The story of Paul 1 actually began with the fact that Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, the premarital daughter of Catherine the First (who is believed to have been a Baltic peasant by birth), having no children of her own, invited Paul’s future father to Russia. He was a native of the German city of Kiel, K.P. Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, Duke, who received the name Peter at baptism. This fourteen-year-old (at the time of the invitation) young man was Elizabeth’s nephew and had rights to both the Swedish and Russian thrones.

Who was the father of Paul the First is a mystery

Tsar Paul 1, like all people, could not choose his parents. His future mother arrived in Russia from Prussia at the age of 15, on the recommendation of Frederick the Second, as a potential bride for Duke Ulrich. Here she received an Orthodox name, was married in 1745, and only nine years later gave birth to a son, Pavel. History has left two opinions about the possible father of Paul the First. Some believe that Catherine hated her husband, so paternity is attributed to Catherine's lover Sergei Saltykov. Others believe that the father was still Ulrich (Peter the Third), since there is an obvious portrait resemblance, and it is also known about Catherine’s strong hostility towards her son, which may have arisen from hatred of his father. Pavel also disliked his mother throughout his life. A genetic examination of Pavel’s remains has not yet been carried out, so it is not possible to accurately establish paternity for this Russian Tsar.

The birth was celebrated for a year

The future Emperor Paul 1 was deprived of parental love and attention from childhood, since his grandmother Elizabeth, immediately after his birth, took her son from Catherine and placed him in the care of nannies and teachers. He was a long-awaited child for the whole country, since after Peter the Great, Russian autocrats had problems with the continuity of power due to the lack of heirs. Celebrations and fireworks on the occasion of his birth in Russia continued for a whole year.

The first victim of the palace conspiracy

Elizabeth thanked Catherine for the birth of her child with a very large sum - 100 thousand rubles, but showed her son to her mother only six months after his birth. Due to the absence of his mother nearby and the stupidity of the overly zealous staff serving him, Pavel 1, whose domestic and foreign policy in the future was not logical, grew up very impressionable, sickly and nervous. At the age of 8 (in 1862), the young prince lost his father, who, having come to power in 1861 after the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, was killed a year later as a result of a palace conspiracy.

More than thirty years before legitimate power

Tsar Paul 1 received a very decent education for his time, which he could not put into practice for many years. From the age of four, even under Elizabeth, he was taught to read and write, then he mastered several foreign languages, knowledge of mathematics, applied sciences and history. Among his teachers were F. Bekhteev, S. Poroshin, N. Panin, and he was taught the laws by the future Metropolitan of Moscow Platon. By right of birth, Paul already had the right to the throne in 1862, but his mother, instead of a regency, came to power herself with the help of the guard, declared herself Catherine the Second and ruled for 34 years.

Emperor Paul 1 was married twice. The first time was at the age of 19 on Augustine-Wilhelmina (Natalya Alekseevna), who died during childbirth along with her child. The second time - in the year of the death of his first wife (at the insistence of Catherine) to Sophia Augusta Louise, Princess of Württemberg (Maria Feodorovna), who would give birth to ten children to Paul. His older children will suffer the same fate as himself - they will be taken in to be raised by the reigning grandmother, and he will rarely see them. In addition to children born in a church marriage, Pavel had a son, Semyon, from his first love, maid of honor Sofia Ushakova, and a daughter from L. Bagart.

His mother wanted to deprive him of the throne

Pavel 1 Romanov ascended the throne at the age of 42, after the death of his mother (Catherine died of a stroke) in November 1796. By this point, he had a set of views and habits that determined his future and the future of Russia until 1801. Thirteen years before Catherine’s death, in 1783, he reduced his relationship with his mother to a minimum (it was rumored that she wanted to deprive him of the right to the throne) and in Pavlovsk began to build his own model of state structure. At the age of 30, at the insistence of Catherine, he became acquainted with the works of Voltaire, Hume, Montesquieu and others. As a result, his point of view became the following: in the state there should be “bliss for everyone and for everyone,” but only under the monarchy

Coalitions with Europe during the reign

At the same time, in Gatchina, removed from business at that time, the future emperor was training military battalions. His love for military affairs and discipline will partly determine what the foreign policy of Paul 1 will be. And it will be quite peaceful, compared to the time of Catherine the Second, but not consistent. First, Pavel fought against revolutionary France (with the participation of Suvorov A.V.) together with Britain, Turkey, Austria, etc., then he broke the alliance with Austria and recalled troops from Europe. Attempts to go on an expedition with England to the Netherlands were unsuccessful.

Paul 1 defended the Order of Malta

After Bonaparte in France concentrated all power in his hands in 1799 and the likelihood of the spread of the revolution disappeared, he began to look for allies in other states. And he found them, including in the person of the Russian emperor. At that time, a coalition of united fleets was discussed with France. The foreign policy of Paul 1 in the period towards the end of his reign was associated with the final formation of a coalition against Britain, which had become too aggressive at sea (attacked Malta while Paul was Grand Master of the Order of Malta). Thus, in 1800, an alliance was concluded between Russia and a number of European states, which pursued a policy of armed neutrality towards England.

Utopian military projects

Paul 1, whose domestic and foreign policies were not always clear even to those around him, wanted to harm Britain in its Indian possessions at that time. He equipped an expedition to Central Asia from the Don army (about 22.5 thousand people) and set the task for them to go to the Indus and Ganges region and “disturb” the British there, without touching those who oppose the British. By that time, there were not even maps of that area, so the campaign in India was stopped in 1801, after the death of Paul, and the soldiers were returned from the steppes near Astrakhan, where they had already managed to reach.

The reign of Paul 1 was marked by the fact that during these five years no foreign invasions were carried out on the territory of Russia, but no conquests were made either. In addition, the emperor, caring for the interests of the knights in Malta, almost dragged the country into direct conflict with the strongest naval power of that time - England. The British were perhaps his greatest enemies, while he had great sympathy for Prussia, considering the organization of the army and life in those lands to be his ideal (which is not surprising, given his origins).

