NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 7Elizabeth’s Heir?
Meanwhile another drama was brewing
for Catherine in France. In 1772, an enig-
matic woman of great beauty, refined
manner, and sparkling wit charmed her
way into the salons of the French capital
as the “Princess Vladimir.” She claimed
she was the illegitimate daughter of Em-
press Elizabeth, Peter III’s cousin, and
legitimate heir to the Russian throne.
According to her story, she was born
in St. Petersburg in 1753, and then taken
to Persia. She grew up in the home of a
Persian nobleman. There, a tutor made
the startling revelation of her “true” par-
entage; she was the product of an affair
between Elizabeth and her favorite,
Count Aleksey G. Razumovsky.
Sources say that Empress Elizabeth
did have an illegitimate daughter with
Razumovsky. Her name was Princess
Augusta Tarakanova, and she spent
most of her life in solitude as a nun,
confined to Moscow’s St. John’s Con-
vent on Catherine’s orders. Known
only as Sister Dofiya, her true identity
remained hidden during her lifetime.
She was not permitted visitors untilafter Catherine’s death in 1796. Al-
though never formally acknowledged,
Augusta’s existence seemed an open
secret and strengthened the rumors
surrounding the pretender in France.
Princess Vladimir was attracting a
lot of attention in elite social circles in
Paris. The faux princess was accompa-
nied by a German man named Baron
Embs, who claimed to be a relative of
hers, and by the Baron de Schenk, who
acted as a kind of private secretary.
Princess Vladimir’s Parisian home was
soon frequented by various wealthyIN 1864, Russian artist Kon-
stantin Flavitsky created what
would become his most noto-
rious painting, “The Princess
Tarakanova, in the Peter and
Paul Fortress, at the Time of the
Flood.” According to a roman-
ticized legend, Catherine the
Great ordered the false princess
imprisoned in a cell that was
known to flood when the icy
waters of the Neva River rose.
Flavitsky’s painting allegedly
caused a furor among the Rus-
sian royal family, who preferred
that the story of this particular
pretender to the throne remain
a closely guarded one. Flavitsky
was then forced to claim that
his inspiration for the painting
had instead been drawn from a
novel rather than history.LOCKED
AWAYOIL PAINTING BY KONSTANTIN FLAVITSKY, 1864,
STATE TRETYAKOV GALLERY, MOSCOW
BRIDGEMAN/ACI