H.I.M. Ivan, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, with his mother Anna Leopoldovna

Ivan VI of Russia (Иоанн Антонович), (August 23, 1740 - July 16, 1764), reigned as Emperor of Russia 1740 - 1741, was the son of Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg and of the princess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg. His great-aunt the empress Anna I of Russia adopted the eight-week-old boy and declared him her successor on 5 October 1740. On the death of Anna (17 October of the Julian Calendar/28 October of the Gregorian Calendar, 1740) Ivan was proclaimed emperor, and on the following day Ernst Johann von Biron, duke of Courland, became regent. On the fall of Biron (8 November), the regency passed to the baby tsar’s mother, though the capable vice-chancellor, Andrei Osterman conducted the government. Image File history File links Ivan6russia1740. ... Image File history File links Ivan6russia1740. ... Anna Leopoldovna (А́нна Леопо́льдовна) (1718 - 18 March 1746), also known as Anna Karlovna (А́нна Ка́рловна), regent of Russia for a few months (1740 - 1741) during the minority of her baby son Ivan, was the daughter of Catherine (sister of the empress Anne) and of Charles Leopold, duke of Mecklenburg_Schwerin. ... Jump to: navigation, search August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search Events May 31 - Friedrich II comes to power in Prussia upon the death of his father, Friedrich Wilhelm I. October 20 - Maria Theresia of Austria inherits the Habsburg hereditary dominions (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and present-day Belgium). ... Jump to: navigation, search July 16 is the 197th day (198th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 168 days remaining. ... 1764 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events April 10 - Austrian army attack troops of Frederick the Great at Mollwitz August 10 - Raja of Travancore defeats Dutch East India Company naval expedition at Battle of Colachel December 19 - Vitus Bering dies in his expedition east of Siberia December 25 - Anders Celsius develops his... Jump to: navigation, search Anthony Ulrich (German: Anton Ulrich; 28 August 1714, Bevern – 4 May 1774, Kholmogory), Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, was generalissimus of the Army of Russia, and husband to Anna Leopoldovna, who was regent of Russia for one year. ... Anna Leopoldovna (А́нна Леопо́льдовна) (1718 - 18 March 1746), also known as Anna Karlovna (А́нна Ка́рловна), regent of Russia for a few months (1740 - 1741) during the minority of her baby son Ivan, was the daughter of Catherine (sister of the empress Anne) and of Charles Leopold, duke of Mecklenburg_Schwerin. ... Mecklenburg is a geographical area located in Northern Germany. ... The crown of Anna Ioannovna Anna Ivanovna (In Russian: Анна Ивановна) (February 7, 1693 - October 28, 1740) reigned as Duchess of Courland from 1711 to 1730 and as Empress of Russia from 1730 to 1740. ... Jump to: navigation, search October 5 is the 278th day of the year (279th in Leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search Events May 31 - Friedrich II comes to power in Prussia upon the death of his father, Friedrich Wilhelm I. October 20 - Maria Theresia of Austria inherits the Habsburg hereditary dominions (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and present-day Belgium). ... Jump to: navigation, search October 17 is the 290th (in leap years the 291st) day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. ... The Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, taking force in 45 BC or 709 ab urbe condita. ... Jump to: navigation, search October 28 is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 64 days remaining. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Gregorian calendar is the calendar that is used nowadays nearly everywhere in the world. ... Jump to: navigation, search Events May 31 - Friedrich II comes to power in Prussia upon the death of his father, Friedrich Wilhelm I. October 20 - Maria Theresia of Austria inherits the Habsburg hereditary dominions (Austria, Bohemia, Hungary and present-day Belgium). ... Ernst Johann von Biron or Biren, (1690 - 28 December 1772), duke of Courland, was the grandson of a groom in the service of Jacob Kettler, Duke of Courland, who bestowed upon him a small estate, which Birens father inherited and where Biren himself was born. ... Map Kurland, Courland, Couronia, Curonia, or Kurzeme is a former Baltic province of the Teutonic Order state in Livonia (ca. ... Jump to: navigation, search November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... Andrey Ivanovich Ostermann (1686-1747) Count Andrei Ivanovich Osterman (June 9, 1686 - May 31, 1747) was a German-born Russian statesman who came to prominence under Tsar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) and served until the accession of the Tsesarevna Elizabeth. ...

