Princess Ekaterina Dashkova - Part Two

Today, we continue the story of this remarkable person. Dashkova, as she writes in her memoirs, believed herself to be in the middle of the coup to remove Peter III and replace him with the future Catherine the Great.

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Episode 305 - Princess Ekaterina Dashkova - Part Two

Last time, we covered the early years of Ekaterina Dashkova’s life. Today, we continue the story to include some of the most important days of her life.

It is January 5, 1762, using the new calendar, the day Empress Elizabeth of Russia passed away after ruling the country for over twenty years. For the Russians, it was December 25, 1761, using the old calendar, so it was a sad Christmas for those in and around the court, except for one person, Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, known to history as Tsar Peter III. It was said that Peter wasn't overly fond of his Aunt Elizabeth but that he knew that he had to behave and show her respect if he was to succeed her and become Emperor in his own right. 

With Peter's ascension to the Russian throne, his wife Catherine was in a very precarious position. The new Tsar was having an affair with Ekaterina's sister, Elizaveta. Dashkova's birth family was excited about the possibility of Elizaveta ascending to the role of Empress, as it would elevate the entire family. They were highly dismissive of the relationship between Ekaterina and Catherine, to the point of utter disdain. Since Peter was well aware of the relationship between his wife and the Princess, Dashkova was also in a perilous place.

Luckily for both Catherine and Ekaterina, Peter was not a very well-liked person, even from the beginning of his reign. He would also make very unpopular decisions that would eventually cost him his life. One of the first and most damaging to his reputation was ending hostilities against the Prussians and Fredrick the Great during the Seven Years' War. The Russian army had all but completely captured the Prussian capital, Berlin, when Elizabeth died. Fredrick was even contemplating suicide when news came that the Empress had passed and that Peter was the new Russian leader. 

This decision was intensely disliked by the Russian Court. Thousands of soldiers had died, and the Russian army, along with her allies, were on the verge of victory when Peter changed course. Returning to the day Elizabeth died, Dashkova writes, "On December 25, Christmas Day, we had the misfortune of losing the Empress Elizaveta. It has been maintained by certain writers of memoirs on Russia that the Guards regiments marching to the Palace to sweat the oath of allegiance to their new Sovereign did so with every sign of joy. However, nine out of ten inhabitants of Petersburg would testify to the contrary. I can myself assert as a fact I saw with my own eyes that the Guards regiment (including the Semenovsky and Ismailovsky, which passed under my windows) looked gloomy and dejected.”

With Peter III now in control, he began to find out who his friends were and who to be suspicious of. On December 28, old calendar, Peter invited Dashkova to pay him a visit at the Palace. She declined as she was feeling ill. The next day, the invitation was repeated. Ekaterina's sister wrote to her, informing her that the Emperor was not pleased. She did not refuse the subsequent request. At this get-together, it became highly apparent that Catherine was on her way out and that Peter intended to marry Dashkova's sister, Elizaveta. 

As Ekaterina puts it, "What he said fully indicated his intention to be rid of the Empress Catherine so as to be able to marry the Countess Elizaveta. Whenever he spoke on this subject he always did so in a low voice, referring to the Empress as 'she’ and to the Countess as Romanovna. ‘I advise you’ he said, ‘my little friend, to pay a little more attention to us; the time may come when you will have reason to repent any negligence shown to your sister. It is in your own interest to win her affection and influence her mind – that is the way in which you can become of any consequence in the world.’”

Peter was extremely full of himself and couldn't care less about how the Russians in his court viewed him, as shown by this memory of Dashkova. "The Emperor never came to the Court chapel until just as Mass was about to finish. There he made faces, acted the buffoon, and imitated poor old ladies whom he ordered to curtsey in the French style instead of inclining their heads as is the Russian custom. These poor old ladies were hard put to not to stumble when they had to bend the knee, and I remember seeing Countess Buturlina, my eldest sister’s mother-in-law, ready to fall as she was making the forced curtsey.”

Ekaterina wasn't the only person Peter treated poorly. His own son Paul was also chiefly ignored by his father. There are many rumors, some fueled by Catherine herself, that Paul was not the biological son of Emperor Peter but that it was one of her many lovers. In her autobiography, Catherine claims that the two of them never even consummated their marriage. It is entirely possible that Paul was not the Tsar's son, but he believed it, and there is no way for us to know the truth.

Not only was there tension between the new Emperor and Ekaterina, but Peter and her husband, Prince Dashkov, got into a heated debate over how the Prince's troops were being deployed. The argument was so intense that Ekaterina was concerned about her husband's life, knowing how vindictive the Tsar could be. Dashkova appealed to her uncle to find a way to have her husband assigned to a position outside of Russia for the time being. Thankfully, the wish was granted, but the post was less than desirable, Constantinople. 

