Paul 1 Russian Hamlet. Pavel I Petrovich, All-Russian Emperor, "Russian Hamlet". S.f. platonov about paul i

During his reign, Paul the First did not execute anyone

Historical science has not yet known such a large-scale falsification as the assessment of the personality and activities of the Russian Emperor Paul the First. After all, there is John the Terrible, Peter the First, Stalin, around which polemic spears are mainly breaking now! No matter how you argue, "objectively" or "biased" they killed their enemies, they still killed them. And Paul the First during his reign did not execute anyone.

He ruled more humanely than his mother Catherine II, especially in relation to ordinary people. Why is he a "crowned villain," in the words of Pushkin? Because, without hesitation, he dismissed negligent bosses and even sent them to St. Petersburg (about 400 people in total)? Yes, we now have many dreaming of such a "crazy ruler"! Or why is he, in fact, "crazy"? Yeltsin, excuse me, sent some of the necessities publicly, and he was considered just an ill-mannered "original."

Not a single decree or law of Paul the First contains signs of madness, - on the contrary, they are distinguished by rationality and clarity. For example, they put an end to the madness that happened with the rules of succession after Peter the Great.

The 45-volume "Complete Code of Laws of the Russian Empire", published in 1830, contains 2,248 documents of the Pavlovian period (two and a half volumes), and this despite the fact that Paul reigned for only 1,582 days! Therefore, he issued 1-2 laws every day, and these were not grotesque reports about "Second Lieutenant Kizhi", but serious acts that later entered the "Complete Code of Laws"! So much for the "crazy"!

It was Paul I who legally secured the dominant role of the Orthodox Church among other churches and confessions in Russia. In the legislative acts of Emperor Paul it is said: "The prevailing and dominant faith in the Russian Empire is the Christian Orthodox Catholic Church of the Eastern Confession.", "The Emperor, possessing the All-Russian Throne, cannot profess any other faith than the Orthodox." We will read about the same in the Spiritual Regulations of Peter I. These rules were strictly observed until 1917. Therefore, I would like to ask our adherents of “multiculturalism”: when did Russia manage to become “multi-confessional”, as you are telling us now? During the atheistic period 1917-1991? Or after 1991, when the Catholic-Protestant Baltic states and the Muslim republics of Central Asia "fell away" from the country?

Many Orthodox historians are wary of the fact that Paul was the Grand Master of the Order of Malta (1798-1801), considering this order to be a "paramasonic structure."

But it was precisely one of the main Masonic powers of that time, England, that overthrew the power of Paul in Malta, occupying the island on September 5, 1800. This at least indicates that the English Masonic hierarchy (the so-called "Scottish rite") did not recognize Paul his own. Maybe Paul was "his" in the French Masonic "Great East", if he wanted to "make friends" with Napoleon? But this happened precisely after the capture of Malta by the British, and before that Paul fought with Napoleon. We must also understand that the title of Grand Master of the Order of Malta was required by Paul I not only for self-affirmation in the company of European monarchs. In the calendar of the Academy of Sciences, according to his instructions, the island of Malta was to be designated "the province of the Russian Empire." Pavel wanted to make the title of grandmaster hereditary, and to annex Malta to Russia. On the island, he planned to create a naval base to ensure the interests of the Russian Empire in the Mediterranean and southern Europe.

Finally, it is known that Paul was well disposed towards the Jesuits. This is also blamed by some Orthodox historians in the context of the complex relationship between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. But there is also a specific historical context. In 1800, it was the Jesuit Order that was considered the main ideological enemy of Freemasonry in Europe. So the Freemasons could in no way welcome the legalization of the Jesuits in Russia and treat Paul I as a Freemason.

THEM. Muravyov-Apostol more than once told his children, future Decembrists, “about the enormity of the coup that took place with the accession of Paul the First to the throne - a coup so sharp that his descendants would not understand it,” and General Ermolov argued that “the late emperor had great features , its historical character has not yet been determined in our country ”.

For the first time since the time of Elizabeth Petrovna, serfs are also taking the oath to the new tsar, which means that they are considered subjects, not slaves. Corvee is limited to three days a week with the provision of weekends on Sundays and holidays, and since there are many Orthodox holidays in Russia, this was a great relief for the working people. Domestic servants and serfs were forbidden by Paul the First to sell without land, as well as separately, if they were from the same family.

As in the time of Ivan the Terrible, a yellow box is installed in one of the windows of the Winter Palace, where everyone can throw a letter or petition addressed to the emperor. The key to the room with the box was with Paul himself, who every morning himself read the requests of his subjects and printed the answers in the newspapers.

“Emperor Paul had a sincere and firm desire to do good,” wrote A. Kotzebue. - Before him, as before the kindest sovereign, the poor and the rich, the nobleman and the peasant, were all equal. Woe to the strong man who oppressed the poor with arrogance. The road to the emperor was open to everyone; the title of his favorite did not protect anyone before him ... ”Of course, the nobles and the rich, accustomed to impunity and living for free, did not like this. "The Emperor is loved only by the lower classes of the urban population and the peasants," testified the Prussian envoy to St. Petersburg, Count Brühl.

Yes, Paul was extremely irritable and demanded unconditional obedience: the slightest delay in the execution of his orders, the slightest irregularity in the service led to the strictest reprimand and even punishment without any distinction of persons. But he is just, kind, generous, always benevolent, inclined to forgive insults and is ready to repent of his mistakes.

However, the best and noble undertakings of the tsar were smashed against the stone wall of indifference and even obvious hostility of his closest subjects, outwardly loyal and servile. Historians Gennady Obolensky in the book "Emperor Paul I" (Moscow, 2001) and Alexander Bokhanov in the book "Paul the First" (Moscow, 2010) convincingly prove that many of his orders were reinterpreted in a completely impossible and treacherous way, causing the growth of latent discontent with the tsar ... "You know what my heart is, but you don't know what kind of people they are," Pavel Petrovich wrote bitterly in one of his letters about his environment.

And these people meanly killed him, 117 years before the murder of the last Russian sovereign - Nicholas II. These events are undoubtedly connected, the terrible crime of 1801 predetermined the fate of the Romanov dynasty.

