In this era, it differs significantly from previous periods, which is primarily due to the personality of Paul I, the son of Catherine II and Peter III, in many of whose actions it is difficult to find continuity; his actions were sometimes completely unpredictable and devoid of any logic. Russian policy in those years fully corresponded to the personality of the emperor - a capricious man, changeable in his decisions, easily changing anger to mercy, moreover, suspicious and suspicious.

Catherine II did not love her son. He grew up in the distance and in alienation from her, entrusted with the education of N.I. Panin. When he grew up and in 1773 married Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, who took the name of Natalia Alekseevna, Catherine granted him the right to live in Gatchina, where under his command there was a small detachment of the army, which he trained according to the Prussian model. This was his main occupation. In 1774, Paul tried to get closer to the affairs of state administration by submitting to Catherine a note “Discourse on the state in general regarding the number of troops needed to protect it and regarding the defense of all limits”, which did not receive the approval of the empress. In 1776, his wife died in childbirth, and Paul remarried the Wirtemberg princess Sophia Dorothea, who took the name Maria Feodorovna. In 1777 they had a son, the future Emperor Alexander I, and in 1779 the second - Constantine. Catherine II took both grandchildren to be raised by her, which further complicated their relationship. Removed from business and removed from the court, Pavel was more and more imbued with feelings of resentment, irritation and direct hostility towards his mother and her entourage, wasting the strength of his mind on theoretical reasoning about the need to correct the state of the Russian Empire. All this made Paul a broken and embittered man.

From the first minutes of his reign, it became clear that he would govern with the help of new people. Catherine's former favorites lost all meaning. Previously humiliated by them, Paul now expressed his complete contempt for them. Nevertheless, he was full of the best intentions, strove for the good of the state, but the lack of management skills prevented him from acting successfully. Dissatisfied with the management system, Pavel could not find people around him to replace the former administration. Wishing to establish order in the state, he uprooted the old, but planted the new with such cruelty that it seemed even more terrible. This unpreparedness for governing the country was combined with the unevenness of his character, which resulted in his predilection for external forms of submission, and his temper often turned into cruelty. Pavel transferred his random moods to politics. Therefore, the most important facts of his domestic and foreign policy cannot be presented in the form of a coherent and correct system. It should be noted that all of Paul's measures to establish order in the country only violated the harmony of the former government, without creating anything new and useful. Overwhelmed by a thirst for activity, wanting to delve into all state problems, he set to work at six o'clock in the morning and forced all government officials to follow this routine. At the end of the morning, Pavel, dressed in a dark green uniform and over the knee boots, accompanied by his sons and adjutants, went to the parade ground. He, as the commander-in-chief of the army, made promotions and appointments at his own discretion. A strict drill was imposed in the army and a Prussian military uniform was introduced. By a circular dated November 29, 1796, the accuracy of construction, the alignment of intervals and the goose step were elevated to the main principles of military affairs. He drove out honored, but not pleasing generals and replaced them with obscure ones, often completely mediocre, but ready to fulfill the most ridiculous whim of the emperor (in particular, he was sent into exile). The appeal was made publicly. According to a well-known historical anecdote, somehow, angry at the regiment, which failed to clearly fulfill the command, Pavel ordered him to march straight from the parade to Siberia. The king's close associates begged him to have mercy. The regiment, which, following this order, had already managed to move quite far from the capital, was returned back to St. Petersburg.

In general, two lines can be traced in the policy of the new emperor: to eradicate what was created by Catherine II, and to remake Russia along the lines of Gatchina. The strict order introduced in his personal residence near St. Petersburg, Pavel wanted to extend to the whole of Russia. He used the first reason to demonstrate hatred for his mother at the funeral of Catherine II. Paul demanded that the funeral ceremony be performed simultaneously over the body of Catherine and Peter III, who was killed on her orders. On his instructions, the coffin with the body of her husband was removed from the crypt of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and put up in the throne room of the Winter Palace next to the coffin of Catherine. After they were solemnly transferred to the Peter and Paul Cathedral. This procession was opened by Alexei Orlov, the main culprit of the murder, who carried the crown of the emperor he had killed on a golden pillow. His accomplices, Passek and Baryatinsky, held brushes of mourning. Behind them on foot were the new emperor, empress, grand dukes and princesses, generals. In the cathedral, the priests, dressed in mourning robes, buried both at the same time.

Pavel I freed N.I. Novikov, returned Radishchev from exile, showered favors on T. Kosciuszko and allowed him to emigrate to America, giving him 60 thousand rubles, received with honors the former Polish king Stanislav Poniatovsky in St. Petersburg.

"HAMLET AND DON QUIXOTE"

In Russia, in front of the eyes of the whole society, for 34 years, a real, and not theatrical, tragedy of Prince Hamlet took place, the hero of which was the heir to Tsarevich Paul the First.<…>In European high circles, it was he who was called the "Russian Hamlet". After the death of Catherine II and his accession to the Russian throne, Paul was more often likened to Don Quixote by Cervantes. V.S. spoke well about this. Zhilkin: “Two of the greatest images of world literature in relation to one person - one emperor Paul was honored with this in the whole world.<…>Both - both Hamlet and Don Quixote, act as carriers of the highest truth in the face of vulgarity and lies reigning in the world. This is what makes them both related to Paul. Like them, Paul was at odds with his age, and like them, he did not want to "keep up with the times."

In the history of Russia, the opinion has taken root that the emperor was a stupid ruler, but this is far from the case. On the contrary, Paul did a lot, or at least tried to do for the country and its people, especially the peasantry and the clergy. The reason for this state of affairs is that the tsar tried to limit the power of the nobility, who received almost unlimited rights and the abolition of many duties (for example, military service) under Catherine the Great, fought against embezzlement. The guards did not like that they were trying to "drill" it. Thus, everything was done to create the myth of the "tyrant". The words of Herzen are noteworthy: "Paul I showed a disgusting and ridiculous spectacle of the crowned Don Quixote." Like literary heroes, Paul I dies as a result of a treacherous murder. Alexander I ascends the Russian throne, who, as you know, felt guilty all his life for the death of his father.

"THE INSTITUTION OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY"

During the days of the coronation celebrations, in 1797, Paul announced the first government act of great importance - "Institution of the Imperial Family." The new law restored the old, pre-Petrine custom of the transfer of power. Paul saw what the violation of this law led to, adversely reflecting on himself. This law again restored inheritance only through the male line by birthright. From now on, the throne could be transferred only to the eldest of the sons, and in their absence to the eldest of the brothers, “so that the state would not be without an heir, so that the heir would always be appointed by the law itself, so that there would be no doubt who would inherit.” For the maintenance of the imperial family, a special department of "destinies" was formed, which managed the specific property and the peasants living on the specific lands.

ESTATE POLICY

The opposition to the actions of his mother was also manifested in the class policy of Paul I - his attitude towards the nobility. Pavel I liked to repeat: "A nobleman in Russia is only the one with whom I speak and while I speak with him." Being a defender of unlimited autocratic power, he did not want to allow any estate privileges, significantly limiting the validity of the Letter of Complaint to the nobility of 1785. In 1798, the governors were ordered to attend the elections of leaders of the nobility. The following year, another restriction followed - the provincial meetings of the nobles were canceled and the provincial marshals were to be elected by the county marshals. Nobles were forbidden to submit collective representations of their needs, they could be subjected to corporal punishment for criminal offenses.

ONE AND A HUNDRED THOUSAND

What happened between Paul and the nobility in 1796-1801? That nobility, whose most active part we conditionally divided into “enlighteners” and “cynics”, who converged on the “benefits of enlightenment” (Pushkin) and have not yet diverged far enough in the dispute about the abolition of slavery. Didn't Paul have the opportunity to satisfy a number of general or particular desires, needs of this estate and its individual representatives? Published and unpublished archival materials leave no doubt that a considerable percentage of "quick-fire" Pavlovian plans and orders fell to his estate "after his heart." 550-600 thousand new serfs (yesterday's state, appanage, economic, etc.) were transferred to the landlords along with 5 million acres of land - a fact that is especially eloquent when compared with the decisive statements of Paul the heir against mother's distribution of serfs. However, a few months after his accession to the rebellious Oryol peasants, troops will move; at the same time, Paul will ask the commander-in-chief about the expediency of the royal departure to the scene of action (this is already “knightly style”!).

The service advantages of the nobles in these years were preserved and intensified, as before. A raznochinets could become a non-commissioned officer only after four years of service in the rank and file, a nobleman - after three months, and in 1798 Pavel ordered not to represent raznochintsy as officers in the future! It was on the orders of Paul that the Auxiliary Bank for the Nobility was established in 1797, which issued huge loans.

Let's listen to one of the enlightened contemporaries: “Agriculture, industry, trade, arts and sciences had in him (Paul) a reliable patron. To promote education and upbringing, he founded a university in Dorpat, and a school for military orphans in St. Petersburg (Pavlovsk Corps). For women - the Institute of the Order of St. Catherine and institutions of the department of Empress Maria. Among the new institutions of the Pavlovian time, we will find a number of those that never aroused objections from the nobility: the Russian-American Company, the Medico-Surgical Academy. Let us also mention the soldiers' schools, where 12 thousand people were taught under Catherine II, and 64 thousand people under Paul I. Listing, we note one characteristic feature: education is not abolished, but is increasingly controlled by the supreme power.<…>The Tula nobleman, who rejoiced at the beginning of the Pavlovian changes, at the same time poorly hides some fear: “Nothing, during the change of government, worried all the Russian nobility, as the fear that Tsar Peter III would not deprive him of the freedom granted to him, and the retention of that privilege to serve everyone at ease and as long as anyone wishes; but, to the general satisfaction of all, the new monarch, at his very accession to the throne, namely on the third or fourth day, by dismissing some guard officers from service, on the basis of a decree on the freedom of the nobility, and proved that he had no intention of depriving the nobles of this precious right and force them to serve from captivity. It is impossible to describe enough how happy everyone was when they heard this ... ”They did not rejoice for long.

N.Ya. Edelman. Edge of Ages

AGRICULTURAL POLICY

Paul's inconsistency also manifested itself in the peasant question. By the law of April 5, 1797, Pavel established the norm of peasant labor in favor of the landowner, appointing three days of corvée per week. This manifesto is usually called the "decree on the three-day corvee", however, this law only contained a prohibition to force the peasants to work on Sundays, establishing only a recommendation to the landowners to adhere to this norm. The law stated that "the six days remaining in the week, divided by an equal number of them," "when well disposed of, will be sufficient" to meet the economic needs of the landowners. In the same year, another decree was issued, according to which it was forbidden to sell yard people and landless peasants under the hammer, and in 1798 a ban was established on the sale of Ukrainian peasants without land. In the same 1798, the emperor restored the right of the owners of manufactories to buy peasants to work in enterprises. However, during his reign, serfdom continued to spread widely. During the four years of his reign, Paul I handed over more than 500,000 state peasants to private hands, while Catherine II, during the thirty-six years of her reign, distributed about 800,000 souls of both sexes. The scope of serfdom was also expanded: the decree of December 12, 1796 prohibited the free passage of peasants living on private lands of the Don region, the northern Caucasus and the Novorossiysk provinces (Ekaterinoslav and Tauride).