Reducing government debt by fire

Paul 1 was aimed at trying to improve life and strengthen order in Russian reality. In particular, he believed that the treasury belonged to the country, and not to him personally, as a sovereign. Therefore, he gave orders to melt some silver services from the Winter Palace into coins and burn part of the paper money worth two million rubles in order to reduce the national debt. He was more open to the people than his predecessors, and even his followers, hanging out on the fence of his palace a box for sending petitions addressed to him, which often contained caricatures of the Tsar himself and lampoons.

Strange ceremonies with dead bodies

The reign of Paul 1 was also marked by reforms in the army, where he introduced a single uniform, regulations, and uniform weapons, believing that in the time of his mother the army was not an army, but just a crowd. In general, historians believe that much of what Paul did, he did out of spite for his mother who had passed away. There were even more than strange cases. For example, having come to power, he removed the remains of his murdered father Peter the Third from the grave. After which he crowned the ashes of his father and the corpse of his mother, placing a crown on his father’s coffin, while his wife, Maria Feodorovna, placed another crown on the deceased Catherine. After this, both coffins were transported to the Peter and Paul Cathedral, while the murderer of Peter the Third, Count Orlov, carried the imperial crown in front of his coffin. The remains were buried with a single burial date.

Paul 1, whose reign was short-lived, gained misunderstanding among many due to such events. And the innovations he introduced in various areas did not attract support from the environment. The Emperor demanded that everyone fulfill their duties. There is a well-known story when he gave the rank of officer to his orderly because the former did not independently carry his military equipment. After such incidents, discipline in the troops began to intensify. Pavel also tried to instill strict rules in the civilian population by introducing bans on the wearing of certain styles of dress and demanding that they wear German-style items of a certain color with a given collar size.

The domestic policy of Paul 1 also affected the sphere of education, in which, as expected, he contributed to improving the situation of the Russian language. After ascending the throne, the emperor banned ornate phrases, ordering him to express himself in writing as clearly and simply as possible. He reduced French influence on Russian society by banning books in this language (revolutionary, as he believed), and even banned playing cards. In addition, during his reign, it was decided to open many schools and colleges, restore the university in Dorpat, and open the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Among his associates were both gloomy personalities like Arakcheev, and G. Derzhavin, A. Suvorov, N. Saltykov, M. Speransky and others.

How the Tsar helped the peasants

However, Paul 1, whose reign was 1796-1801, was rather unpopular than popular with his contemporaries. Taking care of the peasants, whom he rightly considered the breadwinners of all other classes of society, he introduced the exemption of farmers from work on Sunday. By this he incurred the discontent of the landowners, for example, in Russia, and the discontent of the peasants in Ukraine, where there was no corvee at that time, but it appeared for three days. The landowners were also dissatisfied with the ban on separating peasant families during sales, the ban on cruel treatment, the removal of duties from peasants to keep horses for the army and the sale of bread and salt from state reserves to them at preferential prices. Paul 1, whose domestic and foreign policies were contradictory, simultaneously ordered the peasants to obey the landowners in everything under pain of punishment.

Infringement of the privileges of the nobility

The Russian autocrat rushed between prohibitions and permissions, which may have led to the subsequent murder of Paul 1. He closed all private printing houses so that it would not be possible to spread the ideas of the French Revolution, but at the same time gave shelter to high-ranking French nobles, like Prince Condé or the future Ludwig the Eighth . He banned corporal punishment for nobles, but introduced for them a tax of twenty rubles per head and a tax for the maintenance of local government bodies.

The short-term reign of Paul 1 also included such events as a ban on resignation for nobles who served for less than a year, a ban on filing collective noble petitions, the abolition of noble assemblies in the provinces, and lawsuits against nobles who evaded service. The emperor also allowed state-owned peasants to register as petty bourgeois and merchants, which caused discontent among the latter.

Actually founded dog breeding in Russia

By what other actions did Paul 1 go down in history, whose domestic and foreign policy was a thirst for large-scale transformations? This Russian tsar allowed the construction of churches according to the Old Believer faith (everywhere), forgave the Poles who participated in the Kosciuszko uprising, and began purchasing new breeds of dogs and sheep abroad, essentially establishing dog breeding. His law on succession to the throne is also important, which excluded the possibility of women ascending the throne and established the order of the regency.

However, despite all the positive aspects, the emperor was unpopular among the people, which created the preconditions for repeated attempts on his life. The murder of Paul 1 was committed by officers from several regiments in March 1801. It is believed that the conspiracy against the emperor was subsidized by the English government, which did not want Russia to strengthen in the Maltese region. The involvement of his sons in this action was not proven, however, in the 19th century, some restrictions were introduced on the study of the reign of this emperor in Russia.

Born September 20, 1754. From an early age he was taught to read and write and various sciences. The future Emperor studied history, mathematics, foreign languages ​​and geography.

According to the recollections of his teachers, Pavel was a man of lively mind, beautifully gifted by nature. His childhood was difficult; he lost his father early. Moreover, he lost it, as he himself believed, through the fault of his mother. Pavel loved Pyotr Fedorovich very much, and could not forgive his mother for his death.

At the age of 17, Catherine II married her son to Princess Wilhelmina, who was named Natalya Alekseevna at baptism. Natalya died during childbirth.

In 1776, Paul I married for the second time. The wife of the heir to the Russian throne was Sophia-Dorothe, who at baptism took the name Maria Feodorovna. Maria Feodorovna was related to the Prussian king. Apparently under the influence of his wife, he began to like many German customs.

Meanwhile, relations between Pavel Petrovich and Catherine II became increasingly cool. After the wedding, Catherine II gave the couple Gatchina. In fact, this was a real exile, an attempt to remove the heir from the court.

Here in Gatchina, Paul I has his own army; they send him half a company of sailors, an infantry battalion, and a cuirassier regiment. Pavel Petrovich devotes a lot of time to his soldiers. Organizes various exercises and shows.

