Catherine II's son Pavel Petrovich was born in 1754, and immediately the then Empress Elizaveta Petrovna took the newborn to her to raise him as an heir. Catherine saw her son only a few weeks after his birth. The boy did not know parental affection, and over the years his relationship with his parents, especially his mother, did not improve. Coldness, aloofness and mistrust separated mother and son. The boy grew up without a child's environment, sickly, and overly impressionable. His teacher N.I. Panin gave Pavel a good education, but at the same time turned him against his mother and her politics.

I. G. Pullman. Portrait of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich

Paul was brought up as a future “good king”, as a “knight” with medieval concepts of honor and nobility in relation to a woman and a friend. At the same time, this developed in the boy pomposity, an interest in theatricality, in external, petty manifestations of form rather than content. Over the years, this created insoluble contradictions between the real and imaginary world in Paul’s soul. This was expressed in attacks of uncontrollable anger, hysterics of Paul and at the same time in secrecy and interest in mysticism. Later, when Catherine became empress, she herself tried to see her son less often. The fact was that on the eve of the death of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, part of the nobility, led by Paul’s educator Count Nikita Panin, saw in the young man the direct heir of Elizabeth herself.

With this approach to succession to the throne, the boy’s parents, Pyotr Fedorovich and Ekaterina Alekseevna, were removed from power. And although, contrary to these plans, Peter III ascended the throne, and then Catherine II came to power, such plans and intentions acutely affected the new empress. She saw her son as a political rival and tried to keep him away from government affairs. This, naturally, did little to bring Pavel closer to his mother. Not without reason, he feared that after the death of his mother, the throne would pass not to him, but to his son Alexander. Rumors about such intentions of the empress were very persistent, and they naturally reached Paul.

When preparing the famous project “Instructions to the Senate” in the mid-1780s, Catherine II especially carefully worked on a topic that was important to her at that moment - the possibility of depriving the previously approved heir of the right to the throne. While working on this project, Catherine II became acquainted with the fundamental acts of Peter the Great on this topic. The Empress identified several reasons that would allow her to refuse the heir: an attempt by the heir to overthrow the reigning monarch, his participation in a rebellion against the sovereign, the heir’s lack of what he needed to rule. human qualities and abilities, belonging to a faith other than the Orthodox, possession of the throne of another state and, finally, the act of the reigning monarch to abdicate the heir from the throne. Fundamentally important was the provision on the creation - in the event of the heir's minority - of a regency system, with the regent appointed from among the members of the imperial family by the highest government institutions - the Council and the Senate, which must guarantee compliance with the law on succession to the throne. All this careful work on the provision on the abdication of the heir was directly related to modern project“Order to the Senate” by the dynastic situation, the difficult situation in imperial family. Catherine II's relationship with her son, heir to the throne Paul, was uneven, but in the 1780s these relations became downright bad and remained so until the death of Catherine II. Society was full of rumors about Catherine's intention, taking advantage of the law of 1722, to deprive her son of succession to the throne and transfer these rights to her grandson Alexander Pavlovich, in whom she doted. This is what Peter the Great did in his time with Tsarevich Alexei.

The philosophy of power of Tsarevich Paul was complex and contradictory. He tried to combine the power of autocracy and human freedoms, “the rule of law,” based on ideas about traditions, desired ideals, and even geographical factor. But as the years passed, the projects for state reorganization that he drew up in the quiet of his office became covered with dust and forgotten. Outside the window, life was slowly going on, hopeless for the heir - the power of the mother was enormous, the victories of her armies were stunning. Few people remembered him.

View of the Gatchina Palace and park

After the death of G. G. Orlov, Catherine gave Pavel the estate of Gatchino (later Gatchina), where he settled with his young wife Maria Fedorovna. She was German princess Dorothea Sophia Augusta Louise of Württemberg and married (after she converted to Orthodoxy) with Paul in 1776. Gatchina (and then Pavlovsk) became a true father's home for big family heir. Far from the “big court,” which aroused Paul’s fear and hatred, the heir created his own special world in Gatchina. It was a world of military discipline, the spirit of a military camp with a distinctly pro-Prussian order was in the air. Indeed, for Paul, as once for his father Peter III, the ideal of a sovereign was Prussian king Frederick II. Here, behind the barriers and posts, Pavel felt safe. He was surrounded by, albeit not very smart and educated, but faithful people, here there were no limits to his will. All this influenced the character of Paul, who was accustomed to obedience and intolerant of any kind of “freethinking.” Started before his eyes French revolution exacerbated the conservatism and intolerance of Pavel, who had moved away from the dreams of his youth and soul-saving conversations with Panin. In Gatchina he became what we know him later - nervous, painfully proud, capricious, suspicious.

