Russian Hamlet. Paul I, the rejected emperorExcerpts from the book. Paul I, the rejected emperor" S. F. Platonov about Paul I

This era differs significantly from previous periods, which is associated primarily with 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 politics in those years fully corresponded to the personality of the emperor - a capricious man, changeable in his decisions, easily replacing anger with mercy, and also suspicious and suspicious.

Catherine II did not love her son. He grew up remote and alienated from her, entrusted with the upbringing of N.I. Panina. When he grew up and in 1773 married Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, who took the name Natalya Alekseevna, Catherine granted him the right to live in Gatchina, where he had a small army detachment under his command, 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 a note to Catherine “Discussion about the state in general regarding the number of troops required to defend it and regarding the defense of all borders,” which did not receive the approval of the empress. In 1776, his wife died during childbirth and Pavel 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 a second, Constantine. Catherine II took both grandchildren into her care, which further complicated their relationship. Removed from business and removed from the court, Pavel became more and more imbued with feelings of resentment, irritation and outright hostility towards his mother and her entourage, wasting the power of his mind on theoretical discussions 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 rule with the help of new people. Catherine's former favorites lost all meaning. Previously humiliated by them, Paul now expressed his complete disdain for them. Nevertheless, he was filled with the best intentions and strove for the good of the state, but his lack of management skills prevented him from acting successfully. Dissatisfied with the management system, Pavel could not find people around him to replace the previous administration. Wanting to establish order in the state, he eradicated the old, but implanted 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 subordination, and his temper often turned into cruelty. Pavel transferred his random moods into politics. Therefore, the most important facts of his domestic and foreign policy cannot be presented in the form of a harmonious 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 previous government, without creating anything new and useful. Overwhelmed by a thirst for activity, wanting to delve into all government problems, he got to work at six o'clock in the morning and forced all government officials to follow this schedule. At the end of the morning, Pavel, dressed in a dark green uniform and 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. Strict drill was imposed in the army and Prussian military uniforms were introduced. By a circular dated November 29, 1796, accuracy of formation, accuracy of intervals and goose step were elevated to the main principles of military affairs. He drove out well-deserved, but not pleasing, generals and replaced them with unknown, often completely mediocre, but ready to fulfill the most absurd whim of the emperor (in particular, he was sent into exile). The demotion was carried out publicly. According to a well-known historical anecdote, once, angry at a regiment that failed to clearly carry out the command, Pavel ordered it to march straight from the parade to Siberia. Those close to the king begged him to have mercy. The regiment, which, in fulfilling 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 according to the model 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 of 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 exhibited in the throne room of the Winter Palace next to Catherine’s coffin. Afterwards 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 killed on a golden pillow. His accomplices, Passek and Baryatinsky, held tassels of mourning cloth. Following them on foot were the new emperor, empress, grand dukes and princesses, and generals. In the cathedral, priests dressed in mourning vestments performed the funeral service for both at the same time.

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

"HAMLET AND DON QUIXOTE"

In Russia, in front of the eyes of the entire society, for 34 years, the real, and not theatrical, tragedy of Prince Hamlet took place, the hero of which was the heir, 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 compared to Cervantes' Don Quixote. V.S. spoke well about this. Zhilkin: “Two greatest images of world literature in relation to one person - this was awarded to only Emperor Paul in the whole world.<…>Both Hamlet and Don Quixote act as bearers of the highest truth in the face of the vulgarity and lies reigning in the world. This is what makes both of them similar to Paul. Like them, Paul was at odds with his age, 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 clergy. The reason for this state of affairs is that the tsar tried to limit the power of the nobility, which received almost unlimited rights and the abolition of many duties (for example, military service) under Catherine the Great, and fought against embezzlement. The guards also didn’t like the fact that they were trying to “drill” her. Thus, everything was done to create the myth of the “tyrant.” Herzen’s words are noteworthy: “Paul I presented the disgusting and ridiculous spectacle of the crowned Don Quixote.” Like literary heroes, Paul I dies as a result of treacherous murder. Alexander I ascends to the Russian throne, who, as you know, felt guilty all his life for the death of his father.

"INSTITUTION ABOUT THE IMPERIAL FAMILY"

During the coronation celebrations, in 1797, Paul announced the first government act of great importance - “The Establishment of the Imperial Family.” The new law restored the old, pre-Petrine custom of transfer of power. Paul saw what the violation of this law led to, which had an unfavorable impact on himself. This law again restored inheritance only through the male line by primogeniture. From now on, the throne could only be passed on 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 law itself, so that there would not be the slightest doubt about who should inherit.” To maintain the imperial family, a special department of “appanages” was formed, which managed appanage properties and peasants living on appanage lands.

CLASS POLITICS

The opposition to the actions of his mother was also evident in the class policy of Paul I - his attitude towards the nobility. Paul 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 class privileges, significantly limiting the effect of the Charter of the Nobility of 1785. In 1798, governors were ordered to attend the elections of leaders of the nobility. The following year, another restriction followed - provincial meetings of nobles were canceled and provincial leaders had to be elected by district leaders. Nobles were prohibited from making collective representations about their needs, and they could be subjected to corporal punishment for criminal offenses.

ONE AND HUNDRED THOUSAND

What happened between Paul and the nobility in 1796-1801? That nobility, whose most active part we conventionally divided into “enlighteners” and “cynics”, who agreed on the “benefits of enlightenment” (Pushkin) and had 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 private desires and needs of this class and its individual representatives? Published and unpublished archival materials leave no doubt that a considerable percentage of Pavlov’s “quick-fire” plans and orders were “to the heart” of his class. 550-600 thousand new serfs (yesterday's state, appanage, economic, etc.) were transferred to the landowners along with 5 million acres of land - a fact that is especially eloquent if we compare it with the decisive statements of Paul the Heir against his mother's distribution of serfs. However, a few months after his accession, troops will move against the rebellious Oryol peasants; at the same time, Pavel will ask the commander-in-chief about the advisability of the royal departure to the scene of action (this is already “knightly style”!).

The service advantages of the nobles during these years were preserved and strengthened as before. A commoner 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 Paul generally ordered that henceforth commoners should not be presented as officers! It was by order of Paul that the Auxiliary Bank for the Nobility was established in 1797, which issued huge loans.