In 1777, his son was born, named Alexander. The boy was immediately taken from his parents, and his upbringing was carried out by people appointed by the empress herself.

Pavel and Maria could visit their son only on special days. Pavel tried to participate in the political life of the country, but his mother suppressed any of his undertakings and initiatives.

After the death of Catherine II, Paul I was crowned king. Pavel Petrovich ascended the throne without having great skills in public administration. When he became monarch, he was already 42 years old. He was already an accomplished, bright and extraordinary person.

His very first act on the Russian throne was the coronation of Peter III. The father's ashes were removed from the grave, the coronation ceremony was held, and the subsequent reburial of Peter III in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, next to Catherine II.

Domestic policy of Paul I

On April 5, 1797, Paul I was anointed king. On the same day, a decree on succession to the throne was issued. Now the direct descendants of the monarch through the male line became the heirs to the Russian throne. Women could take the Russian throne only in the absence of male representatives from the ruling dynasty

Paul I restored the State Council, which had been created under the rule, but had not functioned for a long time. Increased the number of council members from 7 to 17 people. In 1796, the Senate was also reformed, which could not cope with its duties due to the increased number of cases.

The size of the Senate has increased, and new rules of office work have appeared aimed at speeding up the work of the Senate. The internal policy of Paul I caused discontent among the nobles, because... The emperor tried to alleviate the situation of the peasantry. Such actions caused certain discontent among the nobility.

He also, by his decrees, abolished Catherine’s “charter of the nobility.” Now nobles were forbidden to ask for resignation if they had served as an officer for less than a year. The noble assemblies were abolished. The army reform carried out by Paul I caused great dissatisfaction. Prussian orders were established in the Russian army, and an inconvenient uniform was introduced. The army lived by drill training, under conditions of the strictest discipline.

Foreign policy of Paul I

In his foreign policy, Paul I first decided to defend only the interests of Russia. But the disposition of forces in Europe obliged him to actively participate in the affairs of European states. In alliance with Turkey, the Russian army and navy took Corfu, under the leadership of. And he crushed the French on the continent by making incredible crossings through the Alps.

Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with the emperor grew more and more among the courtiers. So, on the night of March 11-12, 1801, a group of conspirators broke into his chambers and demanded that he abdicate the throne. Paul I refused and, in the ensuing fight, was killed by the conspirators. His son, Alexander I Pavlovich, was proclaimed the new Russian emperor. The “Era of palace coups” ended with the personality of Paul I.

Results

Pavel Petrovich is of great interest to historians and is the subject of many disputes. Some sincerely consider him a tyrant, others - a wonderful reformer. It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question of who Emperor Paul I was. Many characterize the period of his reign as knightly autocracy. In fact, he was a man of honor.

Unfortunately, the emperor’s psyche really wasn’t all right. But there is an explanation for this. As a child, he lost his father, whom he loved very much, early on. Throughout his life, he was afraid that he would share the fate of Pyotr Fedorovich. During his reign, the mistrust and caution of the entire court reached its climax.

The Russian Empire was filled with various spies and informers who praised themselves to the emperor and denounced others. Paul I was a man of changeable character, and often made contradictory decisions. People quickly fell out of favor with him, and just as quickly became his favorites. Paul I ruled Russia for only 5 years.

• There are three versions of the origin of Emperor Paul I. He is the son of Peter III and Catherine II.
• Son of Catherine II and Count Sergei Saltykov.
• Son of unknown Chukhon parents.
  

Paul I Petrovich Romanov

Years of life: 1754–1801
Reign: 1796-1801

Holstein-Gottorp branch (after Peter III). From the Romanov dynasty.

Biography of Paul 1

Born September 20 (October 1), 1754 in St. Petersburg. His mother, Empress Catherine II, hated him as a child from her unloved husband, Peter III.

Immediately after birth, the boy was removed from his mother and taken into care by Empress Elizabeth. The parents rarely saw their son. When his son was 8 years old, his mother, Catherine, relying on the guard, carried out a coup, during which Paul's father, Emperor Peter III, was killed.

Paul's upbringing was led by Nikita Ivanovich Panin, who had a decisive influence on the formation of the character and views of the future emperor. Since childhood, he was distinguished by poor health, grew up impressionable, hot-tempered and suspicious.

Catherine II removed Paul 1 Petrovich from interfering in any state affairs, and he, in turn, condemned her entire way of life and did not accept her policy of government. He believed that this policy was based on love of fame and pretense; he dreamed of establishing strictly legal governance in Russia under the auspices of the autocracy, limiting the rights of the nobility, and introducing the strictest, precisely on the Prussian model, discipline in the army.

In the 1780s. became interested in Freemasonry. Relations with his mother worsened; he suspected her of complicity in the murder of his father, Peter III. Catherine decided to “evict” him from the capital by giving him the Gatchina estate in 1783. Here the son created the “Gatchina army”: several battalions placed under his command were subjected to brutal drill.

In 1794, Empress Catherine decided to remove her son from the throne and hand him over to her eldest grandson Alexander Pavlovich, but she met resistance from senior state dignitaries. The death of Catherine II on November 6, 1796 opened the way for him to the throne.

at

Emperor Paul 1

Your reign Pavel the First began by changing all the orders of Catherine's reign. He canceled Peter's decree on the appointment of his successor to the throne by the emperor himself and established his own system of succession to the throne: he could only be inherited through the male line, after the death of the emperor he passed to the eldest son or younger brother if there were no children, and a woman could only take the throne when cutting off the male line.

The emperor ruled despotically, imposed centralization in the state apparatus, carried out radical reforms in the army, eased the situation of the serfs (reduced the corvee to 3 days a week) and tried to limit the power of the nobility. Attempts were made to stabilize the country's financial situation (including the famous action of melting down palace services into coins).

He significantly narrowed the rights of the noble class, and the strictest discipline and unpredictability of the emperor’s behavior led to massive dismissals of nobles from the army, especially the officers of the guard.

