and adventurer Count Saint-Germain was hiding.

Events were accelerated by the arrest of one of the conspirators, Captain-Lieutenant Passek.

Count Alexei Orlov - the murderer of Peter III

On June 26, 1762, the Orlovs and their friends began to solder the soldiers of the capital's garrison. With the money that Catherine borrowed from the English merchant Felten, allegedly to buy jewelry, more than 35 thousand buckets of vodka were bought.

On the morning of June 28, 1762, Catherine, accompanied by Dashkova and the Orlov brothers, left Peterhof and headed for the capital, where everything was already ready. The dead drunken soldiers of the guard regiments swore an oath to "Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna", a heavily drunken crowd of townsfolk greeted the "dawn of a new reign".

Peter III with his retinue was in Oranienbaum. Upon learning of the events in Petrograd, the ministers and generals betrayed the emperor and fled to the capital. Only the old Field Marshal Munnich, General Gudovich and a few close associates remained with Peter.
On June 29, the emperor, struck by the betrayal of the most trusted people and having no desire to get involved in the struggle for the hateful crown, abdicated. He wanted only one thing: to be released to his native Holstein with his mistress Ekaterina Vorontsova and faithful adjutant Gudovich.

However, by order of the new ruler, the deposed king was sent to the palace in Ropsha. On July 6, 1762, the brother of the Empress' lover, Alexei Orlov, and his drinking buddy, Prince Fyodor Baryatinsky, strangled Peter. It was officially announced that the emperor "died of inflammation in the intestines and apoplexy" ...

St. Petersburg poet Viktor Sosnora decided to look into this problem. First of all, he was interested in the question: from what sources did the researchers scoop (and continue to scoop!) Dirty gossip about the "dementia" and "insignificance" of the emperor?
And this is what was discovered: it turns out that the sources of all the characteristics of Peter III, all these gossip and fables are the memoirs of the following persons:

Empress Catherine II - who hated and despised her husband, who was the inspirer of a conspiracy against him, who actually directed the hand of Peter's murderers, who, finally, as a result of a coup, became an autocratic ruler;

Princess Dashkova - a friend and like-minded person of Catherine, who hated and despised Peter even more (contemporaries gossip: because Peter preferred her to her older sister- Ekaterina Vorontsova), who was the most active participant in the conspiracy, who after the coup became the "second lady of the empire";
Count Nikita Panin, a close associate of Catherine, who was one of the leaders and the main ideologist of the conspiracy against Peter, and soon after the coup became one of the most influential nobles and headed the Russian diplomatic department for almost 20 years;

Count Pyotr Panin, brother of Nikita, who was one of the active participants in the conspiracy, and then became a commander trusted and treated with royal grace (it was Pyotr Panin that Catherine instructed to suppress the uprising of Pugachev, who, by the way, declared himself "Emperor Peter III").

Even without being a professional historian and not being familiar with the intricacies of source study and criticism of sources, it can be safely assumed that the above-mentioned persons are unlikely to be objective in assessing the person they betrayed and killed.

It was not enough for the Empress and her "accomplices" to overthrow and kill Peter III. To justify their crimes, they had to slander their victim!
And they zealously lied, heaping vile gossip and dirty fiction.

Ekaterina:

"He spent his time in childishness unheard of ...". "He was stubborn and quick-tempered, was weak and frail in build."
"From the age of ten he was addicted to drunkenness." "He mostly showed disbelief ...". "His mind was childish..."
"He despaired. It often happened to him. He was a cowardly heart and weak in head. He loved oysters..."

In her memoirs, the empress portrayed her murdered husband as a drunkard, a reveler, a coward, a fool, a loafer, a tyrant, an imbecile, a debauchee, an ignoramus, an atheist...

"What kind of slop does she pour over her husband just because she killed him!" exclaims Viktor Sosnora.

But, oddly enough, pundits who wrote dozens of volumes of dissertations and monographs did not doubt the veracity of the killers' memories of their victim. Until now, in all textbooks and encyclopedias, one can read about the "insignificant" emperor, who "brought to naught the results of Russian victories" in the Seven Years' War, and then "drunk with the Holsteiners in Oranienbaum."
Lies have long legs...
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