Let us listen to one of his 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 war orphans (Pavlovsky Corps) in St. Petersburg. For women - the Institute of the Order of St. Catherine and the institutions of the department of Empress Maria." Among the new institutions of Pavlov's time we will find a number of others that never aroused noble objections: the Russian-American Company, the Medical-Surgical Academy. Let us also mention the soldiers' schools, where 12 thousand people were educated 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 Pavlov’s changes, poorly hides some fear: “With the change of government, nothing bothered the entire Russian nobility so much as the fear that they would not be deprived of the freedom granted to them by Emperor Peter III, and the retention of that privilege in order to serve everyone at ease and only as long as anyone wishes; but, to everyone’s satisfaction, the new monarch, upon his very accession to the throne, namely on the third or fourth day, by dismissing some guards officers from service, on the basis of a decree on the freedom of the nobility, proved that he had no intention of depriving the nobles of this precious right and force them to serve from under bondage. It’s impossible to adequately describe how happy everyone was when they heard this...” They didn’t 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, Paul established a standard of peasant labor in favor of the landowner, appointing three days of corvée per week. This manifesto is usually called the “decree on three-day corvee”, however, this law contained only a prohibition to force peasants to work on Sundays, establishing only a recommendation to landowners to adhere to this norm. The law stated that “the remaining six days in the week, generally divided by an equal number of them,” “with good management will be sufficient” to satisfy the economic needs of the landowners. In the same year, another decree was issued, according to which it was forbidden to sell courtyard people and landless peasants under the hammer, and in 1798 a ban was established on the sale of Ukrainian peasants without land. Also in 1798, the emperor restored the right of manufactory owners 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 transferred more than 500,000 state-owned peasants into private hands, while Catherine II, during her thirty-six years of reign, distributed about 800,000 souls of both sexes. The scope of serfdom was also expanded: a decree of December 12, 1796 prohibited the free movement of peasants living on private lands in the Don region, the northern Caucasus and Novorossiysk provinces (Ekaterinoslav and Tauride).

At the same time, Paul sought to regulate the situation of the state-owned peasants. A number of Senate decrees ordered that they be satisfied with sufficient land plots - 15 dessiatines per male capita in provinces with many lands, and 8 dessiatines in the rest. In 1797, rural and volost self-government of state-owned peasants was regulated - elected village elders and “volost heads” were introduced.

PAUL I'S ATTITUDE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Paul was also haunted by the specter of revolution. Overly suspicious, he saw the subversive influence of revolutionary ideas even in fashionable clothing and, by decree of January 13, 1797, banned the wearing of round hats, long trousers, shoes with bows and boots with cuffs. 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 comply with the order of the emperor. Their hats were torn off, their vests were cut, and their shoes were confiscated.

Having established such supervision over the cut of his subjects’ clothing, Paul also took charge of their way of thinking. By decree of February 16, 1797, he introduced secular and church censorship and ordered the sealing of private printing houses. The words “citizen”, “club”, “society” were deleted from the dictionaries.

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

S.F. PLATONS ABOUT PAUL I

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

IN. KLUCHEVSKY ABOUT PAUL I

“Emperor Paul the First was the first tsar, in some of whose acts a new direction, new ideas seemed to be visible. I do not share the rather common disdain for the significance of this short reign; in vain they consider it some random episode of our history, a sad whim of fate unkind 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 edifying lesson for successors - with the future. The instinct of order, discipline and equality was the guiding impulse for the activities of this emperor, the fight against class privileges was his main task. Since the exclusive position acquired by one class 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 never known such a large-scale falsification as the assessment of the personality and activities of the Russian Emperor Paul the First. After all, what about Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Stalin, around whom polemical spears are now mostly breaking! No matter how you argue, “objectively” or “biasedly” 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 the Second, especially in relation to ordinary people. Why is he a “crowned villain,” in Pushkin’s words? Because, without hesitation, he fired negligent bosses and even sent them to St. Petersburg (about 400 people in total)? Yes, many of us now dream of such a “crazy ruler”! Or why is he actually “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 any signs of madness; on the contrary, they are distinguished by reasonableness and clarity. For example, they put an end to the madness that was happening 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 from Paul’s period (two and a half volumes) - and this 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 “Second Lieutenant Kizha,” but serious acts that were later included in the “Complete Code of Laws”! So much for “crazy”!

It was Paul I who legally secured the leading role of the Orthodox Church among other churches and denominations in Russia. The legislative acts of Emperor Paul say: “The primary and dominant faith in the Russian Empire is the Christian Orthodox Catholic of the Eastern Confession”, “The Emperor, who possesses the All-Russian Throne, 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 are now telling us? During the atheistic period 1917–1991? Or after 1991, when the Catholic-Protestant Baltics and the Muslim republics of Central Asia “fell away” from the country?

Many Orthodox historians are wary of the fact that Paul was Grand Master of the Order of Malta (1798–1801), considering the order to be a "para-Masonic structure".

But it was one of the main Masonic powers of the time, England, that overthrew Paul’s rule in Malta by 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”) yours. Maybe Paul was “one of the people” in the French Masonic “Grand Orient” if he wanted to “make friends” with Napoleon? But this happened precisely after the British captured Malta, and before that Paul fought with Napoleon. We 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 a “province of the Russian Empire.” Pavel wanted to make the title of grandmaster hereditary and 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 southern Europe.

Finally, it is known that Paul favored the Jesuits. This is also blamed 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 more than once spoke to his children, the future Decembrists, “about the enormity of the revolution that took place with the accession of Paul the First to the throne - a revolution so drastic that descendants would not understand it,” and General Ermolov argued that “the late emperor had great traits , its historical character has not yet been determined for us.”

For the first time since the time of Elizabeth Petrovna, serfs are also taking an oath to the new tsar, which means they are considered subjects, not slaves. Corvee is limited to three days a week with days off on Sundays and holidays, and since there are many Orthodox holidays in Rus', 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 throw a letter or petition addressed to the sovereign. The key to the room with the box was kept by Pavel himself, who every morning himself read the requests of his subjects and printed the answers in the newspapers.

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

Yes, Pavel 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. But he is fair, kind, generous, always friendly, inclined to forgive insults and ready to repent of his mistakes.

However, the best and good undertakings of the king were dashed against the stone wall of indifference and even obvious ill will of his closest subjects, outwardly loyal 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 manner, causing an increase in hidden discontent with the tsar . “You know what kind of heart I have, but you don’t know what kind of people they are,” Pavel Petrovich wrote bitterly in one of his letters about his environment.

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 specifically to the Decembrists): “... a drunken, violent crowd of conspirators breaks into him and disgustingly, without the slightest civil purpose, drags him, strangles him, beats him... and kills him! Having committed one crime, they completed it with another, even more terrible one. They intimidated and captivated the son himself, and this unfortunate man, having bought a crown with such blood, throughout his reign will languish over it, abhor it and involuntarily prepare an outcome that will be unhappy for himself, for us, for Nicholas.”