Decembrist A.V. Poggio wrote (by the way, it is curious that many objective testimonies about Paul belong to the Decembrists): “... a drunken, violent crowd of conspirators rushes in and disgustingly, without the slightest civil purpose, drags him, strangles, beats ... and kills! Having committed one crime, they completed it with another, even more terrible. They intimidated, carried away the son himself, and this unfortunate man, having bought a crown with such blood, will languish for him throughout his reign, disdain and unwittingly prepare an outcome unhappy for himself, for us, for Nicholas. "

But I would not, as many of Paul's admirers do, directly oppose the reigns of Catherine II and Paul I. Of course, the moral character of Paul for the better differed from the moral character of the loving empress, but the fact is that her favoritism was, among other things, a method of government, far from always ineffective. Catherine needed her favorites not only for carnal joys. Cared by the empress, they worked hard, God forbid, especially A. Orlov and G. Potemkin. The intimacy of the Empress and the favorites was a certain degree of trust in them, a kind of initiation, or something. Of course, there were idlers and typical gigolos like Lanskoy and Zubov next to her, but they appeared already in the last years of Catherine's life, when she somewhat lost her grasp of reality ...

Another thing is the position of Paul as heir to the throne under the system of favoritism. A. Bokhanov writes: in November 1781, “the Austrian Emperor (1765-1790) Joseph II arranged a magnificent meeting (Paul. - A. B. ), and in a series of solemn events the play "Hamlet" was scheduled at the court. Then the following happened: the leading actor Brockman refused to play the main role, as, in his words, "there will be two Hamlets in the hall." The emperor was grateful to the actor for the wise warning and awarded him 50 ducats. Paul did not see "Hamlet"; it remained unclear whether he knew this Shakespearean tragedy, the external plot of which was extremely reminiscent of his own fate.

And the diplomat and historian S.S. Tatishchev spoke to the famous Russian publisher and journalist A.S. Suvorin: "Paul was Hamlet in part, at least his position was Hamlet," Hamlet "was banned under Catherine II", after which Suvorin concluded: "Indeed, it is very similar. The only difference is that Catherine had Orlov and others instead of Claudius ... ”. (If we consider the young Pavel Hamlet, and Alexei Orlov, who killed Paul's father Peter III, Claudius, then the unfortunate Peter will be in the role of Hamlet's father, and Catherine herself - in the role of Hamlet's mother Gertrude, who married the murderer of her first husband).

Paul's position under Catherine was indeed Hamlet's. After the birth of his eldest son Alexander, the future Emperor Alexander I, Catherine considered the possibility of transferring the throne to her beloved grandson, bypassing her unloved son.

Paul's fears of such a development of events were strengthened by Alexander's early marriage, after which, by tradition, the monarch was considered an adult. On August 14, 1792, Catherine II wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm: "First, my Alexander will marry, and there in time he will be crowned with all kinds of ceremonies, celebrations and folk festivals." Apparently, therefore, Pavel defiantly ignored the celebrations on the occasion of his son's marriage.

On the eve of Catherine's death, the courtiers were awaiting the promulgation of a manifesto on the removal of Paul, his imprisonment in the Estonian castle of Lode and the proclamation of Alexander's heir. It is widely believed that while Pavel was waiting for his arrest, Catherine's manifesto (testament) personally destroyed A.A. Bezborodko's cabinet secretary, which allowed him to receive the highest rank of chancellor under the new emperor.

Ascending the throne, Pavel solemnly transferred his father's ashes from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the royal tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral simultaneously with the burial of Catherine II. At the funeral ceremony, depicted in detail on a long painting-ribbon by an unknown (apparently Italian) artist, the regalia of Peter III - the royal staff, scepter and a large imperial crown - were carried ... by the regicides - Count A.F. Orlov, Prince P. B. Baryatinsky and P.B. Passek. In the cathedral, Paul personally performed the rite of coronation of the ashes of Peter III (only crowned persons were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral). In the head slabs of the tombstones of Peter III and Catherine II, the same date of burial was carved - December 18, 1796, which may give the uninitiated the impression that they lived together for many years and died on the same day.

Invented in Hamlet's way!

In the book by Andrey Rossomakhin and Denis Khrustalev, "The Challenge of Emperor Paul, or the First Myth of the 19th Century" (St. Petersburg, 2011), for the first time, another "Hamlet" act of Paul I is examined in detail: a challenge to a duel that the Russian emperor sent to all monarchs of Europe as an alternative to wars in which tens and hundreds of thousands of people die. (By the way, this is exactly what L. Tolstoy rhetorically suggested in War and Peace, who himself did not favor Paul the First: let emperors and kings fight personally instead of destroying their subjects in wars).

What was perceived by contemporaries and descendants as a sign of "madness" was shown by Rossomakhin and Khrustalev as a subtle play of "Russian Hamlet" that was cut short during the palace coup.

Also for the first time convincingly presented evidence of the "English trace" of the conspiracy against Paul: for example, the book reproduces in color English satirical engravings and cartoons of Paul, the number of which increased precisely in the last three months of the emperor's life, when preparations began for the conclusion of the military-strategic alliance of Paul with Napoleon Bonaparte. As you know, shortly before the murder, Pavel gave an order for an entire army of Cossacks of the Don Army (22,500 sabers) under the command of Ataman Vasily Orlov to go on a campaign against India, agreed with Napoleon, in order to "disturb" the English possessions. The task of the Cossacks was to conquer Khiva and Bukhara "in passing". Immediately after the death of Paul I, Orlov's detachment was withdrawn from the Astrakhan steppes, and negotiations with Napoleon were curtailed.

I am sure that the "Hamlet theme" in the life of Paul the First will still be the subject of attention of historical novelists. I think there will also be a theater director who will stage Hamlet in a Russian historical interpretation, where, while keeping the Shakespearean text, it will take place in Russia at the end of the 18th century, and Tsarevich Pavel will play the role of Prince Hamlet, and the role of the ghost of Hamlet's father - murdered Peter III, in the role of Claudius - Alexei Orlov, etc. Moreover, the episode with the play performed in Hamlet by the actors of the itinerant theater can be replaced with an episode of the production of Hamlet in St. Petersburg by a foreign troupe, after which Catherine II and Orlov will ban the play ... Of course, the real Tsarevich Pavel, finding himself in the position of Hamlet, outplayed everyone, but after all, in 5 years he was waiting for the fate of Shakespeare's hero ...

During the stay of the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, in Vienna in 1781, it was decided to stage a ceremonial performance in honor of the Russian prince. Shakespeare's Hamlet was chosen, however ...

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

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

Indeed, the play of Paul's life unfolded like a drama. He was born in 1754 and was immediately taken from his parents by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, who decided to raise the boy herself. The mother was only allowed to see her son once a week. At first she was sad, then she got used to it, calmed down, especially since a new pregnancy came.

