Meet The Mad Tsarina Of Russia D
Anna of Russia was vicious jealous and cruel and there’s a reason historians call her Reign a dark era she tormented her own family terrorized her quarters and displayed a thirst for blood Beyond even Russia’s most infamous SARS so when her brutal end came the symptoms of her illness were both extremely gruesome and Incredibly fitting Russian history has not been kind to the empress Anna historians call her time on the throne a dark era and one Minister coined it as quote comparable to a storm threatened ship manned by a pilot and crew who are all drunk quote these are pretty harsh words right from the GetGo but as you’re about to find out they were all too true and his father was SAR Ivan I who co-ruled Russia with his brother Peter the Great the little girl was born into privilege but behind the scenes the family was hiding a dark secret and his father Ivan AKA Ivan the ignorant was severely mentally disabled and certainly
could run the country leaving most of the work to Anna’s uncle Peter however it was so much worse than people thought maybe it’s no wonder Anna didn’t turn out to be the most socially adjusted person in history her father’s mental disabilities often left him in a vegetative state for hours on end and he very frequently couldn’t even walk without leaning on his quarters not exactly a strong parental or genetic support system for Anna even as a young girl Anna started showing disturbing signs following in her father’s dysfunctional footsteps everybody in court knew her as a spiteful child with a chilling mean streak and many people commented on her lack of manners and vulgar attitude in February 1696 tragedy struck the Russian royal family the feeble and feeble minded Ivan V kicked the bucket before he even hit the age of 30 what’s more he now left his 3-year-old daughter Anna fatherless and nearly alone in a Fierce and competitive Russian court and then again
there was her mother to deal with Anna’s mother was a battle axe if there ever was one having somehow endured the rigors of her marriage to Ivan the ignorant she was deeply religious in the old Russian ways she raised Anna and her two sisters in a strict environment that prized feminine virtue and domestic habits well at this point we now know what Anna is going to rebel against as Anna matured she didn’t get Prim improper like her mother wanted she got blood thirsty she was an avid Hunter and she had an extremely decadent way of getting her vicious fixed Anna reported kept a rifle by her window just so she could pick it up and Blast away at the birds on her lawn on other days she got servants to unleash wild animals in the Royal Park so she could go and hunt them down everyone who knew Anna personally was well aware of her cruel nature but you wouldn’t know it to look at her writer Thomas Carlile very flatteringly called her chubby cheeks quote comparable to West fail and ham qu when Anna was still a burgeoning young woman her family moved to St Petersburg it was
a total Revelation instead of of her mother’s Spartan living St Petersburg was full of Splendor the sheltered girl took the decadence of high society like a duck to water it also meant she had a whole new city of men to meet in 1710 Uncle Peter did Anna a solid and engaged her to Frederick William the Duke of corand though Anna was supposedly a grim mean little piece of work she was pretty pumped at the prospect of marrying the Duke even writing to him that nothing could Delight me more than to hear of your Declaration of love for me it’s too bad they were doomed for a heartbreaking end oh sure Frederick and Anna started out well enough when Anna married the Duke she did not skimp on the style since the 17-year-old had expensive tastes her uncle gave her a whopping 200,000 rubles for her dowy but that was really just the beginning Anna also looked resplendent in a gold embroidered cape and a bedazzled Tiara only 2 days after Anna’s big ceremony her uncle Peter the Great put on a second ceremony
only this one was completely bizarre the SAR staged a copycat fake wedding with two dwarfs acting as the groom and the bride while the rest of the Court looked on this elaborate joke was a luxurious Affair but why well while Peter the Great’s parody of the wedding doesn’t sound too funny it also may have hidden a cruel secret according to the experts Peter’s farce was actually intended as a commentary on Anna’s rude manners and crude Behavior holding a mirror to the ugliness inside her and if that wasn’t bad enough Anna’s new husband Frederick William was quite the drink Drinker and during the wedding reception he tied more than a few with Peter the Great even engaging in a drinking contest with the SAR of all Russia sounds like fun times all around right wrong see Frederick William lost the contest in the worst way possible this being Imperial Russia the men took their drinking extremely seriously and Frederick overdid it big time the groom got so sosed he felt brutally ill within
