Russia
Anna Ivanovna - Empress: 30 January 1730 – 28 October 1740
1738 Copper Denga (1/2 Kopek) 25mm (7.03 grams)
Reference: KM# 188
Royal coat of arms, the crowned imperial double eagle with scepter and orb.
ДЕНГА 1738 within decorative wreath.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,  provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of  Authenticity.

Anna  Ioannovna (Russian: Анна Иоанновна; 7 February [O.S.  28 January] 1693 – 28 October [O.S.  17 October] 1740), also spelled Anna Ivanovna and  sometimes anglicized as Anne, was regent of the duchy of Courland from 1711 until 1730 and then  ruled as empress of Russia from 1730 to 1740.

Early life

Anna was born in Moscow as the daughter of Tsar Ivan V by his wife Praskovia Saltykova. Although Anna's father was  himself Tsar of Russia and co-ruler with his brother Peter I, he was mentally disabled and incapable  of administering the country. Therefore, his younger brother and co-ruler was  effectively the autocrat of all the Russias. Anna's father Ivan V died in  February 1696, when Anna was only three years old, and her uncle became the sole ruler of Russia.

Although Anna was the fourth child of her parents, she had only one surviving  elder sister, Catherine, and one younger sister, Praskovya. The three girls were raised in a  disciplined and austere manner by their widowed mother, a very stern lady of  sterling character. Born into a family of relatively modest means, Praskovia Saltykova had been an exemplary wife  to a mentally challenged man, and expected her daughters to live up to her own  high standards of morality and virtue. Anna grew up within a milieu which  cherished womanly virtue and domesticity above all else, and strongly emphasized  thrift, charity and religious observances. Her education consisted of French,  German, religious texts and folklore, leavened with some music and dancing. As  she grew older, she developed into an obstinate girl, with a mean streak,  earning her the nickname "Iv-anna the Terrible". Anna was famed for her big  cheek, "which, as shown in her portraits," says Thomas Carlyle, "was comparable to a Westphalian ham".

In time, her uncle Peter the great ordered the family to move from  Moscow to St. Petersburg. This meant a change of not just  location but also society, and this had a significant effect on Anna. She  greatly enjoyed the splendor of court and the lavishness of high society, which  was very different from the austerity preferred by her mother.

Wedding and widowhood

In 1710, Peter the Great arranged for the 17-year-old  Anna to marry Frederick William, Duke of Courland, who was the same age as her  Her wedding was held on a grand scale, as per her own inclinations, and her  uncle gave her a fabulous dowry of 200,000 roubles. At the feast which followed  the wedding, two dwarfs performed a parody by jumping out of enormous pies and  dancing on the tables.

The newly wedded couple spent several weeks in Russia before proceeding to  Courland. Only twenty miles out of St. Petersburg, on the road to Courland, Duke  Frederick died. The cause of death was uncertain - it has been attributed  variously to a chill or to the effects of alcohol.

After her husband died, