Russian hamlet pavel 1 why. Why was Paul I called the Russian Hamlet? (English literature)

During the stay of the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in Vienna in 1781, it was decided to stage a parade in honor of the Russian prince. Shakespeare's Hamlet was chosen, but the actor refused to play the main role: “You are crazy! There will be two Hamlets in the theater: one on the stage, the other in the imperial box! ”

Indeed, the plot of Shakespeare’s play was very reminiscent of Paul’s story: his father, Peter III, was killed by his mother, Catherine II, next to her all-powerful temporary worker, Potemkin. And the prince, removed from power, was exiled, like Hamlet, to travel abroad ...

And in fact, the play of Paul’s life unfolds like a drama. He was born in 1754 and was immediately taken from his parents by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who decided to raise a boy herself. The mother was allowed to see her son only once a week. At first she was homesick, then she got used to it, calmed down, especially since a new pregnancy came. Here we can see that first, inconspicuous crack, which subsequently turned into a gaping abyss that forever separated Catherine and adult Paul. Separating a mother from a newborn is a terrible trauma for both. Over the years, mother became estranged, and Paul never had the first sensations of a warm, gentle, perhaps obscure, but unique image of his mother, with whom almost everyone lives ...

Of course, the child was not left to the mercy of fate, he was surrounded by care and affection, in 1760, educator N.I. Panin appeared next to Pavel, an intelligent, educated man who greatly influenced the formation of his personality. It was then that the first rumors spread that Elizabeth wanted to raise her heir from Paul, and that the boy he hated would send her to Germany. Such a turn of events was impossible for the ambitious, dreaming of the Russian throne of Catherine. The imperceptible crack between the mother and son, again against their will, expanded: Catherine and Pavel, albeit hypothetically, on paper, as well as in gossip, became rivals, rivals in the struggle for the throne. This was reflected in their relationship. When Catherine came to power in 1762, she could not, looking at her son, feel uneasiness and jealousy: her own situation was unreliable - a foreigner, usurper, husband-killer, the lover of her subject. In 1763, a foreign observer noted that when Catherine appeared, everyone was silent, "and the crowd always runs after the Grand Duke, expressing their pleasure with loud cries." In addition, there were people who happily drove new wedges into the crack. Panin, as a representative of the aristocracy, dreamed of limiting the power of the empress and wanted to use Paul for this, putting ideas of the constitution in his head. At the same time, he quietly but consistently turned his son against his mother. As a result, having not firmly mastered Panin’s constitutional ideas, Pavel was accustomed to rejecting the principles of his mother’s rule, and therefore, becoming king, he so easily went to overthrow the fundamental foundations of her policy. In addition, the young man learned the romantic idea of \u200b\u200bchivalry, and with it the love of the outside of the matter, decorativeness, he lived in a world of dreams far from life.

1772 is the age of Paul's coming of age. The hopes of Panin and others that Paul would be admitted to management did not materialize. Catherine was not going to transfer power to the rightful heir of Peter III. She took advantage of the age of her son to remove Panin from the palace. Soon the empress found her son a bride. In 1773, by the will of his mother, he married the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt Augustus Wilhelmina (in Orthodoxy - Natalya Alekseevna) and was quite happy. But in the spring of 1776, Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna died in heavy tribulation. Paul was inconsolable: his Ophelia was no longer in the world ... But his mother cured her son of grief in the most cruel way, similar to amputation. Having found a love correspondence between Natalya Alekseevna and Andrei Razumovsky, a court, close friend of Pavel, the empress passed these letters to Pavel. He was immediately cured of grief, although one can imagine what a severe wound was then inflicted on the thin, fragile soul of Paul ...

Almost immediately after the death of Natalia, he was found a new bride - Dorothea Sophia Augusta Louise, Princess of Wirthemberg (in Orthodoxy, Maria Fedorovna). Pavel unexpectedly for himself immediately fell in love with his new wife, and the young began to live in happiness and peace. In the fall of 1783, Pavel and Maria moved to the former estate of Gregory Orlov Gatchina donated to them by the Empress (or, as they wrote then, Gatchino). So began the long Gatchina epic of Paul ...

In Gatchina, Paul created not just a nest, a cozy house, but built a fortress for himself, contrasting it in all of St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo, the “depraved” court of Empress Catherine. Prussia, with her cult of order, discipline, strength, drill, was chosen as a role model by Paul. In general, the Gatchina phenomenon did not appear immediately. Let's not forget that Paul, becoming an adult, did not receive any power and his mother deliberately kept him away from government affairs. Waiting for the “line” for the throne lasted for Pavel over twenty years, and his sense of worthlessness did not leave him. Gradually, he found himself in military affairs. A thorough knowledge of all the intricacies of the charters led to strict adherence to them. Linear tactics, built on regular, rigorous training in coordinated movement techniques, required complete automatism. And this was achieved by continuous exercises, divorces, parades. As a result, the element of the parade ground completely captured Paul. This specific life form of the then military man became the main thing for him, turned Gatchina into little Berlin. A small army of Paul was dressed and trained according to the charters of Frederick II, the heir himself lived the harsh life of a warrior and an ascetic, not like these libertines from the always-celebrating nest of vice - Tsarskoye Selo! But here, in our Gatchina, order, labor, work! The Gatchina model of life, built on tight police supervision, seemed to Pavel the only worthy and acceptable. He dreamed of spreading it to all of Russia, for which he set about becoming emperor.

At the end of Catherine’s life, the relationship between her son and mother went wrong irreparably, the crack between them became a gaping chasm. Paul’s character gradually deteriorated, suspicions grew that his mother who had never loved him could deprive him of his inheritance, that her favorites wanted to humiliate the heir, were watching him, and the hired villains were trying to poison - now, once they even stacked sausages in stacks.

Finally, on November 6, 1796, Empress Catherine died. Paul came to power. In the early days of his reign, it seemed that a landing of a foreign power had landed in St. Petersburg - the emperor and his people were dressed in unfamiliar Prussian uniforms. Paul immediately transferred the Gatchina system to the capital. Black and white striped booths brought from Gatchina appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg, police frantically pounced on passers-by, who at first were frivolous with strict decrees banning dress coats and vests. In the city that lived under Catherine the midnight life, a curfew was imposed; many officials and military men who did not please the sovereign in some way lost their ranks, ranks, posts and were sent into exile in no time. The divorce of the palace guards - the usual ceremony - suddenly turned into an important event on a national scale with the presence of the sovereign and the court. Why did Paul become such an unexpectedly harsh ruler? After all, as a young man, he once dreamed of the rule of law in Russia, he wanted to be a humane ruler, to reign according to irrevocable ("indispensable") laws containing good and justice. But not so simple. Paul's philosophy of power was complex and contradictory. Like many rulers in Russia, he tried to combine autocracy and human freedoms, “power of the individual” and “executive power of the state,” in a word, he tried to combine the incompatible. In addition, over the years of waiting for his “turn” to the throne in the soul of Paul, an entire icy mountain of hatred and revenge has grown. He hated his mother, her orders, her favorites, her figures, the whole world created by this extraordinary and brilliant woman, called by the descendants the “Catherine’s era”. It is possible to rule with hatred in the soul, but not for long ... As a result, no matter what Paul thinks about law and law, ideas of tightening discipline and regulation began to prevail in his entire policy. He began to build only one "executive state." Perhaps this is the root of his tragedy ... The fight against the "licentiousness" of the nobility meant, first of all, the infringement of their rights; restoring order, sometimes necessary, in the army and state apparatus led to unjustified cruelty. Undoubtedly, Paul wished his country good, but he was drowning in “pettiness”. And it was just people who remembered them most of all. So, everyone laughed when he forbade the use of the words "snub-nosed" or "Masha." In pursuit of discipline and order, the king did not know any measure. His subjects heard many wild decrees of the sovereign. So, in July 1800, all printing houses were ordered to "seal, so that nothing was printed in them." Well said! However, soon this ridiculous order had to be canceled - labels, tickets and labels were needed. It was also forbidden for the audience to applaud in the theater if the sovereign sitting in the royal box did not do this, and vice versa.

Communication with the emperor became painful and dangerous for others. In place of the humane, tolerant Catherine was a stern, nervous, uncontrollable, absurd man. Seeing that his wishes remained unfulfilled, he was indignant, punished, cracked down. As H. M. Karamzin, Pavel wrote, “to the inexplicable surprise of the Russians, he began to reign supreme with general horror, not following any rules except his whim; considered us not subjects, but slaves; executed without guilt, awarded without merit, took away shame from execution, from reward - charm, humiliated ranks and ribbons with wastefulness in them ... He taught the marching heroes accustomed to victories. Having, as a man, a natural tendency to do good, he ate the bile of evil: daily he invented ways to frighten people, and he himself was more afraid of all; I thought to build myself an impregnable palace and built a tomb. " In a word, it did not end in good. A conspiracy was ripened against Paul in the midst of the army and among the aristocracy, on March 11, 1801, a night revolution took place and in the newly built Mikhailovsky Castle, Pavel was killed by conspirators who broke into the royal bedroom.

  "The emperor was short, his features were ugly, with the exception of his eyes, which were very beautiful, and their expression, when he was not in anger, had attractiveness and infinite softness ... He had excellent manners and was very kind to women ; he had literary literacy and a quick and open mind, was inclined to joke and have fun, he loved art; he knew the French language and literature perfectly; his jokes never carried a bad taste, and it is hard to imagine anything more elegant than brief gracious the words he spoke to others in moments of complacency. " This description Pavel Petrovich, which belongs to the pen of the Most Serene Princess Darya Lieven, like many other reviews of people who knew him, does not fit too well with the usual image of a stupid, hysterical and cruel despot. But what ten years after the death of Paul wrote one of the most thoughtful and impartial contemporaries - Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin  : "... The Russians looked at this monarch as a formidable meteor, counting the minutes and looking forward to the last ... She came, and the news of the whole state was the message of redemption: in houses, on the streets people cried with joy, hugging each other, as on the day of the bright Resurrection. "

Many other equally controversial evidence could have been cited. Of course, we are used to the fact that historical figures rarely receive unanimous admiration or unconditional condemnation. Estimates of contemporaries and descendants depend too much on their own passions, tastes and political convictions. But the case with Paul is different: as if woven from contradictions, he does not fit well into ideological or psychological schemes, being more complicated than any labels. Perhaps that is why his life caused such a deep interest in Pushkin  and Lev Tolstoy  , Klyuchevsky and Khodasevich.

The fruit of dislike.  He was born on September 20, 1754 in a family ... But it was very difficult to name just the family of Sophia Frederick Augusta Anhalt-Zerbstskaya and Karl Peter Ulrich Golshtinsky, who became Ekaterina Alekseevna and Peter Fedorovich in Russia. Spouses were so hostile to each other and had so little desire to demonstrate mutual fidelity that historians still argue who was Paul's true father - Grand Duke Peter or chamberlain Sergei Saltykov, the first of a long series of favorites Catherine  . However, the then Empress Elizabeth Petrovna waited so long for the appearance of the heir that she left all doubts to herself.

Immediately after the birth of the baby, the baby was unceremoniously taken from her mother: the empress did not intend to take risks, trusting the unloved daughter-in-law to educate the future Russian monarch. Catherine was only occasionally allowed to see her son - each time in the presence of the empress. However, later, when the mother got the opportunity to engage in his upbringing, she did not become closer to him. Deprived of not only parental warmth, but also communication with peers, but overly patronized by adults, the boy grew up very nervous and shy. Showing remarkable learning abilities and a lively, moving mind, he was sometimes sensitive to tears, then capricious and self-willed. According to the notes of his beloved teacher Semyon Poroshin, Paul’s impatience is well known: he was constantly afraid of being late for some time, in a hurry and was even more nervous, swallowing food without chewing, constantly looking at his watch. However, the regime of the day of the little grand duke was really barracks severe: getting up at six and classes until the evening with short breaks for lunch and rest. Then - not at all children's court entertainment (masquerade, ball or theater performance) and sleep.

Meanwhile, at the turn of the 1750-1760s, the atmosphere of the St. Petersburg court was gathering: Elizaveta Petrovna's health, which had been ruined by stormy amusements, was rapidly deteriorating, and the question of a successor arose. He seemed to be there: was it not for this that the empress had discharged from Germany a nephew, Pyotr Fedorovich, to give him the reins of government? However, by that time, she recognized Peter as incapable of governing a huge country and, moreover, imbued with a spirit of hate to worship Prussia, with which Russia waged a heavy war. So there was a project of the enthronement of little Paul under the regency of Catherine. However, it never materialized, and on December 25, 1761, power passed into the hands of the emperor. Peter III .

In the 186 days of his reign, he managed to do a lot. To make an inglorious peace with Prussia with the concession to it of all that was conquered and to abolish the Secret Chancellery, which for decades has terrified all the inhabitants of the empire. Demonstrate to the country a complete disregard for its traditions (primarily to Orthodoxy) and free the nobility from compulsory service. Eccentric and trusting, quick-tempered and stubborn, devoid of any diplomatic tact and political intuition - with these features he surprisingly anticipated the character of Paul. On June 28, 1762, a conspiracy led by Catherine and the Orlov brothers ended the short reign of Peter III. According to the apt remark of the beloved Prussian king Frederick the Great, "he allowed himself to be thrown from the throne, like a child who is sent to sleep." And on July 6, the Empress with bated breath read the long-awaited news: her husband was no longer alive. Peter was strangled by the drunken guard officers who guarded him, headed by Fedor Baryatinsky and Alexey Orlov  . He was buried imperceptibly, and not in the imperial tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral, but in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Formally, this was justified by the fact that Peter was never crowned. After 34 years, becoming emperor, Paul shocked everyone with an order to remove the decaying remains of his father from the grave, to crown and solemnly bury along with the remains of his mother. So he will try to restore the violated justice.

The education of the prince.  The succession order in the Russian Empire was extremely confused yet Peter I , according to the decree of which the reigning sovereign should appoint the heir. It is clear that the legitimacy of being on the throne of Catherine was more than doubtful. Many saw her not as an autocratic ruler, but only regent with her young son, who shared power with representatives of the noble elite. One of the staunch supporters of the restriction of autocracy in this way was the influential head of the College of Foreign Affairs and the heir educator Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin. It was he, right up to the age of Paul, who played a decisive role in shaping his political views.

However, Catherine was not going to sacrifice the fullness of her power either in 1762, or later, when Paul grew up. It turned out that the son turns into a rival, on whom all dissatisfied with her will pin their hopes. He should be closely monitored, warning and suppressing all his attempts to gain independence. His natural energy should be directed in a safe direction, allowing him to "play soldiers" and reflect on the best state system. It would also be nice to take his heart.

In 1772, the Empress convinces the Grand Duke to postpone the celebration of his coming of age until the wedding. The bride has already been found - this is the 17-year-old Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, who received the name of Natalya Alekseevna in baptism. Amorous Paul was crazy about her. In September 1773, the wedding was solemnly celebrated, at the same time Count Panin was removed from the crown prince with numerous awards and awards. Nothing happens anymore: the heir, as before, is almost completely excluded from participation in state affairs. Meanwhile, he is eager to show his ability to be a worthy sovereign. In his 1774 Discourse on the State in General, Regarding the Number of Troops Required to Defend It and Regarding the Defense of All Limits, Pavel proposed abandoning the conquest of new territories, reforming the army on the basis of clear regulations and strict discipline, and establishing a “long peace that brought we would have perfect peace. " The empress, in whose mind just at that time a grandiose plan for the conquest of Constantinople was forming, such reasoning at best could cause only a condescending smile ...

In his memoirs, the Decembrist M.A. Fonvizin sets out the family tradition of a conspiracy that developed around Paul at that time. The conspirators allegedly wanted to enthrone him and at the same time promulgate a "constitution" restricting the autocracy. Among them, Fonvizin names Count Panin, his secretary - the famous playwright Denis Fonvizin, his brother Panin Peter, his cousin Prince N.V. Repnin, as well as his young wife Paul, known for her independence and waywardness. Thanks to the scammer, Catherine found out about the undertaking, and Pavel, unable to bear her reproaches, admitted everything and was forgiven by her.

This story does not look very reliable, but it undoubtedly reflects the mood that reigned in those years around the Grand Duke, the vague hopes and fears experienced by him and his loved ones. The situation became even worse after death during the first birth of Grand Duchess Natalia (there were rumors that she was poisoned). Paul was desperate. Under the pretext of comforting her son, Catherine showed him the love correspondence of her dead wife with Count Andrei Razumovsky. It is easy to imagine what the Grand Duke survived then. However, the empire needed to continue the royal family, and the bride, as always, was found in the glorious abundance of crowned persons of Germany.

"Private family"?  Sophia Dorothea Augusta of Württemberg, who became Maria Fedorovna, was the exact opposite of her predecessor. Soft, supple and calm, she fell in love with Paul immediately and with all her heart. In the “instruction” specially written by him for his future wife, the grand duke openly warned: “She will have to arm herself with patience and meekness first of all, in order to endure my ardor and changeable mood, as well as my impatience.” This task Maria Fedorovna successfully carried out for many years, and later even found in such a difficult matter an unexpected and strange ally. The maid of honor Ekaterina Nelidova was not distinguished by her beauty and outstanding mind, but it was she who began to play the role of a kind of “psychotherapist” for Pavel: in her company, the heir, and then the emperor, apparently received what allowed him to cope with phobias and outbursts of anger that prevailed over him.

Most of those who watched this unusual connection, of course, considered it an adultery, who, of course, could hardly shock the battered court society of Catherine’s times. However, the relationship between Paul and Nelidova, apparently, was platonic. The favorite and the wife probably represented in his mind as two different sides of the feminine, which for some reason were not destined to unite in one person. At the same time, Maria Fedorovna was not at all enthusiastic about her husband’s relations with Nelidova, but, resigned to the presence of a rival, in the end she was even able to find a common language with her.

The "Small" Grand Ducal Court was initially housed in a gift from Catherine to her son Pavlovsk. The local atmosphere seemed to be saturated with peace and tranquility. “Never has a private family met such a relaxed, gracious and simple guests: at dinners, balls, performances, festivities - everything had an imprint of decency and nobility ...” - the French ambassador Count Segur was delighted when he visited Pavlovsk. The problem, however, was that Paul did not just like the role of the head of the "private family" imposed on him by her mother.

The fact that he himself did not at all fit into the “power scenario” created by Catherine should have become clear to Pavel after the birth of his son. The empress has clearly demonstrated that she connects far-reaching plans with the first-born, in which his parents simply did not have a place. Named by Alexander in honor of two great commanders at once - Nevsky and Macedon - the child was immediately taken from the grand-ducal couple. The same thing happened with the second son, named even more iconic name of the founder of the Second Rome, Constantine. "Greek project" of the empress and Grigory Potemkin  It consisted in the creation under the scepter of Constantine of a new Byzantine empire, which would be connected, according to the apt definition of the famous historian Andrei Zorin, "ties of fraternal friendship" with the "northern" empire of Alexander.

But what to do with Paul? Having coped with the task of a “supplier of heirs”, it turned out that he had already played his part in the play “staged” by the will of Catherine. True, Maria Fedorovna was not going to stop there. “Right, ma'am, you are an expert in creating children for the world,” the empress told her with mixed feelings, amazed at the fertility of her daughter-in-law (ten and ten children were safely born to Mary and Mary). Even in this case, the son was only the second ...

"Poor Pavel" It is not surprising that it was vital for Paul to create his own, alternative "scenario" of what was happening and establish himself as an indispensable link in the chain of rulers, as if revealing the providential meaning of the Russian Empire. The desire to be realized in this capacity gradually becomes for him a semblance of an obsession. At the same time, Paul contrasts the transparent, enlightened rationalism of Catherine, who ordered that everything be treated with irony and skepticism, a different, baroque, understanding of reality. She appeared to him complex, full of mysterious meanings and omens. It was a Book that was to be read simultaneously and correctly, and rewritten by yourself.

In a world where Paul was deprived of all that was rightfully his place, he persistently sought and found signs of his chosenness. During a trip abroad in 1781-1782, where he was sent by his mother under the name of Count Severny as some compensation for everything that was taken away and lost, the grand duke carefully cultivates the image of an “outcast prince,” whom fate destined to exist on the verge between the visible and other worlds .

In Vienna, according to rumors, the performance of Hamlet, which he was supposed to attend, was hastily canceled. In France to the question Louis XVI  of the people loyal to him, Paul said: "Ah, I would be very disappointed if there was even a poodle in my retinue that was faithful to me, because my mother would order him to be drowned immediately after my departure from Paris." Finally, in Brussels, the prince told a story in a secular salon in which his mystical “searches of himself” were reflected in a drop of water.

It happened once during a night walk in Petersburg with Prince Kurakin, Pavel told the audience: "Suddenly, in the depths of one of the porches I saw a figure of a rather tall man, thin, in a Spanish cloak that covered his lower part of his face, and in a military hat pulled over my eyes ... When we passed him, he stepped out of the depths and silently went to my left ... At first I was very surprised; then I felt that my left side was freezing, like a stranger was made of ice ... "Of course , it was a ghost invisible to Kurakin. “Pavel! Poor Pavel! Poor prince!” He said in a “deaf and sad voice.” “... Take my advice: don’t attach yourself to anything earthly in your heart, you are a short-lived guest in this world, you will soon leave it. If you want to be calm death, live honestly and fairly, honestly; remember that remorse is the worst punishment for great souls. " Before parting, the ghost found himself: it was not his father, but Paul's great-grandfather - Peter the Great. He disappeared at the very spot where Catherine installed her Peter the Bronze Horseman a little later. “But I’m scared; scared to live in fear: still this scene is in front of my eyes, and sometimes it seems to me that I’m still standing there, in the square in front of the Senate,” the prince concluded his story.

It is not known whether Pavel was familiar with Hamlet (for obvious reasons, this play was not staged in Russia at that time), but the poetics of the image were masterfully recreated by him. It is worth adding that the sophisticated Europeans were impressed by the Grand Duke as an absolutely adequate, sophisticated, secular, intelligent and educated young man.

Gatchina recluse.  He probably returned to Russia as he returned from a festive performance, where you suddenly got the main role and thunderous applause in a familiar and hateful home environment. The next one and a half decades of life passed in sullen anticipation in Gatchina, which he inherited in 1783 after his death Grigory Orlov  . Paul tried as best he could to be an obedient son and act according to the rules set by his mother. Russia fought hard with the Ottoman Empire, and he was eager for battle even with a simple volunteer. But all that was allowed to him was to participate in a harmless reconnaissance in a languid war with the Swedes. Ekaterina, at the invitation of Potemkin, made a solemn journey along New Russia, annexed to the empire, but the Tsarevich’s participation was not provided for.

Meanwhile, in Europe, in France, which so adored him, a revolution was underway and the king was executed, and he tried to equip his little space in Gatchina. Justice, order, discipline - the less he noticed these qualities in the outside world, the more persistently he tried to make them the basis of his world. Gatchina battalions dressed in Prussian uniforms unusual for Russian uniforms and spending time on parade parades in endlessly honing drill training became an object of irony on duty at the court of Catherine. However, the mockery of everything that was connected with Paul was almost part of the court ceremonial. The purpose of Catherine, apparently, was to deprive the prince of that sacred halo, which, in spite of everything, surrounded the heir to the Russian throne. On the other hand, the Empress’s rejection of the oddities that Paul was famous for, which had grown in seclusion from year to year of “non-politics”, was completely unacceptable. Both mother and son remained hostages to the roles they had taken.

In such circumstances, the plan of Catherine to transfer the throne to her grandson Alexander had every chance to translate into real action. According to some memoirists, the relevant decrees were prepared or even signed by the empress, but something prevented her from promulgating them.

Prince on the throne.  On the night before the death of his mother, the prince repeatedly dreamed the same dream: an invisible force picks him up and lifts him to heaven. The accession to the throne of the new emperor Paul I took place on November 7, 1796, on the eve of the feast day of the formidable Archangel Michael, the leader of the ethereal heavenly army. For Paul, this meant that the heavenly military leader overshadowed his reign with his hand. The construction of the Mikhailovsky Palace in the place indicated, according to legend, by the Archangel himself, was carried out at a feverish pace throughout the short reign. The architect Vincenzo Brenna built (according to the sketches of Paul himself) a real fortress.

The emperor was in a hurry. So many ideas had accumulated in his head that they did not have time to line up. Lies, devastation, rot and extortion - all this he must end. How? Order can only be created from chaos by the strictest and most rigorous observance of each role prescribed to him in a grandiose ceremonial performance, where the role of the author is assigned to the Creator, and the role of the only conductor is to him, Pavel. Each wrong or unnecessary movement is like a false note destroying the sacred meaning of the whole.

The ideal of Paul least of all came down to the soldier’s drill. The daily parade parades, held by him personally in any weather, were only a private manifestation of the obviously doomed attempt to establish the life of the country in the way that the mechanism was established for smooth operation. Paul got up at five o’clock in the morning, and at seven he could already go to any "public place". As a result, work began in all St. Petersburg offices three to four hours earlier than before. An unprecedented thing: Senators from eight in the morning sat at the tables! Hundreds of unresolved cases, many of which have waited their turn for decades, unexpectedly received movement.

In the field of military service, the changes were even more striking. “Our officer’s way of life has completely changed,” recalled one of the brilliant Catherine’s guardsmen. “Under the Empress, we only thought about going to theaters and societies, we dressed in tailcoats, and now from morning till night we sat in the regimental courtyard taught us how to recruit. " But all this was perceived by the elite as a flagrant violation of the "rules of the game"! “To turn guards officers from courtiers to army soldiers, to introduce strict discipline, in a word, turn everything upside down, meant to despise the general opinion and suddenly violate the entire existing order,” another memoirist claims.

It was not for nothing that Paul laid claim to the laurels of his great great-grandfather. His policy largely repeated the "general mobilization" of the times of Peter I, and it was based on the same concept of "common good." Just like Peter, he sought to do everything and control himself. However, at the end of the 18th century, the nobility was much more independent, and the heir also had much less charisma and intelligence compared to the ancestral. And despite the fact that his idea was akin to utopia, it was not devoid of either a peculiar greatness or consistency. Paul's intentions at first met much more sympathy than might have seemed. The people treated him as a kind of "deliverer." And it was not a matter of symbolic benefits (like the serfdom granted them the right to take an oath and complain about the landlords) and not in dubious attempts to regulate the relations of peasants and landlords from the point of view of "justice" (which was manifested in the well-known law on three-day corvee). Ordinary people quickly realized that Paul’s policy was essentially egalitarian in relation to everyone, but “gentlemen”, since they were in plain sight, suffered the most from it. One of the representatives of the "enlightened nobility" recalled that somehow, hiding (just in case) from Paul passing by behind a fence, he heard the soldier standing nearby saying: "Well, our Pugach is coming!" - "I, turning to him, asked:" How dare you speak of your Sovereign like that? "He, looking at me without any embarrassment, answered:" And what, gentleman, you yourself seem to think so, since you are hiding from him. "There was nothing to answer."

The ideal of disciplinary and ceremonial organization Paul found in medieval knightly orders. It is not surprising that he so enthusiastically agreed to accept the title of grandmaster, proposed to him by the Maltese knights of the ancient Order of Ioannites, without even being embarrassed by the fact that the order is Catholic. Discipline the sloppy Russian nobility, turning it into a half-monastic caste - an idea that could not even have imagined Peter's rationalistic mind! However, she was such a clear anachronism that officers dressed in knightly robes even smiled at each other.

Enemy of the revolution, Bonaparte's friend ... Paul's chivalry was not limited to the scope of ceremonial. Deeply affected by the "unjust" aggressive policy of revolutionary France, offended by the seizure of Malta by the French, he could not stand his own peace-loving principles and got involved in the war. However, his disappointment was great when it turned out that the allies - the Austrians and the British - were ready to take advantage of the victories of Admiral Ushakov and Field Marshal Suvorov  but they don’t want to not only reckon with the interests of Russia, but simply follow the agreements reached.

Meanwhile, the 18th Brumaire of year VIII according to the revolutionary calendar (October 29, 1799, according to the Russian calendar), as a result of a military coup, the general came to power in Paris Bonaparte  , which almost immediately began to seek ways of reconciliation with Russia. The eastern empire seemed to him a natural ally of France in the struggle with the rest of Europe, and above all with England. In turn, Paul quickly realized that revolutionary France was coming to an end, and "a king will soon be established in this country, if not by name, then at least in essence." Napoleon and the Russian emperor exchange messages, and Paul expresses an unexpectedly sober and pragmatic view of the situation: “I don’t say and I’m not going to discuss either the human rights or the different methods of governance that exist in our countries. Let's try to restore peace and silence to the world, so him necessary and so consistent with the unchanging laws of Providence. I am ready to listen to you ... "

The foreign policy turn was unusually steep - quite in the spirit of Paul. The emperor’s mind is already seized by the plans to establish by the forces of Russia and France a certain “European equilibrium”, within which he, Paul, will play the role of the chief and impartial arbiter.

By the end of 1800, relations between Russia and Britain had escalated to the limit. Now the British are occupying the long-suffering Malta. In response, Pavel forbids all trade with Britain and arrests all British merchant ships in Russia along with their crews. An English ambassador, Lord Whitworth, is expelled from St. Petersburg, who claimed that the Russian autocrat was crazy and, meanwhile, was actively and not stinting on money to rally the opposition to Pavel in the capital's society. Admiral's squadron Nelson's preparing for a campaign in the Baltic Sea, and the Don Cossacks were ordered to strike in the most vulnerable, as it seemed, place of the British Empire - India. In this confrontation, the stakes for foggy Albion were unusually high. It is not surprising that the “English trace” in the conspiracy organized against Paul is easily distinguishable. Nevertheless, regicide can hardly be considered a successful "special operation" of British agents.

"What I've done?"  "His head is smart, but it has some kind of machine that rests on a string. This string will break - the machine will wrap up, and this will end the mind and reason," once said one of Pavel’s educators. In 1800 and at the beginning of 1801, it seemed to many people around the emperor that the thread was about to break, if it had not yet been torn. “Over the past year, the emperor’s suspicion has developed to monstrosity. The most empty cases grew in his eyes in enormous conspiracies, he drove people to resign and exiled arbitrarily. Numerous victims were transferred to the fortress, and sometimes all their fault was reduced to too long hair or too much short caftan ... "- recalled Princess Lieven.

Yes, the character of Paul skillfully played a variety of people and with different goals. Yes, he was quick-witted and often pardoned the punished, and this feature was also used by his enemies. He knew his weaknesses and struggled with them all his life with varying success. But towards the end of his life, this struggle clearly became overwhelming for him. Paul gradually surrendered, and although he did not reach the point beyond which the "end of reason" begins, he quickly approached it. The fateful role was probably played by the rapid expansion of the familiar and from a very limited horizon of perception to the dimensions of a real and infinite world. Paul’s consciousness was not able to accept and organize it.

Not without the influence of true conspirators, the emperor quarreled with his own family. Even before that, Nelidova was replaced by the cute and near-minded Anna Lopukhina. The environment of Paul was in constant tension and fear. A rumor spread that he was preparing to crack down on his wife and sons. The country froze ...

Of course, from a murmur to regicide - a tremendous distance. But hardly the second would be possible without the first. The real (and unnoticed by Pavel) conspiracy was led by people close to him - von Palen, N.P. Panin (nephew of Paul’s educator), and his old enemies - the Zubov brothers, L. Bennigsen. The consent to the overthrow of the father from the throne (but not to the murder) was given by son Alexander. Forty days before the coup, the imperial family moved to the barely completed, still damp Mikhailovsky Palace. It was here that on the night of March 11 to 12, 1801, the final scenes of the tragedy were played.

The crowd of wine-heated conspirators, who had pretty much thinned out on the way to the Emperor’s chambers, did not immediately find Paul - he hid behind a fireplace screen. His last words were: “What have I done?”

Emperor Pavel I didn’t have an attractive appearance: he was not tall, he had a snub-nosed short nose ... He knew about this and could, on occasion, joke both on his appearance and on his associates: “My ministers ... oh, these gentlemen were very willing to lead me by the nose, but unfortunately for them, I don’t have it! ”

Paul I tried to establish a form of government that would eliminate the causes of war, riots and revolutions. But some of the Catherine nobles, accustomed to licentiousness and drunkenness, weakened the opportunity to realize this intention, did not allow her to develop and establish herself in time in order to change the country's life on a solid basis. A chain of accidents is connected in a fatal pattern: this Paul could not do, and his followers no longer set this task as his goal.

F. Rokotov "Portrait of Paul I in childhood"

S.S. Schukin "Portrait of Emperor Paul I"

Pavel I Petrovich, the All-Russian Emperor, was born on September 20, 1754 in the Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna in St. Petersburg.

Childhood

Immediately after birth, he fell under the full custody of his grandmother, Elizabeth Petrovna, who took care of all the cares for his upbringing, practically removing her mother. But Elizabeth was notable for her inconsistency of character and soon cooled to the heir, passing him to the care of the nannies, who were only concerned that the child would not catch a cold, not get hurt and would not be naughty. In early childhood, a boy with a passionate imagination was intimidated by the nannies: subsequently, he was always afraid of the dark, shuddered at a knock or an incomprehensible rustle, believed in signs, fortune-telling and dreams.

In the fifth year of his life, the boy began to learn grammar and arithmetic, his first teacher F.D. Bekhteev used an original technique for this: he wrote letters and numbers on wooden and tin soldiers and, building them in lines, taught the heir to read and count.

Education

Since 1760, Count N.I. Panin, who was his teacher until the heir entered into marriage. Despite the fact that Pavel preferred military sciences more, he received a fairly good education: he could easily explain in French and German, knew Slavic and Latin, read Horace in the original, and made extracts from books in the process of reading. He had a rich library, a physics office with a collection of minerals, a lathe for physical labor. He knew how to dance well, fencing, was fond of horse riding.

O.A. Leonov "Paul I"

N.I. Panin, himself a passionate admirer of Frederick the Great, raised an heir in the spirit of worshiping all of Prussia to the detriment of national Russian. But, according to contemporaries, in his youth Paul was capable, striving for knowledge, romantically inclined, with an open character, sincerely believing in the ideals of good and justice. After the accession to the throne of the mother in 1762, their relationship was fairly close. However, over time, they worsened. Catherine was afraid of her son, who had more legal rights to the throne than she herself. Rumors circulated around the country of his accession, to him as a "son", cried EI Pugachev. The Empress tried to prevent the Grand Duke from participating in the discussion of state affairs, and he began to more and more critically evaluate the policy of his mother. The maturity of her son, Catherine simply "did not notice," without commemorating him.

Maturity

In 1773, Pavel married the Hessian-Darmstadt princess Wilhelmina (Natalia Alekseevna was baptized). In this regard, his education was completed, and he was to be involved in public affairs. But Catherine did not consider it necessary.

In October 1766, Natalya Alekseevna, whom Pavel loved very much, died in childbirth during childbirth, and Catherine insisted that Pavel marry a second time, which he did when he went to Germany. The second wife of Paul is the Württemberg Princess Sophia-Dorothea-Augusta-Louise (baptized by Maria Fedorovna). The Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia says so about Paul’s further position: “And after that, throughout Catherine’s whole life, the place occupied by Paul in the government spheres was the place of an observer who recognizes the right to supreme leadership of affairs and is deprived of the opportunity to use this right to changes to even the smallest detail in the course of affairs. This situation was especially favorable for the development of a critical mood in Pavel, which acquired a particularly sharp and biliary hue due to a personal element that entered into it with a wide stream ... ”

Russian coat of arms of the reign of Paul I

In 1782, Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna went on a foreign trip and were warmly received in European capitals. Pavel even got a reputation there as a “Russian Hamlet”. During the trip, Paul openly criticized his mother's policies, which she soon became aware of. Upon the return of the grand-ducal couple to Russia, the empress gave them Gatchina, where the “small court” had moved and where Pavel, having inherited from his father a passion for the whole military in the Prussian style, had created his small army, conducting endless maneuvers and parades. He languished with inaction, made plans for his future reign, and made repeated and unsuccessful attempts to engage in state activities: in 1774 he submitted to the Empress a note drawn up under the influence of Panin and entitled "Reasoning about the state regarding the defense of all limits." Catherine praised her as naive and blaming her policy. In 1787, Paul asked his mother for permission to volunteer for the Russo-Turkish war, but she refused him under the pretext of the approaching birth of Maria Fedorovna. Finally, in 1788 he took part in the Russian-Swedish war, but here Catherine accused him of the fact that the Swedish prince Karl was looking for rapprochement with him - and she was recalling her son from the army. It is not surprising that gradually his character becomes suspicious, nervous, biliary and tyrannical. He retires to Gatchina, where he spends 13 years almost without a break. The only thing left for him is to do his favorite thing: to arrange and train "amusing" regiments, consisting of several hundred soldiers, according to the Prussian model.

Catherine had plans to remove him from the throne, citing his bad temper and inability. She saw on the throne of her grandson Alexander, son of Paul. This intention was not destined to come true in connection with the sudden illness and death of Empress Catherine II in November 1796.

On the throne

The new emperor immediately tried to cross out everything that had been done during the 34 years of the reign of Catherine II, to destroy the order of the Catherine reign that he hated - this was one of the most important motives of his policy. He also tried to suppress the influence of revolutionary France on the minds of Russians. In this direction, his policy was launched.

First of all, he ordered the remains of Peter III, his father, who were buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress with the tomb of Catherine II, to be removed from the crypt of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. On April 4, 1797, Pavel was solemnly crowned in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On the same day, several decrees were issued, the most important of which were the “Law on succession to the throne”, which envisaged the transfer of the throne on the principle of pre-Petrine times, and the “Institution of the imperial family”, which determined the order of detention of persons of the reigning house.

The reign of Paul I lasted 4 years and 4 months. It was distinguished by some confusion and inconsistency. For too long, they kept him on a leash. And the leash was removed ... He tried to correct the shortcomings of the previous regime that he hated, but he did it inconsistently: he restored the Petrovsky colleges liquidated by Catherine II, limited local self-government, issued a number of laws leading to the destruction of noble privileges ... They could not forgive him.

In the decrees of 1797, landowners were recommended to fulfill a 3-day corvee, it was forbidden to use the labor of peasants on Sundays, it was not allowed to sell peasants under the hammer, and Little Russians without land. It was ordered to appear on the shelves of the nobles fictitiously credited to them. Since 1798, noble societies became controlled by governors, nobles again began to be subjected to corporal punishment for criminal offenses. But at the same time, the situation of the peasants was not eased.

The transformation in the army began with the replacement of the "peasant" uniform with a new one, copied from Prussian. Wanting to increase discipline in the army, Paul I was daily present at exercises and divorces and severely punished for the slightest mistakes.

Paul I was very afraid of the penetration of the ideas of the Great French Revolution into Russia and introduced some restrictive measures: already in 1797 private printing houses were closed, strict censorship for books was imposed, a ban was imposed on the French fashion, and young people were forbidden to travel abroad.

V. Borovikovsky "Paul I in the uniform of Colonel Preobrazhensky Regiment"

Upon accession to the throne, Paul, in order to emphasize the contrast with his mother, declared peacefulness and non-interference in European affairs. However, when in 1798 Napoleon threatened to recreate an independent Polish state, Russia took an active part in organizing the anti-French coalition. In the same year, Paul assumed the duties of the Master of the Order of Malta, thus challenging the French emperor who had seized Malta. In this regard, the Maltese octagonal cross was included in the state emblem. In the years 1798-1800, Russian troops successfully fought in Italy, and the Russian fleet - in the Mediterranean Sea, which caused concern from Austria and England. Relations with these countries finally deteriorated in the spring of 1800. At the same time, rapprochement with France began, even a plan for a joint campaign against India was discussed. Without waiting for the signing of the corresponding agreement, Pavel ordered the Don Cossacks, who had already been stopped by Alexander I, to march.

V.L. Borovikovsky "Portrait of Paul I in the crown, dalmatian and signs of the Order of Malta"

Despite the solemn promise to maintain peaceful relations with other states made upon accession to the throne, he took an active part in the coalition with England, Austria, the Kingdom of Naples and Turkey against France. The Russian squadron, led by F. Ushakov, was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, where, with the Turkish squadron, it liberated the Ionian Islands from the French. In Northern Italy and Switzerland, Russian troops under the command of A.V. Suvorov won a series of brilliant victories.

The last palace coup of the passing era

Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg, where Paul I was killed

The main reasons for the coup and death of Paul I was the infringement of the interests of the nobility and the unpredictability of the emperor. Sometimes he exiled or sent people to prison for the slightest offense.

He planned to proclaim the throne to be the 13-year-old nephew of Maria Fedorovna, having adopted him, and to imprison his eldest sons, Alexander and Constantine, in the fortress. In March 1801, a ban was issued on trade with the British, which threatened to damage the landlords.

• The fate of this emperor was tragic. He was brought up without parents (from birth he was taken from his mother, the future empress, and raised by nannies. At the age of eight, he lost his father, Peter III, who was killed in a coup) in an environment of neglect by his mother, as an outcast, forcefully removed from power . Under these conditions, he developed suspicion and temper, combined with brilliant abilities for sciences and languages, with innate ideas about knightly honor and state order. The ability to independent thinking, close observation of the life of the court, the bitter role of an outcast - all this averted Paul from the lifestyle and politics of Catherine II. Still hoping to play some role in government affairs, Pavel, at the age of 20, presented his mother with a draft military doctrine of a defensive nature and the concentration of state efforts on internal problems. She was not noted. He was forced to test military manuals at the Gatchina estate, where Catherine had relocated him out of sight. There, Paul's conviction was formed about the benefits of the Prussian order, with which he had the opportunity to meet at the court of Frederick the Great - king, commander, writer and musician. The Gatchina experiments later became the basis of the reform, which did not stop after the death of Paul, creating an army of a new era - disciplined and well-trained.

  Often the time of the reign of Paul I is spoken of as the time of compulsion to discipline, drill, despotism, arbitrariness. However, there is an alternative point of view according to which the “Russian Hamlet” Pavel struggled with slackness in the army and in general in the life of Russia at that time and wanted to put public service in the highest valor, stop the embezzlement and negligence and thereby save Russia from the collapse that threatened it.

  Many jokes about Paul I were distributed in those days by nobles whom Paul I did not allow to live a free life, demanding that they serve the Fatherland.

  Succession Reform

  The decree on succession to the throne was issued by Paul I on April 5, 1797. With the introduction of this decree, the uncertainty of the situation in which the Russian imperial throne found itself with every change of reign and with constant coups and seizures of supreme power after Peter I as a result of its legislation was terminated. Love for the rule of law was one of the brightest traits in the character of Tsarevich Paul at that time of his life. Clever, thoughtful, impressionable, as some biographers describe him, Tsarevich Pavel showed an example of absolute loyalty to the culprit of his removal from life - until the age of 43 he was under undeserved suspicion on the part of the empress mother in the assassination of the power that he rightfully belonged to more than herself, who ascended the throne at the cost of the lives of two emperors (Ivan Antonovich and Peter III). A sense of aversion to coups d'etat and a sense of legality was one of the main incentives that prompted him to reform the succession to the throne, which he considered and decided almost 10 years before its implementation. Paul overturned the decree of Peter on the appointment by the emperor of his successor to the throne and established a clear succession system. From that moment, the throne was inherited along the male line, after the death of the emperor, he passed on to the eldest son and his male offspring, and if there were no sons, to the next oldest brother of the emperor and his male offspring, in the same order. A woman could occupy the throne and pass it on to her offspring only with the suppression of the male line. By this decree, Paul ruled out palace coups when the emperors were overthrown and erected by the force of the guard, the reason for this was the lack of a clear succession system (which, however, did not prevent the palace coup on March 12, 1801, during which he himself was killed). Pavel restored the system of colleges, attempts were made to stabilize the financial situation of the country (including the famous action on the melting of palace services into coins).

  

  Postage stamp "Paul I Signs the Three-Day Corvore Manifesto"

  Background

  The corvee economy of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century was the most intensive form of exploitation of peasant labor and, unlike the quitrent system, led to the ultimate enslavement and maximum exploitation of the peasants. The growth of corvée duties gradually led to the appearance of a month (daily corvee corvée), and small-scale peasant farming faced the threat of extinction. The serfs were not legally protected from arbitrary exploitation of the landlords and the burden of serfdom, which took the form of slavery.

  During the reign of Catherine II, the problem of legislative regulation of peasant duties became the subject of public discussion in an atmosphere of relative publicity. New draft regulation of peasant duties are appearing in the country, heated discussions are unfolding. The key role in these events was played by the activities of the Free Economic Society and the Legislative Commission created by Catherine II. Attempts to legislatively regulate peasant duties were initially doomed to failure due to the tough opposition of the nobility and landlord circles and the related political elite, as well as the lack of real support for reform initiatives from the autocracy.

  Even before accession, Paul I took real measures to improve the situation of peasants in his personal estates in Gatchina and Pavlovsk. So, he reduced and reduced peasant duties (in particular, on his estates for several years there was a two-day corvée), allowed the peasants to go to work in their free time from corvee labor, granted loans to peasants, built new roads in the villages, opened two free medical a hospital for his peasants, built several free schools and colleges for peasant children (including for disabled children), as well as several new churches. He insisted on the need for legislative regulation of the situation of serfs. "Human,  - wrote Paul, - the first treasure of the state ”,“ state savings - the savings of people ”  ("Reasoning about the state"). Not being a supporter of radical reforms in the field of the peasant question, Paul I admitted the possibility of some restriction of serfdom and the suppression of its abuse.

  Manifesto

  GOD'S GRACE

  WE ARE THE FIRST PAUL

  Emperor and autocrat

  ALL-RUSSIAN,

  and other, and other, and other.

  We declare to all OUR faithful subjects.

  The law of God in decalogue taught us US teaches us the seventh day to devote to him; why on the day the real triumph of Christian faith is glorified, and in which WE were honored to receive the sacred anointing of the world and the Tsar’s on Our Progenitor’s Throne, OUR wedding, we honor it as OUR duty to the Creator and all the blessings of the bearer to confirm in all OUR Empire about exact and indispensable execution of this law, commanding everyone and to everyone to watch so that no one, under any circumstances, dares to force peasants to work on Sundays, all the more so for rural products six days remaining in the week for an equal number of those in general shared, both for the peasants in fact, and for their work in favor of the landlords of the following, with good disposition, they will be sufficient to satisfy all economic needs. Dan in Moscow on Easter Day April 5th, 1797.

  

  Manifesto Evaluation by Contemporaries

  Representatives of foreign powers saw in it the beginning of peasant reforms.

  The Decembrists sincerely praised the Manifesto for the three-day corvée of Paul, noting the sovereign's desire for justice.

  The conservative nobility and landlord circles, who considered it an unnecessary and harmful law, met the Manifesto with a muffled murmur and widespread boycott.

  The Manifesto saw the hope of the peasant masses. They regarded him as a law that officially protected their interests and alleviated their difficult situation, and tried to complain about the boycotting of his norms by the landowners.

  But the implementation of the norms and ideas of the Manifesto on the three-day corvee, published by Emperor Paul I, was initially doomed to failure. The ambiguity of the wording of this law and the lack of development of the mechanisms for its implementation predetermined the polarization of the opinions of government and judicial officials of the country in matters of interpretation of its meaning and content and led to complete inconsistency of actions of central, provincial and local structures that controlled the implementation of this law. The desire of Paul I to improve the plight of the peasant masses was combined with his stubborn reluctance to see in the serf peasantry an independent political force and the social support of the anti-serfdom initiatives of the autocracy. The indecision of the autocracy led to the lack of strict control over the observance of the norms and ideas of the Manifesto and the condoning of its violations.

  Military Reform of Paul I

  

  G. Sergeev "Military doctrine on the parade ground in front of the palace" (watercolor)

  1. Single soldier training has been introduced and maintenance has been improved.
  2. A defense strategy has been developed.
  3. Four armies were formed in the main strategic directions.
  4. Military districts and inspections created.
  5. New charters introduced.
  6. Reform of the guard, cavalry and artillery.
  7. The rights and obligations of military personnel are regulated.
  8. General privileges reduced.

  Reforms in the army caused discontent from the generals, the guards. The guards were required to serve as expected. All the officers assigned to the regiments were obliged to come to service from long-term leave, some of them and those who did not appear were expelled. The commanders of the units were limited at the disposal of the treasury and the use of soldiers in household work.

  The military reform of Paul I created the army that defeated Napoleon.

  Jokes about Paul were bloated for political purposes. The indignant nobility did not understand that Paul “tightening the screws” extended the rule of the “service class” for a hundred years.

  Contemporaries of Paul adapted to him. He put things in order and discipline, and this met with approval in society. The true military quickly realized that Paul was ardent, but resourceful, he understood humor. A case is known that allegedly Paul I sent an entire regiment from a watch parade to Siberia; in fact, Paul expressed discontent in a sharp form, reprimanding the commander before the formation. In annoyance, he expressed that the regiment was no good, that he should be sent to Siberia. Suddenly, the regiment commander turns to the regiment and gives the command: “Regiment, march to Siberia!” Then Pavel was dumbfounded. And the regiment marched past him. Of course, the regiment caught up and turned back. And the commander was nothing. The commander knew that such a trick would please Paul in the end.

  First of all, dissatisfaction with Paul was expressed by part of the higher nobility, which fell into disfavor under Paul for various reasons: either because they constituted the “Catherine’s court” that the emperor hated, or were held accountable for embezzlement and other offenses.

  

  F. Shubin "Portrait of Paul I"

  Other reforms

  One of the first attempts was made to create a code of laws. Until now, all subsequent rulers of Russia have tried to create a code like the Code of Napoleon in France. Nobody succeeded. The bureaucracy was in the way. Although under Paul there was a "training" of the bureaucracy, but from this training it became only stronger.
    * Decrees were announced not to be considered laws. During the 4 years of the reign of Paul I, 2179 decrees were issued (42 decrees per month).

  * The principle has been proclaimed: "State revenues, not sovereign". Audits of state institutions and services have been carried out. Significant amounts are collected in favor of the state.
    * The issue of paper money has stopped (by this time I paper ruble cost 66 kopecks in silver).
    * Emphasis was placed on the distribution of land and peasants to private hands (during the reign of 4 years), 600 thousand souls were granted, for 34 years, Catherine II granted 850 thousand souls. Paul believed that the landowners would better support the peasants than the state.
    * A "Loan Bank" was established and a "bankrupt charter" was adopted.
    * The family of academician M. Lomonosov has been exempted from salary.
    * Released Polish rebels led by T. Kostyushko.

  On the night of March 11–12, 1801, Pavel I Petrovich was killed by conspirator officers in the newly built Mikhailovsky Castle: conspirators, mostly guard officers, broke into the bedroom of Paul I demanding to abdicate. When the emperor tried to protest and even hit one of them, one of the rebels began to strangle him with his scarf, and the other hit the temple with a massive snuffbox. It was announced to the people that Paul I died of an apoplexy stroke.

  Pavel I and Maria Fedorovna had 10 children:

  

Russian Hamlet was called by contemporaries of Paul I.

Pavel Petrovich was born on September 20 (October 1), 1754 in the family of Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich (future Peter III) and Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseevna (future Catherine II). The place of his birth was the Summer Palace of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in St. Petersburg.

Portrait of the work of H. H. Grotto. Peter III Fedorovich (Karl Peter Ulrich) State Tretyakov Gallery

Louis Caravaca. Portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna (Sophia Augustus Frederick Anhalt-Zerbst). 1745. Portrait Gallery of the Gatchina Palace

Here began the childhood of Pavel Petrovich

Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna. Engraving of the XVIII century.

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna expressed her favor to the mother of the newborn by the fact that after the christening she herself brought her a decree of the cabinet on the golden dish to give her 100,000 rubles. After the christening at the court, a series of solemn celebrations began regarding the birth of Paul: balls, masquerades, and fireworks lasted about a year. Lomonosov in an ode written in honor of Pavel Petrovich wanted to compare him with his great great-grandfather in business, he prophesied that he would free the Holy places, cross the walls separating Russia from China.

***
Whose son was he?
Since 1744, at the small court, the chamberlain of the Grand Duke and the heir to the throne, Pyotr Fedorovich, was composed of Sergei Vasilyevich Saltykov.
  Why, in 1752, chamberlain Sergei Vasilyevich suddenly began to enjoy success with the wife of the heir to the Russian throne? What happened then at the Russian court?

By 1752, the patience of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who had long and unsuccessfully waited from the Grand Ducal couple for an heir, burst. She kept Catherine under vigilant surveillance, but now changed her tactics. The Grand Duchess was granted some freedom, of course, for a certain purpose. Around the Grand Duke Pyotr Fedorovich, medical bustle was organized, and rumors began to spread about his permission from forced celibacy. Saltykov, who himself participated in the hustle and bustle of rumors, was quite knowledgeable about the real situation, he decided that his hour had struck.

According to one version, he was the father of the future emperor Paul I

Portrait of S.V. Saltykov
  When Catherine II gave birth to Paul, Bestuzhev-Ryumin reported to the Empress:
« ... that the inscription, drawn by the wise consideration of Your Majesty, has taken a good and desired beginning, - the presence of an executor of the highest will of Your Majesty is now not only not necessary here, but even to achieve perfect fulfillment and concealment of secrets for eternal times, it would be harmful. With respect to these considerations, please, the most gracious empress, command Chamberlain Saltykov to be your Majesty’s ambassador to Stockholm, under the king of Sweden. ”

Catherine II herself contributed to the fame of Saltykov as the "first lover"; She, of course, counted on the domestic use of this image and really did not want the spread of such fame to a wider sphere. But the genie could not be kept in the lamp, a scandal erupted.

On the way to their destination, Saltykov was honored in Warsaw, warmly and cordially greeted in the homeland of Catherine II in Zerbst. For this reason, rumors of his paternity strengthened and spread throughout Europe. On July 22, 1762, two weeks after Catherine II came to power, she appointed Saltykov as the Russian ambassador in Paris, and this was taken as confirmation of his proximity to her.

After Paris, Saltykov was sent to Dresden. Having earned from Catherine II the unflattering characterization of the “fifth wheel of the carriage”. He never again appeared at court and died in almost complete obscurity. He died in Moscow with the rank of major general in late 1784 or early 1785.

And now about one more legend about the birth of Tsarevich Pavel.

It was resurrected in 1970 by the historian and writer N. Ya. Eidelman, who published the historical essay Reverse Providence in the New World magazine. Having studied the evidence of the circumstances of the birth of Pavel Petrovich, Adelman does not exclude that Catherine II gave birth to a dead child, but this was kept secret, replacing him with another newborn, Chukhonsky, that is, Finnish, - a boy born in the village of Kotly near Oranienbaum. The parents of this boy, the family of the local pastor and all the villagers (about twenty people) were sent to Kamchatka under strict guard, and the village of Kotly was demolished, and the place where she stood was smelled.

Fedor Rokotov. Portrait of Emperor Paul I in childhood. 1761 Russian Museum

So still no one knows whose son he is. Russian historian G.I. Chulkov in the book "Emperors: Psychological Portraits" wrote:
"He himself was convinced that Peter III was indeed his father. "

Surely in early childhood, Paul heard gossip about his birth. So, he knew that a variety of people considered him "illegitimate." This left an indelible mark on his soul.

***
  Empress Elizabeth loved her great-nephew, she visited the baby twice a day, sometimes got out of bed at night and came to watch the future emperor.

And immediately after birth, she tore him from his parents. She herself began to lead the upbringing of the newborn.
   The empress surrounded the grand-nephew with maids of honor, nannies and nurses, the boy was accustomed to female affection.
  Pavel loved to play with soldiers, firing guns and models of warships.

Porcelain soldiers. Meissen Models of guns on a field carriage from

porcelain manufactory. Model by J. Kendler of the collection of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich

Such a cannon was an exact copy of the real one and could fire both small cores (for this, card bullets were used) and also produce blank shots, i.e. shoot with ordinary gunpowder. Naturally, these amusements of the little Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich took place under the watchful eye of both the educators and the specially appointed batman from the artillery team.
(Napoleon also played such soldiers with his son and nephews, and composer Johannes Brahms simply adored this activity. Our famous compatriot A.V. Suvorov also loved this game very much)

Pavel used a peer society, of which Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin, Panin's nephew, and Count Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky enjoyed his special location. It was with them that Pavel also played soldiers.

   A.K. Razumovsky L. Guttenbrunn. Portrait of A.B. Kurakina
At the age of 4, he began to learn to read and write.
  As a child, Pavel had three Russian teachers who took care of his training and education - Fedor Bekhteev, Semyon Poroshin and Nikita Panin.

F. Bekhteev - The first teacher of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna punished "The pupil of the" female tower " suggest that he is the future man and the King .. ".Upon arrival, he began to teach Paul to read Russian and French in a very original alphabet.
  During classes, Bekhteev began to apply a special method that combined fun with teaching, and quickly taught the Grand Duke reading and arithmetic with the help of toy soldiers and a folding fortress.
  F. Bekhteev presented the prince with a map of the Russian state with the inscription: “Here you see, sovereign, the inheritance that your glorious grandfathers distributed with victories.”
  Under Bekhteyev, the first textbook specially written for Paul, “A Brief Concept on Physics for the Use of His Imperial Highness Sovereign Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich” (St. Petersburg, 1760), was printed.

Semen Andreevich Poroshin - The second tutor of the prince Pavel Petrovich, in the period 1762-1766, i.e. when Paul was 7-11 years old. Since 1762 he has been a permanent gentleman under the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. Poroshin belonged to the Grand Duke with the affectionate warmth of his elder brother (he was 13 years older than Paul), took care of the development of his spiritual qualities and heart, and acquired more and more influence on him; the Grand Duke, in turn, was on friendly terms with him.

And in 1760, when Paul was 6 years old, the empress appointed a chamberlain Nikita Ivanovich Panin   Ober-Hoffmeister (mentor) under Paul. Panin was then forty-two years old. For some reason, he seemed to the little Tsarevich a gloomy and terrible old man.

Paul rarely saw his parents.

On December 20, 1762, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich was granted by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna to the Admiral General of the Russian Navy. His mentors in the difficult naval wisdom were I.L. Golenishchev-Kutuzov (father of the famous Russian commander), I.G. Chernyshev and G.G. Kushelev, who managed to instill in the heir the love of the fleet, which he preserved for life.

Delapierre N.B. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in the admiral's uniform.

When Paul was 7 years old,
  Empress Elizaveta Petrovna died and he was able to constantly communicate with his parents. But Peter paid little attention to his son. Only once did he wander into his son’s lesson and, after hearing his answer to the teacher’s question, exclaimed not without pride:
"I see this little crook knows things better than us."
  As a sign of his favor, he immediately granted Paul the rank of corporal guard.

Paul was a very sensitive boy, trembling with fear from any accidental knock, and quickly hid under the table. For several years, a strange fear haunted Paul. It was difficult to get used to even patient Panin's fears of Pavel, his constant tears at dinner.

The ghost of a strangled father, Peter III, stands before the eyes of little Paul. He does not tell anyone about his memory. Pavel Petrovich matured early and at times seemed even a little old man.

Peter III Fedorovich

Now the fate of Paul more and more resembled the fate of Hamlet. The father was overthrown by the mother from the throne and killed with her consent. The killers did not suffer punishment, but enjoyed all the benefits at court. Moreover, the mental health of unbalanced Paul was reminiscent of Hamlet's frenzy.

Fate did not deprive Pavel Petrovich of his ability to science.
   Here is a list of the subjects he mastered: history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, Russian and German, Latin, French, drawing, fencing and, of course, Holy Scripture.

His lawmaker was Father Plato (Levshin) - one of the most educated people of his time, the future Metropolitan of Moscow. Metropolitan Plato, recalling the teachings of Paul, wrote that his
"A high pupil, fortunately, was always pious, and whether he was always pleasant to reason or talk about God and faith."

The education of the prince was the best that could be obtained at that time.

Once, in a history lesson, a teacher listed about 30 names of bad monarchs. At this time, five watermelons were brought into the room. There were only one good ones. Pavel Petrovich surprised everyone:
"Of the 30 rulers, not one good, and of the five watermelons, one good."
  There was a boy with humor.

Pavel Petrovich read a lot.
   Here is a list of books that the grand duke met: works of French enlighteners: Montesquieu, Rousseau, D "Alamber, Helvetius, works of Roman classics, historical works of Western European authors, works of Cervantes, Boileau, Lafontaine. Voltaire's works," Adventures of Robinson "by D. Defoe , M.V. Lomonosov.

Pavel Petrovich knew a lot about literature and theater, but he loved mathematics most of all. Educator S.A. Poroshin spoke highly of the successes of Pavel Petrovich. He wrote in his Notes:
"If His Highness were a particular person and could completely indulge in mathematical teaching alone, then in their acuteness it would be very convenient to be our Russian Pascal"

Pavel Petrovich himself felt these abilities. And as a gifted person, he could have an ordinary human desire to develop in himself those abilities that his soul was drawn to. But he could not do it. He was the heir. Instead of his favorite activities, he was forced to attend long dinners, dance at balls with maids of honor, flirt with them. The atmosphere of almost outright debauchery in the palace depressed him.

***
1768 year
Tsesarevich Pavel Petrovich is 14 years old.

Arriving from England, a famous doctor inoculates smallpox to Pavel Petrovich. Before this, he conducts a detailed examination of Paul. Here is his conclusion:

"... I was happy to see that the Grand Duke was beautifully built, vigorous, strong and without any natural ailment. ... Pavel Petrovich ... medium height, has beautiful facial features and is very well built ... he is very clever, friendly, cheerful and very reasonable, which is not difficult to notice from his conversations, in which there is a lot of wit. "

Vigilius Ericksen. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. 1768 Museum, Sergiev Posad

His mother Empress Catherine II decided to replace Russian teachers with foreign teachers.

The teachers were: Osterwald, Nikolai, Lafermier and Levek. All of them were fierce supporters of the Prussian military doctrine. Pavel Petrovich fell in love with parades, like his father Peter III. Catherine called it military tomfoolery.

Alexandre Benois. Parade under Paul I. 1907

Catherine the Great is guilty of the fact that her son did not receive Russian military education - the best in Europe. And she did this not by chance. The empress understood that Russian generals and officers knew their worth, they won military victories more than once. And we visit emperors and empresses in order to maintain their influence in the country, it is necessary to underestimate this price by all means, including those invited by foreign experts to train the princes.

Karl Ludwig Hristinek. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in a suit of the Knight of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. 1769 g.

At this time, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, a zealous freemason, gave Pavel mysterious manuscripts, including “The Story of the Order of the Cavaliers of Malta”. And the prince caught fire on a knightly theme. In the writings it was proved that the emperor should observe the welfare of the people, as a kind of spiritual leader. The emperor must be an initiate. He is anointed. Not the church should lead him, but he is the church. These crazy ideas were mixed in Paul’s unfortunate head with that childhood faith in the divine providence, which he had learned from infancy from Queen Elizabeth, mothers and nannies, who had once cherished him.

And so Paul began to dream of a true autocracy, of a true kingdom for the good of the people.

***
1772 year
The coming of age is the crown prince Pavel Petrovich.

Some courtiers said that Catherine II should attract Pavel Petrovich to the government. Pavel Petrovich himself said this to his mother! But Catherine II did not conquer the throne in order to cede him to Paul. She decided to distract her son by marriage.

Catherine II began to look for a suitable daughter-in-law. Such that she connected Russia with dynastic ties with the reigning houses of Europe, and at the same time was submissive and devoted to Catherine II.

Back in 1768, she instructs the Danish diplomat Asseburg to find a bride for the heir. Asseburg drew Catherine's attention to the Princess of Württemberg - Sofia - Dorothea - Augustus, who at that time was only ten years old. He was so captivated by her that he constantly wrote to Catherine II about her. But by age she was too small.

Unknown artist. Portrait of Princess Sofia Dorothea Augusta Louise of Württemberg. 1770. Alexander Palace Museum, Pushkin.

Asseburg sent Catherine a portrait of Louise of Saxe-Gotha, but the alleged matchmaking did not take place. The princess and her mother were zealous Protestants and did not agree to the transition to Orthodoxy.

Louise Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Assenburg proposed to Catherine Princess Wilhelmina of Darmstadt. He wrote:
"... the princess is described to me, especially from the side of kindness of heart, as the perfection of nature; ... what is more a heady mind, prone to contention ..."

King of Prussia Frederick II very much wished that the marriage of the prince with the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt took place. Catherine II was very dissatisfied with this and at the same time wished for the speedy end of the courtship of the prince.

She invited a landgrafin with three daughters to Russia. These daughters: Amalia-Frederica - 18 years old; Wilhelmina - 17; Louise - 15 years old

Frederic Amalia Hesse-Darmstadt

Augusta-Wilhelmina-Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt

Louise Augusta of Hesse-Darmstadt

A Russian warship was sent for them. 80,000 guilders were sent to the rise of the empress. Asseburg accompanied the family. In June 1773 the family arrived in Lubeck. Here they were expected by three Russian frigates. The princesses were placed on one of them, the rest were their retinue.

Catherine II wrote:
"My son, from the very first meeting, fell in love with Princess Wilhelmina; I gave three days to see if he hesitates, and since this princess is superior in all respects to her sisters ... the eldest is very meek; the younger seems to be very smart; in the middle, we all have the desired qualities: her face is pretty, her features are correct, she is affectionate, smart; I am very pleased with her, and my son is in love ... then on the fourth day I turned to the landgrafin ... and she agreed ... "

Among the documents of the Ministry of Justice, for more than a hundred years, the diary of the 19-year-old Grand Duke was kept in a sealed package. In it, he wrote down his experiences while waiting for the bride:
"..joy mixed with anxiety and awkwardness, who is and will be the friend of her whole life ... a source of bliss in the present and in the future. "

***
1773 year

First marriage
  On August 15, 1773, Princess Wilhelmina took holy anointing with the title and name of Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna.
  On September 20, 1773, a solemn wedding took place in the Kazan Cathedral of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna. The groom is 19 years old, the bride is 18 years old.

Alexander Roslin. Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna, Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, 1776 State Hermitage

The wedding festivities lasted 12 days and ended with fireworks in the square near the Summer Palace.
   The generosity of Catherine was great. Landgrafin was presented with 100,000 rubles and, moreover, 20,000 rubles for the costs of the return trip. Each of the princesses received 50,000 rubles, each of the retinue received 3,000 rubles. Thanks to the graces of Catherine, the dowry of the princesses was provided.

Only one event overshadowed the wedding celebrations: as in the Shakespearean play for the wedding the shadow of the murdered father Pavel Petrovich, Emperor Peter Fedorovich, appeared. Only the glimmers of the festive fireworks went out, the rebel Pugachev appeared, declaring himself Peter III.

Emelyan Pugachev. Old engraving.

The honeymoon of the young couple was overshadowed by the anxieties of the peasant war.
But despite this, everyone in the family circle was happy. Pavel Petrovich was pleased with his wife. The young wife turned out to be an active nature. She dispelled her husband’s fears, took him out for country walks, to ballet, arranged balls, created her own theater, in which she played in comedies and tragedies. In a word, the reserved and unsociable Paul came to life with his young wife, in whom he did not cherish a soul. The Grand Duke never dared to change her.

