How did Paul I of Russia die?
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Paul remained overshadowed by his mother for most of his life. His reign lasted four years, ending with his assassination by conspirators. He adopted the laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules that lasted until the end of the Romanov dynasty and of the Russian Empire. He also intervened in the French Revolutionary Wars and, toward the end of his reign, added Kartli and Kakheti in Eastern Georgia into the empire which was confirmed by his son and successor Alexander I.
Paul I of Russia
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Paul I (; "Pavel Petrovich") ( – ) reigned as Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. Officially, he was the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great, though Catherine hinted that he was fathered by her lover Sergei Saltykov, who also had Romanov blood, being a descendant of the first Romanov tsar's sister, Tatiana Feodorovna Romanova.
Paul I of Russia
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Pavel Kridener was born on January 31, 1784, in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the son of the famous Barbara von Krüdener, a Baltic German mystic and author. His father was Baron Bourkhardt-Alexis-Constantine Krüdener, with whom Barbara did not have a good relationship. Pavel was baptized Paul in honor of Grand Duke (later Emperor) Paul I of Russia (Russian: Па́вел I Петро́вич), his godfather. His father was appointed by Catherine the Great as Ambassador to the Republic of Venice in 1785, and Pavel spent the first two years of his life there. He subsequently followed his father's assignments in Munich until 1787, Copenhagen until 1794 and finally Madrid until 1800. His father was then appointed by Paul I as Ambassador to Prussia, under Frederick William III of Prussia. Friedrich Ancillon, a prominent Prussian historian, became his tutor.
Pavel Kridener
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Catherine the Great died in 1796, and Paul became Emperor. He decided to enlarge Pavlovsk into a palace suitable for a royal residence, adding two new wings on either side of the main building, and a church attached to the south wing. Between 1797 and 1799, he lavished money and the finest materials on Brenna's interiors. The reign of Emperor Paul did not last long. He alienated the nobles, and became increasingly fearful of conspiracies. His fears were justified; the Emperor Paul was murdered by members of his court in 1801, and his son Alexander became Emperor. Pavlovsk Palace became the residence of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), the mother of both Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.
Pavlovsk Palace
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The death of Catherine in November 1796, before she could appoint Alexander as her successor, brought his father, Paul I, to the throne. Alexander disliked him as a ruler even more than he did his grandmother. He wrote that the country had become a "plaything for the insane" and that "absolute power disrupts everything". It is likely that seeing two previous rulers abuse their autocratic powers in such a way pushed him to be one of the more progressive Romanov czars of the 19th and 20th centuries. Among the rest of the country, Paul was immensely unpopular. He accused his wife of conspiring to become another Catherine II and seize power from him as his mother did from his father. He also suspected Alexander of conspiring against him, despite his son's earlier refusal to Catherine II to seize power from Paul.
Alexander I of Russia
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On , Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna came to say farewell to her father. She and her husband, Prince Sergei Putiatin, fled Russia through Ukraine. A week later, Grand Duke Paul was offered, through the Danish Ambassador, Harald Scavenius, to be smuggled out of the country and taken to Vienna wearing an Austrian uniform with a convoy of returning prisoners of war. The Grand Duke flatly refused, preferring to die rather than put on an enemy uniform.
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia
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In 1772, her son and heir, Paul, turned eighteen. Paul and his adviser, Panin, believed he was the rightful tsar of Russia, as the only son of Peter III. His adviser had also taught him that the rule of women endangered good leadership, which was why he was so interested in gaining the throne. Distracting him, Catherine took trouble to find Paul a wife among the minor princesses of the Holy Roman Empire. She chose Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstad, who acquired the Russian name "Natalia Alexeievna"), a daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. The bride's older sister, Frederika Louisa, was already married to the Crown Prince of Prussia. Around this time, Catherine allowed Paul to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. Wilhelmina died in childbirth on 15 April 1776, three years after the wedding. It soon became even clearer to Catherine that Paul wanted power, including his separate court. There was talk of having both Paul and his mother co-rule Russia, but Catherine narrowly avoided it. A fierce rivalry began between them, as Catherine knew she could never truly trust him and Paul wanted his mother's power.