At the same time, Paul sought to regulate the position of state peasants. A number of Senate decrees were ordered to satisfy them with sufficient land allotments - 15 acres per male in the provinces with many lands, and 8 acres in the rest. In 1797, rural and volost self-government of state-owned peasants was settled - elected village elders and "volost heads" were introduced.

PAUL I'S ATTITUDE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Relentlessly haunted Paul and the specter of the revolution. Overly suspicious, he saw the subversive influence of revolutionary ideas even in fashionable clothes and by decree of January 13, 1797, he banned the wearing of round hats, long trousers, shoes with bows and boots with lapels. Two hundred dragoons, divided into pickets, rushed through the streets of St. Petersburg and caught passers-by, belonging mainly to high society, whose costume did not correspond to the order of the emperor. Their hats were torn, their vests cut open, and their shoes confiscated.

Having established such supervision over the cut of the clothes of his subjects, Paul also took up the manner of their thoughts. By decree of February 16, 1797, he introduced secular and ecclesiastical censorship and ordered private printing houses to be sealed. The words "citizen", "club", "society" were deleted from the dictionaries.

The tyrannical rule of Paul, his inconsistency both in domestic and foreign policy, caused increasing displeasure in noble circles. In the hearts of young guardsmen from noble families, hatred for the Gatchina order and Pavel's favorites bubbled. There was a conspiracy against him. On the night of March 12, 1801, the conspirators entered the Mikhailovsky Castle and killed Paul I.

S.F. PLATONOV ABOUT PAUL I

“An abstract sense of legality and fear of being attacked by France forced Paul to fight the French; personal resentment led him to retreat from this war and prepare for another. The element of chance was as strong in foreign policy as in domestic politics: both here and there, Paul was guided more by feeling than by idea.

IN. KLYUCHEVSKY ABOUT PAUL I

“Emperor Paul the First was the first tsar, in some of whose acts a new direction, new ideas seemed to peep through. I do not share the rather common disregard for the significance of this brief reign; in vain they consider it some random episode of our history, a sad whim of a fate unfriendly to us, having no internal connection with the previous time and giving nothing to the future: no, this reign is organically connected as a protest - with the past, but as the first unsuccessful experience of a new policy , as an instructive lesson for successors - with the future. The instinct of order, discipline and equality was the guiding impulse of this emperor's activity, the struggle against estate privileges was his main task. Since the exclusive position acquired by one estate had its source in the absence of fundamental laws, Emperor Paul 1 began the creation of these laws.

During his reign, Paul the First did not execute anyone

Historical science has not yet known such a large-scale falsification as an assessment of the personality and activities of the Russian Emperor Paul the First. After all, what is there Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Stalin, around whom polemical spears are now basically breaking! No matter how you argue, "objectively" or "non-objectively" they killed their enemies, they still killed them. And Paul the First did not execute anyone during his reign.

He ruled more humanely than his mother Catherine II, especially in relation to ordinary people. Why is he a "crowned villain," as Pushkin puts it? Because, without hesitation, he fired negligent bosses and even expelled them from St. Petersburg (about 400 people in total)? Yes, many of us now dream of such a “crazy ruler”! Or why is he, in fact, "crazy"? Yeltsin, excuse me, sent some needs in public, and he was considered simply an ill-mannered "original".

Not a single decree or law of Paul the First contains signs of insanity - on the contrary, they are distinguished by reasonableness and clarity. For example, they put an end to the madness that was going on with the rules of succession to the throne after Peter the Great.

The 45-volume Complete Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, published in 1830, contains 2,248 documents of the Pavlovsk period (two and a half volumes), and despite the fact that Paul reigned for only 1,582 days! Therefore, he issued 1-2 laws every day, and these were not grotesque reports about “lieutenant Kizha”, but serious acts that later became part of the “Complete Code of Laws”! Here's "crazy" for you!

It was Paul I who legally secured the dominant role of the Orthodox Church among other churches and confessions in Russia. In the legislative acts of Emperor Paul it is said: "The leading and dominant faith in the Russian Empire is the Christian Orthodox Catholic Eastern Confession", "The Emperor, who possesses the Throne of All Russia, cannot profess any other faith than the Orthodox." We will read approximately the same thing in the Spiritual Regulations of Peter I. These rules were strictly observed until 1917. Therefore, I would like to ask our adherents of “multiculturalism”: when did Russia manage to become “multi-confessional”, as you tell us now? During the atheist period 1917–1991? Or after 1991, when the Catholic-Protestant Baltic States and the Muslim republics of Central Asia "fell off" from the country?

Many Orthodox historians are wary of the fact that Paul was the Grand Master of the Order of Malta (1798-1801), regarding this order as a "paramasonic structure".

But it was precisely one of the then main Masonic powers, England, that overthrew Paul's power in Malta, occupying the island on September 5, 1800. This at least suggests that Paul was not recognized in the English Masonic hierarchy (the so-called "Scottish Rite") his. Maybe Paul was "one of his own" in the French Masonic "Great East" if he wanted to "make friends" with Napoleon? But this happened precisely after the capture of Malta by the British, and before that Paul fought with Napoleon. One must also understand that the title of Grand Master of the Order of Malta was required by Paul I not only for self-affirmation in the company of European monarchs. In the calendar of the Academy of Sciences, according to his instructions, the island of Malta was to be designated as a "province of the Russian Empire." Pavel wanted to make the title of grandmaster hereditary, and to annex Malta to Russia. On the island, he planned to create a naval base to ensure the interests of the Russian Empire in the Mediterranean Sea and in southern Europe.

Finally, Paul is known to have favored the Jesuits. This is also blamed on him by some Orthodox historians in the context of the complex relationship between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. But there is also a specific historical context. In 1800, it was the Jesuit Order that was considered the main ideological enemy of Freemasonry in Europe. So the Freemasons could in no way welcome the legalization of the Jesuits in Russia and treat Paul I as a Freemason.

THEM. Muravyov-Apostol repeatedly spoke to his children, future Decembrists, “about the enormity of the coup that took place with the accession of Paul the First to the throne - a coup so sharp that descendants would not understand it,” and General Yermolov argued that “the late emperor had great features , its historical character has not yet been determined with us.

For the first time since the time of Elizabeth Petrovna, the serfs also take the oath to the new tsar, which means that they are considered subjects, not slaves. The corvée is limited to three days a week with the provision of days off on Sundays and holidays, and since there are many Orthodox holidays in Russia, this was a great relief for the working people. Paul the First forbade the sale of courtyards and serfs without land, as well as separately if they were from the same family.

As in the time of Ivan the Terrible, a yellow box is installed in one of the windows of the Winter Palace, where everyone can drop a letter or petition addressed to the sovereign. Pavel himself had the key to the room with the box, and every morning he himself read the requests of his subjects and printed the answers in the newspapers.

“Emperor Paul had a sincere and firm desire to do good,” A. Kotzebue wrote. - Before him, as before the kindest sovereign, the poor and the rich, the nobleman and the peasant, all were equal. Woe to the mighty one who arrogantly oppressed the wretched. The road to the emperor was open to everyone; the title of his favorite did not protect anyone before him ... ” Of course, the nobles and the rich, who were accustomed to impunity and life for free, did not like this. “Only the lower classes of the urban population and the peasants love the emperor,” testified the Prussian envoy in St. Petersburg, Count Brühl.

Yes, Paul was extremely irritable and demanded unconditional obedience: the slightest delay in the execution of his orders, the slightest malfunction in the service entailed the strictest reprimand and even punishment without any distinction of persons. But he is just, kind, generous, always benevolent, inclined to forgive insults and ready to repent of his mistakes.

However, the best and good undertakings of the king were broken against a stone wall of indifference and even obvious hostility of his closest subjects, outwardly devoted and servile. Historians Gennady Obolensky in the book "Emperor Paul I" (M., 2001) and Alexander Bokhanov in the book "Paul the First" (M., 2010) convincingly prove that many of his orders were reinterpreted in a completely impossible and treacherous way, causing an increase in hidden dissatisfaction with the king . “You know what my heart is, but you don’t know what kind of people they are,” Pavel Petrovich wrote bitterly in one of his letters about his entourage.

And these people vilely killed him, 117 years before the murder of the last Russian sovereign - Nicholas II. These events are certainly connected, the terrible crime of 1801 predetermined the fate of the Romanov dynasty.

Decembrist A.V. Poggio wrote (by the way, it is curious that many objective testimonies about Paul belong to the Decembrists): “... a drunken, violent crowd of conspirators rushes in to him and disgustingly, without the slightest civilian purpose, drags him, strangles, beats ... and kills him! Having committed one crime, they completed it with another, even more terrible. They frightened, captivated the son himself, and this unfortunate one, having bought a crown with such blood, will languish, abhor and involuntarily prepare an outcome unhappy for himself, for us, for Nicholas throughout his reign.

But I would not, as many admirers of Paul do, directly contrast the reigns of Catherine the Second and Paul the First. Of course, the moral character of Paul for the better differed from the moral character of the loving empress, but the fact is that her favoritism was, among other things, a method of government, far from always ineffective. Catherine needed favorites not only for carnal pleasures. Favored by the empress, they worked hard, God forbid, especially A. Orlov and G. Potemkin. The intimate closeness of the empress and favorites was a certain degree of trust in them, a kind of initiation, or something. Of course, there were idlers and typical gigolos like Lansky and Zubov next to her, but they appeared already in the last years of Catherine's life, when she somewhat lost her grasp of reality ...

Another thing is the position of Paul as heir to the throne under the system of favoritism. A. Bokhanov writes: in November 1781, “the Austrian Emperor (1765–1790) Joseph II arranged a magnificent meeting (for Paul. - A. B. ), and in a series of ceremonial events, the play "Hamlet" was scheduled at the court. Then the following happened: the leading actor Brockman refused to play the main role, because, according to him, "there will be two Hamlets in the hall." The emperor was grateful to the actor for his wise warning and rewarded him with 50 ducats. Paul did not see Hamlet; it remained unclear whether he knew this tragedy of Shakespeare, the external plot of which was extremely reminiscent of his own fate.

And the diplomat and historian S.S. Tatishchev spoke to the famous Russian publisher and journalist A.S. Suvorin: “Pavel was Hamlet in part, at least his position was Hamletian, Hamlet was banned under Catherine II,” after which Suvorin concluded: “Indeed, it is very similar. The only difference is that instead of Claudius, Catherine had Orlov and others…”. (If we consider the young Pavel Hamlet, and Alexei Orlov, who killed Paul's father Peter III, Claudius, then the unfortunate Peter will be in the role of Hamlet's father, and Catherine herself will be in the role of Hamlet's mother Gertrude, who married the murderer of her first husband).

Paul's position under Catherine was indeed Hamletian. After the birth of his eldest son Alexander, the future Emperor Alexander I, Catherine considered the possibility of transferring the throne to her beloved grandson, bypassing her unloved son.

Paul's fears in such a development of events were strengthened by the early marriage of Alexander, after which, according to tradition, the monarch was considered an adult. On August 14, 1792, Catherine II wrote to her correspondent, Baron Grimm: “First, my Alexander will marry, and there, in time, he will be crowned with all kinds of ceremonies, celebrations and folk festivals.” Apparently, therefore, Pavel defiantly ignored the celebrations on the occasion of the marriage of his son.

