Presidential Library marks 270th anniversary of Emperor Paul I

270 years ago, on October 1st, 1754, Paul I, the future emperor of Russia, was born. He was born at the Summer Palace of Elizaveta Petrovna, and 46 years later, he was killed as a result of a conspiracy at the Mikhailovsky Castle, which had been built on the very same site. Contemporaries remembered that Pavel had repeatedly stated that he wished to die where he was born, and by a mysterious coincidence, this came to pass.

From the very beginning of his life, Pavel was separated from his mother. The future Empress Catherine the Great only saw her son on the fortieth day after his birth. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna saw in her grandson a guarantee for the future of her empire, as his birth ensured the continuation of the family line of Peter the Great.

In Dmitry Kobeko's historical study, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich (1887), we can find Catherine's memories of her newborn son: "Elizabeth Petrovna would rush to him as soon as he started crying, and she would literally smother him with her affection. He was put in an extremely warm room, wrapped in flannel and placed in a crib lined with black fox fur. He was covered with a quilt made of satin and cotton wool, and then a pink velvet blanket with fur lining was placed on top."

When in June 1762, Peter III traveled to his beloved Oranienbaum for what would be the last time in his life, Catherine remained in St. Petersburg with Pavel and their mentor, Nikita Panin. They stayed at the Summer Palace, and soon after, Catherine moved to Peterhof. As Vasily Bilbasov wrote in his book The History of Catherine the Second, it was decided that Pavel Petrovich would stay in St. Petersburg to play a role if necessary. On July 9, 1762, during the palace coup, Pavel was brought from the Summer Palace to the Winter Palace where Catherine was staying. He was still wearing his night clothes, as Panin had obviously been in a rush. Catherine took the baby onto the balcony to show him to the people and the soldiers.. The crowd greeted the new heir to the throne with renewed shouts of delight and cheers. However, it was 34 years before Paul became emperor. Catherine the Great had ascended to the throne in the meantime.

Two losses of his relatives, within six months of each other - vague rumors about his father's violent death and his mother's involvement in it - all this shocked Pavel. As Count Fyodor Golovkin wrote in The Court and Reign of Paul I (1912), "the emperor was born at an evil hour." For a long time, there was something uncertain and fragile in his life, and this constant anxiety formed the basis of his character.

Pavel returned to the Winter Palace in November 1796, as soon as he heard that Catherine II was nearing her death. After becoming emperor, he immediately began to transform it into his own personal residence: "Immediately, everything in the palace took on a different appearance, spurs, boots, and cleavers clattered, and, as if after a military conquest, officers burst into the rooms noisily," Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin reported in his Notes (1860). In turn, historian Nikolai Schilder noted in his essay Emperor Paul the First (1901) that "from the very first days of his reign, the new emperor's rule became a complete rejection of the old one; the magnificent, luxurious court of the empress was transformed into a massive guardhouse."

In the first month of his reign, Paul issued a decree to rename the former Summer Palace as Mikhailovsky and ordered the construction of a new, impregnable palace-castle on the site of the dilapidated Summer House. This was done in haste for the permanent residence of the sovereign.

Paul I found it difficult to trust his subjects and built the Winter Palace as a fortress with a breastwork, water moat, and four drawbridges. He believed that this would protect him from popular rebellion and unrest. We can read about this in the Notes of an Eyewitness to Troubled Times of the Reigns of Paul I, Alexander I, and Nicholas I, written by Major General Mikhail von Vizin in 1859.. The work continued around the clock, with assistants invited to assist architect Vincenzo Brenna. Building materials were delivered from all over without delay.

On February 13, 1801, Pavel Petrovich and his family moved into their new residence with great ceremony. On the night of March 24, the emperor was assassinated in his own bedchamber. He had lived in his dream castle for exactly 40 days, and died in the very place where he was born...

The history of Mikhailovskii Castle, like the entire history of Pavel Petrovich's life and brief reign, is filled with secrets, fateful coincidences, and astonishing historical facts. The materials from the collection Paul I (1754–1801), which is part of the larger electronic collection House of Romanov presented on the Presidential Library's portal, can help to try to determine the truth from fiction.