Anna Ioannovna is a Russian empress from the Romanov dynasty, niece, who was on the throne from 1730 to 1740. Anna was born on February 7, 1693 into the royal family in the Cross Chamber of the Terem Palace of the Moscow Kremlin.
The girl's parents - Tsar Ivan V and Tsarina Praskovya Fedorovna - raised two more daughters: the eldest Catherine and the younger Praskovya. From an early age, Anna and her sisters studied Russian literacy, arithmetic, geography, dancing, German and French. The princesses' teachers were Johann Christian Dietrich Osterman (Andrei Osterman's elder brother) and Stefan Ramburg.
In 1696, Ivan Alekseevich died, and the dowager queen and her children were forced to leave the Kremlin chambers and move to the country residence Izmailovo, which was an estate built in the old Russian style. The palace facilities included orchards, numerous ponds, and a winter garden. Performances were regularly staged in the court theater, and musicians gave concerts of symphonic music.
In 1708, the family of Peter I's deceased brother moved to St. Petersburg. The solemn procession arrived in the new capital together with Alexei Petrovich, the princesses Feodosia, Maria and Natalya and the dowager queen Martha Matveevna. In honor of the emperor's relatives, a large feast was held with cannon salvoes and a boat trip along the Gulf of Finland. Praskovya Fedorovna settled with her daughters in a palace not far from the place where Smolny now stands. Soon the Swedes began an attack on the northern capital, and the relatives had to return to Moscow.
Peter's troops failed to gain the upper hand in the Northern War. The Russian emperor needed the support of the Prussian and Courland rulers. During the war, Courland experienced political pressure from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, from which it was a vassal. In 1709, Peter managed to turn the tide of action; Russian troops occupied Courland. Diplomatic negotiations took place with the King of Prussia, Frederick William I, at which it was decided to unite the two dynasties.
The Russian princess, Peter's niece Anna, was chosen as the bride, and the nephew of the Prussian king, Duke of Courland Friedrich Wilhelm, was chosen as the groom. After two months of marriage, the young husband died of a cold on the way to Courland. Peter forbade Anna to return to her homeland. The princess arrived in Mitau, where she held the position of dowager duchess for 20 years. The treasury of the duchy was devastated by long-term taxes from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, so Anna had to eke out a modest existence. The Duchess wrote many times to Peter I, and then to his widow, asking for financial assistance.
Beginning of reign
In 1730, Emperor Peter II died, and it became necessary to choose a new ruler. At a meeting of the Privy Council, six candidates were nominated for the Russian throne: the son of the deceased Duchess Anna Petrovna - Peter-Ulrich, the second daughter of Peter I - the crown princess, the first wife of Peter I - Evdokia Feodorovna Lopukhina, and three daughters of Tsar John Alekseevich.
Princes Dmitry Golitsyn and Vasily Dolgorukov proposed inviting Anna Ivanovna, who had been in straitened circumstances for twenty years and could make the necessary concessions to the aristocracy. The Privy Council supported the choice, and a letter was sent to the Duchess with a list of “conditions” - conditions limiting autocratic power in favor of the Privy Council.
Anna signed a document in Mitau on January 25 (Old Art.), according to which she was obliged to take care of the spread of Orthodoxy in Russia, not to marry, not to carry out major foreign policy actions without the consent of the Privy Council, not to change the tax system, not to appoint a successor to at your own discretion. On February 15, Anna Ioannovna arrived in Moscow, where a week later military and senior government dignitaries swore allegiance to her.
But on February 25, the oppositionists of the Privy Council - Andrei Osterman, Gabriel Golovkin, Archbishop Feofan (Prokopovich), Peter Yaguzhinsky, Antioch Cantemir, Ivan Trubetskoy - presented a petition to the queen for the restoration of absolutism. Anna Ioannovna, having heard the petition, tore up the “conditions”, and three days later a new oath of autocratic ruler took place, and at the end of April - Anna’s crowning of the kingdom. The Privy Council was abolished in favor of the governing Senate.
Domestic policy
During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, foreign and domestic policy was handled by those close to her - Chancellor Andrei Osterman and the favorite Ernst Johann Biron, who received favor from Anna during the dukedom in Courland. The army was led by Field Marshal of German origin Christopher Minich. Anna did not favor the Russian nobility, preferring to surround herself with foreigners. Contemporaries called the period of Anna Ioannovna’s reign “Birovshchina,” since the empress’s favorite had virtually unlimited possibilities.
