Paul I of Russia
Paul I of Russia (;
Pavel Petrovich) (
October 1,
1754–
March 23,
1801) was the
Emperor of Russia between
1796 and
1801.
Paul was born in the
Summer Palace at
St Petersburg. He was the son of the Grand Duchess, later Empress,
Catherine. In her memoirs, she strongly implies that his father was not her husband, the Grand Duke
Peter, later Emperor, but her lover
Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and so could not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is fairly likely that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt on Paul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim.
During his infancy Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress
Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnacious facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of
typhus, from which he suffered in
1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the English
ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as
1764. However, others suggest that the empress, who was at all times very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in charge of a trustworthy governor,
Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.
Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina of
Hesse-Darmstadt (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna") in
1773, and allowed him to attend the council in order that he might be trained for his work as emperor. His tutor Poroshin complained of him that he was "always in a hurry", acting and speaking without reflection.
After his first wife died in childbirth, his mother arranged another marriage on
October 7,
1776, with the beautiful
Sophia Dorothea of
Württemberg, renamed in Russian "Maria Feodorovna". At this time he began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination. He also suspected his mother of intending to kill him, and once openly accused her of causing broken glass to be mingled with his food. Yet, though his mother removed him from the council and began to keep him at a distance, her actions were not unkind. The use made of his name by the rebel
Pugachev, who had impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul's position more difficult. On the birth of his first child in
1777 the Empress gave him an estate,
Pavlovsk. Paul and his wife gained leave to travel through western Europe in
1781-
1782. In
1783 the Empress granted him another estate at
Gatchina, where he was allowed to maintain a brigade of soldiers whom he drilled on the Prussian model.
|
Paul's rooms in Gatchina Castle, where he spent his youth. |
Maria bore Paul 10 children:
*
Alexander I (1777 - 1825), succeeded Paul as Emperor of Russia. Married
Louise of Baden.
*
Konstantin Pavlovich (1779-1831), who renounced his succession rights on 1822. Married Princess Juliane of
Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld (Anna Fedorovna) and, after their divorce, Johanna
Grudna-Grudczinska, Princess of
Lowicz.
*
Alexandra Pavlovna (1783-1801). Married
Archduke Josef Anton of Austria, son of
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor*
Elena Pavlovna (1784-1803). Married
Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
*
Maria Pavlovna (1786-1859). Married
Carl Friedrich, Grand Duke of
Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach.
*
Ekaterina Pavlovna (1788-1819). Married first Duke Peter of
Oldenburg and second King
Wilhelm I of Württemberg.
*
Olga Pavlovna (1792-1795).
*
Anna Pavlovna (1795-1865). Married King
William II of the Netherlands.
*
Nikolai I (1796-1855), succeeded his elder brother
Alexander as Emperor of Russia. Married to
Charlotte of Prussia.
*
Mikhail Pavlovitch (1798-1849). Married Helene
von Württemberg and had five daughters.
Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a
stroke on
November 5,
1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and, if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumoured that she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the famous
Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of
primogeniture in the House of
Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.
During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the policies of his mother. Although he accused many of
Jacobinism and exiled people merely for wearing Parisian dress or reading French books, he allowed Catherine's best known critic,
Radishchev, to return from
Siberian exile. The army, then
poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month after Paul's ascension. His father Peter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the
Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from
Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the
St. Michael's Castle reads in
Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious mockery of
Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the pompous dedication by Catherine on the '
Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.
Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Apart from Radishchev, he liberated
Novikov from the fortress of
Shlisselburg, yet both libertarians were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the
Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling a medieval
chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites
Kutaysov,
Arakcheyev,
Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented to her lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who didn't share his chivalric views, were dismissed or lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fall into this category.
In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the
Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from
Malta by
Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the
Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial
Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three
castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made from his
courtly love affair with
Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail to his ideal of chivalric manhood.
Paul's independent conduct of the foreign affairs plunged the country into the
Second Coalition against
France in
1798, when he sent
Suvorov to batter
Napoleon in
Switzerland and
Ushakov to assist
Nelson's operations in the
Mediterranean. After great hardships endured and great victories won in either campaign, the Emperor suddenly changed his mind and turned towards armed neutrality against
Britain in
1801.