Natalia Alekseevna did not feel love for her husband, but, using her influence, tried to keep him away from all but a narrow circle of her friends. According to contemporaries, the Grand Duchess was a serious and ambitious woman, with a proud heart and a sharp temper. They had been married for two years, but there was still no heir.

In 1776, the court of Empress Catherine was agitated: the long-awaited pregnancy of the Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna was announced. On April 10, 1776, at four in the morning, the Grand Duchess began the first pains. A doctor and a midwife were with her. Contractions lasted several days, and soon the doctors announced that the child was dead. Catherine II and Paul were nearby.

The baby could not be born naturally, and the doctors did not use either obstetric forceps or a cesarean section. The child died in the womb and infected the mother.
   After five days of torment, at 5 am on April 15, 1776, Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna died.
   The empress did not like Natalya Alekseevna, and diplomats gossiped that she did not allow doctors to save her daughter-in-law. An autopsy, however, showed that the woman in labor suffered from a defect that would not allow her to give birth to a baby naturally, and that medicine of that time was powerless to help her.
  The funeral of Natalia Alekseevna took place on April 26 in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Paul did not find the strength to attend the ceremony.

Catherine wrote to Baron Grimm:
“I started by proposing travels, changing places, and then I said: you don’t have to resurrect the dead, you have to think about the living and go to Berlin for your treasure.”
   And then she found the love notes of Andrei Rozumovsky in the casket of the deceased and handed it to her son.
  And Pavel Petrovich was quickly comforted.

***
1776 year
Second marriage

It took only about three months of his widowhood!

Pavel Petrovich goes to Berlin to make an offer to the Princess of Wurttemberg Sofia-Dorothea-Augusta. Throughout the journey, Paul wrote to his mother:
"I found my bride such that I could only mentally wish for myself: I’m not bad by myself, she’s great, slender, unshy, she answers smartly and quickly ..."

The princess was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, taking the name Maria Fyodorovna. She began to zealously learn the Russian language.
  September 26, 1776 a wedding took place in St. Petersburg.

The next day, Paul wrote to his young wife:
"Every manifestation of your friendship, my dear friend, is extremely precious to me and I swear to you that I love you more and more every day. God bless our union just as He created it."

Alexander Roslin. Maria Fedorovna shortly after the wedding. The State Hermitage Museum

Maria Fedorovna turned out to be a worthy wife. She gave birth to 10 children to Pavel Petrovich, of whom only one died in infancy, and of the remaining 9, two, Alexander and Nikolai, became Russian autocrats.

When the first-born was born in 1777, Catherine II dealt a strong blow to the soul of Pavel Petrovich - a good family man and did not allow him to become a happy parent.

Catherine II only from afar showed the parents of the born boy and took him to her forever. She did the same with his other children: sons Konstantin and Nikolai and two daughters.

K.Hoyer (?) Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna with sons Alexander and Konstantin. 1781

I.-F. Anting. Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna with sons in the park. 1780. Black ink and gilded bronze on glass. State Hermitage Museum

***
1781 year
Travel to Europe
  In 1780, Catherine II broke her close ties with Prussia and became close to Austria. Pavel Petrovich did not like such diplomacy. And in order to neutralize Paul and his entourage, Catherine II sends her son and his wife on a long journey.
  They traveled under false names - the count and countess of the North.

When in 1781, passing through Vienna, Pavel Petrovich was supposed to be present at the court performance and it was decided to give "Hamlet", the actor Brockman refused to play this role, saying that he did not want to so that there are two Hamlets in the hall. The Austrian Emperor Joseph II sent the actor 50 gold pieces in gratitude for his tact.

Visited Rome, here they were received by Pope Pius VI.

Reception by Pope Pius VI Count and Countess of the North on February 8, 1782. 1801. Etching A. Lazzaroni. GMZ "Pavlovsk"

In April, they visited Turin. In Italy, the grand-ducal couple begins to acquire antique sculpture, Venetian mirrors. All this will soon be included in the decoration of the Pavlovsk Palace.

About his position "Hamlet"  Pavel Petrovich was silent for the first time. But once in a friendly circle (which promised to become kindred), he ceased to restrain himself. Pavel Petrovich began to speak sharply about his mother and her politics.

Catherine reached these statements. In anticipation of the troubles threatening Russia, she said:

"I see what hands the empire will fall into after my death."

In the summer of 1782 they visited Paris. At Versailles, the grand-ducal couple was received by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in Paris by the Prince of Orleans, and in Chantilly by Prince Conde. According to contemporaries in Paris, they said that
"The king received the Earl of the North in a friendly manner, the Duke of Orleans - in a philistine way, the Prince of Conde - in a royal way."
  The Grand Duchess visited artists' workshops, got acquainted with hospitals, manufactories, and government institutions.
   From Paris, they brought furniture, Lyon silk, bronze, porcelain and luxurious gifts from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette: tapestries and the unique Sevres toilet appliance.

Paris service. France 1782. Sevres Manufactory

A gift from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Grand Duchess Maria Fyodorovna and Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich.

Dressing device. France. Sevres 1782. GMZ Pavlovsk.

We visited Holland, the house of Peter the Great in Zaandam.

Unknown artist. Exterior view of Peter the Great House in Zaandam.

Then Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna spent almost a month visiting her parents in Montbeliard and Etude.
  The young returned home in November 1782.

***
Gatchina
  In 1783, Catherine II gave her son the Gatchina estate.
   In 1765, Catherine II bought the estate in order to present Count G.G. to her favorite. Orlov. It was for him, according to the project of A. Rinaldi, that the palace was built in the form of a hunting castle with towers and an underground passage. The laying of the Gatchina Palace took place on May 30, 1766, the construction of the palace was completed in 1781.

Facades of the palace. 1781 drawing

The Great Gatchina Palace. Painting on porcelain. Author unknown. Second half of XIX

Having left the capital for Gatchina, Pavel established customs that were very different from those in St. Petersburg. In addition to Gatchina, he owned the Pavlovskaya estate near Tsarskoye Selo and a cottage on Kamenny Island. Pavlovsk and Gatchina became grand princely residences for a long 13 years.

In order to occupy himself with at least something, Pavel Petrovich turned here as an exemplary landowner-master. The day started early. Exactly at seven in the morning, the emperor, along with the grand dukes, was already riding on a walk towards the troops, was present at the exercises of the Gatchina troops and parades, which took place daily on a huge parade ground in front of the palace and ended with the changing of the guard.

Schwartz. Gatchina Parade

At five o'clock the whole family went for a day's walk: walking through the garden, or in “karateka” or lines in the park and the Menagerie, where the children especially liked to be. There, in special enclosures, wild animals were kept: deer, fallow deer, guinea fowl, pheasants and even camels.

In general, life was full of conventions and full of strict observance of the regulations, which everyone should follow, without exception, both adults and children. The rise in the early morning, walking or horseback riding, lunch, dinner, starting at the same time, performances and evening gatherings - all this was subject to strict etiquette and followed the order established by the emperor once and for all.

Paul I, Maria Fedorovna and their children. Artist Gergardt Kugelgen

In the Gatchina period of life, the prince:
  * * creates its own mini-army.
  The army of Pavel Petrovich is growing every year here and is acquiring an increasingly clear organization. The manor itself soon turned into Gatchina Russia.

Infantry and cavalry were represented here, consisting of the gendarme, dragoon, hussar and Cossack regiments, as well as a flotilla with the so-called "naval artillery". In total, by 1796 - 2 399 people. And the flotilla by this time consisted of 24 vessels.
  The only case of the participation of the Gatchina troops in hostilities is the 1788 campaign in the Russian-Swedish war.
   Despite their small numbers, by 1796 the Gatchina troops were one of the most disciplined and well-trained units of the Russian army.

** prepares the Charter of the Navy, which entered into force in 1797.

The charter introduced new positions in the fleet - a historiographer, professor of astronomy and navigation, a drawing master. An important direction of the policy of Paul I in relation to the fleet was the adoption of the principle of unity of command. Double submission of one ordinary to several chiefs of the same rank was excluded.

In the Gatchina Palace, the Grand Duke had two libraries.
  The basis of the Gatchina library of Pavel Petrovich was the library of Baron I.A. Corfu, which Catherine II acquired for her son. There was a library formed by Paul I.
The library was in the Tower Cabinet, and consisted of books that he used, which were constantly at his fingertips.

This collection is relatively small: 119 titles, 205 volumes; 44 of them are in Russian, 60 volumes. With a small number of books, their extraordinary diversity in content is noteworthy. Nearby are a variety of works:

“Atlas of the Russian Empire”, “Diplomatic ceremonial of European courts”, “Modern knowledge of horses”, “Reasoning about sea signals”,

"A detailed description of the ore business", "Charter of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Turin",

"The general history of ceremonies, customs and religious rites of all the peoples of the world", "General research on fortification, attack and defense of fortresses."

In addition, there was historical literature.

Gatchina became the favorite place of stay of Pavel Petrovich. And the word "Gatchina" has become almost a household word. It meant a person disciplined, executive, honest and faithful.

***
1796 year
The long-awaited throne
   On the night of November 7, 1796, in the palace church, Metropolitan Gabriel announced to the capital's nobles, generals and high officials of the state the death of Catherine II and the accession to the throne of Paul I. Those present began to swear allegiance to the new emperor.

Several hours passed after the declaration of Paul I as emperor. He went for a walk in Petersburg. Passing by the theater building, built at the behest of Catherine II, Paul I shouted: "Remove it!"
  500 people were sent to the building, by the morning the theater was razed to the ground.

The day after the accession of Paul I to the throne in the Winter Palace, a thanksgiving service was served. To the horror of those present, in grave silence the protodeacon proclaimed: “To the pious autocratic great sovereign our emperor Alexander Pavlovich ...” - and only he noticed a fatal mistake. His voice broke. The silence became ominous. Paul I quickly approached him: “I doubt, Father Ivan, that you live to see the solemn remembrance of Emperor Alexander».
   On the same night, returning home half-dead from fear, the protodeacon dies.

So, under the sign of mystical omen, the short reign of Paul I began

Crowned Pavel Petrovich in Moscow. The corruption took place on April 27, 1797, the celebration was held very modestly, not like his mother. He was crowned with his wife. This was the first joint coronation of the emperor and empress in the history of the Russian Empire.

After the coronation, the emperor traveled for two months in the southern provinces, and returning to Petersburg, he entrusted the crown of the Grand Master of the spiritual-chivalric order of St. John of Jerusalem. The Order needed military assistance. And Paul I took upon himself the patronage of the Order of Malta .. This did not please Europe, and for the Russian people the order was a stranger. This did not add authority to Paul I.

Paul I in the crown, dalmatian and signs of the Order of Malta. Artist V.L. Borovikovsky. Around 1800.
  After accession to the throne, Paul I resolutely proceeded to breaking the rules instituted by his mother.

He transferred the ashes of his father Peter III to the imperial tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

He ordered the release of the writer N.I. from the Shlisselburg fortress. Novikov, return from the link A.N. Radishchev. He conducted a provincial reform, reducing the number of provinces and eliminated the Yekaterinoslav province. Particular mercy was shown to the rebel Kosciuszko: the emperor personally visited the prisoner in prison and provided him with freedom, all the Poles arrested in 1794 were soon released. Paul I completely rehabilitated Kosciuszko, gave him financial assistance and allowed him to leave for America.

Paul I adopted a new law on succession to the throne, which drew a line under the century of palace coups and women's rule in Russia. Now power was legitimately transferred to the eldest son, in his absence, to the eldest man in the family.