Let's look at the source

The parallel with Tsarevich Alexei is not far-fetched. Noteworthy notes from Catherine historical nature about his case, in which the empress reflects on the right of the parent-sovereign: “It must be admitted that the unhappy parent is the one who sees himself forced, in order to save the common cause, to abandon his offspring. Here the autocratic and parental powers are combined (or are combined). So, I believe that the wise Emperor Peter I undoubtedly had the greatest reasons for abdicating his ungrateful, disobedient and incapable son.”

And then follows such a lively and vivid description of Tsarevich Alexei, who died 10 years before the birth of Catherine herself, that through the Empress’s drawings negative traits heir to Peter the Great, the appearance of another, more familiar person to her, Tsarevich Paul, clearly appears:

“This one was filled with hatred, malice, and malicious envy against him, he looked for specks of bad dust in his father’s deeds and actions in the basket of good, he listened to his caresses, he separated the truth from his ears, and nothing could please him so much as by blaspheming and speaking ill of the glorious his parent. He himself was already lazy, cowardly, ambiguous, unsteady, stern, timid, drunk, hot-headed, stubborn, prude, ignorant, of very mediocre intelligence and poor health.”

Death came to Catherine II unexpectedly, and she did not have time, as she may have thought before, to exercise the right to appoint her successor. On November 6, 1796, Paul I freely ascended the Russian throne.

Russian monarchs are credited with a considerable number of illegitimate children, most of whom never actually existed. There are very real historical people, who were considered imperial children, but who in fact were not.

But there are people whose origin historians are still puzzling over. One of them is Elizaveta Grigorievna Tyomkina.

U Catherine the Great there were many favorites, however Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin stands apart. He managed to become not only the empress’s lover, but also her close friend, right hand, an assistant in all matters and endeavors.

Replaced as favorite Grigory Orlov, his namesake turned out to be wiser, more far-sighted, more active.

The relationship between Potemkin and Catherine II during a certain period of time was so close that even a version arose about their secret wedding.

As you know, Ekaterina gave birth to a son, Alexei, from Grigory Orlov. Considering the Empress’s affection for Potemkin, the version that Catherine decided to give birth to a child from him also looks quite realistic.

Secret birth

On July 13, 1775, a girl was secretly born in Moscow and named Elizabeth. The infant was taken by Potemkin to his sister Maria Alexandrovna Samoilova, and his nephew was appointed guardian of the girl Alexander Nikolaevich Samoilov.

When the girl grew up, in the 1780s they found another guardian for her - he became Life physician Ivan Filippovich Beck, who treated the Empress’s grandchildren. Subsequently, the girl was sent to a boarding school for education and upbringing.

The question of the paternity of Grigory Potemkin in in this case does not arise - direct evidence is the surname “Tyomkina” given to the girl.

According to the tradition of that time, the surname of the illegitimate son of a high-born father was formed by removing the first syllable from the parent’s surname. This is how the Betskys, Pnins and Litsyns appeared in Rus' - the illegitimate descendants of the princes Trubetskoys, Repnins and Golitsyns. So there is no doubt that Lisa Tyomkina was the daughter of Grigory Potemkin.

But was the empress her mother?

For some time before and after July 13, 1775, Catherine did not appear in public. By official version, Catherine got an upset stomach due to unwashed fruit. During this period, she was actually in Moscow, where the celebration of the Kyuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty, which completed Russian-Turkish war. That is, Catherine had all the conditions to secretly give birth to a child.

"It's time to have children"

However, there were many skeptics then and now. Most of all, the age of Catherine herself raised doubts: by the time of the expected birth, she was already 46 years old, which is quite a lot from the point of view of childbearing today, but by the standards of the 18th century it seemed an prohibitive age.

King of France Louis XVI , the same one who was about to lose his head from the guillotine knife, sneered: “Mistress Potemkina is a good forty-five: it’s time to give birth to children.”

