#empress elizabeth of russia

[nanshe-of-nina]

Women’s History Meme || Empresses (4/5) ↬ Empress Yelisaveta Petrovna of Russia (1709 – 1762)

Yet Elizabeth’s flighty persona was a concoction to help her survive in a scorpions’ nest. While vaunting her numerous love affairs, she carefully concealed her political acumen. The British envoy’s wife reported, “In public she has an unaffected gaiety, and a certain air of giddiness that seems entirely to possess her whole mind… In private I have heard her talk with such a strain of good sense and steady reasoning that I am persuaded the other behavior is a feint.” … Numerous powerful families tried to persuade Elizabeth to stage a coup and proclaim herself empress. Afraid of bloodshed, Elizabeth hesitated until she heard rumors that Anna Leopoldovna was planning on claiming the imperial crown for herself and having her inconvenient cousin shut up in a convent. Elizabeth shuddered at the thought of religious life because, as one contemporary wrote, there was “not an ounce of nun’s flesh about her.” On November 25, 1741, hours before she was to be arrested, Elizabeth rallied loyal troops and invaded the palace. The coup was ridiculously easy; the people wanted the daughter of Peter the Great to rule. Anna was imprisoned in one fortress and her infant son in another. Elizabeth was gentle with her former enemies who now swarmed to proclaim their loyalty. She swore never to sentence anyone to death for political crimes. She outlawed the torture of children under seventeen and the cutting off of women’s noses. Even the humblest subjects were encouraged to hand Elizabeth petitions for redressing injustice. Unlike her three female predecessors—her mother, Catherine I; Empress Anna; and the regent Anna Leopoldovna—Elizabeth took her governmental responsibilities quite seriously, working most of the day, reading reports, presiding over meetings, forcing rival ministers to make peace. Mercurial and temperamental, Elizabeth had an arsenal of tactics to get her way—flashing a brilliant smile, stamping her foot in impatience, swearing like a fishwife, complimenting and cajoling. — Sex With the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics by Eleanor Herman

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Princess Alix of Hesse, Grand Duke Louis IV, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, Prince Ernest Louis, 1888.

[empress-alexandra]

Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse with his surviving children: Princess Victoria of Battenberg, Marchioness of Milford-Haven, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, Princess Irene of Prussia, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia and Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, 1884.

[thedailydescent]

The Great was one of those shows that could have great but in the end resorted to being merely good.

[loiladadiani]

The Romanov Martyrs

I wanted to put together a little memorial that included all the members of the Romanov Family (as well as the members of their staff) that were murdered by the Bolshevik terrorists. This seems like a good week to keep them in our minds. Although we love and mourn the children especially, there were others we cannot forget.

Tsar Alexandre II was hunted down until finally blown to pieces.

Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna lost two sons and five grandchildren (no wonder she could not accept they were dead)

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was also hunted down and blown to pieces

Three Mikhailovichi brothers were murdered

Four Konstantinovichi were murdered, three of them brothers; I cannot imagine what their mother, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, went through...and so on.

May they rest in peace.

[a-member-of-minuteswithmandm]

The Great (Hulu) season 3 just came out and we haven't finished watching it YET, but we need to talk about how incredible Catherine and Peter's love is.

Like come on, Peter is an indefensibly horrible man who has done some incredibly unforgivable things (we are still crying over Leo, plus fucking Catherine's mom to dead is batshit), but.....we just can't stop rooting for him and Catherine to somehow get their happily ever after. Is it insane? Yes. Are we planning on changing? No

It's wonderful that Catherine went through with stabbing Peter at the end of season 2 (she thought it was him which is what counts), because even though she lives him with all her heart, she's still trying to make rational decisions

(Season 3 spoilers in this paragraph) Even things like him refusing to kill the man who assaulted him as a child because Catherine didn't want to (he only slipped up after Simitz taunted Grigor), and the fact that he doesn't want to sleep with anyone other than Catherine anymore is so much evidence of his growth!!!

Anyway, the point is that their chemistry is incredible and I am rooting for them till my dying breath! What do you think? Watch out video and let us know!!

[resplendentoutfit]

Louis Caravaque (French, 1684–1754) • Portrait of Elizabeth of Russia • 1750 • State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Definitely over-dressed but we can forgive her for it, as she banned executions. She never married and was a proponent of sexual freedom. Kudos, Elizabeth!

The outrageous, extravagant, humorous, and often beautiful outfits worn by subjects of old portraits.