Reign of Paul 1

External Paul 1's policy was inconsistent. In 1798 Russia entered into an anti-French coalition with Turkey, Great Britain, Austria, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The disgraced A.V. Suvorov was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian troops at the insistence of the allies. Under the leadership of Suvorov, Northern Italy was freed from French domination. In September 1799, the Russian army made Suvorov's famous crossing of the Alps. But already in October of the same year, Russia broke the alliance with Austria, and Russian troops were recalled from Europe.

Two years later, Pavel participated in the formation of the Northern Maritime League (Russia, Sweden, Denmark), which adhered to a policy of armed neutrality and was directed against Great Britain. Paul was preparing a military-strategic alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte.

Fearing the spread of the ideas of the French Revolution in Russia, Pavel I Petrvoich banned young people from traveling abroad to study, the import of books was completely prohibited, and private printing houses were closed. The words “fatherland”, “citizen”, etc. were removed from the Russian language.

During the reign of Paul I Petrovich, the Arakcheevs, Obolyaninovs, and Kutaisovs, personally devoted to the emperor, rose to prominence.

On December 16, 1798, Paul 1 was elected Grand Master of the Order of Malta and, therefore, the words “... and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem” were added to his imperial title. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem was also established in Russia. The image of the Maltese cross appeared on the Russian coat of arms.

Pavel 1 - murder

He was killed (strangled) by a group of conspirators from the guards officers on the night of 11 to 12 (23–24) March 1801. Agramakov, N.P. Panin, vice-chancellor, L.L. Benningsen, commander of the Izyuminsky light horse regiment, took part in the conspiracy regiment P. A. Zubov (Catherine’s favorite), Palen, Governor General of St. Petersburg, commanders of the guards regiments.

He was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Paul the First was married twice:

1st wife: (from October 10, 1773, St. Petersburg) Natalya Alekseevna (1755-1776), nee Princess Augusta Wilhelmina Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Died during childbirth with a baby.

2nd wife: (from October 7, 1776, St. Petersburg) Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828), nee Princess Sophia Dorothea of ​​Württemberg, daughter of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg. Had ten children:

• Alexander I (1777-1825), Russian Emperor
• Konstantin Pavlovich (1779-1831), Grand Duke.
• Alexandra Pavlovna (1783-1801)
• Elena Pavlovna (1784-1803)
• Maria Pavlovna (1786-1859)
• Ekaterina Pavlovna (1788-1819)
• Olga Pavlovna (1792-1795)
• Anna Pavlovna (1795-1865)
• Nicholas I (1796-1855), Russian Emperor
• Mikhail Pavlovich (1798-1849), Grand Duke.

Pavel 1 had the military rank of Colonel of the Life Cuirassier Regiment (July 4, 1762) (Russian Imperial Guard) and Admiral General (December 20, 1762) (Imperial Russian Navy).

A masterpiece of Russian literature, reflecting the era of his reign, is the story of Yu.N. Tynyanov “Second Lieutenant Kizhe”.

Contemporaries of Paul I called him the Russian Hamlet.

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

Portrait by G. H. Grot. Peter III Fedorovich (Karl Peter Ulrich) State Tretyakov Gallery

Louis Caravaca. Portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna (Sofia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst). 1745. Portrait gallery of the Gatchina Palace

Pavel Petrovich’s childhood began here

Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna. 18th century engraving

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna expressed her favor towards the mother of the newborn by the fact that after the christening she herself brought her a cabinet decree on a golden platter to give her 100,000 rubles. After the christening, a series of festive celebrations began at court on the occasion of the birth of Paul: balls, masquerades, fireworks lasted about a year. Lomonosov, in an ode written in honor of Pavel Petrovich, wished him to compare in deeds with his great great-grandfather, prophesied that he would liberate the Holy Places and step over the walls separating Russia from China.

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

By 1752, the patience of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who had been waiting for a long time and unsuccessfully for an heir from the grand ducal couple, had run out. She kept Catherine under constant surveillance, but now she has changed tactics. The Grand Duchess was given some freedom, of course, for a well-known purpose. A medical fuss was organized around Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, and rumors began to spread about his release from forced celibacy. Saltykov, who himself participated in both the fuss and the spread of rumors, was quite well aware of the real situation, he decided that his time had come.

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 what was written, according to the wise consideration of Your Majesty, took on a good and desired beginning - the presence of the executor of Your Majesty’s highest will is now not only not necessary here, but even to achieving all-perfect fulfillment and concealing the secret for eternal times would be harmful. In accordance with these considerations, your most gracious empress, please deign to command Chamberlain Saltykov to be Your Majesty’s ambassador in Stockholm, to the King of Sweden.”

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

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

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

And now about another legend about the birth of Tsarevich Paul.

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 about the circumstances of the birth of Pavel Petrovich, Eidelman does not exclude that Catherine II gave birth to a stillborn child, but this was kept secret, replacing him with another newborn, a Chukhonian, that is, a Finnish boy, born in the village of Kotly near Oranienbaum. The parents of this boy, the family of the local pastor and all the village residents (about twenty people) were sent to Kamchatka under strict guard, and the village The boilers were demolished, and the place where it stood was plowed under.

Fedor Rokotov. Portrait of Emperor Paul I as a child. 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 really his father. "

Surely, even in early childhood, Pavel heard gossip about his birth. This means that he also 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 she got out of bed at night and came to see the future emperor.

And immediately after birth, she tore him away from his parents. She herself began to lead the upbringing of the newborn.
The Empress surrounded her great-nephew with ladies-in-waiting, nannies and nurses, and the boy became accustomed to female affection.
Pavel loved to play with soldiers, shooting cannons and models of warships.

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

porcelain manufactory. J. Kändler's model collections of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich

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

Pavel enjoyed the company of his peers, of whom Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin, Panin’s nephew, and Count Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky enjoyed his special favor. It was with them that Pavel played soldiers.