The second reason for doubt is Catherine’s attitude towards Elizaveta Tyomkina. Or rather, the absence of any relationship. Against the background of first concern, and then anger towards the son from Orlov, Alexei Bobrinsky, such indifference of the empress looks strange.

It cannot be said that the father spoiled the girl with attention, although Elizabeth, of course, had everything she needed.

There is an assumption that Elizabeth’s mother could have been one of Potemkin’s favorites, who, of course, could not compete with the empress and about whom little is known. However, there is no convincing evidence for this version either.

“The family lived amicably, cheerfully and noisily”

According to contemporaries, Elizaveta Tyomkina herself knew from childhood that she was the daughter of Grigory Potemkin and Catherine the Great.

After the death of her father, Elizaveta Tyomkina was granted large estates in the Kherson region - a region to the development and arrangement of which His Serene Highness devoted a lot of effort.

In 1794, a 19-year-old rich bride was married to a 28-year-old Second Major Ivan Khristoforovich Kalageorgi.

The son of a Greek nobleman, guardsman-cuirassier Ivan Kalageorgi was a notable person. From childhood he was brought up with the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich and therefore was one of those close to the imperial family.

This marriage turned out to be happy - Ivan and Elizabeth had ten children, 4 sons and 6 daughters. Ivan Kalageorgi himself rose to the rank of governor of the Ekaterinoslav province.

The character of Elizaveta Tyomkina was described in different ways - some called her spoiled, self-confident and uncontrollable, others called her a modest woman and a good mother.

Great-grandson of Elizaveta Tiomkina, famous literary critic and linguist Dmitry Nikolaevich Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, described the life of his ancestors this way: “The family lived amicably, cheerfully and noisily, but at the same time somehow very restless, expecting from time to time all sorts of troubles and misfortunes.”

Portrait from the Tretyakov Gallery

After Elizabeth got married, one of her former guardians, Alexander Samoilov, commissioned a famous artist Vladimir Borovikovsky her portrait. “What I need most... is to have a portrait of Elizaveta Grigorievna Kalageorgieva... I want the painter Borovikovsky to copy her... let Elizaveta Grigorievna be painted in such a way that her neck is open and her hair, disheveled in curls, lies on it in no order... .,” Samoilov gave instructions in a letter to his representative.

Portrait of Elizaveta Grigorievna Tyomkina as Diana. 1798 Photo: Public Domain

The portrait was ready a year later. Borovikovsky also performed a miniature repetition of it on zinc. On it, Elizabeth was depicted in the image of the ancient Greek goddess Diana, with her breasts bare, with a crescent-shaped decoration in her hair.

The portrait and miniature were presented to the Kalageorgi family.

Elizaveta Grigorievna Tyomkina-Kalageorgi lived a life far from political storms and died in May 1854, at the age of 78.

In 1884, Elizabeth's son Konstantin Ivanovich Kalageorgi offered to buy a portrait of his mother to a collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov for 6 thousand rubles.

Tretyakov considered the price excessively high. Then the grandson of Elizabeth and the son of Constantine, a justice of the peace, joined the bargaining Nikolai Konstantinovich Kalageorgi, who wrote to the collector: “The portrait of my grandmother has a triple historical meaning- according to the personality of the artist, according to the personality of my grandmother and as a type of beauty of the eighteenth century, which constitutes its value completely independently of the fashionable trends of contemporary art.”

Tretyakov, however, was not convinced by this argument. As a result, the portrait remained in the Kalageorgi family.

In 1907, the widow of Judge Kalageorgi sold the portrait to the Moscow collector Tsvetkov. 18 years later, Tsvetkov’s collection became part of the State Tretyakov Gallery. The miniature with Elizaveta Tiomkina as Diana was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery in 1964.

The portrait of Grigory Potemkin’s daughter can be seen today by all visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery. See and try to independently conclude whether she was the daughter of Catherine II. After all, historians have never had 100% proof of the correctness or incorrectness of this version.

History of illegitimate son of Catherine II and Grigory Orlov.

F.S. Rokotov Portrait of A.G. Bobrinsky as a child

Alexey Grigorievich was illegitimate son Empress Catherine II and Grigory Grigorievich Orlov. The future founder of the Bobrinsky family was born in Winter Palace April 11 (April 22, new style) 1762. Immediately upon birth, the baby was given by Catherine II to her wardrobe master Vasily Grigorievich Shkurin, in whose family he was raised until 1774, along with Shkurin’s sons.

