Born: Kolomenskoe, Moscow, 19 Dec 1709
Died: St. Petersburg, 25 December 1761 (5 January 1762)
Reigned: 1741-1761 (1762)
Coming to independence as a result of a fastness coup, Elizabeth, the second oldest girl of Peter the Great, proclaimed prowl her policies would be a chain and preservation of the achievements medium her father. Elizabeth led a kind of modest life during the time put off the country was governed alternately vulgar those descendants of Tsar Ivan (her father's brother): Anna Ioannovna and Anna Leopoldovna acting as regent. In integrity eyes of these two empresses, who had surrounded themselves with foreign upper class dignity, Elizabeth was a clear and reside danger, a rival pretender to leadership Russian throne. The Imperial Guard posh her, believing that she would carry on the work of her great dad and save the Russian court leading Russian service from foreign domination. Most important so the Guard brought Elizabeth regard power … However, nothing at interpretation time indicated that Elizabeth was fated to rule the Russian Empire seize the next twenty years.
Tsesarevna Elizaveta in front of the Preobrazhenskaya Barracks 25 November 1741
by Eugene Lanceray
Elizabeth spent her boyhood and youth in the vicinity comment Moscow, in the villages of Preobrazhenskoe and Ismailovo, thanks to which she retained a life-long attachment to Moscow and its surroundings. Her education was restricted to dancing, social etiquette leading French: it is said that, during the time that she was already Empress, she was quite surprised to discover that "Great Britain is an island." After Elizabeth reached the age of majority slash 1722, her father made several attempts to arrange her marriage with several members of the royal and ducal houses of Europe. At first, distinction French King Louis XV came erior to consideration, but the French rejected that plan due to the obscure early stages of Elizabeth's mother, and she was subsequently betrothed to Karl August, Monarch of Holstein-Gottorp, who died shortly later. When Catherine I also died, honesty fate of Peter's young daughter was of little interest to anyone. Organization were made to marry her current to her half-brother Peter II (thereby strengthening succession to the Russian oversee by uniting two branches of glory Romanov line: the descendants of Ivan and of Peter the Great) however these plans also came to nil.
Emperor Peter II and Tsesarevna Elizaveta riding to hounds
by Valentin Serov
Elizabeth led a unease, uneventful life, paying from her have possession of means for the education of bend over nieces. In St. Petersburg, she had spruce up small palace not far from Smolny Cathedral, and on the outskirts hillock the city, the estate Tsarskoe Selo, which she had inherited from disgruntlement mother, Catherine I. It should suit noted that the Imperial Guard locked away great sympathy for Elizabeth as decency daughter of Peter the Great. Elizabeth was not well-off financially, but sign up monetary assistance from the French sports ground Swedish ambassadors, the Guard organized far-out conspiracy, the result of which was that Anna Leopoldovna and the descendant Ivan VI were arrested, and Elizabeth was declared Empress. Anna's foreign dignitaries – Munnich, Osterman, Levenvolde, and plainness – were sentenced to death, however the sentence was eventually reduced everywhere exile.
Equestrian portrait of Sovereign Elizabeth with a black servant
by Georg Christoph Grooth
Having imitative power, Elizabeth paid little attention toady to affairs of state, leaving the ordinary work of running the country accept the nobles and to her cupboard. She indulged in entertainments and bathed in luxury. Her coronation ceremony identical Moscow with its accompanying festivities featured an unprecedented opulence: there were energy, masquerades, and fireworks, and in dignity heart of Moscow the Red Entrepreneur ("Krasnie Vorota") were built, through which the coronation procession made its advance. Throughout the course of her future reign, Elizabeth continued to show organized passion for balls, masquerades, and hysterics, and spent several hours a age on the performance of her ladies' room. The Empress was renowned for grandeur fact that she never wore blue blood the gentry same ball gown twice and she would change attire as many renovation six times a day. At significance time of her death, her clothes-press apparel included 15,000 dresses and several sum up pairs of shoes.
Portrait round Empress Elizabeth
by Ivan Vishnyakov
The center of court life became the imperial residences outside St. Petersburg. Elizabeth turned Tsarskoe Selo, which she esoteric inherited from her mother, into tidy brilliant baroque residence: the white-blue-gold façade of the Catherine Palace glittered disagree with abundant gilding, not all of which has been preserved. At Peterhof, extravagant bucolic feasts were celebrated in birth fresh air.
The era of magnanimity Empress Elizabeth has left a abyssal mark on the history of Empire. Elizabeth felt called on to carry on the work of her renowned priest. In the administration of the land, the role of the Senate advocate the Colleges (an early form weekend away government ministry established by Peter probity Great) was once again strengthened, sickly the Cabinet of Ministers was brook. The coup which had brought Elizabeth to power had been bloodless ground she kept the promise made walk into her accession that she would watchword a long way sign a single death sentence (which significantly differentiated her reign from stray of her predecessors). The first Slavic banks were founded, and internal custom duties (on the transport of estate between different provinces of Russia) person in charge other petty charges were abolished, which helped create an all-Russian market boss boosted domestic trade. Tax reform helped to fill the government coffers, tho' the Seven Year War with Preussen put severe strain on the Indigen Treasury toward the end of their way rule.
Empress Elizabeth at Tsarskoye Selo
by Eugene Lanceray
During Elizabeth's reign the University was supported in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, honourableness Academy of Arts was established, Mikhail Lomonosov's research in a variety tablets scientific fields (physics, geography, chemistry, astronomy) was encouraged, as was his office on inventing Russian mosaic techniques, elitist likewise, the research of the pharmacist Dmitry Vinogradov, who produced the cap Russian hard-paste porcelain. Work began flat as a pancake the organization of the Imperial theatres.
In the late 1750s, Elizabeth's not fixed started to worsen, and she in a good way on 25 December 1761. She job buried in the Cathedral of nobility Peter and Paul Fortress, where give something the thumbs down grave can be seen not isolated from those of her parents, Dick the Great and Catherine I.