Since 1730, according to established tradition, the Treasury began issuing coins with the image of the new empress. In 1731, a ruling structure was created - the Cabinet of Ministers, as well as two new military regiments - Izmailovsky and Cavalry, staffed by foreigners and soldiers from the southern provinces. In the same year, the Land Noble Cadet Corps appeared to train noble heirs, and a year later officer salaries increased. A school for training officials and numerous seminaries, including those at the Academy, were opened. The strengthening of Orthodoxy was facilitated by the introduction of a law on the death penalty for blasphemy.
Coins with the image of Anna Ioannovna In the second half of the 30s, serfdom was finally legalized, and factory workers were declared the property of enterprise owners. After the introduction of stricter measures, industry growth began, and soon Russia took first place in the world in the production of cast iron. Participants in drawing up the initial demands for the empress were arrested and sent to prison or exile. By the fortieth year, a conspiracy against Anna Ioannovna had matured among the ministers, which was uncovered, and the organizers and participants - minister Artemy Volynsky, architect Pyotr Eropkin, adviser to the admiralty office Andrei Khrushchev - were executed.
Anna Ioannovna herself was not distinguished by her talent for governing the state. The queen spent most of the imperial time on entertainment - creating masquerades, holding balls and hunting. At the court of the empress there were about a hundred dwarfs and giants, jesters and jokers. The history of that time records a humorous wedding arranged at the court of the queen between Prince Mikhail Golitsyn-Kvasnik and a native of Kalmykia, Avdotya Buzheninova. Anna Ioannovna favored theatrical art. During her reign, a fashion for Italian opera began in Russia, a theater with 1000 seats was built, and the first ballet school was opened.
Foreign policy
Foreign policy affairs were handled by A. Osterman, who in 1726 had already achieved a peace treaty with Austria. Thanks to Russia's victory in the military conflict with France over the Polish heritage, King Augustus III was enthroned in Warsaw in 1934. The four-year war with Turkey ended in 1739 on unfavorable terms for Russia, signed in Belgrade.
Personal life
In 1710, Anna married the Duke of Courland, Friedrich Wilhelm. In honor of the wedding, Peter I organized a celebration that lasted more than 2 months. During feasts, the nobility were satiated with food and wine. Before going home, the Duke fell ill, but did not attach any importance to the illness. Having left with the crew, Wilhelm died on the first day of the trip. Unable to return to her family, Anna Ioannovna was forced to settle in Courland.
The courtiers were hostile against the young widow, and the only friend and then favorite of the duchess was the Russian resident Pyotr Mikhailovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin. In 1926, Anna intended to marry Count Moritz of Saxony, but the wedding was upset by Prince Alexander Menshikov, who planned to become Duke of Courland himself.
In 1727, the prince was recalled to Russia, and Ernst Johann Biron became Anna's new favorite. It is assumed that the future Russian empress gave birth to a son from Biron. Anna Ioannovna later took her favorite to Russia and made her co-ruler.
Death
Empress Anna Ioannovna died on October 17 (old style) 1740 in St. Petersburg. The cause of the queen's death was kidney disease. The queen's grave is located in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. In her will, the empress indicated the descendants of her sister Catherine of Mecklenburg as heir to the throne.
Memory
The events of the 18th century are of interest not only to historians, but also to filmmakers. More than once the biography of Empress Anna became the basis of the plot of historical documentaries or feature films. In the 80s, in the films “The Ballad of Bering and His Friends”, “The Demidovs”, “” the role of Anna Ioannovna was played by the actress Maria Polizeimako.
In the multi-part series “Secrets of palace coups. Russia, XVIII century”, which was released in the early 2000s, Queen Anna played, and in 2008 her role was performed by.
Story: "The Queen of the Terrible Eye"
Accession to the throne
At the beginning of 1730, after the death of 16-year-old Emperor Peter II, the Romanov family in the male line was extinguished. And then the Supreme Privy Council decided that the daughter of Peter I, Elizabeth, born before the sovereign’s marriage to Catherine I, could not lay claim to the throne. In this regard, by that time the Dowager Duchess of Courland, niece of Peter I, Anna Ioannovna, was invited to the throne.