F. S. Rokotov. PortraitCatherineII .

A. I. Cherny (Chernov). Portrait of Count G. G. Orlov. Copper, enamel. State Hermitage Museum

By order of the Empress, the child was taken and handed over to I.I. in 1775. Betsky, and Catherine II decided to assign the child, who bore the name Alexey Grigorievich, the surname Bobrinsky, after the name of the village of Spassky, also known as Bobriki, Epifansky district, Tula province, purchased for him material support back in 1763, by order of Catherine II, at Ladyzhensky.

The child, according to Betsky, was of a weak constitution, fearful, timid, shy, insensitive to anything, but meek and obedient. His knowledge at the age of 13 was limited only to French and German languages, the beginnings of arithmetic and very little information from geography.

Khristinek, Karl Ludwig - Portrait of Count Alexei Grigorievich Bobrinsky

Soon Bobrinsky was placed in the ground cadet corps, where he was under the special supervision of Ribas (who was the censor in the corps at that time), and continued to visit Betsky, whose favor he apparently enjoyed. In 1782, Bobrinsky completed a course of study in the corps and was awarded a smaller gold medal and the rank of army lieutenant. Soon he was promoted to lieutenant in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment and was sent on leave to travel around Russia and abroad, according to the regulations cadet corps of that time, together with other best students from his graduation. Betskoy then wrote instructions for the trip and instructed Colonel Alexei Mikhailovich Bushuev (who informed Betsky about the trip in detail) to accompany the young people, as well as Academician Ozeretskovsky, who made the entire trip with them throughout Russia.

The Bobrinsky mansion is one of the best and most complete examples of lordly architecture late XVIII centuries. The house was built by the architect Luigi Rusca.

Bobrinsky visited Moscow, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Bilimbaevsky plant, Ufa, Simbirsk, Saratov, Astrakhan, Kizlyar, Taganrog, Kherson, Kyiv and then arrived in Warsaw, from where he set off on a further journey through Europe. He visited Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Turin, Geneva, Bobrinsky finally arrived with his companions in Paris in the spring of 1785.
The entire trip was made with money received from St. Petersburg by Bobrinsky, in size three thousand rubles per month, and interest on the capital deposited in his name in the guardianship council by Catherine II.

(Portrait of Count A.G. Bobrinsky in a fancy dress

On the back there is a paper sticker that says that the portrait was found in the attic of the Bobrinsky house (on Galernaya Street in St. Petersburg). His face really does resemble his mother.)

At that time, this capital was managed by Betskoy, who regularly transferred money to Bobrinsky abroad through banks, which soon became a source of discord and displeasure between Bobrinsky and his companions, as well as Betsky. The companions, in need of money, constantly asked Bobrinsky for it, who reluctantly granted such requests and often even rejected them completely.
Bushuev said on this occasion: “it is hardly possible to find another like him (Bobrinsky) young man, who would love property so much” (November 9); or, in another place: “I urged him to at least think about his comrades that they do not have money... for this he wanted to assign them an amount, but until now he has not given it... it is difficult to describe all the troubles of our situation.”

The reason for such prudence was that Bobrinsky did not escape the natural hobbies of his years for women and games and began to need money himself. He wrote about this to the Empress, complaining about Betsky’s failure to send him money, who soon ordered Bushuev to “immediately return to St. Petersburg with all his companions.” Bobrinsky was allowed to stay if he did not want to return.

Bobrinsky did not go to Russia, continued to live in Paris and received, by order of Catherine, 74,426 rubles, in addition to the monthly money he received. At the same time, the Empress wrote to the famous Melchior Grimm about Bobrinsky, entrusted the young man to his careful care, asked to arrange the latter’s financial affairs in Paris and, if necessary, even provide him with money up to a thousand louis d’or, but no more.

Portrait. 1790.

At the end of 1787, Bobrinsky moved from Paris to London, but did not stay there long. According to Komarovsky, a person familiar to Bobrinsky suddenly left for Paris, and Bobrinsky immediately followed her.
Meanwhile Russian ambassador in London, Count S.R. Vorontsov, received an order from the Empress on January 3, 1788, to demand an immediate return to Russia through Riga. Count P.V. Zavadovsky, who instead of I.P. Betsky was entrusted with guardianship over Bobrinsky, wrote to the same Vorontsov so that he would make an effort to send Bobrinsky as soon as possible, but not let him feel that in St. Petersburg they were dissatisfied with his behavior.

