granddaughter of Ioann, Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg, who was not even
engaged or married at the time. When Empress Anna died in 1740, Anna Leopol-
dovna, by that time wife of the Duke of Brunswick, had had a child; a mere two
months old, he succeeded to the Russian throne as Ivan VI with his mother as regent,
with celebratory manifestos and engravings announcing his legitimacy by appoint-
ment. But Anna Ioannovna had ruled with a tight oligarchical faction renowned for
corruption but unsuccessful in diplomacy (Evgenii Anisimov calls the territorial gains
in the Turkish War of 1735– 7 “squandered”) and support was strong for a change of
factions. In November 1741 the current incarnation of the old Naryshkin faction
ousted Ivan VI in favor of Peter I’s daughter Elizabeth. The baby Ivan VI was
imprisoned, where he languished during Elizabeth’s twenty-year rule (1741–61).
This is a rare moment of violence in eighteenth-century succession; there were
two, in 1741 and 1762. They paralleled the moments of violence in Muscovite
succession when boyar clans struggled for primacy: Ivan IV’s minority (1533–47),
Time of Troubles (1605–13), and the disputed succession in 1682 and 1689. But,
echoing Muscovite tradition, they were similarly followed by equilibrium: Eliza-
beth, and later Catherine II, coming to power by coup, promptly distributed lavish
benefits to all groups to reconcile the factions and proceeded to rule with consensus
and solicitation for the nobility.
In manifestos and odes, particularly by her favored odist Mikhail Lomonosov,
Elizabeth and her supporters constructed her claims to legitimacy on familiar
grounds: direct Petrine descent, commitment to Peter’s reforms,“election”by
the nobility, and popular consent. Throughout her reign panegyrics praised her
wise rule, her educational reforms, her success at war and peace, all in her father’s
image. Elizabeth also immediately appointed a successor, in 1742 securing oaths of
the people and support of the nobility for her sister Anna’s son, the future Peter III
(1761–2), then prince in Holstein-Gottorp. In 1743 she brought him to
St. Petersburg, following in 1744 with afiancée, also from lesser German princes,
the future Catherine II, Princess Sophie from Anhalt-Zerbst. Peter and Sophie
(converted and renamed Catherine) married in St. Petersburg in 1745.
Peter III succeeded Elizabeth in December 1761 and should have been accepted
as legitimate. A far more competent ruler than his historical reputation (shaped and
sullied by his wife’s later memoirs), he initiated a program of reform. He inaugur-
ated confiscation of church lands, released the nobility from mandatory service,
adopted physiocratic policies to reduce an immense debt—all sound moves that his
successor Catherine II quietly continued. But Peter III ignored crucial pillars of
political support: he ruled by command and alienated the nobility, particularly the
officer corps, with his single-minded intent to attack Denmark in pursuit of
Holstein regional interests. A Guards coup to which Catherine was privy deposed
him in June 1762. Catherine II (1762–96) succeeded, while her supporters
assassinated Peter III in July 1762 and in 1764 the unfortunate Ivan VI (age 22),
still in prison, to secure her position.
Catherine II had no blood tie to the Romanovs, but she worked assiduously on
her self-representation throughout her reign. Initially she underscored themes of
Orthodoxy,filial piety to the Petrine legacy, and military valor, issuing multiple
Imperial Imaginary and the Political Center 281