By his first manifesto, Emperor Paul reduced peasant labor to landowners (“corvée”) to three days a week, that is, by half. On Sunday, like the day of the Lord, it was forbidden to force peasants to work.
  Paul I perfectly understood the role of the book in society, its influence on the mood of minds.

In 1800, a decree of Paul I to the Senate was published, which stated:
"So how through the different books exported from abroad the depravity of faith, civil law and goodness is applied,then from now on, until the decree, we command to ban the entry from abroad of any kind of books, no matter what language they are, without withdrawal, into our state, evenly and music. ”

Under Paul I, three monuments were erected: the statue of Peter the Great, the obelisk of the “Rumyantsev Pobedy” according to the design of Brenna on the Field of Mars and the monument to A.V. Suvorov in his image of the god of war Mars, commissioned by the emperor Paul I to the sculptor M. Kozlovsky, but already set after the death of the emperor.
  In 1800, the construction of the Kazan Cathedral was started according to the project of A. Voronikhin.

In his reign, the General Herbovnik was drawn up and approved. Under him, the distribution of princely titles began, previously almost never practiced.

During the reign of Paul I in the Baltic and Black Sea Fleet, 17 new battleships and 8 frigates were launched, construction of another 9 large ships began. In St. Petersburg, at the end of Galernaya Street, a new shipyard was built, called the New Admiralty.

the results of the activities of Paul I in the maritime department were significantly higher than the results of activities carried out in the previous reign.

In memoirs and history books, dozens and thousands of those exiled to Siberia in Pavlovian time are often mentioned. In fact, in the documents the number of those exiled does not exceed ten people. These people were exiled for military and criminal crimes: bribes, theft on a large scale, and others.

Literature:

1.I. Chizhova. Immortal Triumph and Mortal Beauty. EKSMO. 2004.
  2.Toroptsev A.P. the rise and fall of the Romanov dynasty. Olma Madia Group. 2007
  3. Ryazantsev S. Horn and crown Astrel-SPb. 2006

4 Chulkov G. Emperors (Psychological portraits)

5. Schilder N.K. Emperor Paul the First. SPb. M., 1996.

6. Bees E.V. Romanovs. The history of the dynasty. - OLMA PRESS. 2004.

7. Grigoryan V. G. Romanov. Biographical reference. —AST, 2007

8. photo from the site Our Heritage Magazine website http://www.nasledie-rus.ru

9.Photo from the State Hermitage websitehttp: //www.hermitagemuseum.org

Emperor Paul I: the fate of the Russian Hamlet

During a visit to Vienna by the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in 1781, it was decided to stage a grand performance in honor of the Russian prince. Shakespeare's Hamlet was chosen, but the actor refused to play the main role: “You are crazy! There will be two Hamlets in the theater: one on the stage, the other in the imperial box! ”

Indeed, the plot of Shakespeare’s play was very reminiscent of Paul’s story: his father, Peter III, was killed by his mother, Catherine II, next to her all-powerful temporary worker, Potemkin. And the prince, removed from power, was exiled, like Hamlet, to travel abroad ...

And in fact, the play of Paul’s life unfolds like a drama. He was born in 1754 and was immediately taken from his parents by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who decided to raise a boy herself. The mother was allowed to see her son only once a week. At first she was homesick, then she got used to it, calmed down, especially since a new pregnancy came. Here we can see that first, inconspicuous crack, which subsequently turned into a gaping abyss that forever separated Catherine and adult Paul. Separating a mother from a newborn is a terrible trauma for both. Over the years, mother became estranged, and Paul never had the first sensations of a warm, gentle, perhaps obscure, but unique image of his mother, with whom almost everyone lives ...

Of course, the child was not left to the mercy of fate, he was surrounded by care and affection, in 1760, educator N.I. Panin appeared next to Pavel, an intelligent, educated man who greatly influenced the formation of his personality. It was then that the first rumors spread that Elizabeth wanted to raise her heir from Paul, and that the boy he hated would send her to Germany. Such a turn of events was impossible for the ambitious, dreaming of the Russian throne of Catherine. The imperceptible crack between the mother and son, again against their will, expanded: Catherine and Pavel, albeit hypothetically, on paper, as well as in gossip, became rivals, rivals in the struggle for the throne. This was reflected in their relationship. When Catherine came to power in 1762, she could not, looking at her son, feel uneasiness and jealousy: her own situation was unreliable - a foreigner, usurper, husband-killer, the lover of her subject. In 1763, a foreign observer noted that when Catherine appeared, everyone was silent, "and the crowd always runs after the Grand Duke, expressing their pleasure with loud cries." In addition, there were people who happily drove new wedges into the crack. Panin, as a representative of the aristocracy, dreamed of limiting the power of the empress and wanted to use Paul for this, putting ideas of the constitution in his head. At the same time, he quietly but consistently turned his son against his mother. As a result, having not firmly mastered Panin’s constitutional ideas, Pavel was accustomed to rejecting the principles of his mother’s rule, and therefore, becoming king, he so easily went to overthrow the fundamental foundations of her policy. In addition, the young man learned the romantic idea of \u200b\u200bchivalry, and with it the love of the outside of the matter, decorativeness, he lived in a world of dreams far from life.

1772 is the age of Paul's coming of age. The hopes of Panin and others that Paul would be admitted to management did not materialize. Catherine was not going to transfer power to the rightful heir of Peter III. She took advantage of the age of her son to remove Panin from the palace. Soon the empress found her son a bride. In 1773, by the will of his mother, he married the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt Augustus Wilhelmina (in Orthodoxy - Natalia Alekseevna) and was quite happy. But in the spring of 1776, Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna died in heavy tribulation. Paul was inconsolable: his Ophelia was no longer in the world ... But his mother cured her son of grief in the most cruel way, similar to amputation. Having found a love correspondence between Natalya Alekseevna and Andrei Razumovsky, a court, close friend of Pavel, the empress passed these letters to Pavel. He was immediately cured of grief, although one can imagine what a severe wound was then inflicted on the thin, fragile soul of Paul ...

Almost immediately after the death of Natalia, he was found a new bride - Sophia Dorothea Augusta Louise, Princess of Württemberg (in Orthodoxy Maria Fedorovna). Pavel unexpectedly for himself immediately fell in love with his new wife, and the young began to live in happiness and peace. In the autumn of 1783, Pavel and Maria moved to the former estate of Gregory Orlov Gatchina donated to them by the Empress (or, as they wrote then, Gatchino). So began the long Gatchina epic of Paul ...

In Gatchina, Paul made himself not just a nest, a cozy house, but built a fortress for himself, contrasting it in all of St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo, the “depraved” court of Empress Catherine. Prussia, with her cult of order, discipline, strength, drill, was chosen as a role model by Paul. In general, the Gatchina phenomenon did not appear immediately. Let's not forget that Paul, becoming an adult, did not receive any power and his mother deliberately kept him away from government affairs. Waiting for the line for the throne lasted for Pavel over twenty years, and his sense of worthlessness did not leave him. Gradually, he found himself in military affairs. A thorough knowledge of all the intricacies of the charters led to strict adherence to them. Linear tactics, built on regular, rigorous training in coordinated movement techniques, required complete automatism. And this was achieved by continuous exercises, divorces, parades. As a result, the element of the parade ground completely captured Paul. This specific life form of the then military man became the main thing for him, turned Gatchina into little Berlin. A small army of Paul was dressed and trained according to the charters of Frederick II, the heir himself lived the harsh life of a warrior and an ascetic, not like these libertines from the always-celebrating nest of vice - Tsarskoye Selo! But here, in our Gatchina, order, labor, work! The Gatchina model of life, built on tight police supervision, seemed to Pavel the only worthy and acceptable. He dreamed of spreading it to all of Russia, for which he set about becoming emperor.

At the end of Catherine’s life, the relationship between her son and mother went wrong irreparably, the crack between them became a gaping chasm. Paul’s character gradually deteriorated, suspicions grew that his mother who had never loved him could deprive him of his inheritance, that her favorites want to humiliate the heir, watch him, and the hired villains try to poison - now, once even stacks (glass. - E.A.) imposed in sausages.

Finally, on November 6, 1796, Empress Catherine died. Paul came to power. In the early days of his reign, it seemed that a landing of a foreign power had landed in St. Petersburg - the emperor and his people were dressed in unfamiliar Prussian uniforms. Paul immediately transferred the Gatchina system to the capital. Black and white striped booths brought from Gatchina appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg, police frantically pounced on passers-by, who at first were frivolous with strict decrees banning dress coats and vests. In the city that lived under Catherine the midnight life, a curfew was imposed; many officials and military men who did not please the sovereign in some way lost their ranks, ranks, posts and were sent into exile in no time. The divorce of the palace guards - the usual ceremony - suddenly turned into an important event on a national scale with the presence of the sovereign and the court. Why did Paul become such an unexpectedly harsh ruler? After all, as a young man, he once dreamed of the rule of law in Russia, he wanted to be a humane ruler, to reign according to irrevocable ("indispensable") laws containing good and justice. But not so simple. Paul's philosophy of power was complex and contradictory. Like many rulers in Russia, he tried to combine autocracy and human freedoms, "power of the individual" and "executive power of the state", in a word, tried to combine the incompatible. In addition, over the years of waiting for his turn to the throne in the soul of Paul, an entire icy mountain of hatred and revenge has grown. He hated his mother, her orders, her favorites, her figures, the whole world created by this extraordinary and brilliant woman, called the descendants of the Catherine era. It is possible to rule with hatred in the soul, but not for long ... As a result, no matter what Paul thinks about law and law, ideas of tightening discipline and regulation began to prevail in his entire policy. He began to build only one "executive state." Perhaps this is the root of his tragedy ... The fight against licentiousness of the nobility meant first of all the infringement of their rights; restoring order, sometimes necessary, in the army and state apparatus led to unjustified cruelty. Undoubtedly, Paul wished his country good, but he was drowning in “pettiness”. And it was just people who remembered them most of all. So, everyone laughed when he forbade the use of the words "snub-nosed" or "Masha." In pursuit of discipline and order, the king did not know any measure. His subjects heard many wild decrees of the sovereign. So, in July 1800, all printing houses were ordered to "seal, so that nothing was printed in them." Well said! However, soon this ridiculous order had to be canceled - labels, tickets and labels were needed. It was also forbidden for the audience to applaud in the theater if the sovereign sitting in the royal box did not do this, and vice versa.

Communication with the emperor became painful and dangerous for others. In place of the humane, tolerant Catherine was a stern, nervous, uncontrollable, absurd man. Seeing that his wishes remained unfulfilled, he was indignant, punished, cracked down. As N.M. Karamzin, Pavel, wrote, “to the inexplicable surprise of the Russians, he began to reign supreme with general horror, not following any rules except his whim; considered us not subjects, but slaves; executed without guilt, awarded without merit, took away shame from execution, from reward - charm, humiliated ranks and ribbons with wastefulness in them ... He taught the marching heroes accustomed to victories. Having, as a man, a natural tendency to do good, he ate the bile of evil: daily he invented ways to frighten people, and he himself was more afraid of all; I thought to build myself an impregnable palace and built a tomb. " In a word, it did not end in good. A conspiracy was ripe against Paul in the midst of the army and among the aristocracy, a night revolution took place on March 11, 1801, and in the newly built Mikhailovsky Castle, Paul was killed by the conspirators who broke into the royal bedroom.