Peter III, for his part, continued to make more and more enemies while trying to make life miserable for his wife, Catherine. At a banquet to celebrate the peace treaty signed with Fredrick the Great of Prussia, the Emperor embarrassed his wife because of a supposed slight to his family in Holstein by calling her dura, or idiot in front of everyone in attendance. This caused Catherine to burst into tears, but its effect was much more profound than that. 

Dashkova writes, "The events of the day made a great sensation in town. The Empress gained increasing sympathy while contempt for the Emperor grew proportionately. Thus, every day, he smoothed out for us the difficulties in the way of his own overthrow – a lesson to the great of this world teaching them that contempt for the ruler is as likely to cause his fall as will his own tyranny." Even though Peter did do substantial good for the Russian people with progressive reforms such as proclaiming religious freedom and encouraging universal education, trying to modernize the Russian army, abolishing the secret police, and making it illegal for landowners to kill their serfs without going to court, he made more enemies amongst the nobility. 

It is around this time, in April of 1762, that Dashkova claims that she began to ascertain the loyalties of the local Imperial Guards. She asserts that she was at the forefront of planning the coup against Peter. After meeting with a disgusted Prince Repnin and, later, Count Nikita Panin, Dashkova shared the conversation she had with the latter. "I decided to unburden myself with no reservations to Mr. Panin the very first time I saw him. He, as always, insisted that formalities be observed, and the cooperation of the Senate obtained.

‘That would be splendid,’ I said, ‘if only we were granted the time. I agree with you that the Empress has no claim to the throne and that by rights, it is her son who should be proclaimed Sovereign with the Empress as Regent until he comes of age, but you forget that not one in a hundred would regard the removal of the Sovereign as anything but an act of violence.' I then named him to the main conspirators, such as Roslavlev, Lasunksky, Passek, Bredikhin, Baskakov, Prince Bariantisky, Khitrovo, etc., etc., as well as the Orlovs whom they had asked to join the movement. My cousin was both surprised and alarmed to find how far I had committed myself, and this without saying anything to the Empress for fear of compromising her. However, I saw that what he lacked was determination rather than courage, and to cut short, useless discussion, I managed to convince him of the importance of having on our side a man like Teplov, who had just been released from the fortress where he had been imprisoned by Peter III.”

According to Dashkova and many others, Peter's declaration of war against Denmark was the final straw. It wasn't because of a Russian issue, but because of land that Peter believed his Holstein relatives had taken from them by the Danes. This caused the leaders of the Imperial Guards stationed in St. Petersburg to commence the execution of the coup to remove Peter and replace him with his wife, Catherine.

Dashkova suggests in her memoir that she was a significant lynchpin in the plot to overthrow the Emperor. This, in my opinion, is a gross overstatement and may be one of the reasons for her falling out of favor with Catherine years later. One of my main reasons for this opinion is that Ekaterina was a mere 19 years of age when the coup succeeded. It is highly unlikely that the conspirators would have allowed her that much influence in the events of the day. What is most likely is that she was a courier of information between the plotters and Catherine since she was close to the soon-to-be Empress and was around the people involved. 

In her memoirs, Dashkova has a memory of the times before the tumultuous day of the overthrow of Peter. “Complete calm seemed to reign in that city (meaning St. Petersburg), except that certain soldiers in the Guards, fearing that they might at any moment be taken off to fight the King of Denmark, were anxious to act at once. They invented and circulated disturbing rumors concerning the Empress, and those members of our conspiracy who were officers and were responsible for their conduct had the greatest difficulty in restraining them. I authorized one of the officers to tell the soldiers that I was in daily communication with Her Majesty and that I would warn them through their officers the moment the time had come to act." As you can hear, Dashkova had a very high regard for her role in the impending coup when she writes about “our conspiracy” and “I authorized” in her memoir. I really have grave doubts that any officer would need or even heed her authorization to do pretty much anything. While being a woman in Russia was viewed as second-class, this was not the case then. Remember, Catherine I, Anna, and Elizabeth were all Empresses in recent history, so this wouldn't have negated Ekaterina's position; I just think that being as young as she was would have made her less important than she thought she was.

While the plot was being put together, an incident caused it to be sped up whether the conspirators liked it or not. Captain Peter Passek was arrested, and there was great fear that the plot would be exposed and they would all be arrested and likely executed. They all knew that they had to act quickly if they wanted to pull off the coup. The first Regiment that the plotters went to was the Ismailovsky. This would be carried out by the Orlov brothers. In her memoirs, Dashkova claims that they were too slow in their machinations and that she had ordered them to get Catherine to present her to the troops. This, again, seems utterly preposterous. The Orlovs were at the center of the conspiracy and certainly did not do so at the order of a nineteen-year-old woman.

