Fireworks for the New Empress Anna NYPL, Slavic and Baltic Division

Until Catherine II came to the throne in 1762, none of Peter’s successors came close to matching his dynamism. Empress Catherine I (r. 1725–27), Peter’s second and beloved wife, was a former Livonian servant girl and ill-equipped to rule; a council ruled in her stead. A grandson, Peter II (r. 1727–30), became emperor when he was only twelve; until he died of smallpox three years later, another clique ran him and the government. Upon young Peter’s death, this group of aristocrats tried to limit the power of the Russian monarch with a set of Conditions (Konditsii) that benefited themselves, but they failed. Anna I (r. 1730–40), a daughter of Ivan V (r. 1682–96) and the widow of a German duke, ascended the throne as an absolutist ruler, but once again favorites, many of them German, made both foreign and domestic policy.

Anna’s nephew, the infant Ivan VI (r. 1740–41), came next: his father was German, his mother was half German, and they planned to change the dynasty to their German branch of the family; they lasted only a little over a year.