On February 5, 1788, Grimm informed Vorontsov that Bobrinsky, having spent only three days in Paris, big secret, went back to London, promising to return soon and go with the said person to Italy. Despite Vorontsov’s convictions to go to Russia as soon as possible, Bobrinsky still hesitated to leave.
Only on April 27, the Empress informed Grimm about Bobrinsky’s arrival in Riga, from where he was sent to live in Revel; at the same time, Zavadovsky was sent to Revel to organize his affairs and to explain things to him.

While abroad, Bobrinsky was successively promoted from lieutenant to second captain (January 1, 1785).
In Reval, Bobrinsky soon shook himself off from foreign impressions, repented of his lifestyle abroad, expressed a desire to enter active service and asked, as a special favor, permission to come to St. Petersburg and fall at the feet of the Empress.
Catherine II answered him that she had forgotten his past behavior and assigned him, for his own correction, the city of Revel as his place of residence, in which he certainly missed, but could easily correct himself. Regarding Bobrinsky's request to come to the capital, the Empress added that Zavadovsky would inform him when the time came to leave Revel.

Soon after this, Bobrinsky asked for his dismissal from the captains of the Horse Guards. This request was granted, and on June 18, 1790, he was dismissed with the rank of foreman.
Bobrinsky spent the remaining years of the reign of Catherine II in Reval, despite a secondary request for permission to come to St. Petersburg. Zavadovsky, as a guardian, took care of putting his affairs in order and paying his debts and sent him money for living.

Ober Palen Castle from above

With the Highest permission, Bobrinsky in 1794 bought himself an estate in Livonia, near the city of Yuryev (Dorpta), Ober-Palen castle, and on January 16, 1796 he married the girl Baroness Anna Vladimirovna Ungern-Sternberg (born January 9, 1769, died 28 March 1846), whose parents owned the Kirna estate near Revel, where Bobrinsky often visited them and met his future wife.

Soon after the wedding, Bobrinsky and his wife came to St. Petersburg for a very a short time, the Empress and her wife appeared, were kindly received, but again returned to Ober-Palen, where he lived until the death of Empress Catherine II.

Married to Baroness Anna Ungern-Sternberg (1769-1846), he had children:

Maria Alekseevna (1798-1835), married to the chamberlain, Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Gagarin (1784-1842). According to her contemporaries, she was smart and educated; she died suddenly in great suffering.

Alexey Alekseevich (1800-1868), famous agriculturalist and sugar refiner.
He was married to maid of honor Sofya Alexandrovna Samoilova (1797-1866), daughter of Count A. N. Samoilov.

Pavel Alekseevich (1801-1830), staff captain, killed in a duel in Florence. He was married in 1822 to Yulia Stanislavovna Sobakina, née Yunosha-Belinskaya (1804-1892) and had 2 sons and 3 daughters.

Vasily Alekseevich (1804-1874), served in the Life Guards Hussar Regiment, Decembrist.

On November 11, 1796, Prosecutor General Count Samoilov informed Bobrinsky of the Highest command of the new Emperor to come to St. Petersburg, “and Bobrinsky can leave it freely whenever he pleases.” He was not slow to take advantage of this and appeared to Paul I, and on November 12, 1796, being a retired brigadier, he was appointed commander of the fourth squadron of the Life Guards Horse Guards and elevated to the dignity of count of the Russian Empire, together with his recently born son Alexei. (This son died June 20, 1797). In addition, Paul I granted Bobrinsky the huge house of Prince Orlov (the so-called Stegelman House; a little later this house was purchased from Bobrinsky for the Alexander Orphan Institute).

On the day of the Emperor’s coronation, April 5 (April 19), 1797, Bobrinsky was promoted to major general, with retention in the horse guards, and on June 31 he was granted a command in the Gdov district, consisting of 11 villages, awarded to the Knight of the Order of St. Anne of the first degree .
But already on September 17 of the same year, Major General of the Horse Guards Count Bobrinsky, who commanded the second battalion of it, was ordered to be in the army and wear a common cavalry uniform, and on December 24, 1797, he was accepted as one of the honorary guardians of the council at the St. Petersburg orphanage.