On the eve of Catherine's death, the courtiers were waiting for the publication of a manifesto on the removal of Paul, his imprisonment in the Estonian castle of Lod and the proclamation of Alexander's heir. It is widely believed that while Pavel was waiting for his arrest, Catherine's manifesto (testament) personally destroyed the cabinet-secretary of A. A. Bezborodko, which allowed him to receive the highest rank of chancellor under the new emperor.

Having ascended the throne, Pavel solemnly transferred the ashes of his father from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the royal tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral simultaneously with the burial of Catherine II. At the funeral ceremony, which was depicted in detail on a long ribbon-painting by an unknown (apparently Italian) artist, the regalia of Peter III - the royal baton, scepter and large imperial crown - were carried by ... regicides - Count A.F. Orlov, Prince P.B. Baryatinsky and P.B. Passek. In the cathedral, Paul personally performed the ceremony of crowning the ashes of Peter III (only crowned persons were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral). In the headstones of the tombstones of Peter III and Catherine II, the same date of burial was carved - December 18, 1796, which is why the uninitiated may get the impression that they lived together for many years and died on the same day.

Invented in Hamlet style!

In the book by Andrei Rossomahin and Denis Khrustalev "The Challenge of Emperor Paul, or the First Myth of the 19th Century" (St. Petersburg, 2011), for the first time, another "Hamlet" act of Paul I is examined in detail: a challenge to a duel that the Russian emperor sent to all the monarchs of Europe as an alternative to wars in which tens and hundreds of thousands of people die. (This, by the way, is exactly what L. Tolstoy rhetorically suggested in War and Peace, who himself did not favor Paul the First: they say, let emperors and kings personally fight instead of destroying their subjects in wars).

What was perceived by contemporaries and descendants as a sign of "madness" is shown by Rossomahin and Khrustalev as a subtle game of the "Russian Hamlet" that broke off during the palace coup.

Also, for the first time, evidence of the “English trace” of the conspiracy against Paul is convincingly presented: for example, the book reproduces in color English satirical engravings and caricatures of Paul, the number of which increased precisely in the last three months of the emperor’s life, when preparations began for the conclusion of a military-strategic alliance between Paul and Paul. Napoleon Bonaparte. As you know, shortly before the assassination, Pavel ordered an entire army of Cossacks of the Don Cossacks (22,500 sabers) under the command of ataman Vasily Orlov to set out on a campaign agreed with Napoleon on India in order to "alarm" the English possessions. The task of the Cossacks was to conquer Khiva and Bukhara "in passing". Immediately after the death of Paul I, Orlov's detachment was withdrawn from the Astrakhan steppes, and negotiations with Napoleon were curtailed.

I am sure that the "Hamlet theme" in the life of Paul the First will still become the subject of attention of historical novelists. I think there will also be a theater director who will stage Hamlet in a Russian historical interpretation, where, while preserving the Shakespearean text, the action will take place in Russia at the end of the 18th century, and Tsarevich Pavel will act as Prince Hamlet, and as the ghost of Hamlet's father - killed Peter III, in the role of Claudius - Alexei Orlov, etc. Moreover, the episode with the performance played in Hamlet by the actors of a traveling theater can be replaced with an episode of the production of Hamlet in St. Petersburg by a foreign troupe, after which Catherine II and Orlov will ban the play . Of course, the real Tsarevich Pavel, having found himself in the position of Hamlet, outplayed everyone, but anyway, after 5 years, the fate of Shakespeare's hero was waiting for him ...

Special for the Centenary

Russian Hamlet was called the contemporaries of Paul I.

Pavel Petrovich was born on September 20 (October 1), 1754, in the family of Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich (future Peter III) and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna (future Catherine II). The place of his birth was the Summer Palace of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in St. Petersburg.

Portrait by G. H. Groth. Peter III Fedorovich (Karl Peter Ulrich) The State Tretyakov Gallery

Louis Caravaca. Portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna (Sophia Augusta Frederick of Anhalt-Zerbst). 1745. Portrait gallery of the Gatchina Palace

Pavel Petrovich's childhood began here

Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna. 18th century engraving

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna expressed her goodwill towards the mother of the newborn by the fact that after the christening she herself brought her on a golden platter the decree of the cabinet on the issuance of 100,000 rubles to her. After the baptism at the court, a series of solemn holidays began on the occasion of the birth of Paul: balls, masquerades, fireworks lasted about a year. Lomonosov, in an ode written in honor of Pavel Petrovich, wished him to compare in business with his great great-grandfather, prophesied that he would liberate the Holy Places, step over the walls separating Russia from China.

***
Whose son was he?
Since 1744, Sergei Vasilievich Saltykov was at the small court as a chamberlain of the Grand Duke and heir to the throne, Peter Fedorovich.
Why, then, in 1752, chamberlain Sergei Vasilyevich suddenly began to enjoy success with the wife of the heir to the Russian throne? What happened then at the Russian court?

By 1752, the patience of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna snapped, who had long and unsuccessfully waited for an heir from the grand ducal couple. She kept Catherine under vigilant supervision, but now she has changed tactics. The Grand Duchess was granted some freedom, of course, with a known purpose. A medical fuss was organized around Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, and rumors began to spread about his resolution from forced celibacy. Saltykov, who himself participated in both the fuss and the spread of rumors, was quite well aware of the real situation, he decided that his hour had come.

According to one version, he was the father of the future Emperor Paul I

Portrait of S. V. Saltykov
When Catherine II gave birth to Paul, Bestuzhev-Ryumin reported to the Empress:
« ... that what was inscribed, according to the wise consideration of Your Majesty, took on a good and desirable beginning, - the presence of the executor of Your Majesty's highest will is now not only not necessary here, but even to achieve an all-perfect fulfillment and concealment for eternity of mystery would be harmful. With respect for these considerations, kindly, most merciful empress, order Chamberlain Saltykov to be Your Majesty's ambassador in Stockholm, under the King of Sweden.

Catherine II herself contributed to Saltykov's fame as "the first lover"; she, of course, counted on the domestic use of this image and did not want to spread such fame to a wider sphere. But the genie could not be kept in the lamp, a scandal erupted.

On the way to his destination, Saltykov was honored in Warsaw, warmly and cordially greeted in the homeland of Catherine II - in Zerbst. For this reason, rumors about his paternity grew stronger and spread throughout Europe. On July 22, 1762, two weeks after Catherine II came to power, she appointed Saltykov as Russian ambassador to Paris, and this was taken as confirmation of his closeness to her.

After Paris, Saltykov was sent to Dresden. Deserving from Catherine II the unflattering description of the "fifth wheel of the carriage." He never again appeared at court and died in almost total obscurity. He died in Moscow with the rank of major general in late 1784 or early 1785.

And now about one more legend about the birth of Tsarevich Paul.

It was resurrected in 1970 by the historian and writer N. Ya. Eidelman, who published the historical essay "Reverse Providence" in the Novy Mir magazine. Having studied the evidence about the circumstances of the birth of Pavel Petrovich, Eidelman does not exclude that Catherine II gave birth to a dead child, but this was kept secret, replacing him with another newborn, Chukhonian, that is, Finnish, a boy born in the village of Kotly near Oranienbaum. The parents of this boy, the family of the local pastor and all the inhabitants of the village (about twenty people) were sent under strict guard to Kamchatka, and the village of Kotly was demolished, and the place on which it stood was plowed up.

Fedor Rokotov. Portrait of Emperor Paul I as a child. 1761 Russian Museum

To this day no one knows whose son he is. Russian historian G.I. Chulkov in the book "Emperors: Psychological Portraits" wrote:
"He himself was convinced that Peter III was indeed his father. "

Surely, in early childhood, Paul heard gossip about his birth. So, he also knew that a variety of people considered him "illegitimate". It left an indelible mark on his soul.

***
Empress Elizabeth loved her great-nephew, she visited the baby twice a day, sometimes got out of bed at night and came to watch the future emperor.

And immediately after birth, she tore him from his parents. She herself began to lead the upbringing of the newborn.
The Empress surrounded her great-nephew with maids of honor, nannies and wet nurses, the boy got used to female affection.
Pavel liked to play with soldiers, firing cannons and models of warships.

Porcelain soldiers. Meissen model guns on a field gun carriage from

porcelain manufactory. Model J. Kendler collection of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich

Such a cannon was an exact copy of a real one and could fire both small cannonballs (buckshot bullets were used for this) and blank shots, i.e. shoot with ordinary gunpowder. Naturally, these amusements of the little Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich took place under the watchful eye of both educators and a specially appointed batman from the artillery team.
(Napoleon also played such soldiers with his son and nephews, and the composer Johannes Brahms simply adored this activity. Our famous compatriot A.V. Suvorov also loved this game very much)

Pavel enjoyed the company of peers, of whom Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin, Panin's nephew, and Count Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky enjoyed his special disposition. It was with them that Pavel played with soldiers.

A.K. Razumovsky L. Guttenbrunn. Portrait of A.B. Kurakina
At the age of 4, he was taught to read and write.
As a child, Pavel had three Russian teachers who took care of his education and upbringing - Fedor Bekhteev, Semyon Poroshin and Nikita Panin.

F. Bekhteev - the first tutor of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna punished "pupil of the "women's chamber" suggest that he is a future man and King ..». Immediately upon arrival, he began to teach Pavel to read Russian and French in a very original alphabet.
During his studies, Bekhteev began to apply a special method that combined fun with learning, and quickly taught the Grand Duke to read and arithmetic with the help of toy soldiers and a folding fortress.
F. Bekhteev presented the prince with a map of the Russian state with the inscription: “Here you see, sovereign, the inheritance that your glorious grandfathers distributed with victories.”
Under Bekhteev, the first textbook, specially compiled for Pavel, “A Brief Concept of Physics for Use by His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich” was printed (St. Petersburg, 1760).

Semyon Andreevich Poroshin - the second educator of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, in the period 1762-1766, i.e. when Paul was 7-11 years old. Since 1762 he has been a permanent knight under Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. Poroshin treated the Grand Duke with the loving warmth of his elder brother (he was 13 years older than Paul), cared about the development of his spiritual qualities and heart, and gained more and more influence on him; the Grand Duke, in turn, was on friendly terms with him.

And in 1760, when Paul was 6 years old, the empress appointed a chamberlain Nikita Ivanovich Panin chief chamberlain (mentor) under Paul. Panin was then forty-two years old. For some reason, he seemed to the little Tsarevich a gloomy and terrible old man.

Paul rarely saw his parents.

On December 20, 1762, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich was granted the title of Admiral General of the Russian Navy by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. His mentors in the difficult naval wisdom were I.L. Golenishchev-Kutuzov (father of the famous Russian commander), I.G. Chernyshev and G.G. Kushelev, who managed to instill in the heir a love for the fleet, which he retained for the rest of his life.

Delapier N.B. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in an admiral's uniform.

When Paul was 7 years old,
Empress Elizaveta Petrovna died and he got the opportunity to constantly communicate with his parents. But Peter paid little attention to his son. Only once did he wander into his son's lesson and, after listening to his answer to the teacher's question, exclaimed not without pride:
"I see this rascal knows things better than we do."
As a token of his goodwill, he immediately granted Pavel the rank of corporal of the guard.

Pavel was a very sensitive boy, shuddering fearfully at any unexpected knock and quickly hid under the table. For several years now, a strange fear haunted Paul. It was difficult even for patient Panin to get used to Pavel's fears, to his constant tears at dinner.