The ceremonial attire of Elizabeth • Catherine Palace, Museum Tsarskoye Selo

[royalty-nobility]

Apotheosis of Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna

Artist: Józef Oleszkiewicz (Polish, 1777–1830)

Date: 1813

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

Elizabeth Alexeievna (24 January 1779 – 16 May 1826), born Princess Louise of Baden (German: Luise Marie Auguste von Baden), was Empress of Russia during her marriage to Emperor Alexander I.

[the-jewel-catalogue]

Princess Anne attending a gala dinner in aid of Eric Liddell 100

The Princess Royal looks to be wearing the Empress Maria Feodorovna’s sapphire brooch, however it has never been confirmed to be the jewel.

The brooch dates to 1866. It was purchased by Queen Alexandra (then the Princess of Wales) as a wedding gift for her sister, Princess Dagmar, who later became Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia. The brooch features a double diamond and cabochon sapphire cluster with a pearl drop pendant. After the empress’s death in 1928, her daughters sold the brooch to Queen Mary, who later bequeathed it to Queen Elizabeth II. 

~~~~~~~~~~~ From the Court Jeweller ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are two things that now hold me back from definitively saying that Anne is indeed wearing the Marie Feodorovna brooch on those two occasions. The first is just visual: there’s something that almost looks flatter about the sapphire cluster portion of Anne’s brooch. That could easily be explained away by photography, and a closer view might offer clarification.

The second, though, is the fact that the late Queen herself wore the Marie Feodorovna brooch shortly after Anne’s appearance at the Team GB Ball, for an audience with the Sultan of Oman in December 2021 (pictured above). That doesn’t exclude the possibility that Anne borrowed the brooch, returned it to her mother, and then borrowed/inherited it again later. It’s just not how we normally saw the Queen’s jewels being handled.

The Princess last wore it in 2022 on a trip to Uganda.

[graceofromanovs]

Members of the House of Romanov, the last reigning Dynasty of Russia.

From the first Romanov Russian Tsar Michael I (reigned 1613-1645) until the last Emperor Nicholas II (reigned 1894-1917). Including the 18 members of the house executed from 1918 until 1919; Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich (13 June 1918). Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Tatiana Nikolaevna, Maria Nikolaevna, Anastasia Nikolaevna, and Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich (17 July 1918). Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Prince Ioann Konstantinovich, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, Prince Igor Konstantinovich, and Prince Vladimir Paley (18 July 1918). Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, Grand Duke Dmitri Konstantinovich, Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, and Grand Duke George Mikhailovich (28 January 1919).

[historyofromanovs]

do you know where the first few of the romanovs resided before all of the palaces were built and if so, are any of them remaining? do we know what they look like?

I'm afraid very little from the earliest days of the Romanov dynasty had survived the ravages of time. By the time of Nicholas II, many early residences had already been either destroyed or replaced by the modern and elegant palaces we see today. Here's a few that survived.

The Cabin of Peter the Great May 1703

Built during the founding of the city of Saint Petersburg, the log cabin was the first St. Petersburg "palace" of Tsar Peter the Great. The small wooden house was constructed in just three days, by soldiers of the Semyonovskiy Regiment. 

At that time, the new St. Petersburg was described as "a heap of villages linked together, like some plantation in the West Indies".

The Cabin was boarded up and camouflaged during the Second World War. It was the first St. Petersburg museum to reopen in September 1944, after the end of the Siege of Leningrad. 

This cabin must have appeared as a huge downgrade after the wooden palace of Tsar Alexei!

The Wooden Palace of Tsar Alexei Romanov 1667

The recreation of an authentic mid-17th century Romanov residence was built recently in 2010. The Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, also known as the Wooden Palace of Tsar Alexei, is a large wooden palace in Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, Russia.

The original was built in 1667 without using any fasten materials, nails or hooks. The wooden palace, famed for its fanciful, fairytale roofs, was a summer residence for Russian tsars before St. Petersburg was constructed. 

The palace was divided into male and female halves, with the Tsar and Tsarevitches towers and chambers in the male half and the Tsarina's towers in the female half. 

The palace's interior featured rich decorations, including carving, painting, gilding, and ceramic tiles, as well as rectangular and round stoves, weathercocks, and windows and porches. 