Then, on September 2, 1798, he was dismissed from military service, and on September 25 he resigned the title of honorary guardian and retired to the Tula province, in Bogoroditsk, where he lived most years, continuing to visit Ober Palen and St. Petersburg.
He was studying agriculture, mineralogy and astronomy, and above his house on Galernaya Street he built himself a turret that served him as an observatory.

At the end of his life, Bobrinsky, according to contemporaries, stopped caring about his appearance, only occasionally, in front of guests, he hastily put some kind of wig on his large, prematurely bald head, often on one side. He wore greasy clothes and went for walks in an old-fashioned gray frock coat, the pockets of which were filled with coins that he distributed to the poor.
Bobrinsky was buried in the family crypt in Bobriki. The Bobrinsky burial place was destroyed in the 1920s. XX century, but restored in 2003

The history of relationships between Russian Empress Catherine II and men no less than hers government activity. Many of Catherine's favorites were not only lovers, but also major statesmen.

Favoritism and Catherine's childrenII

The development of relationships between the rulers of European countries and the opposite sex in the 17th century. XVIII centuries created the institution of favoritism. However, you need to distinguish between favorites and lovers. The title of favorite was practically a court one, but was not included in the “table of ranks.” In addition to pleasures and rewards, this brought the need to fulfill certain state duties.

It is believed that Catherine II had 23 lovers, and not every one of them can be called a favorite. Most European sovereigns changed sexual partners much more often. It was they, the Europeans, who created the legend about the depravity of the Russian Empress. On the other hand, you can’t call her chaste either.

It is generally accepted that the future Catherine II, who came to Russia at the invitation of Empress Elizabeth, was married in 1745 to Grand Duke Peter, an impotent man who was not interested in the charms of his young wife. But he was interested in other women and periodically changed them, however, nothing is known about his children from his mistresses.

About children Grand Duchess, and then Empress Catherine II, more is known, but even more unconfirmed rumors and assumptions:

There are not that many children, especially given that not all of them necessarily belonged to Catherine the Great.

How Catherine diedII

Versions of death (November 17, 1796) great empress there are several. Their authors never cease to mock the sexual irrepressibility of the empress, as always “not seeing the beam in their own eye.” Some of the versions are simply full of hatred and clearly fabricated, most likely, by revolutionary France, which hates absolutism, or by its other enemies:

1. The Empress died during sexual intercourse with a stallion raised above her on ropes. Allegedly, it was he who was crushed.
2. The Empress died while having an affair with a wild boar.
3. Catherine the Great was killed in the back by a Pole while relieving herself in the toilet.
4. Catherine, with her own weight, broke a toilet seat in the toilet, which she had made from the throne of the Polish king.

These myths are completely baseless and have nothing to do with Russian Empress. There is an opinion that impartial versions of death could have been invented and spread at court by the son who hated the empress - future emperor Paul I.

The most reliable versions of death are:

1. Catherine died on the second day after she suffered a severe heart attack.
2. The cause of death was a stroke (apoplexy), which found the empress in the restroom. In painful agony, without regaining consciousness for about 3 hours, Empress Catherine died.
3. Paul organized the murder (or untimely provision of first aid) of the empress. While the empress was in her death throes, her son Paul found and destroyed the will transferring power to his son Alexander.
4. An additional version of death is the gallbladder ruptured during a fall.

Official and generally accepted version, when determining the causes of the empress’s death, a stroke is considered, but what actually happened is not known or has not been conclusively proven.

Empress Catherine II the Great was buried in Peter and Paul Fortress in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.

Personal life and death of people with great value for the history of the state, always causes a lot of speculation and rumors. The corrupted “free” Europe, as soon as it saw the results of European “enlightenment” in Russia, tried to prick, humiliate, and insult the “wild” one. How many favorites and lovers there were, how many children Catherine the Great had are not the most important questions for understanding the essence of her reign. What is more important for history is what the empress did during the day, not at night.

Publications in the Museums section

Portraits of illegitimate children of Russian emperors

P descendants ruling dynasty, born from favorites - what secrets do their images conceal? We look at the “fruits of love” of the Romanov family with Sofia Bagdasarova.