The ghost of the strangled father, Peter III, stands before the eyes of little Pavel. He does not tell anyone about this memory of his. Pavel Petrovich matured early and at times even seemed like a little old man.

Peter III Fedorovich

Now the fate of Paul more and more resembled the fate of Hamlet. The father was overthrown by the mother from the throne and, with her consent, was killed. The murderers were not punished, but enjoyed all the benefits at court. In addition, the mental health of the unbalanced Paul resembled the madness of Hamlet.

Fate did not deprive Pavel Petrovich of the ability to science.
Here is a list of subjects mastered by him: history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, Russian and German, Latin, French, drawing, fencing and, of course, Holy Scripture.

His teacher of the law was Father Platon (Levshin), one of the most educated people of his time, the future Metropolitan of Moscow. Metropolitan Platon, recalling the training of Paul, wrote that his
"The high pupil, fortunately, was always disposed to piety, and whether reasoning or conversation about God and faith was always pleasant to him."

The education of the Tsarevich was the best one could get at that time.

Once in a history class, the teacher listed about 30 names of bad monarchs. At this time, five watermelons were brought into the room. Only one of them was good. Pavel Petrovich surprised everyone:
"Out of 30 rulers - not a single good one, and out of five watermelons - one is good."
The boy was humorous.

Pavel Petrovich read a lot.
Here is a list of books that the Grand Duke got acquainted with: works of French enlighteners: Montesquieu, Rousseau, D "Alembert, Helvetius, works of Roman classics, historical works of Western European authors, works of Cervantes, Boileau, La Fontaine. works of Voltaire, "The Adventures of Robinson" by D. Defoe , M. V. Lomonosov.

Pavel Petrovich knew a lot about literature and theater, but most of all he loved mathematics. Educator S.A. Poroshin spoke highly of the successes of Pavel Petrovich. He wrote in his Notes:
“If His Highness was a particular person and could completely indulge in mathematical teaching alone, then, in terms of his sharpness, he could very conveniently be our Russian Pascal”

Pavel Petrovich himself felt these abilities in himself. And as a gifted person, he could have an ordinary human desire to develop in himself those abilities to which his soul was drawn. But he couldn't do it. He was the heir. Instead of his favorite activities, he was forced to attend long dinners, dance at balls with ladies-in-waiting, and flirt with them. The atmosphere of almost outright debauchery in the palace oppressed him.

***
1768
Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich is 14 years old.

A well-known doctor who arrived from England inoculates Pavel Petrovich with smallpox. Before that, he conducts a detailed examination of Paul. Here is his conclusion:

"... I was glad to see that the Grand Duke was beautifully built, vigorous, strong and without any natural ailment. ... Pavel Petrovich ... is of medium height, has excellent facial features and is very well built ... he is very dexterous, affable, cheerful and very reasonable, which is not difficult to notice from his conversations, in which there is a lot of wit."

Vigilius Eriksen. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. 1768 Museum, Sergiev Posad

His mother, Empress Catherine II, decided to replace Russian teachers with foreign ones.

The teachers were: Osterwald, Nicolai, Lafermière and Leveque. All of them were ardent supporters of the Prussian military doctrine. Pavel Petrovich fell in love with parades, like his father Peter III. Catherine called it military tomfoolery.

Alexander Benois. Parade under Paul I. 1907

Catherine the Great is to blame for the fact that her son did not receive a Russian military education - the best in Europe. And she didn't do it by accident. The Empress understood that Russian generals and officers knew their worth, they won military victories more than once. And visiting emperors and empresses, in order to maintain their influence in the country, need to lower this price by all means, including by invited foreign experts to train the crown princes.

Carl Ludwig Christinek. Portrait of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich in the costume of a holder of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. 1769

At this time, Nikita Ivanovich Panin, a zealous freemason, gave Paul mysterious manuscripts to read, including "The History of the Order of the Knights of Malta." And the Tsarevich caught fire with the theme of chivalry. The writings proved that the emperor should look after the welfare of the people, as a kind of spiritual leader. The emperor must be initiated. He is the anointed one. It is not the church that should lead him, but he the church. These crazy ideas mingled in Paul's unhappy head with that childlike faith in God's providence, which he learned from infancy from Queen Elizabeth, mothers and nannies who once cherished him.

And so Paul began to dream of true autocracy, of a true kingdom for the good of the people.

***
1772
Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich came of age.

Some courtiers said that Catherine II should involve Pavel Petrovich in the management of the state. Pavel Petrovich himself told his mother about this! But Catherine II won the throne not to yield it to Paul. She decided to distract her son with marriage.

Catherine II began to look for a suitable daughter-in-law. Such that she would bind Russia by dynastic ties with the reigning houses of Europe, and at the same time be submissive and devoted to Catherine II.

Back in 1768, she instructed the Danish diplomat Asseburg to find a bride for the heir. Asseburg drew Catherine's attention to the Princess of Württemberg - Sophia - Dorothea - Augusta, who at that time was only ten years old. He was so captivated by her that he constantly wrote to Catherine II about her. But she was too young for her age.

Unknown artist. Portrait of Princess Sophia Dorothea Augusta Louise of Württemberg. 1770. Alexander Palace-Museum, Pushkin.

Asseburg sent a portrait of Louise of Saxe-Gotha to Catherine, but the proposed matchmaking did not take place. The princess and her mother were zealous Protestants and did not agree to convert to Orthodoxy.

Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Assenburg offered Princess Wilhelmina of Darmstadt to Catherine. He wrote:
"... the princess is described to me, especially from the kindness of the heart, as the perfection of nature; ... that she has a reckless mind prone to contention ..."

The King of Prussia Frederick II was very eager that the marriage of the Tsarevich with the Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt took place. Catherine II was very unhappy with this and at the same time wished for the soonest end of the courtship of the Tsarevich.

She invited the Landgravine and her three daughters to Russia. These daughters: Amalia-Frederica - 18 years old; Wilhelmina - 17; Louise - 15 years old

Friederike Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt

Augusta-Wilhelmina-Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt

Louise Augusta of Hesse-Darmstadt

A Russian warship was sent for them. The empress sent 80,000 guilders to raise her. Asseburg accompanied the family. In June 1773 the family arrived in Lübeck. Three Russian frigates were waiting for them here. The princesses were placed on one of them, on the rest their retinue was located.

Catherine II wrote:
“My son from the first meeting fell in love with Princess Wilhelmina; I gave three days to the deadline to see if he hesitated, and since this princess is superior to her sisters in every respect ... the older one is very meek; the younger one seems to be very smart; in the middle, all the qualities we desire: her face is charming, her features are regular, she is affectionate, intelligent; I am very pleased with her, and my son is in love ... then on the fourth day I turned to the landgravine ... and she agreed ... "

Among the documents of the Ministry of Justice for more than a hundred years, the diary of the 19-year-old Grand Duke was kept in a sealed bag. In it, he recorded his experiences while waiting for the bride:
"..joy mixed with anxiety and awkwardness, who is and will be the friend of all life ... a source of bliss in the present and in the future "

***
1773

First marriage
On August 15, 1773, Princess Wilhelmina received holy anointing with the title and name of Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna.
On September 20, 1773, a solemn marriage took place in the Kazan Cathedral of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna. The groom is 19 years old, the bride is 18 years old.

Alexander Roslin. Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna, Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, 1776 State Hermitage Museum

The wedding celebrations lasted 12 days and ended with fireworks on the square near the Summer Palace.
Catherine's generosity was great. The Landgravine was presented with 100,000 rubles and, in addition, 20,000 rubles for expenses on the return journey. Each of the princesses received 50,000 rubles, each of the retinue received 3,000 rubles. Thanks to the graces of Catherine, the dowries of the princesses were secured.

Only one event overshadowed the wedding celebrations: as in Shakespeare's play, the shadow of the murdered father of Pavel Petrovich, Emperor Peter Fedorovich, appeared at the wedding. As soon as the reflections of the festive fireworks went out, the rebel Pugachev appeared, declaring himself Peter III.

Emelyan Pugachev. Ancient engraving.

The honeymoon of the young spouses was overshadowed by the anxieties of the peasant war.
But despite this, everyone in the family circle was happy. Pavel Petrovich was pleased with his wife. The young wife turned out to be an active person. She dispelled her husband's fears, took him on country walks, to ballet, arranged balls, created her own theater, in which she herself played in comedies and tragedies. In a word, the closed and unsociable Pavel came to life with a young wife, in whom he did not have a soul. The Grand Duke never dared to change her.

Natalia Alekseevna did not feel love for her husband, but, using her influence, she tried to keep him away from everyone except a narrow circle of her friends. According to contemporaries, the Grand Duchess was a serious and ambitious woman, with a proud heart and a strong temper. They had been married for two years, but there was still no heir.

In 1776, the court of Empress Catherine was agitated: the long-awaited pregnancy of Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna was announced. On April 10, 1776, at four in the morning, the Grand Duchess began to experience the first pains. She had a doctor and a midwife with her. The contractions lasted for several days, and soon the doctors announced that the child was dead. Catherine II and Pavel were nearby.

The baby could not be born naturally, and the doctors did not use either obstetric forceps or caesarean section. The child died in the womb and infected the mother's body.
After five days of torment, at 5 am on April 15, 1776, Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna died.
The empress did not like Natalya Alekseevna, and the diplomats gossiped that she did not let the doctors save her daughter-in-law. The autopsy, however, showed that the woman in labor suffered from a defect that would have prevented her from giving birth to a child naturally, and that the medicine of the time was powerless to help her.
The funeral of Natalya Alekseevna took place on April 26 at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Paul could not find the strength to attend the ceremony.

Catherine wrote to Baron Grimm:
"I started by suggesting travel, changing places, and then I said: the dead cannot be resurrected, we must think about the living and go to Berlin for our treasure."
And then she found in the box of the deceased her love notes by Andrey Rozumovsky and handed them to her son.
And Pavel Petrovich quickly consoled himself.

***
1776
Second marriage

It had only been about three months of his widowhood!

Pavel Petrovich goes to Berlin to propose to the Princess of Württemberg Sophia-Dorotea-August. Throughout the journey, Paul wrote to his mother:
“I found my bride the way I could only wish myself mentally: not bad-looking, great, slender, not shy, answers intelligently and quickly ...”

The princess was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, taking the name Maria Feodorovna. She began to learn Russian zealously.
On September 26, 1776, the wedding took place in St. Petersburg.

The next day, Paul wrote to his young wife:
"Every manifestation of your friendship, my dear friend, is extremely precious to me and I swear to you that every day I love you more and more. May God bless our union just as He created it."

Alexander Roslin. Maria Feodorovna shortly after the wedding. The State Hermitage Museum

Maria Feodorovna turned out to be a worthy wife. She gave birth to Pavel Petrovich 10 children, of which only one died in infancy, and of the remaining 9, two, Alexander and Nikolai, became Russian autocrats.

When their first child was born in 1777, Catherine II dealt a strong blow to the soul of Pavel Petrovich, a kind family man, and prevented him from becoming a happy parent.

Catherine II only from a distance showed the parents of the born boy and took him to her forever. She did the same with his other children: sons Konstantin and Nikolai and two daughters.