Portrait of the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich as a child.

Here we can see that first, imperceptible crack, which later turned into a yawning abyss that forever divided Catherine and the adult Paul. The separation of a mother from her newborn child is a terrible trauma for both.

Over the years, the mother developed alienation, and Pavel never had the first sensations of a warm, tender, maybe vague, but unique image of a mother, with which almost every person lives ...

Panin's lessons

Of course, the child was not abandoned to the mercy of fate, he was surrounded with care and affection, in 1760, the educator N.I. Panin appeared next to Pavel, an intelligent, educated person who had a strong influence on the formation of his personality.

It was then that the first rumors spread that Elizabeth wanted to raise her heir from Paul, and that the boy she hated would be sent to Germany.

Antoine Peng. Portrait of Catherine II in her youth.

Such a turn of events was impossible for the ambitious Catherine who dreamed of the Russian throne. An imperceptible crack between mother and son, again against their will, widened: Catherine and Pavel, even hypothetically, on paper, as well as in gossip, became rivals, rivals in the struggle for the throne. This affected their relationship.

When Catherine came to power in 1762, she could not, looking at her son, feel anxiety and jealousy: her own position was precarious - a foreigner, usurper, husband-killer, mistress of her subject.

In 1763, a foreign observer noted that when Catherine appeared, everyone fell silent, "and the crowd always runs after the Grand Duke, loudly expressing their pleasure." On top of that, there were people who were happy to drive new wedges into the crack.

Panin, as a representative of the aristocracy, dreamed of limiting the power of the empress and wanted to use Paul for this, putting the ideas of the constitution into his head. At the same time, he imperceptibly but consistently turned his son against his mother.

Nikita Ivanovich Panin is the mentor of Paul I, who prevented the marriage of Catherine II and the father of her three children, Grigory Orlov.

As a result, without firmly assimilating Panin's constitutional ideas, Paul was accustomed to rejecting the principles of his mother's rule, and therefore, having become king, he so easily went to overthrow the fundamental foundations of her politics.

In addition, the young man mastered the romantic idea of \u200b\u200bchivalry, and with it - a love for the outside of the matter, decorativeness, he lived in a world of dreams far from life.

Marriages on earth and in heaven

1772 is the time of Paul's majority. The hopes of Panin and others that Paul would be allowed to rule were not justified. Catherine was not going to transfer power to the legitimate heir of Peter III. She took advantage of her son's majority to remove Panin from the palace.

Soon the empress found a bride for her son. In 1773, by the will of his mother, he married the princess of Hesse-Darmstadt Augusta Wilhelmina (in Orthodoxy - Natalia Alekseevna) and was quite happy. But in the spring of 1776, the Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna died in heavy birth pain.

Natalya Alekseevna, nee Princess Augusta-Wilhelmina-Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt - Grand Duchess, the first wife of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (later Emperor Paul I).

Paul was inconsolable: his Ophelia was no longer in the world ... But the mother healed her son from grief in the most cruel way, similar to amputation.

Having found the love correspondence between Natalya Alekseevna and Andrei Razumovsky, a courtier, a close friend of Pavel, the empress handed these letters to Pavel. He was immediately cured of grief, although one can imagine what a cruel wound was then inflicted on Paul's delicate, fragile soul ...

Almost immediately after the death of Natalia, he was found a new bride - Dorothea Sophia Augusta Louise, Princess of Virtemberg (in Orthodoxy Maria Fedorovna). Pavel, unexpectedly for himself, immediately fell in love with his new wife, and the young ones healed in happiness and peace.

Maria Feodorovna; before converting to Orthodoxy - Sophia Maria Dorothea Augusta Louise of Württemberg - princess of the Württemberg house, second wife of the Russian Emperor Paul I. Mother of Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I.

In the fall of 1783, Pavel and Maria moved to the former estate of Grigory Orlov, Gatchina (or, as they wrote at the time, Gatchino), donated by the Empress. Thus began the long Gatchina epic of Paul ...

“The emperor was short, his features were ugly, except for his eyes, which were very beautiful, and their expression, when he was not in anger, had an attractiveness and infinite gentleness ... He had excellent manners and was very kind to women; he possessed literary erudition and a lively and open mind, was inclined to jokes and amusement, loved art; knew the French language and literature perfectly; his jokes were never of bad taste, and it is difficult to imagine anything more graceful than the brief gracious words with which he addressed those around him in moments of complacency. " This description of Pavel Petrovich, penned by His Highness Princess Daria Lieven, like many other reviews of people who knew him, does not fit too well into the image of an unintelligent, hysterical and cruel despot we are used to. And here is what, ten years after Pavel's death, one of the most thoughtful and impartial contemporaries, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, wrote: “... The Russians looked at this monarch like a formidable meteor, counting the minutes and looking forward to the last ... She came, and the news about that in the whole state there was a message of redemption: in houses, on the streets, people cried for joy, hugging each other, as on the day of the bright Resurrection. "

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

Fruit of dislike

He was born on September 20, 1754 into a family ... But it was very difficult to name the couple of Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst and Karl Peter Ulrich Holshtinsky, who became Ekaterina Alekseevna and Peter Fedorovich in Russia, as a family. The spouses were so hostile to each other and had so little desire to demonstrate mutual loyalty that historians still argue who was Paul's true father - Grand Duke Peter or Chamberlain Sergei Saltykov, the first of a long line of Catherine's favorites. However, the then Empress Elizaveta Petrovna waited so long for the appearance of the heir that she left all doubts to herself.

Immediately after the birth, the baby was unceremoniously taken away from the mother: the empress did not intend to risk, entrusting her unloved daughter-in-law with the upbringing of the future Russian monarch. Catherine was only occasionally allowed to see her son - every time in the presence of the Empress. However, even later, when his mother got the opportunity to educate him, she did not become closer to him. Deprived of not only parental warmth, but also communication with peers, but overly guarded by adults, the boy grew up very nervous and fearful. Showing remarkable ability to learn and a lively, agile mind, he was sometimes sensitive to tears, sometimes capricious and self-willed. According to the notes of his beloved teacher Semyon Poroshin, Paul's impatience is well known: he was constantly afraid to be late somewhere, was in a hurry and therefore became even more nervous, swallowed food without chewing, constantly looking at his watch. However, the regime of the day of the little grand duke was really harsh in the barracks: getting up at six and classes until the evening with short breaks for lunch and rest. Then - not at all children's court entertainment (masquerade, ball or theatrical performance) and sleep.

