Peter III Fyodorovich (Russian:Пётр III Фёдорович,romanized: Pyotr III Fyodorovich; 21 February [O.S. 10 February] 1728 – 17 July [O.S. 6 July] 1762) wasEmperor of Russia from 5 January 1762 until 9 July of the same year, when he was overthrown by his wife,Catherine II (the Great). He was born in the German city ofKiel asCharles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (German:Karl Peter Ulrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp), the grandson ofPeter the Great and great-grandson ofCharles XI of Sweden.
After a 186-day reign, Peter III was overthrown in apalace coup d'état orchestrated by his wife, and soon died under unclear circumstances. The official cause proposed by Catherine's new government was that he died due tohemorrhoids. This explanation was met with skepticism, both in Russia and abroad, with notable critics such asVoltaire andd'Alembert expressing doubt about the plausibility of death from such a condition.[1]
The personality and activities of Peter III were long disregarded by historians and his figure was seen as purely negative, but since the 1990s, after thedissolution of the Soviet Union, more attention has been directed at the decrees he signed. His most notable reforms were the abolition of the secret police, exemption of nobles from compulsory military service,confiscation of church lands, and equalisation of all religions. He also put an end to the persecution of theOld Believers and made the killing ofserfs by landowners punishable by exile. Although he is mostly criticised for undoing Russian gains in theSeven Years' War by forming analliance with Prussia, Catherinecontinued it and many of his other policies.
After Peter III's death, many impostors thrived, pretending to be him, the most famous of whom wereYemelyan Pugachev and the "Montenegerin Tsar Peter III" (Stephan the Little).[2]
Two years later, Peter's maternal auntElizabeth becameEmpress of Russia. As she had no children of her own, she brought Peter from Germany to Russia and proclaimed him herheir presumptive in the autumn of 1742. Previously in 1742, the 14-year-old Peter wasproclaimed Grand Duke of Finland[5] during theRusso-Swedish War (1741–1743), when Russian troops held Finland. This proclamation was based on his succession rights to territories held by his childless great-uncle, the lateCharles XII of Sweden, who also had beenGrand Duke of Finland. About the same time, in October 1742, he was chosen by theSwedish parliament to become heir presumptive to the Swedish throne. However, the Swedish parliament was unaware of the fact that he had also been proclaimed heir presumptive to the throne of Russia, and when their envoy arrived in Saint Petersburg in November, it was too late. Also in November, Peter converted toEastern Orthodoxy under the name of Pyotr Feodorovich, and was createdGrand Duke of Russia. The words "Grandson of Peter the Great" (Russian:внук Петра Великого,romanized: vnuk Petra Velikogo) were made an obligatory part of his official title, underscoring his dynastic claim to the Russian throne, and it was made a criminal offence to omit them.[6]
Empress Elizabeth arranged for Peter to marry his second cousin, Sophia Augusta Frederica (laterCatherine the Great), daughter ofChristian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, andPrincess Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Sophia formally converted toRussian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna (i.e., Catherine). They married on 21 August 1745. The marriage was not a happy one but produced one son, the future EmperorPaul I, and one daughter, Anna Petrovna (9 December, 1757– 8 March, 1759).[7][a] Catherine later claimed in her private writings that Paul was not fathered by Peter; that, in fact, they had never consummated the marriage.[8] During the sixteen years of their residence inOranienbaum, Catherine took numerous lovers, while her husband did the same in the beginning.
