Paul I of Russia

Paul I of Russia (; Pavel Petrovich) (October 1, 1754–March 23, 1801) was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.

Childhood

Paul was born in the Summer Palace at St Petersburg. He was the son of the Grand Duchess, later Empress, Catherine. In her memoirs, she strongly implies that his father was not her husband, the Grand Duke Peter, later Emperor, but her lover Sergei Saltykov. Supporters of Catherine's claim assume that Peter III was sterile, and was unable to even engage in normal sexual relations with her until he had a surgical operation performed, and so could not have sired the boy himself. Although the story was much aired by Paul's enemies, it is fairly likely that this was simply an attempt to cast doubt on Paul's right to the throne, in order to prop up Catherine's own somewhat shaky claim.

During his infancy Paul was taken from the care of his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose ill-judged fondness allegedly injured his health. As a boy he was reported to be intelligent and good-looking. His pugnacious facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771. It has been asserted that his mother hated him, and was only restrained from putting him to death while he was still a boy by the fear of what the consequences of another palace crime might be to herself. Lord Buckinghamshire, the English ambassador at her court, expressed this opinion as early as 1764. However, others suggest that the empress, who was at all times very fond of children, treated Paul with kindness. He was put in charge of a trustworthy governor, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, and of competent tutors.

Her dissolute court provided a bad home for a boy destined to become the sovereign, but Catherine took great trouble to arrange his first marriage with Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt (who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna") in 1773, and allowed him to attend the council in order that he might be trained for his work as emperor. His tutor Poroshin complained of him that he was "always in a hurry", acting and speaking without reflection.

Early life

Maria bore Paul 10 children:

Alexander I (1777 - 1825), succeeded Paul as Emperor of Russia. Married Louise of Baden.
Konstantin Pavlovich (1779-1831), who renounced his succession rights on 1822. Married Princess Juliane of Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld (Anna Fedorovna) and, after their divorce, Johanna Grudna-Grudczinska, Princess of Lowicz.
Alexandra Pavlovna (1783-1801). Married Archduke Josef Anton of Austria, son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
Elena Pavlovna (1784-1803). Married Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Maria Pavlovna (1786-1859). Married Carl Friedrich, Grand Duke of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach.
Ekaterina Pavlovna (1788-1819). Married first Duke Peter of Oldenburg and second King Wilhelm I of Württemberg.
Olga Pavlovna (1792-1795).
Anna Pavlovna (1795-1865). Married King William II of the Netherlands.
Nikolai I (1796-1855), succeeded his elder brother Alexander as Emperor of Russia. Married to Charlotte of Prussia.
Mikhail Pavlovitch (1798-1849). Married Helene von Württemberg and had five daughters.

Ascension to the throne

Paul became emperor after Catherine suffered a stroke on November 5, 1796, and died in bed without having regained consciousness. His first action was to inquire about and, if possible, to destroy her testament, as it was rumoured that she had expressed wishes to exclude Paul from succession and to leave the throne to Alexander, her eldest grandson. These fears probably contributed to Paul's promulgation of the famous Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov and were not to be modified by his successors.

During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of the policies of his mother. Although he accused many of Jacobinism and exiled people merely for wearing Parisian dress or reading French books, he allowed Catherine's best known critic, Radishchev, to return from Siberian exile. The army, then poised to attack Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month after Paul's ascension. His father Peter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. To the rumour of his illegitimacy Paul responded by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia erected in Paul's time near the St. Michael's Castle reads in Russian "To the Great-Grandfather from the Great-Grandson", a subtle but obvious mockery of Latin "PETRO PRIMO CATHERINA SECUNDA", the pompous dedication by Catherine on the 'Bronze Horseman', the most famous statue of Peter in St Petersburg.

Purported eccentricities

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. Apart from Radishchev, he liberated Novikov from the fortress of Shlisselburg, yet both libertarians were kept in their own estates under police supervision. He viewed the Russian nobility as decadent and corrupt, and was determined to transform them into a disciplined, principled, loyal caste resembling a medieval chivalric order. To those few who conformed to his view of a modern-day knight (e.g., his favourites Kutaysov, Arakcheyev, Rostopchin) he granted more serfs during five years of his reign than his mother had presented to her lovers during thirty-four years of her own. Those who didn't share his chivalric views, were dismissed or lost their places at court: seven field marshals and 333 generals fall into this category.

In accordance with his chivalric ideals, Paul was elected as the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he gave shelter following their ejection from Malta by Napoleon. His leadership resulted in the establishment of the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St John/Maltese Order) within the Imperial Orders of Russia. At a great expense, he built three castles in or around the Russian capital. Much was made from his courtly love affair with Anna Lopukhina, but the relationship seems to have been platonic and was barely more than another detail to his ideal of chivalric manhood.

Foreign affairs

Paul's independent conduct of the foreign affairs plunged the country into the Second Coalition against France in 1798, when he sent Suvorov to batter Napoleon in Switzerland and Ushakov to assist Nelson's operations in the Mediterranean. After great hardships endured and great victories won in either campaign, the Emperor suddenly changed his mind and turned towards armed neutrality against Britain in 1801.

In both cases it seems as if he acted on personal pique, quarrelling with France because he took a "sentimental" interest in the Hospitallers, and then with England after it had captured Malta, their traditional home. Besides the previously abandoned plans of a joint Russo-French naval assault onto the British Isles, another of his famous follies was the dispatching of the Cossack expeditionary force to fight the English in India (see Indian March of Paul).

Assassination

Paul's premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to militarize the nobility in the Prussian manner alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. Although he repealed Catherine's law which allowed the corporal punishment of the free classes and directed reforms which resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organized—some months before it was executed—by Counts Petr Alekseevich Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and the half-Spanish, half-Neapolitan adventurer Admiral Ribas. The death of Ribas delayed the execution. On the night of the March 11 1801, Paul was murdered in his bedroom in the newly built St Michael Castle by a band of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service. They burst into his bedroom after supping together and when flushed with drink. The conspirators forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, and he was then strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, the Emperor Alexander I, who was actually in the palace, and to whom general Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins, announced his accession.

Legacy

A common unresearched view of Paul I is that he was mad, had a mistress, and had accepted the office of Grand Master of the Order of St. John which furthered his delusions. Therefore, the conclusion was that these eccentricities and his unpredictability in other areas led to his assassination. Such a portrait of Paul is a gift to those who seek to discount and ridicule the reign of Paul I. Given that histories are usually written by the victorious party to any conflict, in this context, how true is that picture of Paul?

Comparatively recent research has rehabilitated the character of Paul I. The popularist view of Paul was originally generated by his assassins in justification of their actions. It would be easy for authors writing about Paul I to follow the propaganda uncritically, ignoring new research, which has been available for nearly three decades. It is as if the propaganda has become accepted historical fact through being venerated by age.

A recent film on the rule of Paul I was produced by Lenfilm in 2003. Poor, Poor Paul ("Бедный, бедный Павел") is directed by Vitaliy Mel'nikov and stars Viktor Sukhorukov as Paul and Oleg Yankovsky as Count Pahlen, who headed a conspiracy against him. The film portrays Paul I more compassionately than the long-existing stories about him. The movie won the Michael Tariverdiev Prize for best music to a film at the Open Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr" in 2003.

References

External links

Pavel I - Prince of Gatchina, Digest
Godunov to Nicholas II by Saul Zaklad

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