On January 19, 1730, the ominous figure of Anna Ioannovna ascended to the Russian throne. The people peered at the new empress with distrust. She was above average height, very fat and awkward. Nothing feminine could be seen in her appearance. She walked heavily, spoke in a deep voice, her manners and words were harsh. Anna Ioannovna dressed richly, but tastelessly. She was sloppy in her clothes. In the mornings, over a cup of coffee, she liked to spend a long time sorting through her jewelry. At the same time, she often spilled coffee on her clothes and could then walk around all day in the same clothes with traces of stains.
Since childhood, she was distinguished by arrogance and anger. Without receiving the necessary upbringing and education, she remained illiterate until the end of her life. Perhaps a certain role was played by the fact that her father Ivan Alekseevich, brother of Peter I, was not very strong in mind.
In the first years after the accession of the new empress to the throne, fires resumed in St. Petersburg. The fires were especially strong in 1836-1737. During that period, more than a thousand residential buildings burned down, including Gostiny Dvor, located on the corner of Moika and Nevsky. Arsonists, information about whom came through denunciations, which, as a rule, were not verified, were sometimes burned in the ashes.
After these terrible fires, St. Petersburg was divided into five parts and many streets received official names.
Anna Ioannovna often organized “demonstration dinners.” She dined in an open pavilion in front of people. Next to her sat her niece Anna Leopoldovna, the future ruler under the young Ivan Antonovich, and her cousin Elizaveta Petrovna.
After lunch, the Empress most often went to bed. Ernest Biron followed her. Biron’s wife, who looked like a dwarf, and her children at that time went to their half. In the evenings they played cards. Sometimes German or Italian troupes gave performances at the court. Anna Ioannovna especially liked the scenes in which they showed a fight. And the rougher the fight, the louder the empress laughed.
Soon after Anna Ioannovna's accession, construction began on the third Winter Palace designed by Francesco Rastrelli, who was called Barfalomey Varfolomeevich in the Russian manner. During the entire ten years of her reign, Anna Ioannovna did not live permanently in this palace. She did not like him, and several times she demanded that the architect rebuild the interiors of the palace.
Reprisals against undesirables
The internal situation in the country remained very difficult. The Russian-Turkish war, which began under Anna Ioannovna, claimed several thousand people. Hunger and poor equipment killed more than enemy bullets. The costs of new construction in Moscow and St. Petersburg amounted to approximately the same amount as was spent on maintaining a large courtyard, in which there was a dominance of foreigners.
And the worse things went, the more furious Anna Ioannovna became. The Execution Place moved from Trinity Square to the Sytny Market, where a scaffold was erected in the middle of it. Now executions were carried out mainly not for embezzlement and bribes, but for the conspiracies that the empress imagined everywhere. Denunciations were even more encouraged than under Peter I. The ominous cry “Word and Deed” hovered over St. Petersburg. At the Sytny market in 1739, Prince I. A. Dolgoruky, who allegedly led a conspiracy against the “queen of the terrible eye,” was on the wheel. Other princes of this ancient boyar family also suffered.
On June 27, 1740, when Anna Ioannovna had almost four months to live, the execution of the compilers of the “General Project for the Correction of State Affairs,” the so-called “confidants”: minister A.P. Volynsky, naval captain A.F. Khrushchev and architect P. M. Eropkina. The latter was the author of the general plan of St. Petersburg with a three-beam building from the Admiralty. Before this execution took place, Volynsky had his tongue torn out so that he could not shout out anything on the scaffold. At the same time, Anna Ioannovna deceived many ambassadors who turned to her with a request to allow Volynsky to say the last word. In V. Pikul’s novel “Word and Deed” you can read about this episode:
“Volynsky swam over people’s heads. The minister's head is dropped low on his chest. Blood seeped through the rag, and he kept swallowing the blood, swallowing it and swallowing it... The foreign embassy carriages immediately drove off:
- There is no language and there will be no speech. The queen deceived us!
One of Volynsky’s arms, knocked out of his shoulder on the rack, was dangling like a whip. It was his right hand, which they would cut off before his head. He didn't look at anyone. The executioners took him from the carriage itself, led him by the arms onto the ambon and began to prepare him for death. Artemy Petrovich obediently twirled in their strong hands. Tongueless - powerless! The decree was read. But this decree again spoke only about the “mercies” of the great empress, Empress Anna Ioannovna, who, being meek in heart and kind in disposition, commanded graciously... graciously... graciously... The people heard:
- Looks like they'll let you go.