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

Another thing is Paul's position as heir to the throne under a 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 court. Then the following happened: the leading actor Brockman refused to play the main role, since, in his words, “there would be two Hamlets in the audience.” The emperor was grateful to the actor for his wise warning and awarded him 50 ducats. Pavel did not see Hamlet; It remains unclear whether he knew this tragedy of Shakespeare, the external plot of which was extremely reminiscent of his own fate.”

And diplomat and historian S.S. Tatishchev told the famous Russian publisher and journalist A.S. Suvorin: “Paul was Hamlet in part, at least his position was Hamlet’s; Hamlet was banned under Catherine II,” after which Suvorin concluded: “Indeed, it’s very similar. The only difference is that instead of Claudius, Catherine had Orlov and others...” (If we consider young Pavel as Hamlet, and Alexei Orlov, who killed Paul’s father Peter III, as Claudius, then 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 Hamlet's. 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 this development of events were strengthened by Alexander's early marriage, 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 get married, and then over time he will be crowned with all sorts of ceremonies, celebrations and folk festivals.” Apparently, that’s why Pavel pointedly ignored the celebrations on the occasion of his son’s marriage.

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

Having ascended the throne, Paul solemnly transferred his father’s ashes from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the royal tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral at the same time as the burial of Catherine II. At the funeral ceremony, depicted in detail on a long painting-ribbon by an unknown (apparently Italian) artist, the regalia of Peter III - the royal staff, the scepter and the large imperial crown - were carried by... the regicides - Count A.F. Orlov, Prince P.B. Baryatinsky and P.B. Passek. In the cathedral, Paul personally performed the ceremony of coronation of 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 may give the uninitiated the impression that they lived together for many years and died on the same day.

Invented in Hamlet style!

In the book by Andrei Rossomakhin 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: the 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, who himself did not favor Paul the First, rhetorically proposed in “War and Peace”: they say, let emperors and kings fight personally instead of destroying their subjects in wars).

What was perceived by contemporaries and descendants as a sign of “madness” is shown by Rossomakhin and Khrustalev as a subtle game of the “Russian Hamlet” that was cut short during a palace coup.

Also, for the first time, evidence of the “English trace” of the conspiracy against Paul is convincingly presented: thus, 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 Napoleon Bonaparte. As is known, shortly before the murder, Pavel gave the order to an entire army of Cossacks of the Don Army (22,500 sabers) under the command of Ataman Vasily Orlov to set out on a campaign to India, agreed upon with Napoleon, in order to “disturb” English possessions. The Cossacks’ task was to conquer Khiva and Bukhara “in passing”. Immediately after the death of Paul I, Orlov’s detachment was recalled 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 be a theater director who will stage “Hamlet” in the Russian historical interpretation, where, while preserving Shakespeare’s text, the story will take place in Russia at the end of the 18th century, and Tsarevich Pavel will play the role of Prince Hamlet, and the ghost of Hamlet’s father will play the role of Prince Hamlet. the murdered Peter III, in the role of Claudius - Alexey Orlov, etc. Moreover, the episode with the play performed in “Hamlet” by 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, finding himself in the position of Hamlet, outplayed everyone, but still, after 5 years, the fate of Shakespeare’s hero awaited him...

Special for the Centenary

During his reign, Paul the First did not execute anyone

The 45-volume “Complete Code of Laws of the Russian Empire,” published in 1830, contains 2,248 documents from the Pauline period (two and a half volumes) - and this 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 “Second Lieutenant Kizha,” but serious acts that were later included in the “Complete Code of Laws”! So much for “crazy”!

It was Paul I who legally secured the leading role of the Orthodox Church among other churches and denominations in Russia. The legislative acts of Emperor Paul say: “The primary and dominant faith in the Russian Empire is the Christian Orthodox Catholic of the Eastern Confession”, “The Emperor, who possesses the All-Russian Throne, 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 are now telling us? During the atheistic period 1917-1991? Or after 1991, when the Catholic-Protestant Baltics and the Muslim republics of Central Asia “fell away” from the country?

Many Orthodox historians are wary of the fact that Paul was Grand Master of the Order of Malta (1798-1801), considering this order a “para-Masonic structure.”

For the first time since the time of Elizabeth Petrovna, serfs also took the oath to the new tsar, which means they are considered subjects, and not slaves. Corvee is limited to three days a week with days off on Sundays and holidays, and since there are many Orthodox holidays in Rus', 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.

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.

Another thing is Paul's position as heir to the throne under a 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 court. Then the following happened: the leading actor Brockman refused to play the main role, since, in his words, “there would be two Hamlets in the audience.” The emperor was grateful to the actor for his wise warning and awarded him 50 ducats. Pavel did not see Hamlet; It remains unclear whether he knew this tragedy of Shakespeare, the external plot of which was extremely reminiscent of his own fate.”

Invented in Hamlet style!

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 be a theater director who will stage “Hamlet” in the Russian historical interpretation, where, while preserving Shakespeare’s text, the story will take place in Russia at the end of the 18th century, and Tsarevich Pavel will play the role of Prince Hamlet, and the ghost of Hamlet’s father will play the role of the ghost of Hamlet’s father. the murdered Peter III, in the role of Claudius - Alexei Orlov, etc. Moreover, the episode with the play performed in Hamlet by 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, finding himself in the position of Hamlet, outplayed everyone, but still, after 5 years, the fate of Shakespeare’s hero awaited him...

During the stay of the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, in Vienna in 1781, it was decided to organize a ceremonial performance in honor of the Russian prince. Shakespeare's Hamlet was chosen, but the actor refused to play the main role: “You're crazy! There will be two Hamlets in the theater: one on stage, the other in the imperial box!

Indeed, the plot of Shakespeare's play was very reminiscent of the story of Paul: the father, Peter III, was killed by his mother, Catherine II, and next to her was the all-powerful temporary worker, Potemkin. And the prince, removed from power, was exiled, like Hamlet, to travel abroad...

Indeed, the play of Paul's life unfolded like a drama. He was born in 1754 and was immediately taken from his parents by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, who decided to raise the boy herself. The mother was allowed to see her son only once a week. At first she was sad, then she got used to it and calmed down, especially since she was pregnant again.

Portrait of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich as a child.

Here we can see that first, imperceptible crack, which later turned into a gaping abyss that forever separated Catherine and the adult Paul. The separation of a mother from her newborn child is a terrible trauma for both.

Over the years, his mother developed an alienation, and Pavel never had the first sensations of the warm, tender, perhaps unclear, but unique image of his mother, with which almost every person lives...