Meanwhile, at the turn of the 1750s-1760s, the atmosphere of the St. Petersburg court thickened: Elizaveta Petrovna's health, undermined by the stormy amusements, was rapidly deteriorating, and the question of a successor arose. It seemed that he was there: was it not for this that the empress ordered her nephew, Pyotr Fyodorovich, out of Germany, in order to hand over the reins of government to him? However, by that time she recognized Peter as incapable of ruling a huge country and, moreover, imbued with a spirit of admiration for Prussia, with which Russia was waging a difficult war, which she hated. This is how the project for the enthronement of little Paul arose during the regency of Catherine. However, it never materialized, and on December 25, 1761, power passed into the hands of Emperor Peter III.

During the 186 days of his reign, he managed to do a lot. To conclude an inglorious peace with Prussia with the concession to her of everything conquered and to abolish the Secret Chancellery, which for decades terrified all inhabitants of the empire. Demonstrate to the country a complete disregard for its traditions (first of all, for Orthodoxy) and free the nobility from compulsory service. Freaky and trusting, hot-tempered and stubborn, devoid of any diplomatic tact and political flair - with these features he surprisingly anticipated the character of Paul. On June 28, 1762, a conspiracy, led by Catherine and the Orlov brothers, ended the short reign of Peter III. According to the apt remark of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, so beloved by him, "he allowed himself to be overthrown from the throne like a child who is sent to sleep." And on July 6, the empress read the long-awaited news with bated breath: her husband is no longer alive. Peter was strangled to death by the drunken guards officers who were guarding him, led by Fyodor Baryatinsky and Alexei Orlov. They buried him imperceptibly, and not in the imperial tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral, but in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Formally, this was justified by the fact that Peter was never crowned. 34 years later, having become emperor, Paul shocks everyone with the order to remove the decayed remains of his father from the grave, crown and solemnly bury him along with the remains of his mother. So he will try to restore the violated justice.

Raising a prince

The order of succession to the throne in the Russian Empire was extremely confused by Peter I, according to whose decree the reigning sovereign should appoint an heir. It is clear that the legitimacy of Catherine's throne was more than dubious. Many saw her not as an autocratic ruler, but only as a regent with a young son, sharing power with representatives of the noble elite. One of the staunch supporters of limiting the autocracy in this way was the influential head of the College of Foreign Affairs and educator of the heir, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin. It was he who, until Paul's adulthood, played a decisive role in shaping his political views.

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

Best of the day

In 1772, the Empress convinces the Grand Duke to postpone the celebration of his majority until the wedding. The bride has already been found - this is the 17-year-old princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, who received the name of Natalia Alekseevna in baptism. Amorous Paul was crazy about her. In September 1773, the wedding is solemnly celebrated, at the same time Count Panin is removed from the crown prince with numerous awards and awards. Nothing happens anymore: the heir, as before, is almost completely removed from participation in public affairs. Meanwhile, he is eager to show his ability to be a worthy sovereign. In 1774, "Discourse on the state in general, regarding the number of troops required to defend it and regarding the defense of all limits," Paul proposes to abandon the conquest of new territories, reform the army on the basis of clear regulations and strict discipline and establish "a long peace, which brought we would have perfect peace. " The Empress, in whose mind just at that time a grandiose plan for the conquest of Constantinople was being formed, such reasoning, at best, could only evoke a condescending smile ...

In his memoirs, the Decembrist M.A. Fonvizin expounds a family tradition about the conspiracy that was formed around Paul at this time. The conspirators allegedly wanted to elevate him to the throne and at the same time promulgate a "constitution" limiting autocracy. Among them, Fonvizin names Count Panin, his secretary - the famous playwright Denis Fonvizin, Panin's brother Peter, his cousin Prince N.V. Repnin, as well as Pavel's young wife, known for her independence and willfulness. Thanks to the informer, Catherine found out about the undertaking, and Pavel, who could not bear her reproaches, confessed everything and was forgiven by her.

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

"Private family"?

Sophia Dorothea Augusta of Württemberg, who became Maria Feodorovna, was the complete opposite of her predecessor. Soft, supple and calm, she fell in love with Paul immediately and with all her heart. In the "instructions" specially written by him for his future wife, the Grand Duke openly warned: "She will first of all have to arm herself with patience and meekness in order to endure my ardor and changeable disposition, as well as my impatience." Maria Fedorovna successfully fulfilled this task for many years, and later she even found an unexpected and strange ally in such a difficult task. The maid of honor Ekaterina Nelidova did not differ in beauty and outstanding intelligence, but it was she who began to play the role of a kind of "psychotherapist" for Paul: in her society, the heir, and then the emperor, apparently, received what allowed him to cope with the phobias and outbursts of anger that overwhelmed him.

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

The "small" grand-ducal courtyard was initially located in Pavlovsk, a gift from Catherine to her son. The atmosphere here seemed to be saturated with peace and tranquility. “Never before has any private family welcomed guests so easily, kindly and simply: at dinners, balls, performances, festivities - everything had an imprint of decency and nobility ...” - the French ambassador Count Segur was delighted, having visited Pavlovsk. The problem, however, was that Paul was not satisfied with the role of head of the "private family" imposed on him by his mother.

The fact that he himself does not at all fit into the "scenario of power" created by Catherine should have become completely clear to Paul after the birth of his son. The Empress unambiguously demonstrated that she connects far-reaching plans with the firstborn, in which there was simply no place for his parents. Named by Alexander in honor of two great generals - Nevsky and Macedonian - the child was immediately taken away from the grand ducal couple. The same happened with the second son, named after the founder of the Second Rome, Constantine. The “Greek project” of the Empress and Grigory Potemkin was to create a new Byzantine empire under the scepter of Constantine, which would be linked, as the well-known historian Andrei Zorin aptly put, “by bonds of fraternal friendship” with the “northern” empire of Alexander.

But what about Paul? Having coped with the task of "supplier of heirs", it turned out that he had already played his role in the play "staged" at the behest of Catherine. True, Maria Feodorovna was not going to stop there. “Right, madam, you are a master of children,” the empress told her with mixed feelings, amazed at the fertility of her daughter-in-law (in total, Pavel and Mary had ten children safely). Even in this case, the son was only the second ...