K. Hoyer (?) Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna with their sons Alexander and Konstantin. 1781

I.-F.Anting. Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna with their sons in the park. 1780. Black ink and gilded bronze on glass. State Hermitage

***
1781
Travel to Europe
In 1780, Catherine II broke close ties with Prussia and moved closer to Austria. Pavel Petrovich did not like such diplomacy. And in order to neutralize Paul and his entourage, Catherine II sends her son and his wife on a long journey.
They traveled under fictitious names - Count and Countess Severny.

When in 1781, while passing through Vienna, Pavel Petrovich was supposed to attend a court performance and it was decided to give Hamlet, the actor Brockman refused to play this role, saying that he did not want to so that there are two Hamlets in the hall. The Austrian Emperor Joseph II sent the actor 50 chervonets in gratitude for his tact.

They visited Rome, where they were received by Pope Pius VI.

Reception by Pope Pius VI of the Count and Countess of the North on February 8, 1782. 1801. Etching by A. Lazzaroni. GMZ "Pavlovsk"

In April they visited Turin. In Italy, the grand ducal couple begins to acquire antique sculpture, Venetian mirrors. All this will soon be included in the decoration of the Pavlovsk Palace.

About his position "Hamlet" Pavel Petrovich was silent for the first time. But once in a friendly (promising to become related) circle, he stopped holding back. Pavel Petrovich began to speak sharply about his mother and her politics.

These statements reached Catherine. In anticipation of the troubles threatening Russia, she said:

"I see in what hands the empire will fall after my death."

In the summer of 1782 they visited Paris. At Versailles, the grand ducal couple was received by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in Paris by the Prince of Orleans, and at Chantilly by the Prince of Condé. According to contemporaries in Paris, they said that
"The king received the Count of the North in a friendly way, the Duke of Orleans - in a bourgeois way, the Prince of Condé - in a royal way."
The Grand Ducal couple visited the workshops of artists, got acquainted with hospitals, manufactories, and government agencies.
From Paris they brought furniture, Lyon silks, bronzes, porcelain and luxurious gifts from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette: tapestries and a unique Sèvres toilet set.

Parisian service. France 1782. Sevres manufactory

A gift from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna and Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich.

Toilet utensil. France. Sevr. 1782. GMZ "Pavlovsk".

We visited Holland, the house of Peter the Great in Zaandam.

Unknown artist. External view of the House of Peter the Great in Zaandam.

Then Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna spent almost a month visiting her parents in Montbéliard and Etupe.
The young people returned home in November 1782.

***
Gatchina
In 1783, Catherine II gave her son the Gatchina estate.
In 1765, Catherine II bought the estate in order to give her favorite, Count G.G. Orlov. It was for him, according to the project of A. Rinaldi, that the palace was built in the form of a hunting castle with towers and an underground passage. The laying of the Gatchina Palace took place on May 30, 1766; the construction of the palace was completed in 1781.

Palace facades. 1781 drawing

Big Gatchina Palace. Painting on porcelain. Author unknown. Second half of XIX

Leaving the capital for Gatchina, Pavel adopted customs that were sharply different from those in St. Petersburg. In addition to Gatchina, he owned the Pavlovskaya estate near Tsarskoye Selo and a summer house on Kamenny Island. Pavlovsk and Gatchina became grand ducal residences for 13 long years.

In order to keep himself busy at least with something, Pavel Petrovich turned here into an exemplary landowner-owner. The day started early. Exactly at seven in the morning, the emperor, together with the grand dukes, was already riding on horseback to meet the troops, was present at the exercises of the Gatchina troops and parades, which took place daily on a huge parade ground in front of the palace and ended with the divorce of the guard.

Schwartz. Parade in Gatchina

At five o'clock the whole family went for a daytime walk: on foot in the garden, or in "karataykas" or lines in the park and the Menagerie, where the children especially liked to visit. There, wild animals were kept in special enclosures: deer, fallow deer, guinea fowl, pheasants and even camels.

In general, life was full of conventions and saturated with strict observance of the regulations, which everyone, without exception, had to follow - both adults and children. Getting up early in the morning, walking or riding, lunches, dinners that began at the same time, performances and evening meetings - all this was subject to strict etiquette and went according to the order established once and for all by the emperor.

Pavel I, Maria Feodorovna and their children. Artist Gerhardt Kugelgen

In the Gatchina period of life, the prince:
* *creates his own mini-army.
The army of Pavel Petrovich grows here every year and acquires an increasingly clear organization. The manor itself soon turned into "Gatchina Russia".

Infantry, cavalry, consisting of their gendarmerie, dragoon, hussar and Cossack regiments, as well as a flotilla with the so-called "naval artillery" were represented here. In total, by 1796 - 2,399 people. And the flotilla by this time consisted of 24 ships.
The only case of the participation of Gatchina troops in hostilities was the campaign of 1788 in the Russo-Swedish War.
Despite the small number, by 1796 the Gatchina troops were one of the most disciplined and well-trained units of the Russian army.

** prepares the Charter of the navy, which entered into force in 1797.

The charter introduced new positions in the fleet - a historiographer, professor of astronomy and navigation, and a drawing master. An important direction in the policy of Paul I in relation to the fleet was the assertion of the principle of unity of command. The double subordination of one private to several chiefs of the same rank was excluded.

The Grand Duke had two libraries in the Gatchina Palace.
The basis of the Gatchina library of Pavel Petrovich was the library of Baron I.A. Korfa, which Catherine II acquired for her son. There was also a library formed by Paul I himself.
The library was located in the Tower Study, and consisted of books that he used, which were constantly at his fingertips.

This collection is relatively small: 119 titles, 205 volumes; of them in Russian 44 titles, 60 volumes. With a small number of books, their extraordinary diversity in content attracts attention. Nearby are a variety of compositions:

"Atlas of the Russian Empire", "Diplomatic ceremonial of European courts", "Modern knowledge of horses", "Discourses on sea signals",

"A detailed description of the ore business", "The Charter of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Turin",

"A General History of the Ceremonies, Customs, and Religious Practices of All the Peoples of the World", "General Studies on the Fortification, Attack, and Defense of Fortresses."

In addition, there was historical literature.

Gatchina became Pavel Petrovich's favorite place to stay. And the word "Gatchinets" has become almost a household word. It meant a disciplined, executive, honest and devoted person.

***
1796
long-awaited throne
On the night of November 7, 1796, in the palace church, Metropolitan Gabriel announced to the capital's nobles, generals and top dignitaries of the state about the death of Catherine II and the accession to the throne of Paul I. Those present began to swear allegiance to the new emperor.

A few hours have passed since the announcement of Paul I as emperor. He went for a walk in Petersburg. Passing by the theater building, built at the behest of Catherine II, Paul I shouted: "Remove it!"
500 people were sent to the building, by the morning the theater was razed to the ground.

The day after the accession of Paul I to the throne, a thanksgiving service was served in the Winter Palace. To the horror of those present, in deathly silence, the protodeacon proclaimed: "To the most pious, most autocratic great sovereign, our Emperor Alexander Pavlovich ..." - and then he only noticed a fatal mistake. His voice broke off. The silence became ominous. Pavel I quickly approached him: “I doubt, father Ivan, that you will live to see the solemn commemoration of Emperor Alexander».
On the same night, having returned home half-dead from fear, the protodeacon dies.

Thus, under the sign of a mystical omen, the short reign of Paul I began.

Pavel Petrovich was crowned in Moscow. The crornation took place on April 27, 1797, the celebration was held very modestly, not like his mother. He was crowned with his wife. This was the first joint coronation of an emperor and an empress in the history of the Russian Empire.

After the coronation, the emperor traveled around the southern provinces for two months, and returning to St. Petersburg, he placed on himself the crown of the Grand Master of the spiritual-knightly order of St. John of Jerusalem. The Order needed military assistance. And Paul I took over the patronage of the Order of Malta .. Europe did not like this, and for the Russian people the order was alien. This did not add authority to Paul I.

Paul I in the crown, dalmatics and signs of the Order of Malta. Artist V. L. Borovikovsky. Around 1800.
After accession to the throne, Paul I resolutely set about breaking the rules established by his mother.

He transferred the ashes of his father Peter III to the imperial tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

He ordered the release of the writer N.I. Novikov, to return A.N. Radishchev from exile. He carried out a provincial reform, reducing the number of provinces and liquidating the Yekaterinoslav province. Special mercy was shown to the rebel Kosciuszko: the emperor personally visited the prisoner in prison and granted him freedom, and all the Poles arrested in 1794 were soon released. Pavel I completely rehabilitated Kosciuszko, gave him financial assistance and allowed him to leave for America.

Paul I adopted a new law on succession to the throne, which drew a line under a century of palace coups and women's rule in Russia. Now power legitimately passed to the eldest son, in his absence to the eldest man in the family.

With his first manifesto, Emperor Paul reduced peasant labor for landlords (“corvée”) to three days a week, that is, by half. On Sunday, as the day of the Lord, it was forbidden to force the peasants to work.
Paul I perfectly understood the role of the book in the life of society, its influence on the mood of the minds.

In 1800, a decree of Paul I to the Senate was published, which stated:
"So how corruption of faith, civil law and morality is inflicted through various books exported from abroad, then from now on, until the decree, we order to prohibit the entry from abroad of all kinds of books, in whatever language they may be, without exception, into our state, uniformly and music.

Under Paul I, three monuments were erected: the statue of Peter the Great, the obelisk "Rumyantsev's Victories" designed by Brenna on the Field of Mars and the monument to A.V. Suvorov in the form of the god of war Mars, which was replaced by Emperor Paul I, ordered by Emperor Paul I to the sculptor M. Kozlovsky, but already erected after the death of the emperor.
In 1800, the construction of the Kazan Cathedral was started according to the project of A. Voronikhin.

During his reign, the General Armorial was compiled and approved. Under him, the distribution of princely titles began, which was almost never practiced before.

During the reign of Paul I, 17 new battleships, 8 frigates were launched in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, and the construction of 9 more large ships began. In St. Petersburg, at the end of Galernaya Street, a new shipyard was built, called the New Admiralty.

The results of the activities of Paul I in the maritime department were significantly higher than the results of the activities carried out in the previous reign.

In memoirs and history books, dozens and thousands of those exiled to Siberia during the Pavlovian time are often mentioned. In fact, the number of those exiled does not exceed ten people in the documents. These people were exiled for military and criminal offenses: bribes, theft on an especially large scale, and others.

Literature:

1.I.Chizhova. Immortal triumph and mortal beauty. EKSMO.2004.
2.Toroptsev A.P. the rise and fall of the Romanov dynasty. Olma Madia Group.2007
3.Ryazantsev S. Horns and crown Astrel-SPb.2006

4 Chulkov G. Emperors (Psychological portraits)

5. Schilder N.K. Emperor Paul the First. SPb. M., 1996.

6. Pchelov E. V. The Romanovs. History of the dynasty. - OLMA-PRESS.2004.

7. Grigoryan V. G. The Romanovs. Biographical guide. —AST, 2007

8.photo from the website Our heritage magazine website http://www.nasledie-rus.ru

9. Photo from the website of the State Hermitage http://www.hermitagemuseum.org

Emperor Paul I did not have an attractive appearance: short stature, snub-nosed short nose ... He knew about this and could, on occasion, joke about his appearance and his entourage: “My ministers ... oh, these gentlemen really wanted to lead me by the nose, but unfortunately for them, I don't have it!"