Fall from the Throne and Imprisonment

Thirteen months later a Coup d'état placed the tsarevna Elizabeth on the throne (December 6, 1741), and Ivan and his family were imprisoned in the fortress of Dunamunde (Ust-Dvinsk) (December 13, 1742) after a preliminary detention at Riga, from whence the new empress had at first decided to send them home to Brunswick. In June 1744, following the Lopukhina Affair, they transferred him to Kholmogory on the White Sea, where Ivan, isolated from his family, and seeing nobody but his gaoler, remained for the next twelve years. Rumours of his confinement at Kholmogory having leaked out, he was secretly transferred to the fortress of Schlisselburg (1756), where he was still more rigorously guarded, the very commandant of the fortress not knowing the identity of "a certain arrestant". Jump to: navigation, search A coup détat (pronounced /ku de ta/), or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group or pillow that just replaces the top power figures. ... H.I.M. Yelizaveta Petrovna, Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias (1709-62) Yelizaveta (Yelisavet) Petrovna (Елизаве́та (Елисаве́т) Петро́вна) (December 29, 1709 - January 5, 1762), also known as Elizabeth, was an Empress of Russia (1741 - 1762) who took the country into the War of Austrian succession (1740 - 1748) and the Seven Years... Jump to: navigation, search December 6 is the 340th day (341st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... A 19th-century view of Arkhangelsk port. ... Jump to: navigation, search December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... // Events January 24 - Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... Jump to: navigation, search Riga (Latvian:RÄ«ga), the capital of Latvia, is situated on the Baltic Sea coast on the mouth of River Daugava, at 56°58′ N 24°8′ E. Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states and serves as a major cultural, educational, political, financial... Jump to: navigation, search June is the sixth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with a length of 30 days The month is named after the Roman goddess Juno (mythology), wife of Jupiter and equivalent to the Greek goddess Hera. ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events The third French and Indian War, known as King Georges War, breaks out at Port Royal, Nova Scotia The First Saudi State founded by Mohammed Ibn Saud Prague occupied by Prussian armies Ongoing events War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) Births January 10... Lopukhina Affair was an alleged conspiracy engineered by the diplomacy of Holstein and France at the Russian court and centered on the person of Natalia Lopukhina (1699-1781), a daughter of Matryona Balk and niece of Anna Mons and Willem Mons. ... Kholmogory (Холмого́ры) is a village in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. ... Barents Sea, the Kola Peninsula and the White Sea. ... Orechovets is an island with the fortress Oreshek (Nöteborg in Swedish, given the name Schlisselburg/Schlüsselburg after its re-conquest by Peter the Great in 1702). ... 1756 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

On the accession of Peter III (1762) the condition of the unfortunate prisoner seemed about to improve, for the new emperor visited and sympathised with him; but Peter himself lost power a few weeks later. In the instructions sent to Ivan’s guardian the latter received orders to chain up his charge, and even to scourge him should he become refractory. Portrait of Peter III by an uknown artist Peter III (February 21, 1728 - July 17, 1762) (Russian Пётр III Федорович (Pyotr III Fyodorovitch)) was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. ... 1762 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Sociologists usually define power as the ability to impose ones Will on others, even if those others resist in some way. ... A scourge (from the Italian scoriada, ultimately from the Latin excoriare [to flay] and corium [skin]), comprises a whip or lash, especially one used for the infliction of corporal punishment. ...

Death

Mirovich Standing over the Corpse of Ivan VI (1884).

On the accession of Catherine II (summer 1762) still more stringent orders were sent to the officer in charge of "the nameless one". If any attempt were made from outside to release him, the prisoner was to be put to death; in no circumstances was he to be delivered alive into anyone’s hands, even if his deliverers produced the empress’s own sign manual authorising his release. By this time, twenty years of solitary confinement had disturbed Ivan’s mental equilibrium, though he does not seem to have been actually insane. Nevertheless, despite the mystery surrounding him, he was well aware of his imperial origin, and always called himself gosudar (sovereign). Though instructions had been given to keep him ignorant, he had been taught his letters and could read his Bible. Nor could his residence at Schlusselburg remain concealed for ever, and its discovery was the cause of his ruin. A sub-lieutenant of the garrison, Vasily Mirovich, found out about him, and formed a plan for freeing and proclaiming him emperor. At midnight on July 5, 1764, Mirovich won over some of the garrison, arrested the commandant, Berednikov, and demanded the delivery of Ivan, whom his gaolers on orders of their commander Lt. Chekin, murdered there and then, in obedience to the secret instructions already in their possession. Image File history File links Tvorozhnikov. ... Image File history File links Tvorozhnikov. ... Jump to: navigation, search H.I.M. Yekaterina II Alexeyevna the Great, Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias Catherine II (Russian: , tr. ... 1762 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search July 5 is the 186th day of the year (187th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 179 days remaining. ... 1764 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

References

• Robert Nisbet Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great (London, 1897)
• M. Semevsky, Ivan VI Antonov’ich (in Russian) (St. Petersburg, 1866)
• A. Bruckner, The Emperor Ivan VI and his Family (in Russian) (Moscow 1874)
• V. A. Bilbasov, Geschichte Catherine II (vol. ii., Berlin, 1891—1893).