Poor Pavel

It is not surprising that it was vitally important for Paul to create his own, alternative “scenario” of what was happening and to establish himself as an indispensable link in the chain of rulers, as if revealing the providential meaning of the Russian Empire. The desire to be realized in this capacity gradually becomes for him a semblance of an obsession. At the same time, Paul opposes a different, baroque understanding of reality to the transparent enlightenment rationalism of Catherine, which prescribed to treat everything with irony and skepticism. She appeared before him complex, full of mysterious meanings and omens. It was a Book that had to be read correctly and rewritten at the same time.

In a world where Paul was deprived of everything that was due to him by right, he persistently sought and found signs of his chosenness. During a trip abroad in 1781-1782, where he was sent by his mother under the name of the Count of the North as some kind of compensation for everything taken away and not received, the Grand Duke diligently cultivates the image of a "rejected prince", whom fate doomed to exist on the border between the visible and other worlds ...

In Vienna, according to rumors, the performance of Hamlet, which he was supposed to attend, was hastily canceled. In France, when Louis XVI asked about the people devoted to him, Paul said: "Oh, I would be very annoyed if there was even a poodle in my retinue, faithful to me, because my mother would have ordered him to be drowned immediately after my departure from Paris." Finally, in Brussels, the Tsarevich told a story in a secular salon, in which his mystical "search for himself" was reflected like a drop of water.

It happened once during a night walk in St. Petersburg with Prince Kurakin, Paul told the audience: “Suddenly, in the depths of one of the entrances, I saw a figure of a rather tall man, thin, in a Spanish cloak that covered his lower part of his face, and in a military hat pulled over our eyes ... When we passed him, he stepped out of the depths and silently walked to my left ... At first I was very surprised; then I felt that my left side was freezing, as if a stranger was made of ice ... ”Of course, it was a ghost invisible to Kurakin. "Paul! Poor Pavel! Poor prince! he said in a "deaf and sad voice." - ... Take my advice: do not get attached to anything earthly with your heart, you are a short-lived guest in this world, you will soon leave it. If you want a quiet death, live honestly and justly, according to your conscience; remember that remorse is the worst punishment for great souls. " Before parting, the ghost revealed itself: it was not the father, but the great-grandfather of Paul - Peter the Great. He disappeared in the very place where Catherine later installed her Peter - the Bronze Horseman. “And I'm scared; it is scary to live in fear: this scene still stands before my eyes, and sometimes it seems to me that I am still standing there, on the square in front of the Senate, ”the Tsarevich concluded his story.

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

Gatchina hermit

He probably returned to Russia the way they return from a festive performance, where you unexpectedly got the main role and thunderous applause, into a familiar and hateful home environment. The next decade and a half of his life passed in gloomy anticipation in Gatchina, which he inherited in 1783 after the death of Grigory Orlov. Paul tried his best to be an obedient son and act according to the rules set by his mother. Russia fought hard with the Ottoman Empire, and he was eager to fight at least as a simple volunteer. But all he was allowed to do was to participate in a harmless reconnaissance in a sluggish war with the Swedes. Catherine, at the invitation of Potemkin, made a solemn journey through the annexed to the empire of Novorossia, the participation of the crown prince was not provided for.

Meanwhile, in Europe, in France, which delighted him so much, a revolution was taking place and the king was executed, and he was trying to equip his little space in Gatchina. Justice, order, discipline - the less he noticed these qualities in the outside world, the more persistently he tried to make them the basis of his world. The Gatchina battalions, dressed in uniforms of the Prussian model, unusual for the Russians, and spending time on the parade grounds in endless honing of their drill training, became the object of irony on duty at the court of Catherine. However, ridicule over everything connected with Paul was almost part of the court ceremonial. The goal of Catherine, apparently, was to deprive the Tsarevich of that sacred halo, which, in spite of everything, was surrounded by the heir to the Russian throne. On the other hand, the empress's rejection of the oddities for which Paul was famous, his "non-political" growing in seclusion from year to year, was completely unfeigned. Both mother and son remained hostages to their roles to the end.

In such conditions, the plan of Catherine to transfer the throne to her grandson Alexander had every chance to be embodied in real actions. According to some memoirists, the corresponding decrees were prepared or even signed by the empress, but something prevented her from promulgating them.

Prince on the throne

On the night before the death of his mother, the Tsarevich had the same dream many times: an invisible force picks him up and lifts him to heaven. The accession to the throne of the new emperor Paul I took place on November 7, 1796, on the eve of the memory day of the formidable Archangel Michael, the leader of the disembodied heavenly army. For Paul, this meant that the heavenly commander overshadowed his reign with his hand. The construction of the Mikhailovsky Palace on the site indicated, according to legend, by the Archangel himself, was carried out at a feverish pace throughout the entire short reign. The architect Vincenzo Brenna built (according to Paul's own sketches) a real fortress.

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

Paul's ideal was least of all reduced to a soldier's drill. The daily parades held by him personally in any weather were only a private manifestation of the deliberately doomed attempt to improve the country's life in the same way as the mechanism for smooth operation is being adjusted. Paul got up at five o'clock in the morning, and at seven he could already visit any "public place". As a result, in all St. Petersburg offices, work began to begin three to four hours earlier than before. An unprecedented deal: the senators have been sitting at the tables since eight in the morning! Hundreds of unsolved cases, many of which had been waiting for their turn for decades, suddenly got going.

In military service, the changes were even more dramatic. “Our way of life, as an officer, has completely changed,” recalled one of the brilliant Catherine's guardsmen. “Under the empress, we thought only about going to theaters and societies, we wore tailcoats, but now we sat in the regimental yard from morning till night and taught us as recruits.” But all this was perceived by the elite as a gross violation of the "rules of the game"! “To turn the guards officers from courtiers into army soldiers, to introduce strict discipline, in a word, to turn everything upside down, meant to despise the general opinion and suddenly violate the whole existing order,” says another memoirist.