- Whom? Theirs?
- Not. Never.
- If you catch it, that’s it!
... The ax flashed - Volynsky’s hand flew away. Another sparkling swing from the executioner - the head rolled away, jumping along the boards of the scaffold, and rolled into the ranks of the Life Guards. There they grabbed her by the hair and carefully placed her on the platform.”
Secret Chancery
The secret chancellery was located on Sadovaya Street, on the site occupied by the current house No. 12.
Count Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov was in charge here. He received the rank of general-in-chief and senator during the reign of Anna Ioannovna. He was a very cruel man, whose very name caused horror among St. Petersburg residents. For seventeen years he headed this formidable institution. Despite the fact that he himself was often present at all the sophisticated tortures, he was a tenderly loving father of his only daughter, Catherine. She was the Empress's maid of honor who took part in her marriage. And Ekaterina Andreevna’s husband was the Russian ambassador to many foreign countries, Pyotr Chernyshov. He was, apparently, the illegitimate son of Peter the Great himself.
The Secret Chancellery served mainly as a place of torture. Ushakov had the ability to ferret out other people's thoughts, which was especially valued by Ernest Biron and Anna Ioannovna. The Empress was often present at the torture herself. The sight of blood obviously excited her pleasantly. During the reign of this empress, more than twenty thousand people were either deprived of honor, dignity, fortune, or exiled or paid with their lives. The secret office began to be called the secret detective office.
She had basement rooms where they stood on their hind legs. The walls were thick, and passersby did not hear the screams of the tortured. But they knew about this place and tried to avoid it.
By the end of her reign, Anna Ioannovna received the nickname “Queen of the Terrible Eye.” They also called her Anna the Bloody.
Double
In 1731, Anna Ioannovna ordered to demolish the large wooden gallery and hall that stood in the Summer Garden, and in their place to build a new palace for herself and Biron. In this palace, according to contemporaries, the appearance of the empress's double occurred. Here is how the “Notes of Countess Bludova” tell about it: “A few days before the death of Anna Ioannovna, a guard stood in the room near the throne room, a sentry was at the open doors. The Empress had already retired to the inner chambers; It was already past midnight, and the officer sat down to take a nap. Suddenly the sentry calls for guard duty, the soldiers line up, the officer takes out his sword to salute. Everyone sees - the empress walks around the throne room in a platoon and forward, bowing her head thoughtfully, not paying attention to anyone. The entire platoon stands waiting, but finally the strangeness of walking through the throne room at night begins to confuse everyone. The officer, seeing that the empress does not want to leave the hall, finally decides to take a different route and ask if anyone knows the empress’s intentions. Here he meets Biron and reports to him. “It can’t be,” says Biron, “I’m now from the empress, she went to the bedroom to go to bed.” - Look for yourself, she is in the throne room. - Biron goes and sees her too. “There’s something wrong, there’s either a conspiracy or deception here to influence the soldiers,” he says, runs to the empress and persuades her to come out, so that in the eyes of the guard she can expose an impostor who is taking advantage of some resemblance to her to deceive people. The Empress decides to go out, Biron goes with her. They see a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the Empress, who is not at all embarrassed. - Daring! - Biron said and called the entire guard; The soldiers and everyone present see two Anna Ioannovnas, of which the real one and the ghost could be distinguished from the other only by their outfit and the fact that she came with Biron. The Empress, after standing for a minute in surprise, approaches her, saying: “Who are you? Why did you come?” Without answering a word, the ghost moves back, without taking his eyes off the empress, to the throne, ascends to it and on the steps, turning his eyes once again to the empress, disappears. The Empress turns to Biron and says: “This is my death” and goes home.”
On October 17, 1740, two days after the appearance of her double, Anna Ioannovna died. The people, who hated her and Bironovism, took a deep breath and crossed themselves.
In K. Ryleev’s poem “Volynsky’s Head” there are the following lines:
"I'm here!" - suddenly sounded
Through the vaults of the Throne a terrible voice...
She looked - in front of her
The head of Volynsky lay
And at her from under the eyebrows
She fixed her eyes reproachfully...
