Ivan VI is the baby that became tsar of Russia for a year, then was overthrown by Elizaveta, who had him locked up in solitary confinement his entire life.
Anna Leopoldovna is his mother, who got locked up with her husband and remaining kids.
Duke Anton of Brunswick is the brother of EC, husband of Anna Leopoldovna, and father of Ivan VI who got locked up with his wife and remaining kids.
So remember how Anna had a ménage à trois with her lady-in-waiting Julia Mengden and Saxon ambassador Lynar? Lynar being the one who quit Saxon service to be with his royal love ONE YEAR after Suhm quit Saxon service to be with his royal love? And neither pair was ever reunited, since one died en route and the other learned en route that his royal love had been locked up in a palace coup?
So I'm reading along in Montefiore, and I hit this passage. Note that Anna Leopoldovna is not yet empress, just the heiress, and the current empress is the not at all confusingly named Anna Ivanovna.
Prince Anton of Brunswick, the stammering fiancé of the heiress, was serving under Münnich, who admired the boy’s courage but thought him sexually ambiguous. So did his fiancée. Anna Leopoldovna’s governess was a Baltic German noblewoman named Madame d’Aderkass who became inseparable from her charge, sparking lesbian rumours while simultaneously both governess and princess became enamoured of Count Maurice Lynar, the young Saxon ambassador. When the empress heard rumours that “accused this girl of sharing the tastes of the famous Sappho,” Anna expelled the governess and had Lynar recalled.
So apparently this Saxon ambassador was SUCH hot stuff that he managed to get into two different menage à trois with Anna Leopoldovna and a second woman! First the governess and then the lady-in-waiting.
Good god, I see what kind of training these ambassadors get in Dresden at the court of August the Strong. *g*
Speaking of Ivan VI, Montefiore tells me that Elizaveta had Ivan VI and family moved to the remote Russian wilderness, not when Fritz encouraged her to lock them up so far away that Europe forgets about them (his brother-in-law, remember), but when she discovered a plot by Fritz to overthrow her and replace her with Ivan VI.
Now, the chronology here is very interesting. The plot Montefiore reports is uncovered in 1742. He says she had them relocated "at once," but according to my original write-up, they don't get moved out of Riga until February 1744 (when Anhalt Sophie is passing through). My write-up also says that when Fritz supposedly wrote to Elizaveta to move his brother-in-law and their family far, far away was in 1744.
This is interesting because in 1742, Fritz is at war, Russia's on the other side, and he's trying to prevent them from entering the war and attacking Prussia. How does he do this? According to various sources I've read recently, he tells France that he'll abandon the alliance with them (which he will do anyway, but I digress) if they don't get Sweden to attack Russia and thus distract them from Prussia.
So Sweden goes to war. Remember the Hats and Caps, the two rival parties dominating Swedish politics during the Age of Liberty (1719-1772)? The Hats are in power in 1742, and they favor an alliance with France, for which, read, the French are paying them. So this happens:
- Fritz puts the pressure on the French to distract Russia.
- The French put the pressure on Sweden.
- The Hats in Sweden decide this is an awesome opportunity to reconquer territory lost by Charles XII to Peter the Great in the Great Northern War. What could possibly go wrong?
- Everything goes wrong. The Russians win.
- James Keith is head of the Russian army in Finland. He meets his mistress/long-term partner Eva Merthen while occupying Finland.
- While Keith is occupying Finland, he summons the Finnish estates to make various political decisions.
- The Finns decide Finland should have a king and not be part of Sweden or Russia any more. They decide HolsteinPete, future Peter III of Russia, will be a great candidate.
- Oops, Elizaveta has decided she wants him as *her* heir.
- No more independent Finland anyway, sorry, Finns.
- In 1743, Fritz isn't at war, he's still annoyed at Elizaveta's most influential minister, Bestushev, who haaates Prussia, and he's actively trying to get someone more friendly to Prussia married to HolsteinPete, in hopes that when Elizaveta dies, Russia will be less hostile to Prussia.
- In 1744, Fritz succeeds in getting 14-year old AnhaltSophie sent to Russia to marry Peter.
So I'm utterly willing to believe that in 1742, when he was pressuring France to pressure Sweden to attack Russia (Man, I had no idea Fritz was the instigator behind that war *too*. The more you know.), Fritz was trying to overthrow the hated Elizaveta in favor of getting his Brunswick nephew-in-law back on the throne, and that in 1744, when he'd given up on that and was now angling for influencing the next generation via marriage, he was all, "Lock up EC's brother and nephew!"
Politics.