Foreigners referred to this huge maze of intricate corridors and 250 rooms, as 'an Eighth Wonder of the World'. Although basically only a summer palace, it was the favorite residence of Tsar Alexei I.

The future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was born in the palace in 1709, and Tsar Peter the Great spent part of his youth here.

Upon the departure of the court for the swamps of St. Petersburg, the palace fell into disrepair, so that Catherine the Great refused to make it her Moscow residence. On her orders the wooden palace was demolished in 1768, but thankfully, the detailed plans of the palace had survived.

Summer Palace of Peter the Great

1714

One of the earliest imperial residences I can think of that still exists today is the modest Summer Palace of Peter the Great, which is located on an island near the Peter and Paul Fortress, the burial place of the Romanovs.

The palace was built between 1710 and 1714, a few years before the proclamation of the Russian Empire. By the time of Tsar Nicholas II's reign at the end of the 19th century, it became vacant.

During the Second World War, both the Summer Palace and Summer Gardens were badly damaged by a German bombing raid. The building was repaired, however, and the layout remains unchanged from the original.

Above: The palace as depicted in 1809. Below: The residence today.

Monplaisir Palace in Peterhof 1714-1716

There is another residence owned by Peter the Great that is still standing today. And that is the Monplaisir Palace in Peterhof.

The following painting depicts the formidable Tsar and his son and heir Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, who has been accused of preparing to seize power, in the interior of the Monplaisir Palace. Before pronouncing sentence, Peter I gazes into his son's eyes, still hoping to discern signs of remorse.

Above: The Parade Hall of Monplaisir Palace today.

[napoleonic-sexyman-tournament]

Friends, enemies, comrades, Jacobins, Monarchist, Bonapartists, gather round. We have an important announcement:

The continent is beset with war. A tenacious general from Corsica has ignited conflict from Madrid to Moscow and made ancient dynasties tremble. Depending on your particular political leanings, this is either the triumph of a great man out of the chaos of The Terror, a betrayal of the values of the French Revolution, or the rule of the greatest upstart tyrant since Caesar.

But, our grand tournament is here to ask the most important question: Now that the flower of European nobility is arrayed on the battlefield in the sexiest uniforms that European history has yet produced (or indeed, may ever produce), who is the most fuckable?

The bracket is here: full bracket and just quadrant I

Want to nominate someone from the Western Hemisphere who was involved in the ever so sexy dismantling of the Spanish empire? (or the Portuguese or French American colonies as well) You can do it here

The People have created this list of nominees:

France:

Jean Lannes

Josephine de Beauharnais

Thérésa Tallien

Jean-Andoche Junot

Joseph Fouché

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Joachim Murat

Michel Ney

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (Charles XIV of Sweden)

Louis-Francois Lejeune

Pierre Jacques Étienne Cambrinne

Napoleon I

Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet

Jacques de Trobriand

Jean de dieu soult.

François-Étienne-Christophe Kellermann

17.Louis Davout

Pauline Bonaparte, Duchess of Guastalla

Eugène de Beauharnais

Jean-Baptiste Bessières

Antoine-Jean Gros

Jérôme Bonaparte

Andrea Masséna

Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle

Germaine de Staël

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

René de Traviere (The Purple Mask)

Claude Victor Perrin

Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr

François Joseph Lefebvre

Major Andre Cotard (Hornblower Series)

Edouard Mortier

Hippolyte Charles

Nicolas Charles Oudinot

Emmanuel de Grouchy

Pierre-Charles Villeneuve

Géraud Duroc

Georges Pontmercy (Les Mis)

Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont

Juliette Récamier

Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey

Louis-Alexandre Berthier

Étienne Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre Macdonald

Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier

Catherine Dominique de Pérignon

Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune

Jean-Baptiste Jourdan

Charles-Pierre Augereau

Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais

England:

Richard Sharpe (The Sharpe Series)

Tom Pullings (Master and Commander)

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Jonathan Strange (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)

Captain Jack Aubrey (Aubrey/Maturin books)

Horatio Hornblower (the Hornblower Books)

William Laurence (The Temeraire Series)

Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey

Beau Brummell

Emma, Lady Hamilton

Benjamin Bathurst

Horatio Nelson

Admiral Edward Pellew

Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke

Sidney Smith

Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford

George IV

Capt. Anthony Trumbull (The Pride and the Passion)

Barbara Childe (An Infamous Army)

Doctor Maturin (Aubrey/Maturin books)

William Pitt the Younger

Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh)

George Canning

Scotland:

Thomas Cochrane

Colquhoun Grant

Ireland:

Arthur O'Connor

Thomas Russell

Robert Emmet

Austria:

Klemens von Metternich

Friedrich Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza

Franz I/II

Archduke Karl

Marie Louise

Franz Grillparzer

Wilhelmine von Biron

Poland:

Wincenty Krasiński

Józef Antoni Poniatowski

Józef Zajączek

Maria Walewska

Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski

Adam Jerzy Czartoryski

Antoni Amilkar Kosiński

Zofia Czartoryska-Zamoyska

Stanislaw Kurcyusz

Russia:

Alexander I Pavlovich

Alexander Andreevich Durov

Prince Andrei (War and Peace)

Pyotr Bagration

Mikhail Miloradovich

Levin August von Bennigsen

Pavel Stroganov

Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna

Karl Wilhelm von Toll

Dmitri Kuruta

Alexander Alexeevich Tuchkov

Barclay de Tolly

Fyodor Grigorevich Gogel

Ekaterina Pavlovna Bagration

Ippolit Kuragin (War and Peace)

Prussia:

Louise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Gebard von Blücher

Carl von Clausewitz

Frederick William III

Gerhard von Scharnhorst

Louis Ferdinand of Prussia

Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Alexander von Humboldt

Dorothea von Biron

The Netherlands:

Ida St Elme

Wiliam, Prince of Orange

The Papal States:

Pius VII

Portugal:

João Severiano Maciel da Costa

Spain:

Juan Martín Díez

José de Palafox

Inês Bilbatua (Goya's Ghosts)

Haiti:

Alexandre Pétion

Sardinia:

Vittorio Emanuele I

Lombardy:

Alessandro Manzoni

Denmark:

Frederik VI

Sweden:

Gustav IV Adolph

[cedyat]

Drawings of Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna of Russia and her husband Tsar Alexander I of Russia by a Japanese artist (1807).

"Ōtsuki Gentaku’s Kankai Ibun (1807), also referred to as Strange Tales of a Circumnavigation, tells the adventurous story of sixteen Japanese sailors who were shipwrecked on the coast of Russia in 1793. The four surviving sailors stayed in Russia for more than ten years as tutors in the Japanese language and returned to Japan in 1804. Together with Shimura Kōkyō, Gentaku compiled the text for the illustrated travel account based on oral evidence, reporting on the experiences of the Japanese men in the Western world[1]. Originally the manuscript consists of 15 (or occasionally 16) volumes and was produced throughout nineteenth-century Japan[2]."

[empress-alexandra]

Princess Alix of Hesse (later Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia) with her sister Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, 1890.

[period-drama-lover]

JULIA PERESILD as Elizabeth of Russia

Empresses (trailer)

[loiladadiani]

The Husbands of the Four Graces

Some time ago, I read a very interesting book about Queen Victoria's Hessian Granddaughters (Victoria, Elizabeth, Irene, and Alix.) The title was "The Four Graces," and ever since I read it, that is the way I think about the daughters of Grand Duke of Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine and the beautiful princess Alice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second daughter of Queen Victoria.

These young women were among the most marriageable princesses of their generation. They were beautiful, accomplished and Queen Victoria's granddaughters. There was no need to look for husbands for them. Among their suitors could be found future Kaisers, Tsars and Kings of England even though it was well known that any or all of the princesses could be carriers of hemophilia (inherited from their august grandmother Victoria.) Their sons might be bleeders. One of their brother's had been, therefore Princess Alice, their mother, had been a carrier.

The four men they married appear in the first photograph above; one marquess, one prince, one grand duke, and one Emperor (all of them very handsome):

👑Louis Mountbatten, first Marques of Milford Heaven (the man all the way to the left on the picture) married Princess Victoria Alberta Elisabeth Mathilde Marie of Hesse and By Rhine. Victoria and Louis had two sons and neither one of them had hemophillia.

👑The Hohenzollern Prince and brother of the German Keiser, Prince Heinrich of Prussia (the man to the right of Mountbatten in the photograph) married Princess Irene Luise Marie Anne of Hesse and By Rhine. They were first cousins since Heinrich was the son of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who was the older sister of Princess Alice. They had three sons. Two out of the three had hemophilia. One died in childhood of causes related to that disease.

👑 Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia (the man to the right of Prince Heinrich) married Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse and by Rhine. Sergei and Elizabeth had no children.

👑The soon-to-be Tsar Nicholas II of Russia married Alix Viktoria Helene Luise Beatrix. Alix had one son, and he had hemophilia. (gcl)