Paul I tried to establish a form of government that would eliminate the causes that gave rise to wars, riots and revolutions. But some of Catherine's nobles, accustomed to licentiousness and drunkenness, weakened the opportunity to realize this intention, did not allow it to develop and establish itself in time to change the life of the country on a solid basis. The chain of accidents is linked into a fatal pattern: Paul could not do this, and his followers no longer set this task as their goal.

F. Rokotov "Portrait of Paul I in childhood"

S.S. Schukin "Portrait of Emperor Paul I"

Pavel I Petrovich, Emperor of All Russia, was born on September 20, 1754 in the Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna in St. Petersburg.

Childhood

Immediately after his birth, he came under the full care of his grandmother, Elizaveta Petrovna, who took over all the worries about his upbringing, effectively removing his mother. But Elizabeth was notable for her inconstancy of character and soon cooled off towards the heir, transferring him to the care of nannies, who were only concerned that the child would not catch a cold, hurt himself or be naughty. In early childhood, a boy with an ardent imagination was intimidated by nannies: later he was always afraid of the dark, shuddered at a knock or an incomprehensible rustle, believed in omens, fortune-telling and dreams.

In the fifth year of his life, the boy began to be taught grammar and arithmetic, his first teacher F.D. Bekhteev used an original technique for this: he wrote letters and numbers on wooden and tin soldiers and, lining them up in lines, taught the heir to read and count.

Education

Since 1760, Count N.I. Panin, who was his teacher before the marriage of the heir. Despite the fact that Pavel preferred military sciences more, he received a fairly good education: he easily explained himself in French and German, knew Slavonic and Latin, read Horace in the original, and made extracts from books in the process of reading. He had a rich library, a physics office with a collection of minerals, a lathe for manual labor. He knew how to dance well, fence, was fond of horseback riding.

O.A. Leonov "Paul I"

N.I. Panin, himself a passionate admirer of Frederick the Great, raised his heir in the spirit of admiration for everything Prussian to the detriment of the national Russian. But, according to contemporaries, in his youth, Paul was capable, striving for knowledge, romantically inclined, with an open character, sincerely believing in the ideals of goodness and justice. After the accession to the throne of the mother in 1762, their relationship was quite close. However, they got worse over time. Catherine feared her son, who had more legal rights to the throne than she herself. Rumors about his accession spread throughout the country, E. I. Pugachev called out to him as a “son”. The Empress tried not to allow the Grand Duke to participate in the discussion of state affairs, and he began to more and more critically evaluate the policy of his mother. Ekaterina simply “did not notice” the age of her son, without marking it in any way.

Maturity

In 1773, Pavel married the Hesse-Darmstadt princess Wilhelmina (baptized Natalia Alekseevna). In this regard, his education was completed, and he had to be involved in state affairs. But Catherine did not consider it necessary.

In October 1766, Natalya Alekseevna, whom Pavel loved very much, died in childbirth with a baby, and Catherine insisted that Pavel marry a second time, which he did, going to Germany. The second wife of Paul is the Württemberg princess Sophia-Dorotea-Augusta-Louise (baptized Maria Feodorovna). The Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron says this about Paul's further position: “And after that, during the whole life of Catherine, the place occupied by Paul in government spheres was the place of an observer, aware of the right to supreme leadership of affairs and deprived of the opportunity to use this right for changes in even the smallest detail in the course of affairs. This situation was especially conducive to the development of a critical mood in Paul, which acquired a particularly sharp and bilious tone due to the personal element that entered him in a wide stream ... "

Russian coat of arms during the reign of Paul I

In 1782, Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna went on a trip abroad and were warmly received in European capitals. Pavel even gained a reputation there as a "Russian Hamlet". During the journey, Paul openly criticized his mother's policies, which she soon became aware of. Upon the return of the grand ducal couple to Russia, the Empress gave them Gatchina, where the “small courtyard” moved and where Paul, who inherited from his father a passion for everything military in the Prussian manner, created his small army, conducting endless maneuvers and parades. He languished in inactivity, made plans for his future reign and made repeated and unsuccessful attempts to engage in state activities: in 1774 he submits to the empress a note drawn up under the influence of Panin and entitled "Discourse on the state regarding the defense of all limits." Catherine rated her as naive and disapproving of her policies. In 1787, Pavel asks his mother for permission to volunteer for the Russian-Turkish war, but she refuses him under the pretext of the approaching birth of Maria Feodorovna. Finally, in 1788, he takes part in the Russian-Swedish war, but even here Catherine accused him of the fact that the Swedish prince Karl was looking for rapprochement with him - and she recalled her son from the army. It is not surprising that gradually his character becomes suspicious, nervous, bilious and despotic. He retires to Gatchina, where he spends 13 years almost without a break. The only thing that remains for him is to do what he loves: the device and training of "amusing" regiments, consisting of several hundred soldiers, according to the Prussian model.

Catherine hatched plans to remove him from the throne, citing his bad temper and inability. She saw her grandson Alexander, son of Paul, on the throne. This intention was not destined to come true due to the sudden illness and death of Empress Catherine II in November 1796.

on the throne

The new emperor immediately tried, as it were, to cross out everything done during the 34 years of the reign of Catherine II, to destroy the hated orders of Catherine's reign - this became one of the most important motives of his policy. He also tried to stop the influence of revolutionary France on the minds of Russians. It was in this direction that his policy was deployed.

First of all, he ordered to remove from the crypt of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra the remains of Peter III, his father, who were buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress along with the coffin of Catherine II. On April 4, 1797, Pavel was solemnly crowned in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. On the same day, several decrees were promulgated, the most important of which were: the "Law on the Succession to the Throne", which assumed the transfer of the throne according to the principle of pre-Petrine times, and the "Institution on the Imperial Family", which determined the procedure for keeping the persons of the reigning house.

The reign of Paul I lasted 4 years and 4 months. It was somewhat chaotic and inconsistent. He's been "kept on a leash" for too long. And so the leash was removed ... He tried to correct the shortcomings of the hated former regime, but did it inconsistently: he restored the Petrine collegiums liquidated by Catherine II, limited local self-government, issued a number of laws leading to the destruction of noble privileges ... They could not forgive him for this.

In decrees of 1797, landowners were recommended to perform a 3-day corvee, it was forbidden to use the labor of peasants on Sundays, it was not allowed to sell peasants under the hammer, and Little Russians without land. It was ordered to appear in the regiments of the nobles, fictitiously enlisted in them. Since 1798, noble societies became controlled by the governors, the nobles again began to be subjected to corporal punishment for criminal offenses. But at the same time, the position of the peasants was not alleviated.

Transformations in the army began with the replacement of the "muzhik" uniforms with new ones copied from the Prussian. Wishing to improve discipline in the troops, Paul I was present daily at exercises and divorces and severely punished for the slightest mistake.

Paul I was very afraid of the penetration of the ideas of the Great French Revolution into Russia and introduced some restrictive measures: already in 1797, private printing houses were closed, strict censorship for books was introduced, a ban was imposed on French fashion, young people were forbidden to travel abroad to study.

V. Borovikovsky "Paul I in the uniform of Colonel of the Preobrazhensky Regiment"

Upon accession to the throne, Paul, in order to emphasize the contrast with his mother, declared peacefulness and non-interference in European affairs. However, when in 1798 there was a threat of the restoration of an independent Polish state by Napoleon, Russia took an active part in organizing the anti-French coalition. In the same year, Paul assumed the duties of the Master of the Order of Malta, thus challenging the French emperor, who had captured Malta. In this regard, the Maltese octagonal cross was included in the state emblem. In 1798-1800, Russian troops successfully fought in Italy, and the Russian fleet fought in the Mediterranean, which caused concern from Austria and England. Relations with these countries finally deteriorated in the spring of 1800. At the same time, rapprochement with France began, and a plan for a joint campaign against India was even discussed. Without waiting for the signing of the corresponding agreement, Pavel ordered the Don Cossacks to set out on a campaign, which were already stopped by Alexander I.

V.L. Borovikovsky "Portrait of Paul I in the crown, dalmatics and signs of the Order of Malta"

Despite the solemn promise to maintain peaceful relations with other states, given upon accession to the throne, he took an active part in the coalition with England, Austria, the Kingdom of Naples and Turkey against France. The Russian squadron under the leadership of F. Ushakov was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, where, with the Turkish squadron, they liberated the Ionian Islands from the French. In Northern Italy and Switzerland, Russian troops under the command of A.V. Suvorov won a number of brilliant victories.

The last palace coup of a bygone era

Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg, where Paul I was killed

The main reasons for the coup and the death of Paul I were the infringement of the interests of the nobility and unpredictability in the actions of the emperor. Sometimes he exiled or sent people to prison for the slightest offense.

He planned to declare the 13-year-old nephew of Maria Feodorovna the heir to the throne, adopting him, and to imprison his eldest sons, Alexander and Konstantin, in a fortress. In March 1801, a ban was issued on trade with the British, which threatened damage to the landlords.

• The fate of this emperor was tragic. He was brought up without parents (from birth he was taken away from his mother, the future empress, and brought up by nannies. At the age of eight, he lost his father, Peter III, who was killed as a result of a coup d'état) in an atmosphere of neglect from his mother, like an outcast, forcefully removed from power . Under these conditions, he developed suspicion and irascibility, combined with brilliant abilities in the sciences and languages, with innate ideas about knightly honor and state order. The ability for independent thinking, close observation of the life of the court, the bitter role of an outcast - all this turned Paul away from the lifestyle and politics of Catherine II. Still hoping to play some role in state affairs, at the age of 20 Pavel submitted to his mother a draft military doctrine of a defensive nature and concentration of state efforts on internal problems. She was not taken into account. He was forced to try out military regulations in the Gatchina estate, where Catherine resettled him out of sight. There, Paul's conviction was formed about the benefits of the Prussian order, with which he had the opportunity to get acquainted at the court of Frederick the Great - a king, commander, writer and musician. The Gatchina experiments later became the basis of the reform, which did not stop even after the death of Paul, creating an army of a new era - disciplined and well trained.

  Often the reign of Paul I is spoken of as a time of discipline, drill, despotism, and arbitrariness. There is, however, an alternative point of view according to which the "Russian Hamlet" Paul fought laxity in the army and in general in the life of Russia at that time and wanted to make public service the highest valor, stop embezzlement and negligence and thereby save Russia from the collapse that threatened her.

  Many anecdotes about Paul I were spread in those days by the nobles, whom Paul I did not allow to live a free life, demanding that they serve the Fatherland.

  Succession reform

  The decree on succession to the throne was issued by Paul I on April 5, 1797. With the introduction of this decree, the uncertainty of the situation in which the Russian imperial throne found itself with each change of reign and with constant coups and seizures of supreme power after Peter I as a result of his legislation ended. Love for the rule of law was one of the brightest traits in the character of Tsarevich Paul at that time of his life. Clever, thoughtful, impressionable, as some biographers describe him, Tsarevich Pavel showed an example of absolute loyalty to the culprit of his removal from life - until the age of 43 he was under undeserved suspicion from the Empress Mother in attempts on the power that rightfully belonged to him more than she herself, who ascended the throne at the cost of the lives of two emperors (Ivan Antonovich and Peter III). A sense of disgust at coups d'état and a sense of legitimacy was one of the main stimuli that prompted him to reform the succession to the throne, which he considered and decided almost 10 years before its implementation. Paul canceled the Peter's decree on the appointment of his successor on the throne by the emperor himself and established a clear system of succession to the throne. From that moment on, the throne was inherited through the male line, after the death of the emperor, he passed to the eldest son and his male offspring, and if there were no sons, to the next oldest brother of the emperor and his male offspring, in the same order. A woman could occupy the throne and pass it on to her offspring only when the male line was suppressed. By this decree, Paul excluded palace coups, when emperors were overthrown and erected by the power of the guard, the reason for which was the lack of a clear system of succession to the throne (which, however, did not prevent the palace coup on March 12, 1801, during which he himself was killed). Pavel restored the system of colleges, attempts were made to stabilize the financial situation of the country (including the famous action of melting palace services into coins).