Speaking of EC's brother, sadly, Montefiore quotes a number of primary sources to indicate that not only did Anna Leopoldovna cheat on him with Lynar, Julia Mengden, and Lynar + Mengden (btw, Montefiore cites primary sources for contemporaries declaring that the Anna+Julia relationship was like the most lesbian thing they'd ever seen), but, also, that Anna + Duke Anton hated each other from the beginning, even before they were married. :(
Anna L must have had a strong sex drive, since she was producing kid after kid in prison with Anton, whom she hated, when there was no incentive to produce an heir to the throne!
Incidentally, I found this hilarious:
The regent evidently wanted both Julie and Lynar, yet she was married. So they planned that Julie should marry Lynar. This meant that the Saxon lover could regularly visit the regent. Needless to say, this upset her husband and led to “misunderstandings which last whole weeks.”
Um, I'm not sure that's a misunderstanding. I think he understands perfectly well. :P
And this was sad:
[After the coup,] the childless Elizaveta was motivated by greed as well as jealousy: she wanted Biron’s jewels and was happy to use Anna’s love for Julie to get them. “Ask Anna to whom she gave the diamonds which were not found,” Elizaveta ordered her officer in Kholmogory. “If Anna says she didn’t give the diamonds to anyone, tell her I’ll be forced to torture Julka and if she pities her, she shouldn’t expose her to such suffering.”
Julia, remember, voluntarily accompanied Anna into exile.
Also, poor kid:
When little Ivan was ill, Elizaveta banned medical treatment. But he lived on.
On a more frivolous note, Elizaveta was a famous beauty (apparently not just by royal standards, for once), but the older she got, the more she freaked out as she started to lose her beauty. She would dictate what other women at court could wear, banned everyone else from wearing pink, and when one lady put a forbidden pink rose in her hair, Elizaveta ordered [the other woman] to kneel before her, cut off the offending lock of hair--and slapped her.
One time she was dyeing her hair (she was a blonde who dyed her hair black) and it went wrong. She had to shave off her now blue hair, and so she ordered all the other women at court to shave their heads. Crying, they obeyed. She sent them black perukes to wear until their hair grew out again.
An aging Elizaveta's three least favorite things?
She forbade any mention of illness, beautiful women or her enemy Frederick the Great.
:D
In general, both Montefiore and Massie are lively, deeply entertaining, and informative. I have some quibbles with both facts and opinions, but I'm definitely glad to be reading them.
Russian gossipy sensationalism
Ivan VI is the baby that became tsar of Russia for a year, then was overthrown by Elizaveta, who had him locked up in solitary confinement his entire life.
Anna Leopoldovna is his mother, who got locked up with her husband and remaining kids.
Duke Anton of Brunswick is the brother of EC, husband of Anna Leopoldovna, and father of Ivan VI who got locked up with his wife and remaining kids.
So remember how Anna had a ménage à trois with her lady-in-waiting Julia Mengden and Saxon ambassador Lynar? Lynar being the one who quit Saxon service to be with his royal love ONE YEAR after Suhm quit Saxon service to be with his royal love? And neither pair was ever reunited, since one died en route and the other learned en route that his royal love had been locked up in a palace coup?
So I'm reading along in Montefiore, and I hit this passage. Note that Anna Leopoldovna is not yet empress, just the heiress, and the current empress is the not at all confusingly named Anna Ivanovna.
Prince Anton of Brunswick, the stammering fiancé of the heiress, was serving under Münnich, who admired the boy’s courage but thought him sexually ambiguous. So did his fiancée. Anna Leopoldovna’s governess was a Baltic German noblewoman named Madame d’Aderkass who became inseparable from her charge, sparking lesbian rumours while simultaneously both governess and princess became enamoured of Count Maurice Lynar, the young Saxon ambassador. When the empress heard rumours that “accused this girl of sharing the tastes of the famous Sappho,” Anna expelled the governess and had Lynar recalled.
So apparently this Saxon ambassador was SUCH hot stuff that he managed to get into two different menage à trois with Anna Leopoldovna and a second woman! First the governess and then the lady-in-waiting.
Good god, I see what kind of training these ambassadors get in Dresden at the court of August the Strong. *g*
Speaking of Ivan VI, Montefiore tells me that Elizaveta had Ivan VI and family moved to the remote Russian wilderness, not when Fritz encouraged her to lock them up so far away that Europe forgets about them (his brother-in-law, remember), but when she discovered a plot by Fritz to overthrow her and replace her with Ivan VI.
Now, the chronology here is very interesting. The plot Montefiore reports is uncovered in 1742. He says she had them relocated "at once," but according to my original write-up, they don't get moved out of Riga until February 1744 (when Anhalt Sophie is passing through). My write-up also says that when Fritz supposedly wrote to Elizaveta to move his brother-in-law and their family far, far away was in 1744.