Peter's 1746 letter to his wife in French, the language of the Russian aristocracy
The classical view of Peter's character is mainly drawn out of the memoirs of his wife and successor. She described him as an "idiot" and as a "drunkard from Holstein", also describing her marriage with him with "there is nothing worse than having a child-husband"; even Peter's idol,Frederick the Great mentioned him by saying "he allowed himself to be dethroned like a child sent off to bed".[9]
Nature had made him mean, thesmallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome. And Peter had all the sentiments of the worst kind of a small German prince of the time. He had the conviction that his princeship entitled him to disregard decency and the feelings of others. He planned brutal practical jokes, in which blows had always a share. His most manly taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which has been defined as "corporal's mania," the passion for uniforms,pipeclay, buttons, the "tricks of parade and the froth of discipline." He detested the Russians, and surrounded himself with Holsteiners.[10]
There have been many attempts to revise the traditional characterization of Peter and his policies. The Russian historianA. S. Mylnikov views Peter III very differently:
Many contradictory qualities existed in him: keen observation, zeal and sharp wit in his arguments and actions, incaution and lack of perspicuity in conversation, frankness, goodness, sarcasm, a hot temper, and wrathfulness.[11]
The German historian Elena Palmer goes even further, portraying Peter III as a cultured, open-minded emperor who tried to introduce various courageous, even democratic reforms in 18th-century Russia.[12] A monument for Peter III stands in Kiel, the city of his birth.[13]
After Peter succeeded to the Russian throne (5 January 1762 [O.S. 25 December 1761]), he withdrew Russian forces from theSeven Years' War and concluded apeace treaty (5 May [O.S. 24 April] 1762) with Prussia (dubbed the "SecondMiracle of the House of Brandenburg"). He gave up Russian conquests in Prussia and offered 12,000 troops to make an alliance with Frederick II of Prussia (19 June [O.S. 8 June] 1762).[citation needed] Russia thus switched from an enemy of Prussia to an ally—Russian troops withdrew fromBerlin and marched against the Austrians.[14] This dramatically shifted thebalance of power in Europe, suddenly handing the delighted Frederick the initiative. Frederick recaptured southernSilesia (October 1762) and subsequently forced Austria to thenegotiating table.[citation needed]
As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Peter planned war againstDenmark-Norway in order to restore parts ofSchleswig to his Duchy. He focused on making alliances with Sweden and with Great Britain to ensure that they would not interfere on Denmark's behalf, while Russian forces gathered atKolberg in Russian-occupiedPomerania. Alarmed at the Russian troops concentrating near their borders, unable to find any allies to resist Russian aggression, and short of money to fund a war, the government of Denmark threatened in late June to invade thefree city ofHamburg in northern Germany to force a loan from it. Peter considered this acasus belli and prepared for open warfare against Denmark.[15]: 220
In June 1762, 40,000 Russian troops assembled in Pomerania under GeneralPyotr Rumyantsev, preparing to face 27,000 Danish troops under the French generalCount St. Germain in case the Russian–Danish freedom conference (scheduled for 1 July 1762 in Berlin under the patronage of Frederick II) failed to resolve the issue. However, shortly before the conference, Peter lost his throne (9 July [O.S. 28 June] 1762) and the conference did not occur. The issue of Schleswig remained unresolved. Peter was accused of planning an unpatriotic war.[2]
While historically Peter's planned war against Denmark-Norway was seen[by whom?] as a political failure, recent scholarship has portrayed it as part of a pragmatic plan to secure his Holstein-Gottorp duchy and to expand the common Holstein-Russian power northward and westwards. Peter III believed gaining territory and influence in Denmark and Northern Germany was more useful to Russia than takingEast Prussia.[15]: 218–20 Equally, he thought that friendship with Prussia and with Britain, following itstriumph in the Seven Years War, could offer more to aid his plans than alliance with either Austria or France.[citation needed]
Peter III depicted as emperor on a 10 ruble gold coin (1762)
During his 186-day period of government, Peter III passed 220 new laws that he had developed and elaborated during his life as a crown prince. Writer Elena Palmer claims that his reforms were of a democratic nature[how?][12][page needed] and that he also proclaimed religious freedom.[16]
Peter exempted nobles from compulsory civil and military service during peacetime and allowed them to freely travel abroad. He forbade landowners from murdering peasants at the penalty of lifelong exile and ended the persecution of theOld Believers. He also issued a manifesto proclaiming the secularisation of church lands, which he never lived to see realised but which Catherine, a convinced secularist, began implementing during her own reign.[17]
While Catherine continued some of Peter's policies, she also reversed others. For example, Peter abolished theSecret Chancellery, thesecret police of the Russian Empire, stating that he objected to the arbitrary arrests and torture it carried out. Catherine soon reestablished it under a different name, theSecret Expedition.[18]
Peter III's economic policy reflected the rising influence of Westerncapitalism and the merchant class or "Third Estate" that accompanied it. He established the first state bank in Russia, rejected the nobility's monopoly on trade and encouragedmercantilism by increasing grain exports and forbidding the import of sugar and other materials that could be found in Russia.[19]
Tsar Peter III was seen as a largely ineffective and unpopular ruler. He was a German-born prince of Prussia, and his loyalty to his native land over his inherited one earned him the ire of his people and his army. Peter had returned Russia’s conquered territories back to Prussia and withdrawn his forces from the Seven Years’ War, rendering all of Russia’s recent victories, and its sacrifices, pointless.