Dashkova remembers her conversation with Alexis Orlov this way; “’This’, I said to him, ‘is no time for trying to spare Her Majesty some moments of anxiety. I would sooner she were brought here in a dead faint than left in Peterhof either to spend a life of unhappiness or to share the scaffold with us. Tell your brother to go at once as fast as his horse can carry him, and bring us the Empress, before Peter III takes sensible advice and either sends someone to town or turns up himself and upsets once and for all what Providence, even more than us, seems to have contrived in order to save Russia and the Empress’. He was impressed by my arguments and would, he assured me as he left, personally see to it that his brother carried out my instructions to the letter.”

Dashkova seemed to be a nervous wreck for the next few hours of June 27, 1762. What if the coup failed? What if Peter had gotten wind of it and had Catherine arrested? What would happen to herself? All of this ended when she writes the following: “Happiness came at last when I learned that Her Majesty had arrived at the Ismailovsky Regiment and had been unanimously proclaimed Sovereign, that she had proceeded thence to the Kazan Cathedral where there was a great concourse of people all eager to swear allegiance to her, and that the other regiments, both Guards and of the line, had done so too.”

There were so many people at the Winter Palace that Ekaterina had difficulty getting to Catherine. Finally, she was noticed by some of the officers. As she writes, "Suddenly I felt myself borne aloft over the heads of all sorts and conditions of men and heard myself called by the most flattering names. Blessings and wishes of prosperity accompanied me till finally I was carried into Her Majesty's ante-chamber with one sleeve lost, disheveled, and in the greatest possible disarray. But in my state of excitement, I imagined all this to represent a sort of Triumph. Besides, I neither could, nor had the time to, put it right and therefore presented myself to the Empress just as I was.

We threw ourselves into each other’s arms. ‘Thank God’ ‘Thank Heaven’ was all either of us was able to utter.”

Peter, for his part, was unsure of how to react despite being advised by Field Marshal Burkhard-Christoph Munnich to be bold and head to the capital. Finally, he decided to go to the naval center at Kronstadt, but it was already too late, as Admiral Alexander Talyzin had secured the sailor's loyalties for Catherine. Peter returned to his Palace in Oranienbaum, where he decided the safest thing to do was to offer to abdicate the throne.

Interestingly enough, Ekaterina's uncle, who raised her, refused to take the oath of allegiance to Catherine, as he felt it would betray the oath he had given to Peter. What followed, though, was Dashkova's first disappointment in Catherine. While heading to the Palace to visit the Empress, she came across Grigori Orlov reviewing some important communications from the Supreme Council. While she dismissed this incident as his being overly ambitious, when she came over later in the evening and saw that he and Catherine were having dinner together, Dashkova realized that they were lovers. Immediately, Ekaterina believed that Grigori Orlov was her enemy. 

The next problem Dashkova faced was her family. Remember, her sister, Elizaveta, was the mistress of Peter III, and her family was well aware that if the Emperor had enough time, he would have divorced Catherine and elevated Elizaveta to the role of Empress. This would have made the family very wealthy and prestigious. His overthrow was a painful sting to the family.

Dashkova’s father had been put on house arrest following the coup, something that did not sit well with him. As she remembers: “My father received me without a trace of anger, but said he was sorry to have been kept for the past twenty-four hours as a prisoner of the State. He complained too, of my sister Countess Elizaveta’s presence in the house. I assured him that his first grievance sprang from the foolish behavior of Kakovinsky and that I was certain he would not have a soldier in the house before nightfall. As to the second of his complaints, I implored him to have some sympathy for my sister’s position and to remember that his house was the only respectable and, indeed, natural shelter left to her; later, means could be found in all decency to give effect to their mutual desire not to live under the same roof.” 

In my research outside of Dashkova's memoirs, the father was not happy with Elizaveta remaining in the house because he feared that the connection between her and Peter would be dangerous to him and the rest of his family. Ekaterina knew that she had to face her sister and alleviate her fears about how Catherine would treat her. She writes: "Immediately I entered my sister's room she began complaining bitterly about what had happened. I assured her of my affection and my readiness to serve her, and told her I had not spoken about her to the Empress, being convinced that Her Majesty was kindly disposed toward her and prepared to treat her with generosity. She should have no fear, I said, but that everything possible would be done for her. And indeed, the Empress expressed the wish that she should not be present at the Coronation festivities. Apart from that she sent her several messages to assure her of her protection.”

Catherine was now in the mood to carefully and richly reward those who helped her take the throne. For Dashkova, she only asked that her husband, who fell out of favor with Peter, be rewarded by paying off his debt, which amounted to 24,000 rubles. Others like Panin, Prince Volkonsky, and Count Razumovsky received annual pensions of 5,000 rubles. As Dashkova remembers, “The rest of the conspirators of the fist class were to receive 600 peasants and a pension of 2,000 rubles, or else 24,000 rubles in lieu of land.”

Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Join me next time as we continue the story of Princess Ekaterina Dashkova.

So, until next time, Dasvidania eh Spasiba za Vinyamineya.