Peter III of Russia
Peter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was born in Kiel as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, the only child of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Anna Petrovna. The German Peter could hardly speak Russian and pursued a strongly pro-Prussian policy, which made him an unpopular leader. He was deposed and possibly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his German wife, Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II. However, another theory is he died as a result of a drunken brawl with his bodyguard while he was being held captive after Catherine's coup.
Despite his generally poor reputation, Peter made some progressive reforms during his short reign. He proclaimed religious freedom and encouraged education. He sought to modernize the Russian army. He abolished the secret police, which had been infamous for its extreme violence, and made it illegal for landowners to kill their serfs without going to court. Catherine adopted some of his reforms and reverted others.
Early life and character
Peter was born in Kiel, in the duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. His parents were Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Anna Petrovna. His mother died shortly after his birth. In 1739, Peter's father died, and he became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp as Charles Peter Ulrich at the age of 11.When Elizabeth, his mother's younger sister, became Empress of Russia, she brought Peter from Germany to Russia and proclaimed him her heir presumptive in the autumn of 1742. Previously in 1742, the 14-year-old Peter was proclaimed King of Finland during the Russo-Swedish War, when Russian troops held Finland. This proclamation was based on his succession rights to territories held by his childless great-uncle, the late Charles XII of Sweden, who also had been Grand Duke of Finland. About the same time, in October 1742, he was chosen by the Swedish parliament to become heir presumptive to the Swedish throne. However, the Swedish parliament was unaware of the fact that he had also been proclaimed heir presumptive to the throne of Russia, and when their envoy arrived in Saint Petersburg in November, it was too late. It has been reported that the succession rights to Sweden of the underage Peter were renounced on his behalf. Also in November, Peter converted to Eastern Orthodoxy under the name of Pyotr Feodorovich.
Empress Elizabeth arranged for Peter to marry his second cousin, Sophia Augusta Frederica, daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst and Princess Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. The young princess formally converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna. They married on 21 August 1745. The marriage was not a happy one but produced one son, the future Emperor Paul, and one daughter, Anna Petrovna. Catherine later claimed that Paul was not fathered by Peter: that, in fact, they had never consummated the marriage. During the sixteen years of their residence in Oranienbaum, Catherine took numerous lovers, while her husband did the same in the beginning.
The classical view of Peter's character is mainly drawn out of the memoirs of his wife and successor. She described him as an "idiot", "drunkard from Holstein", "good-for-nothing", etc. This portrait of Peter can be found in most history books, including 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:
There have been many attempts to revise the traditional characterisation of Peter and his policies. The Russian historian A.S. Mylnikov views Peter III very differently:
The German historian Elena Palmer goes even further, portraying Peter III as a cultured, open-minded emperor who tried to introduce various courageous, even democratic reforms in 18th century Russia. A monument for Peter III stands in Kiel, the city of his birth.
Reign
Foreign policy
After Peter succeeded to the Russian throne, he withdrew Russian forces from the Seven Years' War and concluded a peace treaty with Prussia. He gave up Russian conquests in Prussia and offered 12,000 troops to make an alliance with Frederick II of Prussia. Russia thus switched from an enemy of Prussia to an ally—Russian troops withdrew from Berlin and marched against the Austrians. This dramatically shifted the balance of power in Europe, suddenly handing the delighted Frederick the initiative. Frederick recaptured southern Silesia and subsequently forced Austria to the negotiating table.As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Peter planned war against Denmark in order to restore parts of Schleswig to his Duchy. He focused on making alliances with Sweden and with England to ensure that they would not interfere on Denmark's behalf, while Russian forces gathered at Kolberg in Russian-occupied Pomerania. Alarmed at the Russian troops concentrating near their borders, unable to find any allies to resist Russian aggression, and short of money to fund a war, the government of Denmark threatened in late June to invade the free city of Hamburg in northern Germany to force a loan from it. Peter considered this a casus belli and prepared for open warfare against Denmark.
