Peter Iii Of Russia

Peter III ( February 21 , 1728 - July 17 , 1762 ) ( Russian Пётр III Федорович (Pyotr III Fyodorovitch)) was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. According to most historians, he was mentally immature and very pro- Prussia n, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly Assassinated as a result of a Conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II .

EARLY LIFE AND CHARACTER

Peter was born in Kiel . His parents were Karl Friedrich, Duke Of Holstein-Gottorp (nephew of Charles XII Of Sweden ) and Anna Petrovna , a daughter of Emperor Peter The Great of Russia and his second wife, Catherine I Of Russia . In 1739, Peter's father died, and he became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp as Karl Peter Ulrich. He thus was the heir both to the thrones of Russia and of Sweden .

Two years later, Karl Peter Ulrich's aunt Elizabeth became Empress of Russia, and brought Peter from Germany to Russia and proclaimed him her heir. She arranged for Peter to marry his cousin, Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, who formally converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna, or Catherine. The marriage was not a happy one, and during the sixteen years of their residence in Oranienbaum Catherine took numerous lovers, as did her husband.

The classical view of Peter's character is contained in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica : "Nature had made him mean, the smallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome. And Peter had all the sentiments of the worst kind of small German prince of the time. He had the conviction that his princeship entitled him to disregard decency and the feelings of others. He planned brutal practical jokes, in which blows had always a share. His most manly taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which has been defined as corporals mania, the passion for uniforms, pipeclay, buttons, the tricks of parade and the froth of discipline. He detested the Russians, and surrounded himself with Holsteiners".

THE REIGN

After Peter gained the throne in 1762, he instantly incurred the nobles's displeasure by withdrawing from the Seven Years' War and making peace with Prussia, in which Russia did not gain anything, in spite of Russia's occupation of Berlin and virtual victory in the war. He formed an alliance with Prussia and planned an unpopular war against Denmark in order to restore Schleswig to his Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. He also attempted to force the Russian Orthodox Church to adopt Lutheran practices.

Catherine, along with her lover Grigori Orlov , planned to overthrow Peter, before he had divorced her, as she had reasons to believe he would. The Leib Guard revolted, Peter was arrested and forced to sign his own abdication; Catherine became Empress with wide popular support. Shortly thereafter, Peter was killed while in custody. While Catherine did not punish the responsible guards, doubts remain as to whether she ordered the murder.

AFTERMATH

In December 1796, Peter's son the Emperor Paul , who disliked his mother, arranged for his remains to be exhumed and then reburied with full honors in the Peter And Paul Cathedral , where other tsars were buried.

There have many attempts to revise the traditional characterisation of Peter and his policies, which is obviously influenced by his wife's memoirs and other biased accounts. It was during his reign that some of Catherine's reforms were prepared and the nobles were relieved from the burdensome obligation of serving in the army. Most recently, a Harvard historian Carol S. Leonard published a revisionist history of Peter III with her book ''Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter III of Russia''.

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Peter Iii Of Russia

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