Why are you delaying? I've been waiting for a long time
You to the creator for sacred judgment;
There everyone will accept a bribe;
The king and the despicable slave are equal there!
The legend about the appearance of a double was passed down from generation to generation. Perhaps it was born among the people who dreamed of the death of the terrible empress. And, perhaps, the rumor about Anna Ioannovna’s double also arose from the fact that after her death, power was seized by her niece, who was also called Anna, and whose character was partly similar to the “queen of a terrible vision.” However, the power of the second Anna was short-lived.
Yuri RAKOV
Market Events
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Peter I is called the Great for making Russia a great world power, Catherine II became Great for annexing New Russia and conquering Crimea, and Anna Ioannovna was called bloody for 10 years of terror against the Russian people.
After the death of Emperor Peter II, the male line of the Romanov dynasty was interrupted. The Supreme Privy Council chose the Duchess of Courland, the daughter of Peter the Great's brother John, as empress. At the same time, the gentlemen in power forced her to sign conditions - conditions limiting autocratic power in favor of the oligarchy. Vice Chancellor Osterman helped Anna get rid of her condition, autocracy was restored, and a bloody drama began that lasted 10 long years.
The first thing they did was send them into exile, and a few years later the large family of princes Dolgoruky was destroyed, and a few years later - the family of princes Golitsyn. To Anna, who lived as a widow for twenty years in Courland, any German was nicer than a Russian. Foreigners were in charge of domestic and foreign policy. The Empress's court absorbed most of the state budget - the holiday of Anna and her courtiers continued throughout her reign.
An eternal holiday requires money. Where can I get them? Take it from others! So military teams went to the villages and villages for justice - to extract arrears from the peasants. And if the peasants could not pay the tax, then they took on the landowners. The peasants were beaten with sticks until they gave up everything they had hidden. The villages were depopulated - hundreds of thousands of serfs fled to border lands to escape tyranny. Sometimes military teams fled with them, to whom the state owed wages for many years and had no intention of paying them. The ruling elite - Germans by nationality, cared only about their own pockets, they did not care about Russian interests, they well understood that they were temporary workers, which is why they stole and robbed so diligently. Osterman returned to Persia Gilan, conquered with such difficulty by Peter the Great.
The Russian aristocracy was humiliated and robbed. Prince M.A. Golitsyn, an elegant diplomat, became the empress’s jester and went through all the humiliations of the “ice house” fun. The children of His Serene Highness Prince A.D. Menshikov, under pain of death, returned their father’s millions from the banks of Europe and gave them to Biron and the queen. The Russian patriot cabinet minister A.P. Volynsky ended his life on the chopping block. And even after Anna’s death, only after two palace coups, Petrov’s Daughter, Elizabeth, ascended to the Russian throne, throwing out all the little things from the Russian land. During her twenty years of reign, Elizaveta Petrovna never signed a single death warrant.
(life 1693–1740, reign 1730–1740)
According to the historian Solovyov, Anna “was free and gifted with all the abilities necessary for the throne.” She had a heroic, clumsy figure and a rough male voice that frightened even the guards. It was a difficult nature. She loved shooting and horse riding. She turned titled dignitaries into formal jesters. In the dungeons of the Secret Chancellery she organized a brutal reprisal against those undesirable. Fickle and secretive. Blindly subordinate to Biron, who could force him to change any decision or impose it. The ruler and Biron, uneducated and rude, cunning and cruel. Under them, loose morals and tasteless luxury, embezzlement and bribery, shameless flattery and servility, drunkenness and gambling, espionage and denunciation reigned.
In the person of Anna, a woman reigned on the Russian throne with the typical features of a serf-landowner. Before ascending the throne, she signed conditions limiting autocracy, which could be a step towards a constitutional monarchy.
Domestic policy:
– In order to surround herself with close and devoted people, she destroyed the Supreme Privy Council and restored the Senate (did not play a special role in the affairs).
“Biron, the empress’s favorite, played an all-powerful role at court.
– Anna and Biron surrounded themselves with smart and active people from among the German nobles who headed institutions, army and guards regiments.
– Spending money on endless entertainment events.
– Recreation of the Secret Investigation Cases of the Chancellery.