This is interesting because in 1742, Fritz is at war, Russia's on the other side, and he's trying to prevent them from entering the war and attacking Prussia. How does he do this? According to various sources I've read recently, he tells France that he'll abandon the alliance with them (which he will do anyway, but I digress) if they don't get Sweden to attack Russia and thus distract them from Prussia.
So Sweden goes to war. Remember the Hats and Caps, the two rival parties dominating Swedish politics during the Age of Liberty (1719-1772)? The Hats are in power in 1742, and they favor an alliance with France, for which, read, the French are paying them. So this happens:
- Fritz puts the pressure on the French to distract Russia.
- The French put the pressure on Sweden.
- The Hats in Sweden decide this is an awesome opportunity to reconquer territory lost by Charles XII to Peter the Great in the Great Northern War. What could possibly go wrong?
- Everything goes wrong. The Russians win.
- James Keith is head of the Russian army in Finland. He meets his mistress/long-term partner Eva Merthen while occupying Finland.
- While Keith is occupying Finland, he summons the Finnish estates to make various political decisions.
- The Finns decide Finland should have a king and not be part of Sweden or Russia any more. They decide HolsteinPete, future Peter III of Russia, will be a great candidate.
- Oops, Elizaveta has decided she wants him as *her* heir.
- No more independent Finland anyway, sorry, Finns.
- In 1743, Fritz isn't at war, he's still annoyed at Elizaveta's most influential minister, Bestushev, who haaates Prussia, and he's actively trying to get someone more friendly to Prussia married to HolsteinPete, in hopes that when Elizaveta dies, Russia will be less hostile to Prussia.
- In 1744, Fritz succeeds in getting 14-year old AnhaltSophie sent to Russia to marry Peter.
So I'm utterly willing to believe that in 1742, when he was pressuring France to pressure Sweden to attack Russia (Man, I had no idea Fritz was the instigator behind that war *too*. The more you know.), Fritz was trying to overthrow the hated Elizaveta in favor of getting his Brunswick nephew-in-law back on the throne, and that in 1744, when he'd given up on that and was now angling for influencing the next generation via marriage, he was all, "Lock up EC's brother and nephew!"
Politics.
Speaking of EC's brother, sadly, Montefiore quotes a number of primary sources to indicate that not only did Anna Leopoldovna cheat on him with Lynar, Julia Mengden, and Lynar + Mengden (btw, Montefiore cites primary sources for contemporaries declaring that the Anna+Julia relationship was like the most lesbian thing they'd ever seen), but, also, that Anna + Duke Anton hated each other from the beginning, even before they were married. :(
Anna L must have had a strong sex drive, since she was producing kid after kid in prison with Anton, whom she hated, when there was no incentive to produce an heir to the throne!
Incidentally, I found this hilarious:
The regent evidently wanted both Julie and Lynar, yet she was married. So they planned that Julie should marry Lynar. This meant that the Saxon lover could regularly visit the regent. Needless to say, this upset her husband and led to “misunderstandings which last whole weeks.”
Um, I'm not sure that's a misunderstanding. I think he understands perfectly well. :P
And this was sad:
[After the coup,] the childless Elizaveta was motivated by greed as well as jealousy: she wanted Biron’s jewels and was happy to use Anna’s love for Julie to get them. “Ask Anna to whom she gave the diamonds which were not found,” Elizaveta ordered her officer in Kholmogory. “If Anna says she didn’t give the diamonds to anyone, tell her I’ll be forced to torture Julka and if she pities her, she shouldn’t expose her to such suffering.”
Julia, remember, voluntarily accompanied Anna into exile.
Also, poor kid:
When little Ivan was ill, Elizaveta banned medical treatment. But he lived on.
On a more frivolous note, Elizaveta was a famous beauty (apparently not just by royal standards, for once), but the older she got, the more she freaked out as she started to lose her beauty. She would dictate what other women at court could wear, banned everyone else from wearing pink, and when one lady put a forbidden pink rose in her hair, Elizaveta ordered [the other woman] to kneel before her, cut off the offending lock of hair--and slapped her.
One time she was dyeing her hair (she was a blonde who dyed her hair black) and it went wrong. She had to shave off her now blue hair, and so she ordered all the other women at court to shave their heads. Crying, they obeyed. She sent them black perukes to wear until their hair grew out again.
An aging Elizaveta's three least favorite things?
She forbade any mention of illness, beautiful women or her enemy Frederick the Great.
:D
In general, both Montefiore and Massie are lively, deeply entertaining, and informative. I have some quibbles with both facts and opinions, but I'm definitely glad to be reading them.