She received her cousin Elizabeth Petrovna with apparent fondness, accepted her hand-kissing and affirmed that she felt much solicitude for their common family.
Before dismissing her, she even promised to see to it personally, as sovereign, that Elizabeth Petrovna would never lack for anything in her retirement.
However, in spite of this overt subservience and benevolence, she had not lost sight of her goal, in leaving Mitau to return to Russia. Within the Guard and the lesser and middle nobility, her partisans were preparing a brilliant deed. On February 25, 1730, she was sitting on her throne, surrounded by the members of the Supreme Privy Council, with a crowd of courtiers squeezing around them in the grand salon of the Lefortovo Palace; suddenly, a few hundred officers of the Guard barged in, with Prince Alexis Cherkassky, declared champion of the new empress, at their head.
In a rambling speech he struggled to explain that the document
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The Surprise Accession of Anna Ivanovna signed by Her Majesty, at the instigation of the Supreme Privy Council, was in contradiction with the principles of the monarchy by divine right. In the name of the million subjects devoted to the cause of Holy Rus sia, he begged the tsarina to denounce this monstrous act, to convoke the Senate, the nobility, the senior officers, and the church fathers as soon as possible, and to dictate to them her own concept of power.
“We want a tsarina-autocrat, we do not want the Supreme Privy Council!” one of the officers shouted, kneeling before her.
Anna Ivanovna, a consummate actress, feigned astonishment. She appeared to have discovered, suddenly, that her good faith had been abused. Believing that she was acting for the good of all in renouncing some of her rights, she now found that she had only done a service to the ambitious and the malicious! “What’s this!?” she exclaimed. “When I signed the charter at Mitau, was I not responding to the desires of the entire nation?” And in that moment, the officers of the Guard took a step forward, as if on parade, and exclaimed in unison: “We will not allow laws to be dictated to our sovereign! We are your slaves, but we cannot tolerate rebels taking it upon themselves to control you. Say the word and we will throw their heads at your feet!”
Anna Ivanovna struggled to contain her joy. In a blink of an eye, her triumph repaid all the affronts she had suffered. They thought they could outsmart her, but it was she who had outwitted her sworn enemies, the verkhovniki. Glaring at these disloyal dignitaries, she declared: “I do not feel secure here any longer!”
And, turning toward the officers, she added: “Obey only Simon Andreyevich Saltykov!”
That was the man whom she had just promoted, a few days before. The windowpanes shook with the officers’ cheers. With just one sentence, this able woman had swept away the Supreme Privy Council, thus proving herself worthy of leading Russia to
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Terrible Tsarinas glory, justice and prosperity.
The moment of truth had come. The Empress had the text of the charter read aloud, and after each article, she posed the same question: “Is that what the nation wants?” And, each time, the officers shouted their response: “Long live the sovereign autocrat!
Death to the traitors! Death to anyone who refuses her this title!”
Approved by plebiscite even before she was crowned, Anna Ivanovna then concluded, in a sweet tone that contrasted with her imposing matronly stature: “Why, then this paper is useless!”
And, to the hurrahs of the crowd, she tore the document to bits and scattered them at her feet.2 At the conclusion of this tumultuous event, which she regarded as her real coronation, the Empress and her entourage (still swelled by the officers of the Guard) went to see the members of the Supreme Privy Council - who had preferred to withdraw to another area, rather than watching her moment of triumph. They had thought they were trimming her claws, and here she was slashing them to the quick. Whereas the majority of the councilors were dumb-struck, Dmitri Golitsyn and Vasily Dolgoruky turned to face the mass of their opponents and publicly admitted their defeat. “Let everything be done in accordance with the divine will of Providence!” Dolgoruky said, philosophically.
Again, the crowd burst into cheers. “The Day of Dupes” was over. When it was no longer risky to take sides, Ostermann suddenly emerged. He had pretended to be seriously ill, confined to his room by his doctors; now, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he congratulated Anna Ivanovna, swore his unfailing devotion to her and announced, privately, that he was preparing to bring a lawsuit in the name of Her Majesty against the Dolgorukys and the Golitsyns. Anna Ivanovna smiled with a scornful joy. Who thus dared to claim that she was not of the same blood as Peter the Great? She had just proven the opposite. And this idea alone
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The Surprise Accession of Anna Ivanovna filled her with ride.
The hardest part was over; she could prepare for the coronation without any unnecessary emotion. Striking while the iron was hot, she set the coronation ceremony to take place just two weeks later, on March 15, 1730, with all the usual pomp, in the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin. Catherine I, Peter II, Anna Ivanovna: the sovereigns of Russia followed one another at such short intervals that the waltz of “Their Majesties” made everyone dizzy. This empress was the third one in six years to proceed through the streets of Moscow. The novelty was wearing thin, but the crowds still came out to cheer enthusiastically and to proclaim their veneration of their “little mother.”
Meanwhile, Anna Ivanovna was not sitting idly by. She started by naming Simon Andreyevich Saltykov, who had served her cause so well, to the post of General-in-Chief and Grand Master of the court; and she relegated to his own domains the far too busy Dmitri Mikhailovich Golitsyn, to do penance there. But most important of all, she hurried to send an emissary to Mitau, where Buhren was impatiently awaiting the good word. He immediately set out for Russia.
In the old capital, meanwhile, the celebrations surrounding the coronation went on, accompanied by gigantic light shows.
The scintillating fireworks were soon rivaled by an unusually brilliant aurora borealis. Suddenly, the horizon blazed up. The sky turned radiant, as though it had been injected with blood. Among the people, some dared to call it an ill omen.
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Footnotes 1. Memoires du prince Dolgoruky, cited by K. Waliszewski, L’Heritage de Pierre le Grand.
2. Details and comments reported in L’Avenement d’Anna Ire, by Korsakov; citations quoted in Waliszewski, op. cit.
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