It was not in vain that Paul claimed the laurels of his great great-grandfather. His policy largely repeated the "general mobilization" of the times of Peter I, and it was based on the same concept of the "common good". Just like Peter, he strove to do and control everything himself. However, at the end of the 18th century, the nobility was much more independent, and the heir had much less charisma and intelligence than his ancestor. And despite the fact that his idea turned out to be akin to a utopia, it was not devoid of any kind of grandeur or consistency. Paul's intentions were initially met with much more sympathy than one might think. The people treated him as a kind of “deliverer”. And it was not about symbolic benefits (like the rights granted to them by serfs to take the oath and complain about landowners) and not about dubious attempts to regulate relations between peasants and landowners from the point of view of "justice" (as manifested in the well-known law on three-day corvee). The common people quickly realized that Paul's policies were inherently egalitarian towards everyone, but the "gentlemen", as far as they were in sight, suffered the most from it. One of the representatives of the "enlightened nobility" recalled that somehow, hiding (just in case) from Paul passing by behind a fence, he heard a soldier standing nearby say: "That's a hundred our Pugach is going!" - “I, turning to him, asked:“ How dare you speak so about your Sovereign? ” He, looking at me without any embarrassment, replied: "Why, sir, you obviously think so yourself, since you are hiding from him." There was nothing to answer. "

Paul found the ideal of disciplinary and ceremonial organization in medieval orders of knighthood. It is not surprising that he so enthusiastically agreed to accept the title of grandmaster offered to him by the Knights of Malta of the ancient order of John, without even being embarrassed by the fact that the order was Catholic. Discipline the lax Russian nobility, turning it into a semi-monastic caste - an idea that could not even be imagined by the rationalistic mind of Peter! However, it was such a clear anachronism that the officers dressed in knightly robes caused smiles even from each other.

Enemy of the revolution, friend of Bonaparte ...

Paul's chivalry was not limited to the sphere of ceremonial. Deeply hurt by the "unjust" aggressive policy of revolutionary France, offended, moreover, by the capture of Malta by the French, he could not stand his own peace-loving principles, getting involved with them in a war. However, his disappointment was great when it turned out that the allies - the Austrians and the British - were ready to enjoy the fruits of the victories of Admiral Ushakov and Field Marshal Suvorov, but they did not want to not only reckon with the interests of Russia, but simply abide by the agreements reached.

Meanwhile, on the 18th Brumaire of the VIII year according to the revolutionary calendar (October 29, 1799 - according to the Russian), as a result of a military coup, General Bonaparte came to power in Paris, who almost immediately began to look for ways of reconciliation with Russia. The Eastern Empire seemed to him a natural ally of France in the struggle with the rest of Europe, and above all with England. In turn, Paul quickly realized that revolutionary France was coming to an end, and "a king would soon be settled in this country, if not by name, then at least in substance." Napoleon and the Russian emperor exchange messages, and Pavel expresses an unexpectedly sober and pragmatic view of the situation: “I am not talking and I am not going to discuss either the rights or different methods of government that exist in our countries. Let's try to return peace and quiet to the world, which are so necessary for it and so consistent with the immutable laws of Providence. I am ready to listen to you ... "

The foreign policy turn was unusually abrupt - quite in the spirit of Paul. The emperor's mind is already being seized by plans to establish a certain "European equilibrium" by the forces of Russia and France, within which he, Pavel, will play the role of the main and impartial arbiter.

By the end of 1800, relations between Russia and Britain were strained to the limit. Now the British are occupying the long-suffering Malta. Paul responded by prohibiting all trade with Britain and arresting all British merchant ships in Russia, along with their crews. The British ambassador, Lord Whitworth, was expelled from St. Petersburg, who declared that the Russian autocrat was insane and, meanwhile, actively and without skimping on money, rallied the opposition to Paul in the capital's society. The squadron of Admiral Nelson was preparing to march into the Baltic Sea, and the Don Cossacks were ordered to strike at the most vulnerable, as it seemed, place of the British Empire - India. In this confrontation, the stakes for foggy Albion were unusually high. Not surprisingly, the "English trail" in the conspiracy organized against Paul is easily discernible. Still, regicide can hardly be considered a successful "special operation" of British agents.

"What I've done?"

“His head is smart, but it has some kind of machine that keeps on a thread. If this thread breaks - the machine will wrap itself up, and then the end of the mind and reason ”, - once said one of Paul's educators. In 1800 and at the beginning of 1801, it seemed to many people around the emperor that the thread was about to break, if not already broken. “Over the past year, suspicion in the emperor has developed to monstrosity. Empty cases grew in his eyes into huge conspiracies, he drove people into retirement and exiled at will. Numerous victims were not transferred in the fortress, and sometimes all their fault was reduced to too long hair or too short a caftan ... ”- Princess Lieven recalled.

Yes, the character of Paul was skillfully played by a variety of people and for different purposes. Yes, he was quick-witted and often had mercy on the punished, and this trait was also used by his enemies. He knew his weaknesses and all his life he fought with them with varying success. But by the end of his life, this struggle clearly became unbearable for him. Pavel gradually gave up, and although he did not reach the point beyond which the “end of reason” begins, he quickly approached it. The fatal role was probably played by the rapid expansion of the familiar and from childhood very limited horizon of perception to the size of the real and infinite world. Paul's consciousness was never able to accept and order him.

Not without the influence of true conspirators, the emperor fell out with his own family. Even before that, Nelidova was replaced by the cute and dimwitted Anna Lopukhina. Paul's entourage was in constant tension and fear. A rumor spread that he was preparing to deal with his wife and sons. The country froze ...

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

Russian Hamlet was called the contemporaries of Paul I.

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

Portrait 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 Elizaveta Petrovna. 18th century engraving

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna expressed her favor to the mother of the newborn by the fact that after the christening she herself brought her a cabinet decree on a golden dish on the issue of 100,000 rubles to her. After the christening at the court, a series of celebrations began 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 matters with his great great-grandfather, prophesied that he would free the Holy Places, step over the walls separating Russia from China.

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

By 1752, the patience of the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna burst out, who for a long time and unsuccessfully waited for an heir from the grand ducal couple. She kept Catherine under vigilant surveillance, but now she changed tactics. The Grand Duchess was given some freedom, of course, for a certain purpose. Around the Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, a medical fuss was organized, and rumors began to spread about his resolution from forced celibacy. Saltykov, who himself participated in both the vanity and the spread of rumors, was quite well aware of the real situation, he decided that his hour had struck.

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

Portrait of S. V. Saltykov
When Catherine II gave birth to Paul, Bestuzhev-Riumin reported to the empress:
« ... that what was drawn by Your Majesty's wise considerations took a good and desired beginning - the presence of the executor of Your Majesty's highest will is now not only unnecessary here, but even to the achievement of all-perfect fulfillment and treasure for eternal times of mystery would be harmful. With respect to these considerations, please, most merciful Empress, to command Chamberlain Saltykov to be Your Majesty's ambassador to Stockholm, under the King of Sweden. "

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

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 to 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 in late 1784 or early 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 Novy Mir magazine. After examining the evidence about the circumstances of the birth of Pavel Petrovich, Eidelman does not exclude that Catherine II gave birth to a dead child, but this was kept secret, replacing him with another newborn, Chukhon, that is, Finnish, - a boy who was born in the village of Kotly near Oranienbaum. The parents of this boy, the family of the local pastor and all the inhabitants of the village (about twenty people) were sent under strict guard to Kamchatka, and the village of Kotly was demolished, and the place where she stood was plowed.

