Alexei Razumovsky

 Alexei Razumovsky

(I think this story will interest lovers of chamber music)

    In November 1741, Elizaveta Petrovna Romanova was 32 years old, active, vivacious, beautiful and intelligent, but she was poorly educated and still unmarried. She strongly resembled her father Peter I (Peter the Great) of Russia, and felt herself to be her father's natural successor. Somehow, in the 16 years since her father's death, the succession had wandered off to another branch of the family. When Peter died in 1725 title went to his widow, Elizabeth's mother, the Tsar's second wife Catherine I, till she died (in 1727); then to the 12-year-old Peter II who died 3 years later; then to Anna a daughter of Ivan V, the  older (but mentally challenged) brother of Peter I. Anna ruled for 10 years, keeping Elizabeth as far from court as possible, not least on account of her superior beauty. But in October 1740 she died, and the throne was deemed to fall to the 2 month old infant Ivan VI, with his mother and von Biron as regents. 

This nonsense clearly exasperated the 32 year old Elizabeth who decided, or was persuaded, to stage a coup. She was well known to various elite guards regiments. She is said to have presented herself, after dark, at regimental headquarters wearing an iron breast-plate over her dress. She asked if the regiment wanted to follow her, their 'natural sovereign' and Peter's daughter, or to follow her dead cousin's 2 month old son Ivan VI,  a grandson of Peter the Great's defective older brother. They chose to follow her, and marched forthwith to the Winter Palace where they imprisoned the infant Tsar, and his guardians. (The infant Ivan was not killed in Elizabeth's lifetime; but was kept in prison, as was his mother, till 1764.)

Back in May 1727, the orphaned Elizabeth, 18 year old daughter of a popular Tsar and a Lithuanian maid servant, had no prospect of inheriting the throne. Her father had betrothed her to a German princeling, but the fiancée had died in that same month of May. No one else came forward to marry her, neither Russian nor foreign. She could not marry a commoner without loosing her status and any prospect of inheriting the crown.  So she chose herself a handsome sergeant of Life Guards as a lover. Her cousin Anna promptly banished him to Siberia. Whereupon Elizabeth consoled herself with a succession of handsome footmen and coachmen. 

However, Elizabeth eventually fell in love with a Ukranian peasant serf called Aleksey Razumovsky (1709-1771) who had a lovely singing voice, and who had been brought to St. Petersburg to sing in a choir. It is said that Grand Duchess Elizabeth purchased him. Later, when she had become Empress, she also helped his much younger brother Kirill (1728-1803), first to attend Göttingen University when he was 15 yrs old and. Then, in 1746, the 18 year old Kirill was married to a second cousin of the Empress called Ekaterina Naryshkina who bore him 11 children. In 1750 Kirill was made Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host till Catherine II abolished that office in 1764, whereupon Kirill was made a Field Marshal. 

When Grand Duchess Elizabeth was crowned Empress in 1742, her handsome musical friend was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1756 Elizabeth made him a Russian Prince. The friendship between Aleksey Razumovsky and Elizaveta Petrovna Romanova lasted till the empress died (1762). 

        One of Aleksey's nephews, Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky became Russian ambassador to Austria, was a gifted amateur musician, and commissioned 3 string quartets from Beethoven.