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

F. Bekhteev - the first teacher of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna punished "pupil of the "women's mansion" to inspire that he is the future man and the King...” Immediately upon arrival, he began to teach Pavel to read Russian and French using a very original alphabet.
When studying, Bekhteev began to use a special method that combined fun with learning, 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, sir, the inheritance that your glorious grandfathers spread with victories.”
Under Bekhteev, the first textbook, specially compiled for Paul, was published, “A Brief Concept of Physics for the Use of His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich” (St. Petersburg, 1760).

Semyon Andreevich Poroshin - second educator of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, in the period 1762-1766, i.e. when Pavel was 7-11 years old. Since 1762 he has been a permanent cavalier under Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. Poroshin treated the Grand Duke with the loving warmth of an older brother (he was 13 years older than Pavel), cared about the development of his spiritual qualities and heart and acquired more and more influence over 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 chief chamberlain (mentor) under Paul. Panin was then forty-two years old. For some reason, he seemed to the little crown prince to be a gloomy and scary old man.

Pavel rarely saw his parents.

On December 20, 1762, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich was granted the rank of admiral general of the Russian fleet by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. 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 a love for the fleet, which he retained for the rest of his life.

Delapier N.B. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in an admiral's uniform.

When Pavel was 7 years old,
Empress Elizaveta Petrovna died and he got the opportunity 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 listening to his answer to the teacher’s question, he exclaimed, not without pride:
“I see this rogue knows things better than us.”
As a sign of his favor, he immediately granted Pavel the rank of corporal of the guard.

Pavel was a very sensitive boy, he flinched warily from any unexpected knock and quickly hid under the table. For several years now a strange fear had haunted Pavel. Even patient Panin found it difficult to get used to Pavel’s fears and his constant tears at dinner.

The ghost of his strangled father, Peter III, stands before the eyes of little Pavel. He doesn't tell anyone about this memory. Pavel Petrovich matured early and sometimes even seemed like a little old man.

Peter III Fedorovich

Now Paul's fate more and more resembled the fate of Hamlet. The father was dethroned by his mother and killed with her consent. The murderers were not punished, but enjoyed all the benefits at court. In addition, the mental health of the unbalanced Pavel was reminiscent of Hamlet's madness.

Fate did not deprive Pavel Petrovich of scientific abilities.
Here is a list of the subjects he masters: history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, Russian and German, Latin, French, drawing, fencing and, naturally, Holy Bible.

His teacher of the law was Father Platon (Levshin) - one of the most educated people of his time, the future Metropolitan of Moscow. Metropolitan Platon, recalling Paul’s teaching, wrote that he
“The distinguished pupil, fortunately, was always disposed towards piety, and reasoning or conversation regarding God and faith was always pleasant to him.”

The Tsarevich's education was the best that could be obtained at that time.

Once during a history lesson, the teacher listed about 30 names of bad monarchs. At this time, five watermelons were brought into the room. Only one of them turned out to be good. Pavel Petrovich surprised everyone:
“Out of 30 rulers, not a single one is good, and out of five watermelons, one is good.”
The boy was humorous.

Pavel Petrovich read a lot.
Here is a list of books with which the Grand Duke became acquainted: works of French enlighteners: Montesquieu, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Helvetius, works of Roman classics, historical works of Western European authors, works of Cervantes, Boileau, La Fontaine, works of Voltaire, "The Adventures of Robinson" by D. Defoe , M.V. Lomonosov.

Pavel Petrovich knew a lot about literature and theater, but most of all he loved mathematics. Teacher S.A. Poroshin spoke highly of Pavel Petrovich’s successes. He wrote in his Notes:
“If His Highness were a particular person and could completely indulge himself in mathematical teaching alone, then, in terms of his sharpness, he could very conveniently be our Russian Pascal.”

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

***
1768
Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich is 14 years old.

A famous doctor who arrived from England inoculates Pavel Petrovich with smallpox. Before this, he conducts a detailed examination of Pavel. Here is his conclusion:

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

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

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

The teachers were: Osterwald, Nikolai, Lafermière and Levesque. All of them were ardent supporters of Prussian military doctrine. Pavel Petrovich loved parades, like his father Peter III. Catherine called this military tomfoolery.

Alexander Benois. Parade under Paul I. 1907

Catherine the Great is to blame for the fact that her son did not receive a Russian military education - the best in Europe. And she didn’t do it by accident. The Empress understood that Russian generals and officers knew their worth; they had won military victories more than once. And visiting emperors and empresses, in order to maintain their influence in the country, need to lower this price by all means, including inviting foreign specialists to train the crown princes.

Karl Ludwig Christinek. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in the costume of a holder of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. 1769

At this time, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, a zealous Freemason, gave Pavel mysterious handwritten works to read, including “The History of the Order of the Knights of Malta.” And the Tsarevich became interested in the knightly theme. The writings proved that the emperor must guard the welfare of the people, like a kind of spiritual leader. The emperor must be dedicated. He is the anointed one. It is not the church that should lead him, but he the church. These crazy ideas were mixed in Paul’s unfortunate head with that childish faith in God’s providence, which he learned from his infancy from Queen Elizabeth, the mothers and nannies who once cherished him.

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

***
1772
Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich came of age.

Some courtiers expressed that Catherine II should involve Pavel Petrovich in the management of the state. Pavel Petrovich himself told his mother about this! But Catherine II did not win the throne in order to give it up to Paul. She decided to distract her son with marriage.

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

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

Unknown artist. Portrait of Princess Sophia 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 convert to Orthodoxy.

Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Assenburg proposed Princess Wilhelmina of Darmstadt to Catherine. He wrote:
"... the princess is described to me, especially from the side of kindness of heart, as the perfection of nature;... that she has a rash mind, prone to discord..."

King Frederick II of Prussia really wanted the marriage of the crown prince and the princess of Hesse-Darmstadt to take place. Catherine II was very dissatisfied with this and at the same time wanted the crown prince’s matchmaking to end as soon as possible.