  

  Postage stamp "Paul I signs the Manifesto on the three-day corvee"

  Prerequisites

  The corvee economy of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century was the most intensive form of exploitation of peasant labor and, in contrast to the quitrent system, led to the utmost enslavement and maximum exploitation of the peasants. The growth of corvee duties gradually led to the appearance of a month (daily corvee), and small peasant farming was in danger of disappearing. The serfs were not legally protected from the arbitrary exploitation of the landowners and the burden of serfdom, which took forms close to slavery.

  During the reign of Catherine II, the problem of legislative regulation of peasant duties became the subject of public discussion in an atmosphere of relative publicity. New drafts of regulation of peasant duties appear in the country, heated discussions are unfolding. A key role in these events was played by the activities of the Free Economic Society and the Legislative Commission, created by Catherine II. Attempts to legislatively regulate peasant duties were initially doomed to failure due to the harsh opposition of the nobility and landlord circles and the political elite associated with them, as well as due to the lack of real support for reform initiatives from the autocracy.

  Even before his accession, Paul I took real measures to improve the situation of the peasants on his personal estates in Gatchina and Pavlovsk. So, he reduced and reduced peasant duties (in particular, on his estates for a number of years there was a two-day corvée), allowed the peasants to go to the crafts in their free time from corvee work, issued loans to the peasants, built new roads in the villages, opened two free medical hospital for his peasants, built several free schools and colleges for peasant children (including disabled children), as well as several new churches. He insisted on the need for a legislative settlement of the position of serfs. "Human, Paul wrote, - the first treasure of the state", "saving the state - saving the people"("Discourse on the state"). Not being a supporter of radical reforms in the field of the peasant question, Paul I admitted the possibility of some limitation of serfdom and the suppression of its abuses.

  Manifesto

  GOD'S MERCY

  WE PAUL THE FIRST

  Emperor and Autocrat

  ALL-RUSSIAN,

  and other, and other, and other.

  We declare to all OUR faithful subjects.

  The Law of God in the Decalogue taught to US teaches US to dedicate the seventh day to it; why on this day we were glorified by the triumph of the Christian faith, and on which WE were honored to receive the sacred anointing of the world and the Royal wedding on OUR Ancestral Throne, we consider it our duty to the Creator and to confirm all blessings throughout OUR Empire about the exact and indispensable fulfillment of this law, commanding everyone and everyone to watch, so that no one, under any circumstances, would dare to force the peasants to work on Sundays, especially since for rural products the six days remaining in the week, according to an equal number of them, are generally shared, both for the peasants themselves and for their work in favor of the landowners, the following, with good disposal, will be sufficient to satisfy all economic needs. Given in Moscow on the day of Holy Pascha, April 5, 1797.

  

  Evaluation of the Manifesto by contemporaries

  Representatives of foreign powers saw in him the beginning of peasant reforms.

  For the Manifesto on the three-day corvee, Paul was sincerely praised by the Decembrists, noting the sovereign's desire for justice.

  The Manifesto was greeted with a muffled murmur and widespread boycott by conservative noble and landlord circles, who considered it an unnecessary and harmful law.

  The peasant masses saw hope in the Manifesto. They regarded it as a law that officially protected their interests and alleviated their plight, and tried to complain about the boycott of its norms by the landlords.

  But the implementation of the norms and ideas of the Manifesto on the three-day corvee, issued by Emperor Paul I, was initially doomed to failure. The ambiguity of the wording of this law and the lack of development of mechanisms for its implementation predetermined the polarization of opinions of government and judicial officials of the country in the interpretation of its meaning and content and led to complete inconsistency in the actions of the central, provincial and local structures that controlled the implementation of this law. The desire of Paul I to improve the plight of the peasant masses was combined with his stubborn unwillingness to see the serf peasantry as an independent political force and social support for the anti-serfdom undertakings of the autocracy. The indecision of the autocracy led to the absence of strict control over the observance of the norms and ideas of the Manifesto and the connivance of its violations.

  Military reform of Paul I

  

  G. Sergeev "Military exercise on the parade ground in front of the palace" (watercolor)

  1. Introduced single soldier training and improved content.
  2. A defense strategy has been developed.
  3. 4 armies were formed in the main strategic directions.
  4. Military districts and inspections were created.
  5. New statutes have been introduced.
  6. The guards, cavalry and artillery were reformed.
  7. The rights and duties of military personnel are regulated.
  8. General privileges have been reduced.

  The reforms in the army caused discontent on the part of the generals and the guards. The guardsmen were required to serve as they should. All officers assigned to the regiments were required to report for duty from long-term leave, some of them and those who did not appear were expelled. Unit commanders were limited in the disposal of the treasury and the use of soldiers for household work.

  The military reform of Paul I created the army that defeated Napoleon.

  Jokes about Paul were fanned for political purposes. The indignant nobility did not understand that Paul "tightening the screws" extended the dominance of the "service class" for a hundred years.

  Paul's contemporaries adapted to him. He brought order and discipline, and this met with approval in society. True military men quickly realized that Pavel is hot-tempered, but quick-witted, understands humor. There is a known case that allegedly Paul I sent a whole regiment from the watch parade to Siberia; in fact, Pavel showed dissatisfaction in a sharp form, reprimanding the commander before the ranks. In annoyance, he said that the regiment was worthless, that it should be sent to Siberia. Suddenly the regimental commander turns to the regiment and gives the command: “Regiment, march to Siberia!” Here Pavel was taken aback. And the regiment marched past him. Of course, the regiment caught up and turned back. And the commander had nothing. The commander knew that Pavel would eventually like such a trick.

  Dissatisfaction with Paul was manifested primarily by a part of the higher nobility, who fell into disgrace under Paul for various reasons: either because they were hated by the emperor "Catherine's court", or brought to justice for embezzlement and other offenses.

  

  F. Shubin "Portrait of Paul I"

  Other reforms

  One of the first attempts to create a code of laws was made. All subsequent rulers of Russia up to the present time have tried to create a code like the "Napoleon Code" in France. Nobody succeeded. The bureaucracy interfered. Although under Paul there was a "training" of the bureaucracy, but from this training it only became stronger.
  * Decrees were declared not to be considered laws. During the 4 years of the reign of Paul I, 2179 decrees were issued (42 decrees per month).

  * Proclaimed the principle: "Income of the state, not the sovereign." Audits of state institutions and services were carried out. Significant sums were collected in favor of the state.
  * The issuance of paper money was discontinued (by this time, one paper ruble was worth 66 silver kopecks).
  * Emphasis was placed on the distribution of land and peasants into private hands (during the reign - 4 years), 600 thousand souls were granted, for 34 years Catherine II granted 850 thousand souls. Pavel believed that the landowners would be better off supporting the peasants than the state.
  * A "Loan Bank" was established and a "bankruptcy charter" was adopted.
  * The family of Academician M. Lomonosov was exempted from the head salary.
  * Polish insurgents led by T. Kosciuszko were released from prison.

  On the night of March 11-12, 1801, Pavel I Petrovich was killed by conspiring officers in the newly built Mikhailovsky Castle: the conspirators, mostly guard officers, broke into the bedroom of Paul I demanding to abdicate. When the emperor tried to object and even hit one of them, one of the rebels began to choke him with his scarf, and the other hit him in the temple with a massive snuffbox. It was announced to the people that Paul I had died of apoplexy.

  Paul I and Maria Feodorovna had 10 children:

  