In the Russian kingdom, unlike medieval Europe with morality, at least in the chronicles, it was strict: there are no mentions of extramarital affairs and children of monarchs (with the exception of Ivan the Terrible). The situation changed after Peter the Great turned Rus' into the Russian Empire. The court began to focus on France, including in gallant adventures. However, at first this had no effect on the appearance of bastards. In the first half of the 18th century, the Romanov dynasty had a shortage of legal heirs, not to mention illegitimate children. With the accession of Catherine the Great in 1762, stability came to the country - it also influenced the increase in the birth rate of illegitimate offspring. And, of course, the appearance of works of art dedicated to them.

Son of Catherine II

Fedor Rokotov. Portrait of Alexey Bobrinsky. Around 1763. State Russian Museum

Alexey Grigorievich Bobrinsky was the son of then simply Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna (without serial number) and her favorite Grigory Orlov. He was born under stressful conditions: Catherine was pregnant with him when Empress Elizabeth Petrovna died in December 1761 and her legal husband Peter III ascended the throne. Relations between the spouses by that time were already very strained, they communicated little, and the emperor did not even know about interesting position Catherine. When the time came for the birth in April, the devoted valet Shkurin set fire to his house to distract Peter, who loved to look at the fire. Having barely recovered (a little more than two months had passed), Catherine led the coup, and spent the night without dismounting her horse.

Alexey grew up completely different from his passionate, intelligent parents; he received a poor education, went on a drinking spree, incurred debts, and, on the orders of his angry mother, lived throughout her reign in the Baltic states, away from the court.

In the portrait by Rokotov, a boy with a silver rattle in his hands is depicted at about a year old. When the painting came to the Russian Museum, it was believed that it was a portrait of his half-brother, Emperor Paul. The subtle resemblance to the mother's features, and the fact that the painting came from her private chambers, seemed to confirm this version. However, experts in Rokotov’s work saw that, judging by the style, the painting was created in the mid-1760s, when Pavel was already ten years old. Comparison with other portraits of Bobrinsky proved that it was he who was depicted.

Daughter of Catherine II

Vladimir Borovikovsky. Portrait of Elizaveta Grigorievna Tyomkina. 1798. Tretyakov Gallery

Elizaveta Grigorievna Tyomkina was the daughter of the Empress's favorite Grigory Potemkin - this is evidenced by her artificial shortened surname (these were given by Russian aristocrats to illegitimate children), and the patronymic, and the words of her son. Who exactly was her mother, unlike Bobrinsky, is a mystery. Catherine II never showed attention to her, however, the version about her motherhood is widespread. Tyomkina’s son, directly pointing out that she is Potemkina on her father’s side, writes evasively that Elizaveta Grigorievna “on her mother’s side is also of high-ranking origin.”

If the empress is really her mother, then she gave birth to a child at the age of 45, during the celebration of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace, when, according to the official version, Catherine suffered from an upset stomach due to unwashed fruit. Potemkin's nephew, Count Alexander Samoilov, was involved in raising the girl. When she grew up, she was given a huge dowry and married to Ivan Kalageorgi, a school friend of one of the grand dukes. Tyomkina gave birth to ten children and, apparently, was happy. One of her daughters married the son of the sculptor Martos - is this really how the author of “Minin and Pozharsky” became related to the Romanovs?

The portrait painted by Borovikovsky, at first glance, is quite in line with the images of beauties for which this artist became so famous. But still, what a contrast with the portrait of Lopukhina or other languid young ladies of Borovikovsky! Red-haired Tyomkina clearly inherited both temperament and willpower from her father, and even an empire-style dress in antique fashion does not give her coldness. Today this painting is one of the decorations of the Tretyakov Gallery collection, proving that Borovikovsky could reflect the most different sides human character. But the founder of the museum, Tretyakov, twice refused to buy a portrait from her descendants: in the 1880s, the art of the gallant age seemed old-fashioned, and he preferred to invest money in current, highly social Itinerants.

Daughter of Alexander I

Unknown artist. Portrait of Sofia Naryshkina. 1820s

Sofya Dmitrievna Naryshkina was the daughter of the long-time favorite of Emperor Alexander I, Maria Antonovna Naryshkina. Despite the fact that the beauty deceived the emperor (and her husband) either with Prince Grigory Gagarin, or with Count Adam Ozharovsky, or with someone else, Alexander I considered most of her children to be his own. In addition to the eldest daughter Marina, born from her husband, Maria Antonovna, during the 14 years of her relationship with the emperor, gave birth to five more children, two of whom survived - Sophia and Emmanuel. The emperor especially loved Sophia, who was even called “Sofya Alexandrovna” and not “Dmitrievna” in the world.