Panin's lessons

Of course, the child was not abandoned to the mercy of fate, he was surrounded by care and affection; in 1760, teacher N.I. Panin, an intelligent, educated man, appeared next to Pavel, who greatly influenced the formation of his personality.

It was then that the first rumors spread that Elizabeth wanted to raise Paul as her heir, and would send the boy’s hated parents to Germany.

Antoine Peng. Portrait of Catherine II in her youth.

Such a turn of events was impossible for the ambitious Catherine, dreaming of the Russian throne. An imperceptible crack between mother and son, again against their will, widened: Catherine and Paul, albeit hypothetically, on paper, as well as in gossip, became rivals, competitors in the fight for the throne. This affected their relationship.

When Catherine came to power in 1762, she could not, looking at her son, help but feel anxiety and jealousy: her own position was precarious - a foreigner, a usurper, a husband-killer, the mistress of her subject.

In 1763, a foreign observer noted that when Catherine appeared, everyone fell silent, “ and a crowd always runs after the Grand Duke, expressing their pleasure with loud cries" On top of that, there were people who were happy to drive new wedges into the crack.

Panin, as a representative of the aristocracy, dreamed of limiting the power of the empress and wanted to use Paul for this, putting constitutional ideas into his head. At the same time, he quietly but consistently turned his son against his mother.

Nikita Ivanovich Panin is the mentor of Paul I, who interfered with the marriage of Catherine II and the father of her three children, Grigory Orlov.

As a result, having firmly failed to assimilate Panin’s constitutional ideas, Pavel got used to rejecting the principles of his mother’s rule, and therefore, having become king, he so easily went to overthrow the fundamental foundations of her policy.

In addition, the young man adopted the romantic idea of chivalry, and with it a love for the external side of things, decorativeness, and lived in a world of dreams far from life.

Marriages on earth and in heaven

1772 is the time of Paul’s coming of age. The hopes of Panin and others that Pavel would be allowed to govern did not materialize. Catherine did not intend to transfer power to the legal heir of Peter III. She took advantage of her son's coming of age to remove Panin from the palace.

Soon the empress found a bride for her son. In 1773, at the behest of his mother, he married Princess Augusta Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt (in Orthodoxy - Natalya Alekseevna) and was quite happy. But in the spring of 1776, Grand Duchess Natalya Alekseevna died in severe labor pains.

Natalya Alekseevna, née Princess Augusta-Wilhelmina-Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, is a Grand Duchess, the first wife of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (later Emperor Paul I).

Pavel was inconsolable: his Ophelia was no longer in the world... But the mother cured her son of grief in the most cruel way, similar to amputation.

Having found the love correspondence between Natalya Alekseevna and Andrei Razumovsky, a courtier and close friend of Paul, the Empress gave these letters to Paul. He was immediately cured of grief, although one can imagine what a cruel wound was then inflicted on Paul’s thin, fragile soul...

Almost immediately after Natalya's death, they found him a new bride - Dorothea Sophia Augusta Louise, Princess of Wirtemberg (in Orthodoxy Maria Feodorovna). Pavel, unexpectedly for himself, immediately fell in love with his new wife, and the young people lived in happiness and peace.

Maria Feodorovna; before converting to Orthodoxy - Sophia Maria Dorothea Augusta Louise of Württemberg - princess of the House of Württemberg, second wife of the Russian Emperor Paul I. Mother of Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I.

In the fall of 1783, Pavel and Maria moved to the former estate of Grigory Orlov, Gatchina (or, as they wrote then, Gatchino), given to them by the empress. Thus began Paul’s long Gatchina epic...

Gatchina model

In Gatchina, Paul created not just a nest, a cozy home, but built a fortress for himself, contrasting it throughout St. Petersburg, Tsarskoe Selo, and the “depraved” court of Empress Catherine.

Paul chose Prussia with its cult of order, discipline, strength, and drill as a role model for Paul. In general, the Gatchina phenomenon did not appear immediately. Let's not forget that Pavel, having become an adult, did not receive any power and his mother deliberately kept him away from government affairs.

Changing the guard in the halls of the Gatchina Palace.

The wait for Paul’s “turn” for the throne lasted over twenty years, and the feeling of his worthlessness did not leave him. Gradually he found himself in military affairs. A thorough knowledge of all the intricacies of the regulations led to strict adherence to them.

Linear tactics, built on regular, strict training in coordinated movement techniques, required complete automaticity. And this was achieved through continuous exercises, parades, and parades. As a result, the elements of the parade ground completely captured Pavel. This specific form of life for the then military man became the main one for him and turned Gatchina into little Berlin.

Paul's small army was dressed and trained according to the regulations of Frederick II, the heir himself lived the harsh life of a warrior and ascetic, not like these libertines from the eternally celebrating something nest of vice - Tsarskoe Selo!

But here, in Gatchina, there is order, work, business! The Gatchina model of life, built on strict police supervision, seemed to Pavel the only worthy and acceptable one. He dreamed of spreading it to all of Russia, which he set about after becoming emperor.

Parade in Gatchina.

At the end of Catherine's life, the relationship between her son and mother went wrong irreparably, the crack between them became a gaping abyss.

Pavel’s character gradually deteriorated, suspicions grew that his mother, who had never loved him, could deprive him of his inheritance, that her favorites wanted to humiliate the heir, were keeping an eye on him, and hired villains were trying to poison him - so, once they even put sticks in sausages.

The fight against "debauchery"

Finally, on November 6, 1796, Empress Catherine died. Paul came to power. In the first days of his reign, it seemed as if a foreign power had landed in St. Petersburg - the emperor and his men were dressed in unfamiliar Prussian uniforms.

Pavel immediately transferred the Gatchina order to the capital. Black and white striped booths brought from Gatchina appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg; the police furiously attacked passers-by, who at first took lightly the strict decrees banning tailcoats and vests.

In the city, which lived a midnight life under Catherine, a curfew was established; many officials and military men who somehow did not please the sovereign were instantly stripped of their ranks, titles, positions and sent into exile.

Coronation of Paul I 1796-1801.

The raising of the palace guards - a familiar ceremony - suddenly turned into an important event of a national scale with the presence of the sovereign and the court.

Why did Paul become such an unexpectedly harsh ruler? After all, as a young man, he once dreamed of the reign of law in Russia, he wanted to be a humane ruler, to reign according to irrevocable (“indispensable”) laws containing goodness and justice.

But it's not that simple. Paul's philosophy of authority was complex and contradictory. Like many rulers in Russia, he tried to combine autocracy and human freedoms, “the power of the individual” and “ executive power of the state“, in a word, tried to combine the incompatible.