Fyodor Rokotov. Portrait of Emperor Paul I as a Child. 1761 Russian Museum

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

Surely, in early childhood, Pavel heard gossip about his birth. So, he also knew that various people considered him "illegitimate." This left an indelible mark on his soul.

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

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

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

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

Such a cannon was an exact copy of the real one and could fire both small cannonballs (grape-shot bullets were used for this) and produce blank shots, i.e. shoot with ordinary gunpowder. Naturally, these amusements of the little Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich took place under the watchful eye of both the educators and a specially appointed orderly from the artillery team.
(Napoleon also played with his son and nephews in such soldiers, and the composer Johannes Brahms simply adored this occupation. 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 at the 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 - Fedor Bekhteev, Semyon Poroshin and Nikita Panin.

F. Bekhteev - the first educator of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna punished "To the pupil of the" female tower " to suggest that he is the future man and Tsar .. ".Immediately upon arrival, he began to teach Pavel to read in Russian and in French in a very original alphabet.
During his studies, Bekhteev began to use a special method that combined fun with learning, and quickly taught the Grand Duke to read and arithmetic with the help of toy soldiers and a folding fortress.
F. Bekhteev presented the tsarevich with a map of the Russian state with the inscription: "Here you see, sir, the inheritance that your glorious grandfathers spread by 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 - the second educator of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, in the period 1762-1766, i.e. when Paul was 7-11 years old. Since 1762 he has been a permanent cavalier under the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. Poroshin treated the Grand Duke with the affectionate warmth of his older brother (he was 13 years older than Paul), took care of the development of his spiritual qualities and heart, and acquired more and more influence on him; the grand duke, in turn, was on friendly terms with him.

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

Paul rarely saw his parents.

On December 20, 1762, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich was granted by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna as admiral-general of the Russian fleet. 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 life.

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

When Paul was 7 years old,
Empress Elizaveta Petrovna died and he 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, exclaimed, not without pride:
"I see this rogue knows things better than we do."
As a token of his favor, he immediately granted Paul the rank of corporal of the guard.

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

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

Peter III Fedorovich

Now the fate of Paul more and more resembled the fate of Hamlet. The father was overthrown by the mother from the throne and killed with her consent. The killers were not punished, but enjoyed all the benefits at court. In addition, the mental health of the unbalanced Paul was reminiscent of the madness of Hamlet.

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

His teacher of the law was Father Platon (Levshin) - one of the most educated people of his time, the future Metropolitan of Moscow. Metropolitan Plato, recalling Paul's training, wrote that his
"The high pupil, fortunately, was always inclined towards piety, and whether reasoning or talking about God and faith was always pleasant to him."

The education of the Tsarevich was the best one could get at that time.

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

Pavel Petrovich read a lot.
Here is a list of books that the Grand Duke got acquainted with: works of French enlighteners: Montesquieu, Rousseau, D "Alamber, 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. Educator S.A. Poroshin spoke highly of the successes of Pavel Petrovich. He wrote in his "Notes":
"If His Highness was a particular man and could completely indulge in mathematical teaching alone, then in his sharpness it would be very convenient to be our Russian Pascal."

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

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

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

"..... I was gladly convinced that the Grand Duke was perfectly built, vigorous, strong and without any natural ailment. ... Pavel Petrovich ... is of average height, has excellent 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, Nicolai, Lafermierre and Leveque. They were all vehement supporters of Prussian military doctrine. Pavel Petrovich fell in love with parades, like his father Peter III. Catherine called it 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 did it for a reason. The Empress understood that Russian generals and officers know their worth, they have won military victories more than once. And visiting emperors and empresses in order to maintain their influence in the country, this price must be lowered by all means, including by invited foreign specialists to train the crown princes.

Karl Ludwig Christinek. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich dressed as a Chevalier of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. 1769 g.

At this time, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, a zealous freemason, gave Paul to read mysterious handwritten works, including the "History of the Order of the Knights of Malta". And the crown prince caught fire with the knightly theme. The writings argued that the emperor should look after the good of the people, as a kind of spiritual leader. The emperor must be initiated. He is the anointed one. It is not the church that should lead him, but he the church. These crazy ideas mixed in Paul's unhappy head with that childish faith in the providence of God, which he learned from his infancy from Queen Elizabeth, 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 year
Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich came of age.

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

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

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

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

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

Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

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

King Frederick II of Prussia really wanted the crown prince's marriage to the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt to take place. Catherine II was very unhappy with this and at the same time wished for an early end to the matchmaking of the Tsarevich.

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

Frederica Amalia of Hesse-Darmstadt

Augusta-Wilhelmina-Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt

Louise Augusta of Hesse-Darmstadt

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

Catherine II wrote:
"From the very first meeting my son fell in love with Princess Wilhelmina; I gave three days to a time limit to see if he hesitated, and since this princess is superior to her sisters in every way ... the eldest is very meek; the youngest seems to be very intelligent; in the middle, we have all the desired qualities: her face is lovely, her features are correct, she is affectionate, smart; I am very pleased with her, and my son is in love ... then on the fourth day I turned to the Landgrave ... 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 package for more than a hundred years. In it, he recorded his experiences while waiting for the bride:
"..joy mixed with worry and awkwardness, who is and will be the friend of all life ... a source of bliss in the present and in the future "

***
1773 year

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

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

The wedding celebrations lasted 12 days and ended with fireworks on the square near the Summer Palace.
Catherine's generosity was great. Landgrafina was presented with 100,000 rubles and, in addition, 20,000 rubles for expenses on the way back. Each of the princesses received 50,000 rubles, each of the retinue - 3,000 rubles. Thanks to the favors of Catherine, the princesses' dowry was provided.

Only one event overshadowed the wedding celebrations: as in Shakespeare's play, the shadow of Pavel Petrovich's murdered father, Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich, appeared on the wedding. Only the reflections of the festive fireworks went out, the rebel Pugachev appeared, declaring himself Peter III.

Emelyan Pugachev. Old engraving.

