Ivanovich Romanov

Don't know too much about 18th century Russia, but I was wondering about the possibility/probability of a longer reign for Ivan VI. There were plans in the works to marry Yelizaveta Petrovna to Anton Ulrich's brother, Ludwig of Brunswick. This wouldve sent Lizzie out of Russia.
However this plan was scuttled when Lizzie decided on being empress herself. Ludwig ended as sometime regent of the Netherlands, but wouldve become duke of Courland as dowry.

So what if Lizzie and Ludwig had married, and Ivan VI gets a full lifespan and reign as Czar. What would the effects be?
 
First of all, is Ivan VI not yet imprisoned or imprisoned already? Second, even if he wasn't imprisoned, he was too dangerous to be left alone, to Elizabeth's mind.
 
Well, if Liz is out of St. Petersburg, then there's no one to throw Ivan et al in jail. Anna Ivanovna was only chosen over her sister Ekaterina because they were afraid Ekaterina's husband would try to meddle too much in Russian affairs. The same might then stand for Liz, who's then married to a foreigner (and the brother-in-law of the Regent).

So let's assume Ivan is never thrown in jail - and even though Liz considered him dangerous, there's a story that she once paid a visit incognito to the prison where he was kept and spoke to him through a curtain. It is said she came away in tears at what she had done.

So, Ludwig Ernst gets the duchy of Courland and Liz as a wife, Anton Ulrich marries Anna Leopoldovna and has their five children. (I read somewhere as well that he had two bastard children too, but nowhere else mentions them, so any info about them is appreciated).

And then Ivan and Ekaterina (who doesn't go deaf since there's no soldier to drop her on her head during their arrest) marry the eldest son and eldest daughter of Liz and Ludwig (the French had a similar plan for marrying the prospective eldest son and eldest daughter of the dauphin (Francis II) to the prospective eldest son and daughter of Elizabeth I).
 
I think Ivan VI might be the most tragic royal in history. The only remote parallel I can draw to him is Louis XVII. That a child should be so imprisoned was ridiculous no matter how dangerous it was to leave him walking free.

Secondly, I read somewhere the Anton was given the opportunity to leave Russia and return to Germany with his two bastard daughters (of whom I can find no information, save that they were born after the death of Anna Leopoldovna), but the clutch of grand dukes and duchesses were required to stay in Russia in case they were required for the succession. Anton refused and died old and blind in Russia.

Thirdly, Pyotr III reportedly visited Ivan in prison and vowed to set him free, but the coup d'etat of his wife threw a wrench in that plan. But even so, had he been set free, the psychological scars Ivan would've borne would make it highly unlikely that he would be any less erratic than Pyotr's son, Pavel.

That said, the remaining four children - Ekaterina, Yelizaveta, Pyotr and Alexei - were finally shipped off (once they were too old (in the girls' case) to Denmark and Ekaterina II basically changed a prison in Russia for a manor house in Denmark that they weren't allowed to leave the property anyway.

And one of the daughters, I think Ekaterina, wrote a pitiful letter to Aleksandr I begging to be allowed to return to Russia after her brothers and sister had died. The letter went unanswered and the lonely old lady (who was deaf [either completely or partially]) died in a foreign country tended by not even a maid who could speak the same language as her (Russian).
 
This is my attempt at a short biography of the Antonovich (Anna Leopoldovna's children (based Evgenii V. Anisimov's Five Empresses as well as the info I've found in various blogs on the web).


Born just before the palace coup led by Elizabeth Petrovna, that deposed her brother as Emperor, Catherine was named for her maternal-grandmother, the Grand Duchess Catherine Ivanovna (eldest surviving daughter of the mentally retarded Tsar Ivan V, half-brother of Peter the Great).

On the night of the coup, Elizabeth Petrovna rallied the guards with the cry “You know whose daughter I am, so be loyal to me as you were to my father!”. She received support of the Preobrazhensky regiment and with no resistance seized power, putting those in the way in prisons, including the young Ivan and his regent. Entering the Anna Leopoldovna’s bedchamber, she roughly shook the Regent awake, saying “Get up, sister, it’s time to go!”