In June 1762, 40,000 Russian troops assembled in Pomerania under General Pyotr Rumyantsev, preparing to face 27,000 Danish troops under the French general Count St. Germain in case the Russian–Danish freedom conference failed to resolve the issue. However, shortly before the conference, Peter lost his throne and the conference did not occur. The issue of Schleswig remained unresolved. Peter was accused of planning an unpatriotic war.
While historically Peter's planned war against Denmark was seen as a political failure, recent scholarship has portrayed it as part of a pragmatic plan to secure his Holstein-Gottorp duchy and to expand the common Holstein-Russian power northward and westwards. Peter believed gaining territory and influence in Denmark and Northern Germany was more useful to Russia than taking East Prussia. Equally, he thought that friendship with Prussia and with Britain, following its triumph in the Seven Years War, could offer more to aid his plans than alliance with either Austria or France.
Domestic reforms
During his 186-day period of government, Peter III passed 220 new laws that he had developed and elaborated during his life as a crown prince. Elena Palmer claims that his reforms were of a democratic nature. He proclaimed religious freedom—in those times a revolutionary step, that not even the advanced Western Europe had taken. He fought corruption within government, established public litigation and abolished the secret police—a repressive organ started under Peter I—and intended to expose it as betrayer of the state for its mercilessness and torture methods. Catherine recreated this institution, and it remained present in Russia thereafter. Peter established obligatory education for aristocrats; all aristocrats had to provide their children with education and report it to the senate. Furthermore, in some cities technical schools were established for middle and lower class children. Peter began the reorganization and modernization of the Russian army.One of his most popular reforms was the manifesto of February 1762 that exempted the nobility from obligatory state and military service and gave them freedom to travel abroad. On the day Peter submitted this manifesto, the parliament proposed building a pure gold statue of him, but Peter refused, saying that there must be much better uses for gold in the country.
Peter III's economic policy reflected the rising influence of Western capitalism and the merchant class or "Third Estate" that accompanied it. He established the first state bank in Russia, rejected the nobility's monopoly on trade and encouraged mercantilism by increasing grain exports and forbidding the import of sugar and other materials that could be found in Russia.
Peter's short reign also addressed serfdom law and the status of serfs within Russia. For the first time, the killing of a peasant by a landowner became an act punishable by law. State peasants were given higher social status than estate peasants, and all peasants under the servitude of the church were transformed into the economy peasants similar to the state peasants. Peter also took further interest in church affairs, implementing his grandfather's plan to secularize church and monastic lands.
Overthrow and death
The reign of Peter III is cast by Palmer as progressive for its focus on transforming economically developed feudal Russia to a more advanced European state. Palmer claims that his reform efforts were welcomed by society as a whole. It is Palmer's further contention that a plot against him by members of the government and influential nobles was unjustified: that the aristocratic names in the list of conspirators belonged to Guards officers, those who had lost influence and impoverished families who had no access to high government positions and were forced into service, some resentment within the Guard could not have led to a change of government. A revolt of the Guards regiments against the emperor, to whom they had sworn allegiance, could only lead to an alternative emperor. Palmer claims that the conspiracy against Peter III was carried out by Catherine and Guards officer Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov and was in fact nothing more than a murder for personal reasons. With the aid of the two Guards troops that Peter had planned to discipline more harshly, the emperor was arrested and forced to abdicate on. Shortly thereafter, he was transported to Ropsha, where he later died. there is much mystery surrounding his death. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack of hemorrhoidal colic and an apoplexy stroke, while others say he was assassinated. He was buried 3 August 1762 in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, Saint Petersburg.Legacy
After his death, four fake Peters came forth, supported by revolts among the people, who believed in a rumor that Peter had not died but had been secretly imprisoned by Catherine. The most famous was the Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, who led what came to be known as Pugachev's Rebellion in 1774, which was ultimately crushed by Catherine's forces. In addition, Kondratii Selivanov, who led a castrating sect known as the Skoptsy, claimed to be both Jesus and Peter III.In December 1796, after succeeding Catherine, Peter's son, Emperor Paul I of Russia, who disliked his mother's behavior, arranged for Peter's remains to be exhumed and reburied with full honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where other tsars were buried.