The honeymoon of the young couple was overshadowed by the anxieties of the peasant war.
But despite this, everyone in the family circle was happy. Pavel Petrovich was pleased with his wife. The young wife turned out to be an active nature. She dispelled her husband's fears, took him out on country walks, to the ballet, threw balls, created her own theater, in which she herself played in comedies and tragedies. In a word, the withdrawn and unsociable Paul came to life with his young wife, in whom he didted. The Grand Duke never dared to betray 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 agitated: the long-awaited pregnancy of Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna was announced. On April 10, 1776, at four in the morning, the Grand Duchess began to experience the first pains. She was accompanied by a doctor and a midwife. The contractions lasted for several days, and soon 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 forceps or caesarean sections. The child died in the womb and infected the mother's body.
After five days of torment at 5 am on April 15, 1776, the Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna died.
The empress did not like Natalya Alekseevna, and the diplomats gossiped that she would not let the doctors save her daughter-in-law. The autopsy, however, showed that the woman in labor had a defect that would not have allowed her to give birth to a child naturally, and that the medicine of that time was powerless to help her.
The funeral of Natalya Alekseevna took place on April 26 at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Paul 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 her love notes of Andrei Rozumovsky in the casket of the deceased and handed it to her son.
And Pavel Petrovich quickly consoled himself.

***
1776 year
Second marriage

It took only about three months of his widowhood!

Pavel Petrovich goes to Berlin to propose to the Württemberg princess Sophia-Dorothea-Augusta. Throughout the journey, Paul wrote to his mother:
"I found my bride the kind that I could only wish for myself in my mind: not ugly, big, slender, not shy, answers intelligently and promptly ..."

The princess was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, taking the name Maria Feodorovna. She began to study Russian with zeal.
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 I love you more and more every day. God bless our union just as He created it."

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

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

When their first child was born in 1777, 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 from a distance showed the parents of the born boy and took him to her forever. She did the same with his other children: sons Konstantin and Nikolai and two daughters.

K. Hoyer (?) Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna with sons Alexander and Constantine. 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

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

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

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 began to acquire antique sculpture, Venetian mirrors. All this will soon be included in the decoration of the Pavlovsk Palace.

About his position as "Hamlet" Pavel Petrovich was silent at first. But when he got into a friendly (promised to become a kindred) circle, he stopped holding back. Pavel Petrovich began to speak out sharply about his mother and her politics.

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

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

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

Paris service. France 1782. Sevres Manufactory

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

Toilet appliance. France. Sevres. 1782. GMZ "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 Etupé.
The young returned home in November 1782.

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

Facades of the palace. 1781 drawing

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

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

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

Schwartz. Parade in Gatchina

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

In general, life was full of conventions and saturated with strict adherence to the rules, which were to be followed by everyone, without exception, both adults and children. Getting up early in the morning, walking or horseback riding, lunches, dinners starting at the same time, performances and evening meetings - all this was subject to strict etiquette and followed the order established by the emperor once and for all.

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

During the Gatchina period of his life, the prince:
* * creates his own mini-army.
The army of Pavel Petrovich grows here every year and acquires an ever clearer organization. The manor itself soon turned into "Gatchina Russia".

Here were represented the infantry, cavalry, consisting of gendarmerie, dragoon, hussar and Cossack regiments, as well as a flotilla with the so-called "naval artillery". In total, by 1796 - 2,399 people. And the flotilla by this time consisted of 24 ships.
The only case of participation of the Gatchina troops 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 entered into force in 1797.

The charter introduced new positions in the fleet - historiographer, professor of astronomy and navigation, drawing master. An important direction of the policy of Paul I in relation to the fleet was the establishment of the principle of one-man command. Double subordination of one private to several chiefs 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. Corfa, which Catherine II acquired for her son. There was also a library formed by Paul I.
The library was located in the Tower Office, and consisted of the books that he used, which were always at his fingertips.

This collection is relatively small: 119 titles, 205 volumes; including 44 titles in Russian, 60 volumes. With a small number of books, attention is drawn to their extraordinary diversity in content. A variety of compositions are adjacent to each other:

Atlas of the Russian Empire, Diplomatic Ceremony of European Courts, Modern Knowledge of Horses, Discourses on Marine Signals,

"Detailed description of the ore business", "Statute of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Turin",

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

In addition, there was historical literature.

Gatchina became Pavel Petrovich's favorite place of residence. And the word "Gatchina" has become almost a household name. It meant a person who was disciplined, executive, honest and devoted.

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

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

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

So, under the sign of 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 with his wife. This was the first joint crowning of the emperor and empress in the history of the Russian Empire.

After the coronation, the emperor traveled to the southern provinces for two months, and returning to St. Petersburg, he placed on himself the crown of the Grand Master of the spiritual-knightly order of St. John of Jerusalem. The order needed military assistance. 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, dalmatics and insignia of the Order of Malta. Artist V.L.Borovikovsky. Around 1800.
After accession to the throne, Paul I resolutely set about breaking 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, to return A.N. Radishchev from exile. He carried out a provincial reform, reducing the number of provinces and liquidating the Yekaterinoslav province. Particular mercy was shown to the rebel Kosciuszko: the emperor personally visited the prisoner in prison and granted him freedom, and soon all Poles arrested in 1794 were also released. Pavel I completely rehabilitated Kosciuszko, gave him financial aid and allowed him to leave for America.

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

By his first manifesto, Emperor Paul reduced the peasant labor for landlords ("corvee") to three days a week, that is, by half. On Sunday, as the day of the Lord, 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 was published to the Senate, which stated:
"So how, through various books exported from abroad, debauchery of faith, civil law and good behavior is applied,then from now on, until the decree, we command to prohibit the admission from abroad of all kinds of books, in whatever language they may be, without exception, into our state, evenly and music. "

Under Paul I, three monuments were erected: the statue of Peter the Great, the obelisk "Rumyantsev's Victories" designed by Brenna on the Field of Mars and the 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 already erected after the death of the emperor.
In 1800, the construction of the Kazan Cathedral began according to the design of A. Voronikhin.

During his reign, the General Armorial was drawn up and approved. Under him, the distribution of princely titles began, which had hardly been practiced before.

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 9 more large ships began. In St. Petersburg, at the end of Galernaya Street, a new shipyard was built, which was named the New Admiralty.

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

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

Literature:

1.I. Chizhova. Immortal triumph and beauty of mortals. EKSMO. 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. SPb. M., 1996.

6.Pchelov E.V. Romanovs. Dynasty history. - OLMA-PRESS. 2004.

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

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

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