At the same time Elizabeth was deposing Anna, the guards stormed the rooms of the infant Ivan and Catherine. There was a scuffle between the nurse or maid tending Catherine and one of the guards, and the little girl was dropped. As a result of this injury, Catherine spoke the rest of her life with a stutter, and was hard of hearing.

At first, the newly crowned Elizabeth, secretly sent the former Regent and her family to the fortress of Dunamünde near Riga, in Latvia – where Catherine’s younger sister, Elizabeth (named for the Empress), was born on 16 September 1743. Finally, in 1744, they were moved to an abandoned bishop’s residence in Cholmogory, south of Archangelsk. Here were the small former czar separated from his parents and brothers and sisters whom he – even though they lived at opposite ends of the house – never saw again.

The bishop’s house was a two-storey building with 20 rooms, surrounded by walls and fencing. Inside the gates sentry boxes were built for a command of 36 soldiers and 4 officers. The house and farm were divided into two completely separate departments. The former Imperial family was not allowed to associate with anyone – not even the families of the officers, nor was the staff allowed to leave the premises when their service ended – their stay here was kept under the strictest of secrecy.

After a further two births – both boys, Peter in 30 March 1745 and Alexei in 10 March 1746, Anna died of puerperal fever on 19 March 1746, leaving Anton Ulrich as a single parent to the remaining four children.

Teaching was not allowed, though the children did learn to read and write (most likely from their father), and Catherine – reportedly deaf from the age of 8 – learnt a form of sign language (eventually she learnt to read lips). The four siblings got along well with each other. Elizabeth was always the leader of the quartet, while Catherine with her stutter stayed in the background; Peter was humpbacked and crooked on one side as a result of a childhood injury, while Alexei was the sensible one of the group.

In the summer they fed the geese and ducks in the muddy farm pond, or worked in the overgrown garden. In the winter they went skating or drove over the snow in homemade sleds. Otherwise, their time was spent playing cards or reading Russian ecclesiastical books, the only reading material allowed.

In 1756, the Empress Elizabeth order Ivan to be transferred to the prison at Schlüsselburg. Ivan’s childhood had been miserable at best, he stammered, and gave the impression of being an idiot. The guards were given strict instructions to murder him if anyone tried to free him, even were they to come bearing a document with the Empress’ own signature.

In 1762, the Empress Elizabeth died, and although on his meeting with the former Ivan VI, her successor, Peter III promised his freedom, he was overthrown in a coup by his wife, Catherine II later that year, before it could happen. Even after Ivan was murdered in 1764, Catherine the Great still refused Anton Ulrich and his children their freedom.

However, Anton Ulrich was offered his own freedom several times – with the condition that he return to his native Germany without his children, who would remain in Russia for the security of the succession. In 1768 he petitioned the Empress Catherine for permission to travel to Germany with his family. It is unknown if the petition was ever answered.

Finally, in 1774, the by now blind prince died, surrounded by his four children with Anna, as well as two illegitimate daughters he had had by an unknown mistress after she died. He was quietly buried in the courtyard. Finally, in 1780, with the Russian succession secure in the person of Catherine II’s two eldest grandsons, Alexander I and Constantine, the Empress decided to set the Antonovichs at liberty.

Catherine II entered into talks with Anton Ulrich’s sister, the Dowager Queen of Denmark, to take custody of her nieces and nephews. The Queen Dowager then suggested Hørsens in Jutland as a safe place of exile for the would be Russian imperial family.


Comments and further information welcome!
 
For anything aside from a puppet you would have to keep Ivan out of jail. He was kept in isolation for long periods of time. That will do some serious mental and emotional damage.
 
According to asimisov Ivan's imprisonment only started aftet he was moved to Schlüsselburg at age fifteen, before that he was simplykept in the house of Cholmogory in solitary confinement (ie apart from the rest of his family who was never told of his presence being led to believe he yad been sent to Solovets monastery in the White Sea). It was only when he was at Schlüsselburg that he was in an actual prison.

Perhaps a guard - he remembered Korff with kindness - could tutor him (esp since Korff ignored the order from St Petersburg when Ivan was ill with smallpox and measles at the same time, that only a priest could see him "in his last hour". So if Korff were to likewise ignore the order from Elizabeth to separate him from his family Ivan might come out a little more normal.
 
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