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able to the princess of Mecklenburg and her husband, and 
unpopular among the Russians. Count Munich was em¬ 
ployed by the princess of Mecklenburg to arrest Biron, who 
was tried, and condemned to die, but was sent into exile to 
Siberia. 
The administration of the princess Anne of Mecklenburg 
and her husband was upon many accounts disagreeable, not 
only to the Russians, but to other powers of Europe ; and 
notwithstanding a prosperous war they carried on with the 
Swedes, the princess Elizabeth, daughter by Catharine to 
Peter the Great, formed such a party that in one night’s time 
she was declared and proclaimed Empress of all the Russias; 
and the princess of Mecklenburg, her husband, and son, were 
made prisoners. The fate of this unhappy family was pecu¬ 
liarly severe. All but Ivan were sent into banishment, to an 
island at the mouth of the Dvina, in the White Sea, where 
the princess Anne died in child-bed in 1747. Ivan’s father 
survived till 1775, and at last ended his miserable career 
in prison. The young emperor Ivan was for some time shut 
up in a monastery at Oranienburg, when, on attempting to 
escape, he was removed to the castle of Schlusselberg, where 
he was put to death. 
The chief instrument in rousing the ambition of Elizabeth, 
and procuring her elevation to the throne, was her physician 
and favourite Lestoc, who, partly by his insinuating address, 
and partly by the assistance of the French ambassador, 
brought over to Elizabeth’s interest most of the royal guards. 
During the short regency of Anne of Mecklenburg, a new 
war had commenced between Russia and Sweden and this 
war was carried on with considerable acrimony and some 
success, by Elizabeth. The Russian forces took possession of 
Abo, and made themselves masters of nearly all Finland. But 
at length in 1743, in consequence of the negociations that 
were carrying on relative to the succession of the Swedish 
crown, a peace was concluded between the two powers, on 
the condition that Elizabeth should restore the greater part of 
Finland. 
Soon after her accession, Elizabeth determined to nominate 
her successor to the imperial throne, and had fixed her eyes on 
Charles Peter Ulric, son of the duke of Holstein Gottorp, by 
Anne, daughter of Peter the Great. This prince was 
accordingly invited into Russia, persuaded to become a 
member of the Greek church, and proclaimed grand duke of 
Russia, and heir of the empire. The ceremony of his baptism 
was performed on the 18th November, 1742, and he received 
the name of Peter Feodorovitch. He was at this time only 
fourteen years of age; but before he had attained his sixteenth 
year, his aunt had destined for him a consort in the person of 
Sophia Augusta Frederica, daughter of Christian Augustus 
prince of Anhalt-zerbst-Dornburg. It is unnecessary for us 
here to relate the circumstances that led to this marriage, and 
the unhappy consequences that resulted from it during the 
life.of Elizabeth, as they have already been sufficiently 
detailed under the article Catharine II. 
Having thus settled the order of succession, Elizabeth 
began to take an active part in the politics of Europe. The 
death of Charles VI. emperor of Germany, had left his 
daughter, Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary, at the mercy of 
the enterprising king of Prussia, till a formidable party, more 
from jealousy of that monarch’s military fame than regard to 
the interests of an injured princess, was formed in her behalf. 
To this confederacy the empress of Russia acceded, and in 
1747 sent a considerable body of troops into Germany, to the 
assistance of the empress queen. The events of this long and 
bloody contest have been fully detailed under the article 
Prussia, and they comprise the greater part of those 
transactions in the reign of Elizabeth that do not particularly 
regard the internal policy of the empire. The more private 
transactions of the court of St. Petersburg!!, as far as they are 
connected with the intrigues of her niece Catharine, and the 
follies ofthe grand duke Peter, have also been related in our 
life of Catharine II. Elizabeth died on the 5th January, 
1762, the victim of disease brought on by intemperance. 
Elizabeth, as empress, governed but little of herself; it 
being properly her ministers and favourites who dictated the 
S I A. 
regulations and decrees. Of this number, besides Bestuchef, 
was also Bazumosky, to whom, it has been said, the empress 
was even privately married. At the beginning of her reign, 
it is true, she went a few times to the sitting of the senate; 
but the matters transacted there were by much too serious for 
her mind ; and, accordingly, she very soon left off that 
practice altogether, contenting herself by confirming with her 
signature the resolutions of that assembly, and the deter¬ 
minations of her minister, or the .conference, which supplied 
the place of the council. 
Her character in general was mild, as was evident from the 
tears it cost her whenever she received accounts from Prussia, 
even of victories gained by her own army, on account of the 
human blood by which they must necessarily have been 
purchased. Yet this delicate sensibility did not restrain 
her from prosecuting the war into which she had entered from 
a species of revenge, and for the purpose of humbling the 
king of Prussia, and even on her death-bed from exhorting 
those persons who surrounded her to the most vigorous con¬ 
tinuation of it. It also proceeded from this sensibility, that 
immediately on her accession to the government she made 
the vow never to put her signature to a sentence of death : a 
resolution which she faithfully kept; though it is averred 
not to have been for the benefit of the empire; since, in 
consequence of it, the number of malefactors who deserved to 
die was every day increasing, and the commanders ofthe army 
declared that the soldiers were not to be restrained from their 
excesses by the severest corporal punishments they could 
employ; whereas such was their dread of a solemn execution, 
that a few examples of that nature would have effectually 
kept them in awe. 
Commerce and literature, arts, manufactures, handicrafts, 
and the other means of livelihood, which had been fostered by 
the ffirmer sovereigns, continued their course under Elizabeth 
with increasing prosperity. The country products were 
obtained and wrought up in greater quantities, and several 
branches of profit were more zealously carried on. The sum 
appointed for the support of the academy of sciences founded 
by Peter I. at St. Petersburgh, was considerably augmented 
by Elizabeth ; and she moreover established in 1758 the aca¬ 
demy still subsisting for the arts of painting and sculpture, in 
which a number of young persons are brought up as painters, 
engravers, statuaries, architects, &c. At Moscow she endowed 
a universily and two gymnasia. 
The empress Elizabeth herself having a good voice, music, 
which Anne had already much encouraged, found under 
her administration a perpetual accession of disciples and 
admirers; so that even numbers of persons of distinction at 
St. Petersburgh became excellent performers. The art of 
acting plays was now also more general among the Russians. 
Formerly none but French or Italian pieces were performed 
on the stage of St. Petersburgh, whereas now Sumarokof 
obtained celebrity as a dramatic poet in his native language, 
and in 1756 Elizabeth laid the foundation of a Russian 
theatre in her residence. 
The magnificence which had prevailed under Anne at the 
court of St. Petersburgh was not diminished during Eliza¬ 
beth’s reign, and the court establishment therefore amount¬ 
ed to extraordinary sums. Indeed, in this respect she did 
not imitate her great father; and accordingly in the seven 
years’ war the want of a well stored treasury was already very 
sensibly felt. 
The population of the empire was considerably increased 
under her reign; and so early as 1752, according to the 
statement in an account published by an official person, it 
was augmented by one-fifth. 
Elizabeth continued the practice of her predecessors in 
encouraging foreigners to settle in her empire. Emigrant 
Servians cultivated a considerable tract of land, till then 
almost entirely uninhabited, on the borders of Turkey, where 
they built the town of Elizabethgorod, and multiplied so fast, 
that in the year 1764 a particular district was formed of these 
improvements, under the name of New Servia. Only the 
Jews Elizabeth was no less resolute not to tolerate than her 
father had been; insomuch that, so early in her reign as 
1743, 