In addition, during the years of waiting for his “turn” to the throne, a whole icy mountain of hatred and revenge grew in Paul’s soul. He hated his mother, her orders, her favorites, her leaders, and in general the entire world created by this extraordinary and brilliant woman, called by her descendants “Catherine’s era.”

A.N. Benoit. Parade under Emperor Paul I.

You can rule with hatred in your soul, but not for long... As a result, no matter what Paul thought about law and law, the ideas of tightening discipline and regulation began to dominate in all his policies. He began to build only one " executive state" This is probably the root of his tragedy...

The fight against the “licentiousness” of the nobles meant, first of all, the infringement of their rights; establishing order, sometimes necessary, in the army and state apparatus led to unjustified cruelty.

Undoubtedly, Paul wished well for his country, but was drowning in “small things.” And it was these that people remembered most of all. So, everyone laughed when he forbade the use of the words “snub-nosed” or “Mashka”.

Paul I wearing the crown, dalmatic and insignia of the Order of Malta. Artist V. L. Borovikovsky.

In pursuit of discipline and order, the king knew no limits. His subjects heard many wild decrees from the sovereign. Thus, in July 1800, all printing houses were ordered “seal so that nothing is printed in them" Well said! True, this ridiculous order soon had to be canceled - labels, tickets and labels were needed.

Spectators were also forbidden to applaud in the theater unless the sovereign sitting in the royal box did so, and vice versa.

Digging your own grave

Communication with the emperor became painful and dangerous for those around him. In place of the humane, tolerant Catherine, there was a strict, nervous, uncontrollable, absurd person. Seeing that his wishes remained unfulfilled, he was indignant, punished, scolded.

As N. M. Karamzin wrote, Pavel, “ to the inexplicable surprise of the Russians, he began to reign in universal horror, not following any regulations except his own whim; considered us not subjects, but slaves; executed without guilt, rewarded without merit, took away the shame of execution, the beauty of reward, humiliated ranks and ribbons with wastefulness in them... He taught heroes accustomed to victories to march.

Having, as a person, a natural inclination to do good, he fed on the bile of evil: every day he invented ways to frighten people, and he himself was more afraid of everyone; thought to build himself an impregnable palace and built a tomb».

Assassination of Emperor Paul I.

In a word, it did not end well. A conspiracy matured against Paul among the officers and among the aristocracy; on March 11, 1801, a night coup took place and in the newly built Mikhailovsky Castle, Pavel was killed by conspirators who broke into the royal bedroom...

Evgeniy Anisimov

“The emperor was small in stature, his facial features were ugly, with the exception of his eyes, which were very beautiful, and their expression, when he was not angry, had attractiveness and infinite gentleness... He had excellent manners and was very kind to women; he had literary erudition and a lively and open mind, was prone to jokes and fun, and loved art; knew French language and literature perfectly; his jokes were never in bad taste, and it is difficult to imagine anything more graceful than the short, gracious words with which he addressed those around him in moments of complacency.” This description of Pavel Petrovich, written by His Serene Highness Princess Daria Lieven, like many other reviews of people who knew him, does not fit too well into the image of a stupid, hysterical and cruel despot we are accustomed to. And here’s what one of the most thoughtful and impartial contemporaries, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, wrote ten years after Paul’s death: “...The Russians looked at this monarch like a formidable meteor, counting the minutes and eagerly awaiting the last one... She came, and the news about that in the whole state there was a message of redemption: in houses, on the streets, people cried with joy, hugging each other, as on the day of the Holy Resurrection.”

Many other equally contradictory evidence could be cited. Of course, we are accustomed to the fact that historical figures are rarely awarded unanimous admiration or unconditional condemnation. The assessments of contemporaries and descendants depend too much on their own preferences, tastes and political convictions. But the case with Paul is different: as if woven from contradictions, he does not fit well into ideological or psychological schemes, turning out to be more complex than any labels. This is probably why his life aroused such deep interest among Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy, Klyuchevsky and Khodasevich.

The fruit of unlove

He was born on September 20, 1754 in the family... But it was very difficult to call the couple Sophia Frederika Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst and Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein, who became Ekaterina Alekseevna and Peter Fedorovich in Russia, a family. The couple were so hostile to each other and had so little desire to demonstrate mutual fidelity that historians still argue who was Paul's true father - Grand Duke Peter or Chamberlain Sergei Saltykov, the first of a long line of Catherine's favorites. However, the then Empress Elizaveta Petrovna waited so long for the appearance of an heir that she left all doubts to herself.

Immediately after birth, the baby was unceremoniously taken from his mother: the empress did not intend to risk trusting her unloved daughter-in-law to raise the future Russian monarch. Catherine was only occasionally allowed to see her son - each time in the presence of the Empress. However, later, when his mother had the opportunity to raise him, she did not become closer to him. Deprived not only of parental warmth, but also of communication with peers, but overprotected by adults, the boy grew up very nervous and timid. Showing remarkable learning abilities and a lively, agile mind, he was sometimes sensitive to tears, sometimes capricious and self-willed. According to the notes of his beloved teacher Semyon Poroshin, Pavel's impatience is well known: he was constantly afraid of being late somewhere, was in a hurry and therefore became even more nervous, swallowed food without chewing, and constantly looked at his watch. However, the little grand duke’s daily routine was indeed barracks-like: getting up at six and studying until the evening with short breaks for lunch and rest. Then - not at all childish court entertainment (masquerade, ball or theatrical performance) and sleep.

Meanwhile, at the turn of the 1750s-1760s, the atmosphere of the St. Petersburg court thickened: Elizaveta Petrovna’s health, undermined by wild amusements, was rapidly deteriorating, and the question of a successor arose. It seemed that he was there: wasn’t that why the Empress sent her nephew, Pyotr Fedorovich, from Germany to hand over the reins of government to him? However, by that time she recognized Peter as incapable of ruling a huge country and, moreover, imbued with a hated spirit of admiration for Prussia, with which Russia was waging a difficult war. Thus arose the project of enthroning little Paul during the regency of Catherine. However, it never came to fruition, and on December 25, 1761, power passed into the hands of Emperor Peter III.