She invited the landgrave and her three daughters to Russia. These daughters are: Amalia-Frederica - 18 years old; Wilhelmina - 17; Louise - 15 years old

Friederike Amalia of Hesse-Darmstadt

Augusta Wilhelmina Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt

Louise Augusta of Hesse-Darmstadt

A Russian warship was sent after them. The empress sent 80,000 guilders for the rise. Asseburg accompanied the family. In June 1773, the family arrived in Lubeck. Three Russian frigates were waiting for them here. The princesses sat on one of them, and their retinue sat on the rest.

Catherine II wrote:
“My son fell in love with Princess Wilhelmina from the very first meeting; I gave three days to see if he would not hesitate, and since this princess is superior to her sisters in every respect ... the eldest is very meek; the younger seems to be very smart; in the middle, all the qualities we desire: she has a lovely face, regular features, she is affectionate, intelligent; I am very pleased with her, and my son is in love... then on the fourth day I turned to the Landgravine... and she agreed..."

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

***
1773

First marriage
On August 15, 1773, Princess Wilhelmina received holy confirmation with the title and name of Grand Duchess Natalia 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 Museum

The wedding celebrations lasted 12 days and ended with fireworks on the square near the Summer Palace.
Catherine's generosity was great. The Landgravine was given 100,000 rubles and, in addition, 20,000 rubles for expenses on the return journey. Each of the princesses received 50,000 rubles, each of the retinue received 3,000 rubles. Thanks to Catherine's favors, the princesses' dowries were secured.

Only one event overshadowed the wedding celebrations: as in a Shakespeare play, the shadow of Pavel Petrovich’s murdered father, Emperor Peter Fedorovich, appeared at the wedding. As soon as the glow of the festive fireworks faded, the rebel Pugachev appeared, declaring himself Peter III.

Emelyan Pugachev. Ancient engraving.

The young couple's honeymoon was overshadowed by the worries 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 person. She dispelled her husband’s fears, took him on country walks, to the ballet, organized balls, and created her own theater, in which she herself acted in comedies and tragedies. In a word, the withdrawn and unsociable Pavel came to life with a young wife in whom he doted. The Grand Duke never dared to cheat on her.

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

In 1776, the court of Empress Catherine was excited: the long-awaited pregnancy of Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna was announced. On April 10, 1776, at four o’clock in the morning, the Grand Duchess began to experience the first pains. A doctor and a midwife were with her. The contractions lasted for 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 doctors did not use either obstetric forceps or a caesarean section. The child died in the womb and infected the mother's body.
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 the doctors to save her daughter-in-law. The autopsy, however, showed that the mother suffered from a defect that would have prevented her from giving birth naturally, and that the medicine of the time was powerless to help her.
The funeral of Natalya Alekseevna took place on April 26 at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Pavel did not find the strength to attend the ceremony.

Catherine wrote to Baron Grimm:
“I started by suggesting travel, changing places, and then I said: you can’t resurrect the dead, you have to think about the living and go to Berlin for your treasure.”
And then she found Andrei Rozumovsky’s love notes in the deceased’s box and handed them to her son.
And Pavel Petrovich quickly calmed down.

***
1776
Second marriage

It had only been about three months of his widowhood!

Pavel Petrovich goes to Berlin to propose to Württemberg Princess Sophia-Dorothea-August. Throughout the journey, Paul wrote to his mother:
“I found my bride to be the kind of person I could only wish for in my mind: she’s not ugly, she’s big, she’s slender, she’s not shy, she answers intelligently and efficiently...”

The princess was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, taking the name Maria Fedorovna. She began to zealously learn Russian.
On September 26, 1776, the 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 every day I love you more and more. May God bless our union just as He created it.”

Alexander Roslin. Maria Feodorovna shortly after the wedding. State Hermitage Museum

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

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

Catherine II only showed the born boy from afar to the parents 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 Feodorovna with their sons Alexander and Konstantin. 1781

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

***
1781
Travel to Europe
In 1780, Catherine II broke close ties with Prussia and moved closer to Austria. Pavel Petrovich did not like this kind of diplomacy. And in order to neutralize Paul and his entourage, Catherine II sends her son and his wife on a long journey.
P They consoled themselves under fictitious names - Count and Countess of the North.

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

They visited Rome, here they were received by Pope Pius VI.

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

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

About his position in Hamlet Pavel Petrovich was silent at first. But once he found himself in a friendly (which promised to become kindred) circle, he stopped holding back. Pavel Petrovich began to speak sharply about his mother and her politics.

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

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

In the summer of 1782 they visited Paris. In Versailles, the grand ducal couple was received by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in Paris by the Prince of Orleans, and in Chantilly by the Prince of Condé. According to contemporaries in Paris they said that
“The king received the Count of the North in a friendly manner, the Duke of Orleans in a bourgeois manner, and the Prince of Condé in a royal manner.”
Grand Ducal couple visited artists' workshops, got acquainted with hospitals, factories, and government institutions.
From Paris they brought furniture, Lyon silks, bronze, porcelain and luxurious gifts from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette: tapestries and a unique Sèvres toiletry.

Parisian service. France 1782. Sevres manufactory

Gift from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna and the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich.

Toilet fixture. France. Sever. 1782. State Museum "Pavlovsk".

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

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

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

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

Palace facades. Drawing from 1781

Great Gatchina Palace. Porcelain painting. Author unknown. Second half of the 19th century

Having left the capital for Gatchina, Pavel introduced customs that were sharply different from those of St. Petersburg. In addition to Gatchina, he owned the Pavlovsk estate near Tsarskoe Selo and a dacha on Kamenny Island. Pavlovsk and Gatchina became the grand ducal residences for a long 13 years.

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

Schwartz. Parade in Gatchina

At five o'clock the whole family went for a day's walk: on foot in the garden, or in "carts" or lines around the park and the Menagerie, where the children especially loved to be. There, wild animals were kept in special enclosures: deer, fallow deer, guinea fowl, pheasants and even camels.