– The supreme state body was organized (1731) – the Cabinet of Ministers (the official council under the Empress, its decrees were equated with imperial ones).
– Problem solving: to ensure order and squeeze the maximum possible out of the population.
Result: political terror, disrespect for Russian customs, unbridled plunder of the treasury, vindictiveness of dignitaries, the omnipotence of the Secret Chancellery with its torture and reprisals, drill and cruelty in the army, the dominance of the Germans. Tax oppression became unbearable. Russia took on the appearance of a country devastated by war or pestilence.
- The desire to win over the noble class: landowners became complete masters of both their main wealth - the land, and the labor force - the serfs. The landowners themselves could decide the issue of an heir, dividing the land between them; collected state taxes from peasants; ensured police order in the village.
– Establishment of the Land Noble Corps, service life limited to 25 years, one of the sons could stay at home.
Result: the positions of landowners in the countryside were strengthened and turned into full-fledged representatives of state power in relation to the peasants; the service yoke of the nobility was eased; the social support of imperial power was ensured.
Sons of the Fatherland! - in tears
To the temple of ancient Sampson;
There, behind the fence, at the gate
The ashes of Biron's enemy rest in peace.
Kondraty Ryleev
The river of times in its rush
Takes away all people's affairs
And drowns in the abyss of oblivion
Nations, kingdoms and kings.
Gavrila Derzhavin
Now that the Empress is gone, I feel some relief. Moreover, I feel that the form of communication with the reader should even be changed. If I wrote before, now I want to attract the reader to an interview with me. Accordingly, the architectonics of my last chronicle also changes...
First of all, I would like to explain my attitude towards Anna the Bloody, to whose time this book is dedicated. In every negative personality, I always try to find traits that are close to positive, without which any historical figure will look like a dry and far-fetched scheme. When starting to write this chronicle, I looked in vain for such traits in Bloody Anna - I did not find them! I am reporting this here so that the reader does not suspect me of deliberately denigrating the monarchy.
I just don’t belong to those people who consider all monarchs to be complete fools and gloomy villains, preoccupied with only one thought - how to spoil the working people? There is no doubt that Russian autocrats did not belong to the best part of Russian society. But still, one cannot fail to note the militant activity of Peter I, the persistent patriotism of Elizabeth, the foresight of the mind of Catherine II, even in the chaotic nature of Paul I it is easy to find features of noble impulses... I did not denigrate Bloody Anne, for it is difficult to denigrate something that is by nature black!
In my understanding, Bloody Anna is a dirty, stupid woman, full of anger and vices; all these qualities were hidden under a bushel in Mitavian silence and rushed out at once when she achieved power over millions of slaves. Swagger and self-satisfaction replaced a sense of patriotism in her. Her reign was, as it were, strictly marked by two socially acute moments in Russian history - the “tearing” of standards in 1730 and the execution of Volynsky’s “passion-bearers” in 1740. The first act turned Russian life back - the feudal princes failed to limit the power of the monarchy. Bloody Anna appeared on the throne as the true embodiment of classical autocracy, the terrible centralism of power in her Cabinet, which she turned into an extension to her bedroom, and Russia was literally strangled in the octopus embrace of the bureaucracy.
When Biron was tried, he was accused of making a mockery of human dignity. The indictment spoke of “frequent (at court) fights brought to the point of blood and other torment and shameless exposure of men and women and other stingy dirty tricks between them, produced by his imagination, and even then he forced and forced them to do it, which is disgusting to nature... "
But they blamed Biron for this matter in vain! All the abominations and all that shame, which, as the judges wrote, “we are ashamed and indecent to announce,” were invented by Anna the Bloody for her own amusement, and the favorite was only present at this... In fact, Biron was condemned for what he did not do himself, and the empress along with him and others like him.
Anna Bloody is a wild lady on the Russian throne!
A gluttonous and greedy beast, thirsting for base pleasures, the blood of enemies, poetic and political praise, desiring wine with boiled pork and shameless flattery... In its own way - Saltychikha, only on a different scale: Saltychikha owned villages and beat 100 souls to death, Anna the Bloody received power over the giant country and slaughtered thousands of loyal subjects...
However, let’s leave her lying in the coffin, over which the decorations of the jester’s masquerades now flutter ridiculously.
Let's talk better about Biron, who began to rule Russia without having Russian citizenship!