just a few days and then he passed away yes that really happened a hangover killed Anna’s husband suddenly Anna didn’t have a husband anymore and she did not react well to the news with Frederick’s tragic and ridiculous end Anna was a teenaged Widow and she could barely handle the idea of her domestic Bliss getting ripped away from her so she resorted to drastic measures almost immediately afterward Anna began looking for husband number two with Frederick still warm in the ground but she was in for a big disappointment you can’t say Anna didn’t try to join the second Wives Club in order to find herself a man The Rush princess wrote over 300 letters to various family members begging them to put out their feelers and throw single men in her path yet for one reason or another Peter the Great rejected all her suitors and after her ominous start Anna never married again although she soon had bigger things to worry about than weddings in 1730 Anna’s life took a
surprise turn after Peter the Great past the privy Council turned her into the Empress of all Russia this wasn’t the greatest compliment though they liked her because she was widowed and childless so less likely to cause trouble did that work out for them though not at all almost as soon as she became Empress Anna started stirring up trouble in particular she ignited a vicious Family Feud with her incredibly beautiful cousin Elizabeth Elizabeth the daughter of Peter the Great wasn’t just a looker she had also been a rival for the throne so when Anna came out on top as empress she didn’t just make Elizabeth bend the knee she practically destroyed her as a CH cheek Widow who couldn’t seem to find herself a husband Anna didn’t look on Elizabeth or her legendary Beauty kindly and she stoked their rivalry to disturbing Heights after the deaths of a series of family members Elizabeth’s marriage prospects plummeted and Anna was all too happy to help quash them further she made it very clear that no nobleman could marry
Elizabeth and meanwhile if Elizabeth chose a commoner the empress would strip her of her titles and her claim to the throne and that’s not even the worst part heart one day while having to look at Elizabeth’s face in court Anna tried to bait a Chinese Minister by asking who was the most beautiful woman in the room when the minister pointed over to Elizabeth obviously Anna nearly blew a gasket that’s when she started plotting her revenge people at court had eyes so even while Elizabeth couldn’t marry anyone she did start a steamy relationship with a strapping Sergeant named Alexis shuin although it was a strictly bedroom relationship with no hope of marriage Anna eventually found out and her respon response was bitter take heed do not cross your jealous cousin if your jealous cousin happens to be the Empress of all Russia when Anna found out about about Elizabeth’s side piece Alexis the unhinged Empress ordered her men to cut out Alexis’s tongue and as if that weren’t enough exiled him to Siberia for the rest of his miserable life but if you think this
was the end of Anna’s Deery hold on to your seats just because Anna never remarried didn’t mean she was ready to mingle she took several lovers but her most infamous one was a German Duke there was one big problem though the Duke himself was married though that didn’t seem to matter too much to either of them besides there was one reason he was perfect for her Anna’s elicit match with the German Duke was made in heaven or rather hell just like Anna herself the Duke was Infamous for his cruelty and his weakness for decadence while they were together he kept rooms just as lavishly decorated as hers and controlled the court through Terror bribery and egotism the empress’s tric with the Duke raised eyebrows but there might have been an even more scandalous side some experts believe that Anna and the Duke also had a secret love child together but they didn’t stop there they raised the child a son in the Duke’s household as if he was his wife’s child just to keep it all top secret now Anna didn’t limit her hatred to her cousin
Elizabeth she also utterly despised a quarter named Prince Mikel golitzen one day she dealt him a cruel and unusual punishment she forced him to become a court jester but not just just any Court gesture get this poor Prince Mel had to pretend to be a chicken for the empress’s pleasure she had him sit in a nest within her reception room and whenever anyone came to visit he had to mimic laying eggs now as a confirmed Bachelorette after her husband’s tragic boozy end Anna delighted in making matches for her quarters instead as if living vicariously through other people could repair the massive hole in her heart she was so obsessed one Russian historian even called her quote the national Matchmaker quote eventually Anna turned her skills toward her most hated quarter Prince Mel and he did not thank her for the results Anna woke up one morning and decided to force the prince to marry one of her attendants mostly because the
