Birth of Paul I "was not a family joy - that was a political event"

October 1, 2020 marks the 266th anniversary of the birth of the Russian Emperor Paul I (1754-1801). The opinion of contemporaries about the autocrat, the palace intrigues influenced his personality, and also the results of his short reign are publicly provided using materials from the Presidential Library’s collections. Many of them, such as: “Letters of Emperor Paul I” (1785–1799), collections of decrees, concluded agreements, memoirs of courtiers, biographical studies and other documents are included in the major collection of the Presidential Library “The House of Romanov. The Zemsky Sobor of 1613".

With the birth of the Tsarevich “… it might seem”, - writes Nikolai Schilder in his historical and biographical sketch “Emperor Paul I”, “that from now on it is permissible to count on… ensuring the correct inheritance of the throne and ending the palace coups that have darkened history since the death of the great reformer. The hopes of the Russian people ... have focused since 1754 on the cradle of the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich".

If for Catherine, as for any mother, the birth of her first child was one of the main events in her life, then for the court “it was not a family joy - it was a political event full of national significance. <...> The infant resting in the cradle was the pillar of the throne", - the author of the essay "Emperor Paul I" notes.

All the care of the child was taken over by the ruling Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, and Catherine saw her son only on the fortieth day. The Tsarevich's childhood, deprived of maternal warmth, affected his character and state of health.

As a result, the relationship of the son with the mother remained difficult for a long period. However, documentary sources of the Presidential Library testify that after Catherine's accession to the throne, attempts to jointly discuss key political issues, rapprochement, were made on both sides.

The publication “Empress Catherine II, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna: Letters, Notes and Extracts” features Paul's address to his mother given after the announcement of the Manifesto declaring the Second War with the Turks: “I accept the courage to ask you for the same permission - to go to as a volunteer, which I asked for in 83, during the then preparations for war". However, Catherine finds weighty arguments to deny her son his desire to be in the center of events on the expansion of Russian territory: “The campaign will be very short-lived due to the late season. You ... multiply to both field marshals the hardships and concerns, which are already numerous. <...> They will be bothered and distracted from their business only by taking care of ... your safety".

Paul inherited the crown only at the 43rd year of his life. “Having ascended the throne, which he was tired of waiting for, <...> he began to distort everything, both the civil and military units, and the external relations of the state, - we read in the collection “Materials for the biography of Emperor Paul I”, published in 1874 in Leipzig.

“The attempts of the new monarch turned out to be unsuccessful”, - says Nikolai Schilder in his essay “Emperor Paul I”, - to reform the army and state apparatus according to the patterns of the Prussian military system and the Prussian police state. Paul's transformations in this area caused open discontent, the reasons for which are reflected in a digital copy of the collection "The Highest Orders of Emperor Paul I 1800-1801". It happened that “three full generals, three lieutenant generals, 9 majors, 68 chief officers of the guards’ regiments, 90 non-commissioned officers and one Preobrazhensky regiment of 120 people were dismissed in one day! It is not said why". The introduction of the inconvenient Prussian-style army uniform also caused a murmur among the military. “All these changes in the troops, which amazed contemporaries with their ugliness and impracticality, arouse surprise a hundred years later, especially since the uniforms that existed under Catherine II, introduced by Potemkin, were simple, convenient, thought out with national characteristics and liked the troops”, - writes Schilder.

Paul I ascended the throne with ready-made projects of reforms, which, in his opinion, were supposed to “heal” Russia, give a new direction to her political and state life. Only a few of them have borne the desired results. In 1788, while still Tsarevich, Pavel thought about the procedure for transferring the highest state power in Russia, which excluded the possibility of removing the legitimate heirs from the throne. As a result, he developed the "Act [of Succession], approved on the day ... of the coronation of [Paul I]". This document, with the later changes and additions, was included in the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, and was valid until 1917.

In the field of finance, the monarch believed that the state's revenues belonged to the power, and not to the emperor personally. He demanded that budget expenditures be coordinated with the needs of the state. The decree on the three-day corvee banned the work of peasants on weekends. “But at the same time, he gave free peasants into serf possession to his adherents and to the Gatchina servants, and in the event of indignation from this, he often ordered to punish with a whip. Of all the estates, perhaps only one clergy did not have indignation against him. Thus, Russia moaned for more than four years ", - sums up Erasmus Kasprovich, the compiler of the collection "Materials for the biography of Emperor Paul I".

A conspiracy against Paul I began to be prepared practically from the first days of his reign. On the night of March 23 (11), 1801, the emperor was killed at his new residence - Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg. Details of the tragic event are given in the memoirs “The Time of Paul and His Death. Notes of contemporaries and participants in the March 11, 1801 event", published by Prince Adam Czartoryski, and in the book "The Death of Paul I" by Alexander Brikner.

The well-known historian Theodore Szyman in his work "The Assassination of Paul I and the Accession to the Throne of Nicholas I" emphasizes: "A much larger number of conspirators and a much more cautious conspiracy could not have succeeded in this murder, if there was no general tacit consent of the entire capital, the common desire of all Russia”.