In general, life was full of conventions and full of strict adherence to regulations, which everyone, without exception, had to follow - both adults and children. Rising early in the morning, walking or riding, lunches, dinners that began at the same time, performances and evening meetings - all this was subject to strict etiquette and followed the order established once and for all by the emperor.

Pavel I, Maria Fedorovna and their children. Artist Gerhardt Kügelgen

During the Gatchina period of the Tsarevich’s life:
* *creates his own mini-army.
Pavel Petrovich's army here is growing every year and acquiring a clearer organization. The manor itself soon turned into “Gatchina Russia”.

Infantry, cavalry, consisting of gendarmerie, dragoon, hussar and Cossack regiments, as well as a flotilla with the so-called “naval artillery” were presented here. In total by 1796 - 2,399 people. And the flotilla by this time consisted of 24 ships.
The only case of Gatchina troops participating in hostilities was 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 came into force in 1797.

The charter introduced new positions in the fleet - historiographer, professor of astronomy and navigation, draftsman. An important direction of Paul I's policy towards the fleet was the establishment of the principle of unity of command. Double subordination of one private to several superiors of the same rank was excluded.

The Grand Duke had two libraries in the Gatchina Palace.
The basis of Pavel Petrovich’s Gatchina library was the library of Baron I.A. Korfa, which Catherine II acquired for her son. There was also a library formed by Paul I himself.
The library was located in the Tower Study, and consisted of books that he used, which were constantly at hand.

This collection is relatively small: 119 titles, 205 volumes; of which 44 titles, 60 volumes, are in Russian. Given the small number of books, what is noteworthy is their extreme diversity in content. Side by side are a variety of works:

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

“A detailed description of mining”, “Charter of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Turin”,

“A General History of the Ceremonies, Customs and Religious Practices of All Nations of the World”, “General Studies on Fortification, Attack and Defense of Fortresses”.

In addition, there was historical literature.

Gatchina became Pavel Petrovich's favorite place to stay. And the word “Gatchina resident” became almost a household word. It meant a disciplined, efficient, honest and devoted person.

***
1796
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 highest dignitaries of the state about 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 Paul I was declared emperor. He went for a walk in St. Petersburg. Driving past the theater building, built at the behest of Catherine II, Paul I shouted: “Remove it!”
500 people were sent to the building, and by morning the theater was razed to the ground.

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

Thus, under the sign of a mystical omen, the short reign of Paul I began.

Pavel Petrovich was crowned in Moscow. The crowning took place on April 27, 1797, the celebration was held very modestly, not like his mother. He was crowned together 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 upon returning to St. Petersburg, he assumed the crown of Grand Master of the Spiritual-Knightly Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The Order needed military help. And Paul I took over the patronage of the Order of Malta. Europe did not like this, and the order was alien to the Russian people. This did not add authority to Paul I.

Paul I wearing the crown, dalmatic and insignia of the Order of Malta. Artist V. L. Borovikovsky. Around 1800.
After ascending the throne, Paul I decisively began to break the order established 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 A.N. Radishchev from exile. He carried out provincial reform, reducing the number of provinces and liquidated the Ekaterinoslav province. Particular mercy was shown to the rebel Kosciuszko: the emperor personally visited the prisoner in prison and granted him freedom, and soon all the Poles arrested in 1794 were released. Paul I completely rehabilitated Kosciuszko, gave him financial assistance and allowed him to go to America.

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

With his first manifesto, Emperor Paul reduced peasant labor for landowners (“corvée”) to three days a week, that is, by half. On Sunday, as the Lord's Day, it was forbidden to force peasants to work.
Paul I perfectly understood the role of the book in the life of 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 various books exported from abroad, the depravity of faith, civil law and good morals is caused, then from now on, pending a decree, we command that all kinds of books, no matter what language they may be in, be prohibited from entering our state from abroad, including music.”

Under Paul I, three monuments were erected: a statue of Peter the Great, an obelisk of “Rumyantsev’s victories” designed by Brenna on the Field of Mars, and a monument to A.V. Suvorov in the image of the god of war Mars, which replaced it, ordered by Emperor Paul I to the sculptor M. Kozlovsky, but erected already after the death of the emperor.
In 1800, construction began on the Kazan Cathedral according to the design of A. Voronikhin.

During his reign, the General Armorial was compiled and approved. Under him, the distribution of princely titles began, which had previously been almost never practiced.

During the reign of Paul I, 17 new battleships and 8 frigates were launched in the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets, and the 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 Paul I's activities in the naval department were significantly higher than the results of activities carried out during the previous reign.

In memoirs and history books, tens and thousands of people exiled to Siberia during Pavlov’s time are often mentioned. In fact, in the documents the number of exiles does not exceed ten people. These people were exiled for military and criminal crimes: bribery, grand theft and others.

Literature:

1.I.Chizhova. Immortal triumph and mortal beauty.EXMO.2004.
2. Toroptsev A.P. the rise and fall of the House of Romanov. Olma Madia Group.2007
3. Ryazantsev S. Horns and crown Astrel-SPb.2006

4 Chulkov G. Emperors (Psychological portraits)

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

6.Pchelov E.V. Romanovs. History of the dynasty. - OLMA-PRESS.2004.

7. Grigoryan V. G. Romanovs. Biographical reference book. —AST, 2007

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

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

Although, because of his father’s jokes on the topic “it’s unknown where his wife got her children from,” many consider the father of Paul I to be Ekaterina Alekseevna’s favorite, Sergei Saltykov. Moreover, the first-born was born only after 10 years of marriage. However, the external similarity between Paul and Peter should be considered as a response to such rumors. The childhood of the future autocrat cannot be called happy. Because of the political struggle, the current Empress Elizabeth I Petrovna was afraid for Paul the First, protected him from communication with his parents and surrounded him with a real army of nannies and teachers who curry favor with high-ranking officials rather than worry about the boy.