Many in the Russian army, as well as Russian citizens and Empress Catherine herself, feared that if Peter continued his concessions to Prussia it would lead to a nationwide uprising and threaten the stability of Russia. In the spring of 1762, conspiring with her lover Grigory Orlov and others in the court and military, Catherine began plotting to overthrow her husband.
At dawn on June 28, 1762, Catherine marched with a procession of civilian and military supporters to the Winter Palace, where she was proclaimed heir to the Russian throne by the archbishop of Novgorod. Peter tried to escape by taking a boat to the military base ofKronstadt onKotlin Island, hoping that the fleet remained loyal to him. However, the fleet's cannons opened fire on Peter's boat with two or three shots, and he was repulsed back to the shore, with the commandant declaring that he was no longer recognized as emperor and that Russia was ruled by Empress Catherine. The people of St. Petersburg, drawn to the shore by the loud echoes of cannons, also armed themselves with sticks and stones to prevent him from returning to the capital city. Twenty four hours later, after learning that the senate, army, and fleet had sworn allegiance to Catherine, with the aid of two guards whom Peter had planned to discipline, he was arrested and forced to abdicate on 9 July [O.S. 28 June] 1762.[20]
Shortly thereafter, he was transported toRopsha, where he later died. Much mystery surrounds his death. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack ofhemorrhoidalcolic and an apoplectic stroke, while others say he was assassinated. Other accounts state that after a midday meal, Peter's captors tried to suffocate him by using a mattress but he managed to escape. This then led his captors to strangle him to death with a scarf. He was buried on 3 August 1762 [O.S. 23 July] in theAlexander Nevsky Monastery, Saint Petersburg.[20][9]
After his death, four pretenders to the throne, insisting that they were Peter (five ifŠćepan Mali of Montenegro is included) came forth, supported by revolts among the people,[21] who believed in a rumor that Peter had not died but had been secretly imprisoned by Catherine. The most famous was theCossackYemelyan Pugachev, who led what came to be known asPugachev's Rebellion in 1774, which was ultimately crushed by Catherine's forces. In addition,Kondratii Selivanov, who led acastratingsect known as theSkoptsy, claimed to be bothJesus and Peter III.[citation needed]
In December 1796, after succeeding Catherine, Peter's son, Emperor Paul I, who disliked his mother's behavior, arranged for Peter's remains to be exhumed and reburied with full honors in thePeter and Paul Cathedral, where other tsars (Russian emperors) were buried.[22]
The legend of Peter is still talked about, especially in the town where he lived most of his life, formerly Oranienbaum, laterLomonosov, situated on the southern coast of theGulf of Finland, 40 km west of St. Petersburg. Peter's palace is the only one of the famous palaces in the St. Petersburg area that was not captured by the Germans during theSecond World War. During the war, the building was a school and people say the ghost of Peter protected the children of Oranienbaum from getting hurt by bombs. Furthermore, it was near this town that thesiege of Leningrad ended in January 1944. People say that Peter, after his death, stoppedHitler's army near Leningrad, just as the living Peter had ordered the Russian army to stop, just as it was about to captureKonigsberg.[2][page needed][12][page needed]
^Михайлов Андрей Дмитриевич, Строев Александр Федорович (1999).Вольтер и Россия [Voltaire and Russia] (in Russian). Russia: Институт Мировой Литературы им А. М. Горького РАН.
^abcMylnikov, AS (2002),Piotr III (in Russian), Moskva, RU{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).[page needed]
Mylnikov, Alexander S. (1994).Die falschen Zaren : Peter III. und seine Doppelgänger in Russland und Osteuropa [The False Tsars: Peter III and his Doppelgangers in Russia and Eastern Europe]. Eutiner Forschungen ; 3 (in German). Translated by Valeria Andrejewa; Susanne Luber.Eutin: Struve's Buchdruckerei und Verlag.ISBN3923457286.
Mylnikov, Alexander S. (2002).Петр III : Повествование в документах и версиях [Piotr III : A narrative in documents and versions] (in Russian) (1st ed.). Moscow:Molodaya Gvardiya.ISBN978-5-235-03244-6.
Palmer, Elena (2005).Peter III. : Der Prinz von Holstein [Peter III : The Prince of Holstein] (in German). Sutton Verlag.ISBN3-89702-788-7.
Pares, Bernard.A History of Russia (1944) pp 240–244.online.
Valishevsky, Kazimir (1893).Catherine the Great. Novel of an Empress. Russia.ISBN5-85202-003-6.Kazimir Russian wiki page:Ru:Валишевский, Казимир{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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