I read a rare book about the political views of the ancient Greeks and became thoughtful. I don't like totalitarianism, but I'm also a useless democrat, I don't like the oligarchy at all, and even more so the monarchy. Why, then, did the personality of Paul I always attract my attention, despite the persistent irritation that the Romanovs aroused in me?
Yes, Paul I had a fate - you wouldn’t wish it on your enemy. The son of a man-killer, and also an unloved son. Empress Mother Catherine II seems to have started a rumor herself that he was not even the son of her husband who was killed by her, wanting to remove the objectionable son from the throne, but changed her mind in time. The empress was very careless. She herself sat firmly on the throne, and the waters under her descendants with such and such speeches could stagger. The Empress was cunning, Pavel looked like daddy, which, you see, angered her beyond measure. The son was not handsome, small in stature, only 166 centimeters, arrogant, arrogant, impulsive, but not stupid, he had a sharp mind and an excellent memory. It was later, for political reasons, that contemporaries tried to make Paul look like a half-crazy idiot. Pavel knew languages ​​and was well educated. His teacher, N.I. Panin, was one of the most enlightened people of his time. By the way, he patronized Fonfizin, at that time there was nothing to dream of writing and a career without a patron. Fonvizin served as a secretary for N.I. Panin for a long time.
Pavel sincerely fell in love with his first beautiful wife, Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, but even here fate dealt a blow. The wife was unfaithful and died, unable to give birth to a child, believed to be from her lover Andrei Kirillovich Razumovsky, who was the best friend of Paul I. Natalya Alekseevna did not shine with her mind, she did not possess the qualities necessary for the future wife of the emperor. Pavel suffered greatly. The Empress Mother reacted harshly, saying that he was suffering longer than it should be for a cuckold. Whether Catherine the Great caused the premature death of the first wife of the heir to the throne is not known for certain, but they talked about it, she died just in time, and given the fact that she intrigued against her mother-in-law, then the testimony of a commission of 13 doctors convened by her to refute the rumors, hard to believe. For some unknown reason, a caesarean section for a dying woman in labor was not done.
The second wife of the future emperor was the niece of King Frederick II - Sophia Dorothea of ​​Württemburg. Frederick II at the expense of Pavel Petrovich, as the future emperor, had a low opinion, predicted a short reign for him. This time, Catherine II approached the choice of a daughter-in-law much more thoroughly. However, she was still dissatisfied. She considered her son’s second wife a philistine, a chicken, but still recognized one good quality for her - “she regularly gives birth to children”, the spouses had four sons and six daughters. After the failure that befell Catherine, her beloved grandson, the future Emperor Alexander I, had only two daughters, and even those died in infancy, this was a great achievement. Catherine II was in a hurry, she married her grandson at the age of fifteen, the bride was fourteen. She needed heirs bypassing Paul, oh, how she needed them, but here such a bad luck.
The empress, doing state affairs, did not forget about her beloved. She was a loving lady. She changed “boys” in bed, not sparing the state treasury. The older she became, the younger and more numerous were the lovers. Catherine II was in love. She showered "boys" with gifts without measure, lands, estates, serfs, not to mention such trifles as rings, snuffboxes and other valuables. It would be nice to have values, there were also positions. Sometimes ambitious, wildly ignorant youths, such as Platosha Zubov, interfered in state affairs, encouraged by the Empress in love. Of course, Paul knew about the sins of his mother, he knew. And no one was going to hide at least something. What the son felt when he looked at the empress, there is nothing to guess. Russian Hamlet was called Paul I abroad. But this "Hamlet" was even less fortunate than the Prince of Denmark. If fate is taken to pursue someone, then it will not unhook, it will not stop at what has been achieved. True, he had an outlet - Ekaterina Ivanovna Nelidova. Maria Feodorovna, the wife of the heir to the throne, received this name after baptism, was jealous, tried to remove her from her husband, however, the cunning Catherine II did not agree. She had a beneficial effect on the heir to Nelidov, she was smart and educated.
If Paul I had not been so ambitious, if the Empress had managed to remove him from the throne, then Paul, most likely, would have lived a long life. Catherine II knew that it was difficult to rule in Russia. This is not Denmark or Sweden. A huge state, thoroughly saturated with slavery, fear, intrigues, with an unthinkable stratification of the population, was not very suitable for a weak-willed, emotional Emperor. It was rumored that he had persecution mania. All his life Pavel was afraid that he would be eliminated, just as his unfortunate father Peter III was eliminated. Catherine the Great had no doubts for a long time, she easily dealt with the unfortunate prisoner, the legitimate heir to the throne, Ivan VI. He was twenty-three years old then. Pavel was afraid of his mother, afraid of friends and enemies. The empress was not bloodthirsty and vindictive, she didn’t shed blood just like that, she did it only with a real threat to her autocracy, she easily forgave all other sins. And yet Pavel Petrovich was not afraid in vain. Betrayed by his inner circle, his wife and son, he was brutally murdered after a short reign. What a mania!
Why is this unfortunate king close and dear to me. There is a reason. Paul I can be considered not only the Russian Hamlet, but also the Russian Ludwig II. Ludwig II of Bavaria spent the entire treasury on the palaces that now serve as an adornment of Germany, was declared insane and killed. The version that he and the doctor committed suicide sounds unconvincing. Possessing excellent taste, the superbly educated Pavel also left behind the greatest monuments of architecture. Mother for too long did not allow him to power, and the son found a job for himself.
Pavlovsk is a magnificent example of garden and park art, a classically austere, romantically beautiful ensemble. Mother Empress was not indifferent to the arts. Buying works of great masters, did not skimp, bought the largest collections around the world. It is to her that we owe the fact that we can wander around the Hermitage for hours. Nevertheless, Pavel and his mother had common interests. Only their tastes were different. Catherine's Park is more like a Disneyland of the eighteenth century: here you have Elizabethan baroque, and classicism, and pseudo-Gothic, and a Moorish bath, and a Chinese pagoda, there is even a whole Chinese village behind the canal, and there are ruins, and something like an Egyptian pyramid stands - headstone for your beloved dog. Ekaterininsky Park is good, but you can’t call it an “icon of style”. Pavlovsk is different, as if it was created in one breath. Landscape park, and in it on the highest place - a palace, similar to a manor house. Opposite its facade is the colonnade of Apollo. It was not conceived as a ruin, but during a thunderstorm there was a partial collapse, it turned out very well. Nature itself intervened and made it even more beautiful. And Twelve tracks! Any artist would be proud of such a stunning decision. The sculpture and the surrounding forest have turned into an ensemble mysterious and attractive in its cruelty and beauty. Apollo, surrounded by the Muses, shoots the bronze Niobides, who are dying in the depths of the gloomy paths.
The landscapes of Pietro Gonzago amaze with their perfection. The former theater artist-turned-gardener turned the park into a series of amazing, living scenery. The scenery replaces each other, scenes are opened for the magnificent action of nature. One scene, another ... And then the White Birch. Huge expanses of fields and islands of the forest delight visitors, and then again a change of scenery, a round dance of birches with paths running away from it. And then the romantically neglected, forest-like New Sylvia and the valley of the Slavyanka River. There, in the valley, there are bridges, the Peel Tower, the Bathhouse and the Temple of Friendship, dedicated to Catherine II. Pavel and his wife still tried to improve relations with the Empress. The classically slender temple built by Cameron is beautiful, but he did not contribute to friendship with the empress.
There is also a strange corner in Old Sylvia. This is already Maria Fedorovna tried. A path winds, and along it are monuments to her relatives. Their real graves are far away, but here everything is nearby. There is where to come and remember. In New Sylvia, in the most gloomy place, there is a heavy mausoleum for the "beloved" spouse. Paul I was not buried there, apparently, a sense of guilt haunted, albeit involuntary, but still a murderer of the man. Maria Feodorovna wanted to rule Russia, like her predecessor, and therefore was silent, knowing about the conspiracy, and then there was Nelidova ... Only, the trouble is, no one paid any attention to her claims. Seriously "chicken" was not taken.
Pavel intervened in the work of architects, supervised them, made adjustments himself, but the Pavlovsk Palace, the park, and most of the buildings in the park were, first of all, the creations of Charles Cameron, the favorite architect of Catherine the Great. It is no coincidence that immediately after her death, Pavel fired him. The Pavlovsk Palace inside is classically strict and homely. From the outside, it is decorated with the Pavilion of the Three Graces and Maria Feodorovna's own garden. Vincenzo Brenna added side wings to the palace, gave the building a horseshoe shape, made some interiors more luxurious, by that time Paul had already become emperor. Andrei Voronikhin, Carl Rossi, Giacomo Quarenghi worked in Pavlovsk. The palace and the park are one whole. Here everything is thought out to the smallest detail, architecture, interiors, and landscapes merge into one common harmony.
And yet it is better to get an idea of ​​the tastes of Paul I in Gatchina. The Gatchina Palace resembles a medieval castle. There are no more such palaces in Russia.
Protector of the Order of Malta, knight - the spirit of Paul I, who is he, what kind of person? He abolished the privileges of the nobility, issued a “law on succession to the throne” (transfer of the throne only through the male line), banned the sale of householders and landless peasants under the hammer, and issued a “manifesto on a three-day corvee”. The love for the Emperor of the common people ascribed to him a miraculous deliverance from death, there were testimonies of miracles and healings that occurred at his grave. His serf slaves revered him as a saint. The nobles did not like the tsar's reforms.
A. Rinaldi, V. Brenna, A. Zakharov, N. Lvov, A. Voronikhin, A. Stackenschneider and R. Kuzmin worked on the Gatchina Palace. Unfortunately, the interiors of the palace can only be judged from a few restored rooms, as well as from pre-war photographs, however, the aesthetic effect that can be achieved in other palaces with the help of sculpture, painting and molding is achieved here only thanks to architecture. Tourists are now led through not restored halls. The faded gilding flickers, the preserved molding attracts the eye. Sad and beautiful Gatchina Palace. He was less fortunate than other suburban imperial residences. Later than others, it became a museum, later than others, restorers came there. Pudos stone, wounded walls, lakes, once the cleanest, pavilions and a park, not as luxurious and large as in Pavlovsk, but thanks to the beauty of the lakes, it is also unique. The Gatchina Palace is something special, mysterious. Paul was a mystic. His palace turned out to be mystical. They say that labyrinths stretch for many kilometers underground. Visitors are led through an underground passage to the Silver Lake, the labyrinth itself is closed, you can get lost there.
Black, White and Silver lakes are connected by channels, the water of time flows through water labyrinths, makes noise in dams. Many buildings in Gatchina Park are made of Pudos stone. The park delights with restrained splendor and unity of style. The birch house, the pavilion of Venus, and above them, above the park and lakes, stands the castle of the last knight of Russia, keeps the memory of him.
There is another castle in the Gatchina park - the Priory Palace. For more than ten years it was the residence of the Order of Malta. This is the only earth palace in Russia. It was made using a special technology in a swamp. To divert water, the architect Nikolai Alexandrovich Lvov built a 34-meter canal. It was thanks to him that rumors about an underground passage that existed between the Priory and the Great Gatchina palaces appeared. Yes, and how not to believe the rumors, too much mysticism, prophecy and secrets are associated with the name of Paul I. The toy castle, which looked like a small monastery, cost the treasury surprisingly cheap. Lvov dreamed that the peasants would live in large, fire-free and affordable houses. Did not work out. And the palace still amazes people with the severity and beauty of the design.
Probably the most famous building of Paul I was the Mikhailovsky Castle or the Engineering Castle. And here again mysticism, again prophecies, a mysterious inscription and the number of years lived by the emperor, imprinted in it above the facade. The ensemble of the Mikhailovsky Castle with two pavilions of the Guardhouse was designed by the architects V. Brenna and V. Bazhenov. Pavel was in a hurry with its construction, the building was built in three years. However, he managed to work together with architects on its facades. Pavel can also be considered one of the architects of this grand residence. All facades of the building are different, but it is designed in the same style. What? It looks eclectic, but it's not eclectic. Mikhailovsky Castle is the only palace building in Russia in the style of romantic classicism. Pavel's taste was original. As for Ludwig II, I'm still not quite right. It would never have occurred to our Tsar to build a second Versailles. He had too many architectural ideas of his own. There are more than sixty societies of admirers of Ludwig II of Bavaria in Germany, and there is not a single society of admirers of Paul I in Russia. And it would be worth remembering this unfortunate emperor more often - the son of a man-killer, the father of a man-killer, a man whose wife was a man-killer, a man whose man was betrayed by almost everyone he trusted, a king who built amazing palaces, strange, mysterious, beautiful, marked by an extraordinary aesthetic flair. I understood why Pavel is close to me - I feel an artist in him.
Mikhailovsky Castle was surrounded by water on all sides, there were drawbridges and cannons. Pavel was afraid of assassination attempts, he entered the palace when the plaster had not yet dried. It was cold and damp in it, despite the fact that the stoves were heated all the time, but the precautionary measures did not save him, Paul lived in it for only forty days.
After the death of the emperor, the palace was abandoned. Then it housed the Main Engineering School. The canals were filled up, the cannons were removed… Dostoevsky also studied there… Yes, fate. Paul died forty-seven years later in the same place where he was born. And he was born in the Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna, which stood on the site of the Engineering Castle. In the courtyard of the castle there is an ugly monument to Paul I, all saturated with hatred for the emperor. It's a pity ... Near the Gatchina and Pavlovsk palaces, there are also two identical monuments to Paul I, they have a portrait resemblance to him, but do not harbor unworthy feelings. The palaces of Pavel Petrovich, in fact, are themselves monuments to the emperor who built them.
They build palaces, destroy, blow up, revive from the ashes. How much is a life devoid of beauty worth? They erected the great palaces of this world for themselves, but they remained with us. Stone reflections of the human spirit, ideas of beauty, wealth and power sound like music frozen in stone. The beautiful music of St. Petersburg, which has not yet been completely destroyed to please the nouveau riche, calls for itself. The steps of his time in the yards resound with a boom. The memory of ancestors lives in the front halls and back streets of communal apartments. Tour guides lead groups around the Mikhailovsky Castle at night, trying to meet the shadow of the emperor who built it. They say his soul toils in the world of the living. I just don't believe it. He raised many children, planted gardens, built palaces, and did not forget about good deeds, he managed, despite the fact that, as Frederick II predicted, he did not reign for long. He fulfilled his duty on earth, even though fate was not on his side from birth.