bride to be was a lower class older maid and reportedly not a beauty but that was just the beginning of the nightmare Anna gave the prince and his new bride a lavish wedding just like the one she had but all also like her own wedding it came with more than a few cruel twists first off after the ceremony wrapped up Anna placed the prince and his new wife in a cage dressed them like clowns and paraded them on top of an elephant she then wounded the elephant through the streets of St Petersburg just so the crowds could laugh and jeer at the couple in honor of Prince Mel’s wedding night Anna gave him an extremely disturbing gift she had constructed an entire ice palace for the honeymoon complete with ice beds chairs and even an ice fireplace sounds pretty cool except she then made them both sleep there on an extremely cold night in the middle of winter in Russia just before shutting the prince and the poor maid in to face their chilling Fates Anna gave them a crude piece of advice in what she
probably termed Good Humor but most would call deranged rambling she reportedly advised them to get doing the dirty with each other if they wanted to keep their bodies warm enough to stay alive well they ended up finding another way The Prince and the maid did manage to survive their icy ordeal but only through an ingenious plot they decided to trade one of their wedding gifts a pearl necklace for a much more practical sheep skinned coat from one of the guards according to folk Legend the couple then went on to live happy lives but the truth may be much darker although they managed to stumble out of Anna’s Ice Palace the next morning still breathing they weren’t out of the woods yet according to historical records it’s likely that the prince’s bride succumbed to pneumonia of few days after the debacle giving Anna what she probably wanted all along except don’t worry the empress’s downfall was coming Anna was particularly notorious for her craft sense of humor her vicious jokes could drop the jaws of even the most hardened
and World weary quarters now thanks to her mother’s Stern belief in traditional education for women Anna only got Bare Bones instruction and had little understanding of the intellectual world this led to a shocking oversight in this Age of Enlightenment many historians believe Anna was functionally illiterate although who needs boring books when you have people to humiliate Anna had some severe limitations to her power when she first became Empress according to the Declaration of conditions that the council forced her to sign she couldn’t declare war or peace Levy taxes or even spend money without their consent but as soon as she had secured her power Anna did away with the whole Council sending the men either to the scaffold or Siberia then carried on as an absolute monarch interestingly enough the day that Anna rid the the council a blood red Aurora Borealis appeared in the night sky aka the northern lights but instead of believing this was a sign of her Divine Right many people who knew the unhinged Anna personally took it as
an ominous sign for the future of her Reign now the empress was Sour on a lot of things but she did love the Arts she helped to introduce subjects like theater architecture and journalism into Russian Higher Learning and also laid the foundations for the world famous Russian ballet tradition in fact the first public performance of ballet in Russia happened in front of her lest you think Anna was all torment and Terror she did do a lot in her Reign to improve Russia’s architecture and waterways she built a canal bolstered the Russian Navy and completed many marvelous buildings in her time as empress however her last years were pretty dark perhaps fittingly for all the torment she inflicted on others Anna met a slow and painful end the final years of her life were utterly gruesome she developed veloped an ulcer on her kidneys and suffered from agonizing attacks of gout the empress couldn’t help but realize she had precious little time left and she needed to set her Affairs in order one of the biggest problems about Anna’s failing
Health was that her lover and confident the German Duke kept needling her to follow his own dastardly plan namely he wanted her to announce her 2-month-old Grand nephew Ivan v 6 as her successor but make him Regent functionally giving the Duke all the power he had so long sought it now on October 17th 1740 when Anna was just 47 years old she finally succumbed to an excruciating kidney stone that worked its way slowly and painfully through her system just before she passed she did indeed named Ivan as her Heir and the German Duke as his Regent but just after she passed the well-laid plan backfired first since Ivan was only 2 months old he couldn’t really call men to Arms to defend his toddler Throne second pretty much everyone in her Court hated the German Duke and they weren’t about to let him take power his Regency lasted a pitiful 3 weeks at which point a rival captured him and forced him into Exile as for baby Ivan well in the end none other
than Anna’s old enemy and cousin Elizabeth seized power for herself throwing little Ivan into a dungeon in the process it was everything Anna would have never wanted sounds like a bit of poetic justice if you enjoyed that video be sure to hit the like button and if you’re interested in more historical loal content make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on any more videos like this one