Pavel the First in childhood | Runiverse

The biography of Paul I claims that he received the best education that was possible at that time. The extensive library of Academician Korf was placed at his personal disposal. Teachers taught the heir to the throne not only the traditional Law of God, foreign languages, dancing and fencing, but also painting, as well as history, geography, arithmetic and even astronomy. It is interesting that none of the lessons included anything related to military affairs, but the inquisitive teenager himself became interested in this science and mastered it at a fairly high level.

Pavel the First in his youth | Arguments and Facts

When Catherine II ascended the throne, she allegedly signed an obligation to transfer the reign to her son Paul I when he reached adulthood. This document has not reached us: perhaps the empress destroyed the paper, or maybe it is just a legend. But it was precisely such a statement that all the rebels dissatisfied with the rule of the “Iron German,” including Emelyan Pugachev, always referred to. In addition, there was talk that already on her deathbed, Elizaveta Petrovna was going to transfer the crown to her grandson Paul I, and not to her nephew Peter III, but the corresponding order was not made public and this decision did not affect the biography of Paul I.

Emperor

Paul the First sat on the throne of the Russian Empire only at the age of 42. Right during the coronation, he announced changes in the succession to the throne: now only men could rule Russia, and the crown was passed on only from father to son. By this, Paul unsuccessfully hoped to prevent the palace coups that had become more frequent recently. By the way, for the first time in history, the coronation procedure took place simultaneously for both the emperor and the empress on the same day.

The disgusting relationship with his mother led to the fact that Paul I chose the method of leading the country to actually contrast his decisions with its previous ones. As if “to spite” the memory of Ekaterina Alekseevna, Pavel the First returned freedom to convicted radicals, reformed the army and began to fight serfdom.

Pavel the First | Petersburg stories

But in reality, all these ideas did not lead to anything good. The liberation of the radicals would come back many years later in the form of a Decembrist uprising, the reduction of the corvee remained only on paper, and the fight against corruption in the army grew into a series of repressions. Moreover, both the highest ranks, who one after another were deprived of their positions, and ordinary military personnel remained dissatisfied with the emperor. They grumbled about the new uniform, modeled on the Prussian army, which turned out to be incredibly uncomfortable. In foreign policy, Paul the First became famous for his fight against the ideas of the French Revolution. He introduced the strictest censorship in book publishing; French books and French fashion, including round hats, were banned.

Pavel the First | Wikipedia

During the reign of Paul the First, thanks to commander Alexander Suvorov and Vice Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, the Russian army and navy achieved many significant victories, collaborating with Prussian and Austrian troops. But later Paul I showed his fickle character, broke off relations with his allies and formed an alliance with Napoleon. It was in Bonaparte that the Russian emperor saw the force that could stop the anti-monarchist revolution. But he was mistaken strategically: Napoleon did not become a winner even after the death of Paul the First, but because of his decision and the economic blockade of Great Britain, Russia lost its largest sales market, which had a very significant impact on the standard of living in the Russian Empire.

Personal life

Officially, Pavel the First was married twice. His first wife, Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna, was by birth the German Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt. She died two years after the wedding during childbirth. The first son of Paul I was born dead. That same year, the future emperor married again. The wife of Paul the First, Maria Feodorovna, was called Sophia Maria Dorothea of ​​Württemberg before marriage, and she was destined to become the mother of two rulers at once, Alexander I and Nicholas I.

Princess Natalya Alekseevna, first wife of Paul I | Pinterest

It is interesting that this marriage was not just beneficial for the state, Pavel really fell in love with this girl. As he wrote to his family, “this blonde with a pleasant face captivated the widower.” In total, in union with Maria Feodorovna, the emperor had 10 children. In addition to the two above-mentioned autocrats, it is worth noting Mikhail Pavlovich, who founded the first Russian Artillery School in St. Petersburg. By the way, he is the only child born during the reign of Paul the First.

Paul I and Maria Feodorovna surrounded by children | Wikipedia

But falling in love with his wife did not stop Paul the First from following the generally accepted rules and having favorites. Two of them, ladies-in-waiting Sofya Ushakova and Mavra Yuryeva, even gave birth to illegitimate children from the emperor. It is also worth noting Ekaterina Nelidova, who had enormous influence on the emperor and it is believed that she tried to lead the country with the hands of her lover. The personal life of Paul I and Ekaterina Nelidova was more intellectual than carnal in nature. In it, the emperor realized his ideas of romantic chivalry.

Favorites of Paul I, Ekaterina Nelidova and Anna Lopukhina

When those close to the court realized how much the power of this woman had increased, they arranged a “replacement” for the favorite of Paul I. Anna Lopukhina became his new lady of the heart, and Nelidova was forced to retire to Lode Castle, in the territory of present-day Estonia. It is curious that Lopukhina was not happy with this state of affairs, she was burdened by the status of the mistress of the ruler Paul the First, his “knightly” manifestations of attention, and was annoyed that these relationships were being put on display.

Death

During the several years of Paul the First's reign, despite the change in succession, at least three conspiracies were organized against him, the last of which was successful. Almost a dozen officers, commanders of the most famous regiments, as well as government officials on the night of March 24, 1801 entered the emperor’s bedroom in the Mikhailovsky Castle and committed the murder of Paul I. The official cause of his death was apoplexy. It is worth noting that nobles and ordinary people greeted the news of death with poorly controlled glee.

Engraving "The Assassination of Emperor Paul I", 1880 | Wikipedia

The perception of Paul the First by subsequent generations is ambiguous. Some historians, especially during the reign of his successor Alexander I, and then in Soviet times, created the image of a tyrant and tyrant. Even the poet in his ode “Liberty” called him “a crowned villain.” Others try to emphasize Paul the First’s heightened sense of justice, calling him “the only romantic on the throne” and “the Russian Hamlet.” The Orthodox Church even at one time considered the possibility of canonizing this man. Today it is generally accepted that Paul the First does not fit into the system of any known ideology.