In both cases it seems as if he acted on personal pique, quarrelling with France because he took a "sentimental" interest in the Hospitallers, and then with England after it had captured
Malta, their traditional home. Besides the previously abandoned plans of a joint Russo-French naval assault onto the
British Isles, another of his famous follies was the dispatching of the
Cossack expeditionary force to fight the English in
India (see
Indian March of Paul).
|
St Michael's Castle, where Paul was murdered within weeks after the housewarming. |
Paul's premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to militarize the nobility in the Prussian manner alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. Although he repealed Catherine's law which allowed the corporal punishment of the free classes and directed reforms which resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.
A conspiracy was organized—some months before it was executed—by Counts
Petr Alekseevich Pahlen,
Nikita Petrovich Panin, and the half-Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer
Admiral Ribas. The death of Ribas delayed the execution. On the night of the
March 11 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the newly built St Michael Castle by a band of dismissed officers headed by
General Bennigsen, a
Hanoverian in the Russian service. They burst into his bedroom after supping together and when flushed with drink. The conspirators forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, and he was then strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, the Emperor
Alexander I, who was actually in the palace, and to whom general
Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins, announced his accession.
A common unresearched view of Paul I is that he was mad, had a mistress, and had accepted the office of
Grand Master of the Order of St. John which furthered his delusions. Therefore, the conclusion was that these eccentricities and his unpredictability in other areas led to his assassination. Such a portrait of Paul is a gift to those who seek to discount and ridicule the reign of Paul I. Given that histories are usually written by the victorious party to any conflict, in this context, how true is that picture of Paul?
Comparatively recent research has rehabilitated the character of Paul I. The popularist view of Paul was originally generated by his assassins in justification of their actions. It would be easy for authors writing about Paul I to follow the propaganda uncritically, ignoring new research, which has been available for nearly three decades. It is as if the propaganda has become accepted historical fact through being venerated by age.
In the
1970s, two academic Panels provided the assessments of new research into Paul I. These were at Montreal in
1973 and St. Louis in
1976. Some of the findings were presented in a book edited by Hugh Ragsdale in
1979; Paul I: A reassessment of His Life and Reign, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh,
1979. The reappraisal of Paul I has demonstrated his character as someone of high morals, who followed his conscience. Dismissed as unlikely is Paul's infidelity in having a mistress, and the involvement with the Order of St. John is understood against a background of his idealising their history as a lesson in high chivalric ideals, he wished the Russian Nobility would adopt. Paul saw in the Russian Nobles an element of degeneracy, and introducing the high ideals of the
Knights of Malta, was Paul's method of reform. Paul suffered a lonely and strict upbringing and whilst he was eccentric and neurotic, he was not mentally unbalanced. Whilst an analysis of his biography reveals an obsessive-compulsive personality, what the evidence reveals is that he had "characteristics fairly common in the population at large". Where Paul differed, was that by
1796 he had to manage the whole of the Russian Empire.
A recent film on the rule of Paul I was produced by
Lenfilm in
2003.
Poor, Poor Paul ("Бедный, бедный Павел") is directed by Vitaliy Mel'nikov and stars
Viktor Sukhorukov as Paul and
Oleg Yankovsky as Count Pahlen, who headed a conspiracy against him. The film portrays Paul I more compassionately than the long-existing stories about him. The movie won the Michael Tariverdiev Prize for best music to a film at the Open Russian Film Festival "
Kinotavr" in 2003.
A reasonable and balanced picture of Paul I, can be gained from; Hugh (Ed) Paul I: A reassessment of His Life and Reign, University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1979.
For early literature tending to suggest that Paul was mad see;*For Paul's early life; K. Waliszewski,
Autour d'un trone (Paris, 1894), or the English translation,
The Story of a Throne (London, 1895), and P. Morane,
Paul I. de Russie avant l'avenement (Paris, 1907).
*For Paul's reign; T. Schiemann,
Geschichte Russlands unter Nikolaus I (Berlin, 1904), vol. i. and
Die Ermordung Pauls, by the same author (Berlin, 1902).
*Other readings : (in Russian) V.V.Uzdenikov. Monety Rossiyi XVIII-nachala XX veka (Russian coinage from XVIII to the beginning of XX century). Moscow - 1994. ISBN 5-87613-001-X.
*
Pavel I - Prince of Gatchina, Digest
*
Godunov to Nicholas II by Saul Zaklad