During the 186 days of his reign, he managed to do a lot. Conclude an inglorious peace with Prussia with the concession of everything conquered and abolish the Secret Chancellery, which for decades terrified all the inhabitants of the empire. Demonstrate to the country a complete disregard for its traditions (primarily Orthodoxy) and free the nobility from compulsory service. Eccentric and gullible, hot-tempered and stubborn, devoid of any diplomatic tact and political flair - with these traits he surprisingly anticipated the character of Paul. On June 28, 1762, a conspiracy led by Catherine and the Orlov brothers ended the short reign of Peter III. According to the apt remark of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, so beloved by him, “he allowed himself to be overthrown from the throne, like a child who is sent to bed.” And on July 6, with bated breath, the Empress read the long-awaited news: her husband was no longer alive. Peter was strangled by the drunken guards officers guarding him, led by Fyodor Baryatinsky and Alexei Orlov. He was buried unnoticed, and not in the imperial tomb - the Peter and Paul Cathedral, but in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Formally, this was justified by the fact that Peter was never crowned. 34 years later, having become emperor, Paul shocks everyone with the order to remove the decayed remains of his father from the grave, crown him and solemnly bury him along with the remains of his mother. So he will try to restore violated justice.

Raising a Prince

The order of succession to the throne in the Russian Empire was extremely confused even by Peter I, according to whose decree the heir must be appointed by the reigning sovereign. It is clear that the legitimacy of Catherine’s stay on the throne was more than doubtful. Many saw her not as an autocratic ruler, but only as a regent for her young son, sharing power with representatives of the noble elite. One of the staunch supporters of limiting autocracy in this way was the influential head of the College of Foreign Affairs and the heir’s educator, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin. It was he who, until Paul came of age, played a decisive role in the formation of his political views.

However, Catherine was not going to give up the fullness of her power either in 1762 or later, when Paul matured. It turned out that the son was turning into a rival, on whom everyone dissatisfied with her would pin their hopes. He should be closely monitored, preventing and suppressing all his attempts to gain independence. His natural energy needs to be directed in a safe direction, allowing him to “play soldiers” and think about the best government structure. It would also be nice to occupy his heart.

Best of the day

In 1772, the Empress persuades the Grand Duke to postpone the celebrations of his coming of age until the wedding. The bride has already been found - this is the 17-year-old Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, who received the name Natalya Alekseevna at baptism. The amorous Pavel was crazy about her. In September 1773, the wedding was solemnly celebrated, at the same time Count Panin left the Tsarevich with numerous awards and awards. Nothing else happens: the heir, as before, is almost completely removed from participation in state affairs. Meanwhile, he is eager to show his ability to be a worthy sovereign. In his “Discourse on the State in General, Regarding the Number of Troops Required for Its Defense and Concerning the Defense of All Limits,” written in 1774, Paul proposes abandoning the conquest of new territories, reforming the army on the basis of clear regulations and strict discipline, and establishing “a long peace that brought May we have complete peace." For the empress, in whose mind just at that time a grandiose plan for the conquest of Constantinople was being formed, such reasoning, at best, could only evoke a condescending smile...

In his memoirs, Decembrist M.A. Fonvizin sets out the family legend about the conspiracy that formed around Paul at that time. The conspirators allegedly wanted to place him on the throne and at the same time promulgate a “constitution” limiting autocracy. Among them, Fonvizin names Count Panin, his secretary - the famous playwright Denis Fonvizin, Panin's brother Peter, his cousin Prince N.V. Repnin, as well as Pavel’s young wife, known for her independence and willfulness. Thanks to the informer, Catherine found out about the idea, and Pavel, unable to withstand her reproaches, confessed everything and was forgiven by her.

This story does not look very reliable, but it undoubtedly reflects the mood that reigned around the Grand Duke in those years, the vague hopes and fears experienced by himself and his loved ones. The situation became even more difficult after the death during the first birth of Grand Duchess Natalia (there were rumors that she was poisoned). Paul was in despair. Under the pretext of consoling her son, Catherine showed him the love correspondence of her deceased wife with Count Andrei Razumovsky. It is not difficult to imagine what the Grand Duke experienced then. However, the empire needed to continue the royal family, and the bride, as always, was found in the glorious abundance of crowned persons in Germany.

"Private family"?

Sophia Dorothea Augusta of Württemberg, who became Maria Feodorovna, was the complete opposite of her predecessor. Soft, pliable and calm, she fell in love with Pavel immediately and with all her heart. In the “instructions” he specially wrote for his future wife, the Grand Duke frankly warned: “She will have to, first of all, arm herself with patience and meekness in order to endure my ardor and changeable mood, as well as my impatience.” Maria Feodorovna successfully completed this task for many years, and later even found an unexpected and strange ally in such a difficult task. The maid of honor Ekaterina Nelidova was not distinguished by her beauty or outstanding intelligence, but it was she who began to play the role of a kind of “psychotherapist” for Pavel: in her society, the heir, and then the emperor, apparently received what allowed him to cope with the phobias and outbursts of anger that beset him.

Most of those who observed this unusual relationship, of course, considered it adultery, which, of course, could hardly have shocked the seasoned court society of Catherine’s times. However, the relationship between Pavel and Nelidova, apparently, was platonic. The favorite and the wife probably appeared in his mind as two different sides of the feminine principle, which for some reason were not destined to unite in one person. At the same time, Maria Fedorovna was not at all delighted with her husband’s relationship with Nelidova, but, having come to terms with the presence of a rival, in the end she was even able to find a common language with her.

The “small” grand-ducal court was initially located in Pavlovsk, a gift from Catherine to her son. The atmosphere here seemed to be filled with peace and tranquility. “Never has a single private family greeted guests so naturally, kindly and simply: at dinners, balls, performances, celebrations - everything was imprinted with decency and nobility...”, the French ambassador Count Segur admired after visiting Pavlovsk. The problem, however, was that Pavel was not satisfied with the role of head of a “private family” imposed on him by his mother.

The fact that he himself did not fit into the “scenario of power” created by Catherine should have become completely clear to Pavel after the birth of his son. The Empress clearly demonstrated that she had far-reaching plans for her firstborn, in which his parents simply had no place. Named Alexander in honor of two great commanders at once - Nevsky and Macedonian - the child was immediately taken away from the grand ducal couple. The same thing happened with the second son, who was named even more symbolically by the founder of the Second Rome, Constantine. The “Greek project” of the empress and Grigory Potemkin was to create a new Byzantine Empire under the scepter of Constantine, which would be connected, according to the apt definition of the famous historian Andrei Zorin, by “ties of fraternal friendship” with the “northern” empire of Alexander.

But what to do with Pavel? Having coped with the task of “supplier of heirs,” it turned out that he had already played his role in the performance “staged” at the behest of Catherine. True, Maria Feodorovna did not intend to stop there. “Really, madam, you are a master at bringing children into the world,” the empress told her with mixed feelings, amazed at her daughter-in-law’s fertility (in total, ten children were successfully born to Pavel and Maria). Even in this matter, the son turned out to be only second...