Paul I of Russia
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Catherine the Great and her son and heir, the future Paul I, maintained a distant relationship throughout Catherine's reign. The aunt of Catherine's husband, Empress Elizabeth, took up the child as a passing fancy. Elizabeth proved an obsessive but incapable caretaker, as she had raised no children of her own. Paul was supervised by a variety of caregivers. Roderick McGrew briefly relates the neglect to which the infant heir was sometimes subject: "On one occasion he fell out of his crib and slept the night away unnoticed on the floor." Even after Elizabeth's death, relations with Catherine hardly improved. Paul was often jealous of the favours she would shower upon her lovers. In one instance the empress gave to one of her court favourites 50,000 rubles on her birthday, while Paul received a cheap watch. Paul's early isolation from his mother created a distance between them which later events would reinforce. She never considered inviting him to share her power in governing Russia. And once Paul's son Alexander was born, it appeared that she had found a more suitable heir. The use made of his name by the rebel Yemelyan Pugachev, who impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul's position more difficult.
Paul I of Russia
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Catherine II died in 1796, and her son Emperor Paul I (r. 1796-1801) succeeded her. Painfully aware that Catherine had considered bypassing him to name his son, Alexander, as tsar, Paul instituted primogeniture in the male line as the basis for succession. It was one of the lasting reforms of Paul's brief reign. He also chartered a Russian-American Company, which eventually led to Russia's acquisition of Alaska. Paul limited landowner's right to serf labour to three days in a week, alleviating the condition of the serfs.
History of Russia (1796–1855)
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There is considerable speculation as to the actual paternity of Paul I. It is suggested that he was not Peter's son at all but that his mother had engaged in an affair, to which Elizabeth had consented, with a young officer, Sergei Vasilievich Saltykov who would have been Paul's real father. In any case, Peter never gave any indication that he believed Paul to have been fathered by anyone but himself. He also did not take any interest in parenthood. Elizabeth most certainly took an active interest. She removed the young Paul and acted as if she were his mother instead of Catherine. The Empress had ordered the midwife to take the baby and to follow her. Catherine was not to see her child for another month and then only briefly for the churching ceremony. Six months later, Elizabeth let Catherine see the child again. The child had in effect become a ward of the state and, in a larger sense, the property of the state, to be brought up by Elizabeth as she believed he should be: as a true heir and great-grandson of her father, Peter the Great.
Elizabeth of Russia
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In spite of Russia's failure to honour the terms of the Treaty of Georgievsk, Qajar Iran reinvaded Georgia and captured and sacked Tbilisi. Georgian rulers felt they had nowhere else to turn now as Georgia was again re-subjugated by Iran. Tbilisi was captured and burnt to the ground, and eastern Georgia reconquered. However, Agha Mohammad Khan, Persia's ruler, was assassinated in 1797 in Shusha, after which the Persian grip on Georgia softened again. Erekle, King of Kartli-Kakheti, still dreaming of a united Georgia, died a year later. After his death, a civil war broke out over the succession to the throne of Kartli-Kakheti, and one of the rival candidates called on Russia to intervene and decide matters. On 8 January 1801, Tsar Paul I signed a decree on the incorporation of Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti) within the Russian Empire, which was confirmed by Tsar Alexander I on 12 September 1801. The Georgian envoy in Saint Petersburg, Garsevan Chavchavadze, reacted with a note of protest that was presented to the Russian vice-chancellor Alexander Kurakin. In May 1801, Russian General Carl Heinrich von Knorring removed the Georgian heir to the throne, David Batonishvili, from power and deployed a provisional government headed by General Ivan Petrovich Lazarev.
Paul I of Russia