Alexander I was concerned about her fate and wanted to marry the girl to one of richest people Russia - the son of Parasha Zhemchugova, Dmitry Nikolaevich Sheremetev, but he managed to evade this honor. Sophia was engaged to the son of her mother's friend - Andrei Petrovich Shuvalov, who expected great things from this career takeoff, especially since the emperor had already begun to joke with him in a kindred way. But in 1824, 16-year-old Sophia died of consumption. On the day of the funeral, the upset careerist groom said to a friend: “My dear, what significance I have lost!” Two years later he married a millionaire, the widow of Platon Zubov. And the poet Pyotr Pletnev dedicated the lines to her death: “She did not come for the earth; / She blossomed not in an earthly way, / And like a star in the distance, / Without approaching us, she shone.”

In a small miniature painted in the 1820s, Sophia is depicted as young, pure girls were supposed to be depicted - without an elaborate hairstyle or rich jewelry, in a simple dress. Vladimir Sollogub left a description of her appearance: “Her childish, seemingly transparent face, large blue childish eyes, light blond curly curls gave her an unearthly glow.”

Daughter of Nicholas I

Franz Winterhalter. Portrait of Sofia Trubetskoy, Countess de Morny. 1863. Chateau-Compiegne

Sofya Sergeevna Trubetskaya was the daughter of Ekaterina Petrovna Musina-Pushkina, married to Sergei Vasilyevich Trubetskoy (future Lermontov's second) while heavily pregnant. Contemporaries believed that the father of the child was Emperor Nicholas I, because it was he who organized the wedding. After the birth of the baby, the couple separated - Ekaterina Petrovna and the child went to Paris, and her husband was sent to serve in the Caucasus.

Sophia grew up to be a beauty. When she was 18 years old, he saw the girl at the coronation of her alleged brother Alexander II French ambassador, Duke de Morny and proposed to her. The Duke was not embarrassed by the dubiousness of Trubetskoy’s origins: he himself was the illegitimate son of the Dutch Queen Hortense of Beauharnais. And moreover, he even flaunted the fact that for several generations there were only bastards in his family: “I am the great-grandson of a great king, the grandson of a bishop, the son of a queen,” meaning Louis XV and Talleyrand (who, among other things, bore the title of bishop) . In Paris, the newlywed was among the first beauties. After the Duke's death, she married the Spanish Duke of Albuquerque, created a sensation in Madrid and in 1870 erected the first Christmas tree there (an exotic Russian custom!).

Her portrait was painted by Winterhalter, a fashionable portrait painter of the era who painted both Queen Victoria and Empress Maria Alexandrovna. A bouquet of wildflowers in the hands of a beauty and rye in her hair hints at naturalness and simplicity. The white outfit emphasizes this impression, as do pearls (of fabulous value, however).

Children of Alexander II

Konstantin Makovsky. Portrait of the children of His Serene Highness Princess Yuryevskaya. 19th century

George, Olga and Ekaterina Alexandrovich, His Serene Highness Princes Yuryevsky, were illegitimate children of Emperor Alexander II from his long-term mistress, Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova. After his wife Maria Alexandrovna died, the emperor, unable to withstand even two months of mourning, quickly married his beloved and granted her and the children the title and new surname, while simultaneously legitimizing them. His murder by the Narodnaya Volya next year stopped the further flow of honors and gifts.

Georgy died in 1913, but continued the Yuryevsky family, which still exists today. Daughter Olga married Pushkin's grandson, the unlucky heir to the Luxembourg throne, and lived with him in Nice. She died in 1925. The youngest, Ekaterina, died in 1959, having survived both the revolution and both world wars. She lost her fortune and was forced to earn a professional living by singing at concerts.

Portrait of Konstantin Makovsky, which shows the three of them in childhood, - is typical of this secular portrait painter, from whom many aristocrats ordered their images. The picture is so typical that long years it was considered an image of unknown children, and only in the 21st century did specialists from the Grabar Center determine who these three were.