"Poor Pavel"

It is not surprising that it was vitally important for Paul to create his own, alternative “scenario” of what was happening and establish himself as an indispensable link in the chain of rulers, as if revealing the providential meaning of the Russian Empire. The desire to realize himself in this capacity gradually becomes for him a kind of obsession. At the same time, Paul contrasts Catherine’s transparent Enlightenment rationalism, which prescribed to treat everything with irony and skepticism, with a different, baroque, understanding of reality. She appeared before him as complex, full of mysterious meanings and omens. She was a Book that had to be both read correctly and rewritten by oneself.

In a world where Paul was deprived of everything rightfully due to him, he persistently sought and found signs of his chosenness. During his trip abroad in 1781-1782, where he was sent by his mother under the name of Count Severny as some kind of compensation for everything taken away and not received, the Grand Duke diligently cultivated the image of a “rejected prince”, whom fate doomed to exist on the border between the visible and other worlds .

In Vienna, according to rumors, the performance of Hamlet, which he was supposed to attend, was hastily cancelled. In France, when asked by Louis XVI about the people loyal to him, Paul stated: “Oh, I would be very annoyed if in my retinue there was even a poodle loyal to me, because my mother would have ordered him to be drowned immediately after my departure from Paris.” Finally, in Brussels, the Tsarevich told a story in a social salon in which his mystical “search for himself” was reflected like a drop of water.

This happened one day during a night walk around St. Petersburg with Prince Kurakin, Pavel told the audience: “Suddenly, in the depths of one of the entrances, I saw the figure of a rather tall, thin man, in a Spanish cloak that covered the lower part of his face, and in a military hat , pulled down over my eyes... When we passed by him, he stepped out of the depths and silently walked to my left... At first I was very surprised; then I felt that my left side was freezing, as if the stranger was made of ice...” Of course, it was a ghost, invisible to Kurakin. "Paul! Poor Pavel! Poor prince! - he said “in a dull and sad voice.” -...Take my advice: do not attach your heart to anything earthly, you are a short-lived guest in this world, you will soon leave it. If you want a peaceful death, live honestly and fairly, according to your conscience; remember that remorse is the most terrible punishment for great souls.” Before parting, the ghost revealed itself: it was not his father, but Pavel’s great-grandfather, Peter the Great. He disappeared in the very place where Catherine a little later installed her Peter, the Bronze Horseman. “And I’m scared; It’s scary to live in fear: this scene still stands before my eyes, and sometimes it seems to me that I’m still standing there, on the square in front of the Senate,” the Tsarevich concluded his story.

It is not known whether Pavel was familiar with Hamlet (for obvious reasons, this play was not staged in Russia at that time), but he masterfully recreated the poetics of the image. It is worth adding that the Grand Duke impressed sophisticated Europeans as an absolutely adequate, sophisticated, secular, intelligent and educated young man.

Gatchina recluse

He probably returned to Russia the way you return from a festive performance, where you unexpectedly got the main role and thunderous applause, into a familiar and hateful home environment. The next decade and a half of his life were spent in gloomy anticipation in Gatchina, which he inherited in 1783 after the death of Grigory Orlov. Pavel tried his best to be an obedient son and act according to the rules set by his mother. Russia was at war hard with the Ottoman Empire, and he was eager to fight, even as a simple volunteer. But all he was allowed was to participate in harmless reconnaissance in the sluggish war with the Swedes. Catherine, at the invitation of Potemkin, made a ceremonial journey through New Russia, annexed to the empire, but the Tsarevich’s participation in it was not envisaged.

Meanwhile, in Europe, in France, which had so delighted him, a revolution was taking place and the king was executed, and he was trying to set up his own little space in Gatchina. Justice, order, discipline - the less he noticed these qualities in the outside world, the more persistently he tried to make them the basis of his world. The Gatchina battalions, dressed in Prussian-style uniforms that were unusual for Russians and spending time on the parade ground endlessly honing their drill skills, became a routine object of irony at Catherine’s court. However, ridicule of everything connected with Paul was almost part of the court ceremony. Catherine’s goal, apparently, was to deprive the Tsarevich of that sacred aura with which, in spite of everything, the heir to the Russian throne was surrounded. On the other hand, the empress’s rejection of the oddities for which Paul was famous, his increasing “non-politicism” in seclusion year after year, was completely unfeigned. Both mother and son remained hostages to the roles they took on until the end.

In such conditions, Catherine’s plan to transfer the throne to her grandson Alexander had every chance of being translated into real action. According to some memoirists, the corresponding decrees were prepared or even signed by the empress, but something prevented her from publishing them.

Prince on the throne

The night before his mother’s death, the Tsarevich had the same dream repeatedly: an invisible force picks him up and lifts him to heaven. The accession to the throne of the new Emperor Paul I took place on November 7, 1796, on the eve of the day of remembrance of the formidable Archangel Michael, the leader of the ethereal heavenly army. For Paul, this meant that the heavenly military leader had overshadowed his reign with his hand. The construction of the Mikhailovsky Palace on the site indicated, according to legend, by the Archangel himself, was carried out at a feverish pace throughout his short reign. The architect Vincenzo Brenna built (based on the sketches of Paul himself) a real fortress.

The Emperor was in a hurry. There were so many ideas accumulated in his head that they did not have time to line up. Lies, devastation, rot and extortion - he must put an end to all this. How? Order can be created out of chaos only by the strictest and strict observance by everyone of his assigned role in a grandiose ceremonial performance, where the role of the author is assigned to the Creator, and the role of the only conductor is to him, Paul. Every wrong or unnecessary movement is like a false note, destroying the sacred meaning of the whole.

Paul's ideal was least of all reduced to soldier's drill. The daily parade parades, held by him personally in any weather, were only a partial manifestation of a deliberately doomed attempt to improve the life of the country in the same way as a mechanism is set up for smooth operation. Pavel got up at five o’clock in the morning, and at seven he could already visit any “public place.” As a result, in all St. Petersburg offices, work began to begin three to four hours earlier than before. An unprecedented thing: senators have been sitting at their desks since eight in the morning! Hundreds of unresolved cases, many of which had been waiting for their turn for decades, were suddenly moving forward.

In the field of military service, the changes were even more striking. “Our officer’s way of life has completely changed,” recalled one of Catherine’s brilliant guardsmen. “Under the empress, we only thought about going to theaters and societies, wearing tailcoats, and now from morning to evening we sat in the regimental yard and taught us as recruits.” But all this was perceived by the elite as a gross violation of the “rules of the game”! “To convert the guards officers from courtiers into army soldiers, to introduce strict discipline, in a word, to turn everything upside down, meant to despise the general opinion and suddenly disrupt the entire existing order,” another memoirist asserts.

It was not for nothing that Paul laid claim to the laurels of his great great-grandfather. His policy largely repeated the “general mobilization” of the time of Peter I, and it was based on the same concept of the “common good.” Just like Peter, he sought to do and control everything himself. However, at the end of the 18th century, the nobility was much more independent, and the heir had much less charisma and intelligence compared to his ancestor. And despite the fact that his idea turned out to be akin to a utopia, it was not devoid of either original grandeur or consistency. Paul's intentions were initially met with much more sympathy than might have seemed. The people treated him as a kind of “savior.” And it was not a matter of symbolic benefits (like the rights granted to serfs to take an oath and complain about the landowners) or dubious attempts to regulate relations between peasants and landowners from the point of view of “justice” (as manifested in the well-known law on the three-day corvee). The common people quickly realized that Paul's policy was essentially egalitarian towards everyone, but the "gentlemen", because they were visible, suffered the most from it. One of the representatives of the “enlightened nobility” recalled that once, hiding (just in case) from Pavel passing by behind a fence, he heard a soldier standing nearby say: “Our Pugach is coming!” - “I turned to him and asked: “How dare you speak like that about your Sovereign?” He, looking at me without any embarrassment, answered: “Why, master, you apparently think so yourself, since you are hiding from him.” There was nothing to answer."

Paul found the ideal of disciplinary and ceremonial organization in the medieval orders of knighthood. It is not surprising that he agreed with such enthusiasm to accept the title of grandmaster offered to him by the Knights of Malta of the ancient Order of Johnites, not even embarrassed by the fact that the order was Catholic. To discipline the lax Russian nobility, turning it into a semi-monastic caste, is an idea that Peter’s rationalistic mind could not even imagine! However, it was such an obvious anachronism that the officers dressed in knightly robes even made each other smile.

Enemy of the revolution, friend of Bonaparte...

Paul's chivalry was not limited to the ceremonial sphere. Deeply hurt by the “unfair” aggressive policy of revolutionary France, and also offended by the French seizure of Malta, he could not stand his own peace-loving principles and got involved in a war with them. However, his disappointment was great when it turned out that the allies - the Austrians and the British - were ready to enjoy the fruits of the victories of Admiral Ushakov and Field Marshal Suvorov, but did not want not only to take into account the interests of Russia, but simply to comply with the agreements reached.

Meanwhile, on the 18th Brumaire of the VIII year according to the revolutionary calendar (October 29, 1799 - according to the Russian calendar), as a result of a military coup, General Bonaparte came to power in Paris, who almost immediately began to look for ways of reconciliation with Russia. The Eastern Empire seemed to him a natural ally of France in the fight against the rest of Europe, and above all with England. In turn, Paul quickly realized that revolutionary France was coming to an end, and “a king will soon be established in this country, if not in name, then at least in essence.” Napoleon and the Russian emperor exchange messages, with Pavel expressing an unexpectedly sober and pragmatic view of the situation: “I am not talking and am not going to discuss either the rights or the different methods of government that exist in our countries. Let's try to return peace and quiet to the world, which is so necessary for it and so consistent with the unchanging laws of Providence. I am ready to listen to you..."

The foreign policy turn was unusually abrupt - quite in the spirit of Paul. The emperor’s mind is already being taken over by plans to establish, by the forces of Russia and France, a kind of “European balance”, within the framework of which he, Paul, will play the role of the main and impartial arbiter.

By the end of 1800, relations between Russia and Britain had deteriorated to the limit. Now the British are occupying long-suffering Malta. Paul in response prohibits all trade with Britain and arrests all British merchant ships in Russia along with their crews. The English ambassador, Lord Whitworth, was expelled from St. Petersburg, who declared that the Russian autocrat was crazy, and meanwhile, actively and without skimping on money, rallied the opposition to Paul in the capital's society. Admiral Nelson's squadron was preparing for a campaign in the Baltic Sea, and the Don Cossacks received orders to strike what seemed to be the most vulnerable place of the British Empire - India. In this confrontation, the stakes for Foggy Albion were unusually high. It is not surprising that the “English trace” in the conspiracy organized against Paul is easily discernible. But still, the regicide can hardly be considered a successful “special operation” of British agents.

"What I've done?"

“His head is smart, but there is some kind of machine in it that is held on by a thread. If this thread breaks, the machine will wrap up, and that’s the end of the mind and reason,” one of Pavel’s teachers once said. In 1800 and at the beginning of 1801, it seemed to many people around the emperor that the thread was about to break, if it had not already broken. “Over the past year, suspicion in the emperor has developed to the point of monstrosity. The most empty cases grew in his eyes into huge conspiracies; he forced people into retirement and exiled them arbitrarily. Numerous victims were not transferred to the fortress, and sometimes all their guilt came down to too long hair or too short a caftan...” recalled Princess Lieven.

Yes, the character of Pavel was skillfully played by a variety of people and for different purposes. Yes, he was easy-going and often showed mercy to those punished, and this trait was also used by his enemies. He knew his weaknesses and struggled with them all his life with varying success. But towards the end of his life, this struggle clearly became too much for him. Pavel gradually gave in, and although he did not reach the line beyond which the “end of reason” begins, he was quickly approaching it. The fatal role was probably played by the rapid expansion of the usual and very limited horizon of perception from childhood to the size of the real and infinite world. Paul's consciousness was never able to accept and organize it.

Not without the influence of true conspirators, the emperor fell out with his own family. Even before that, Nelidova was replaced by the pretty and narrow-minded Anna Lopukhina. Those around Paul were in constant tension and fear. A rumor spread that he was preparing to kill his wife and sons. The country froze...

Of course, there is a colossal distance from grumbling to regicide. But it is unlikely that the second would have become possible without the first. The real (and unnoticed by Pavel) conspiracy was led by people close to him - von Palen, N.P. Panin (nephew of Pavel’s teacher), and his old enemies - the Zubov brothers, L. Bennigsen. Consent to the overthrow of his father from the throne (but not to murder) was given by his son Alexander. Forty days before the coup, the imperial family moved to the barely completed, still damp Mikhailovsky Palace. It was here, on the night of March 11-12, 1801, that the final scenes of the tragedy were played out.

...The crowd of conspirators warmed up by wine, which had thinned out considerably on the way to the emperor’s chambers, did not immediately find Pavel - he hid behind the fireplace screen. The last words he spoke were: “What have I done?”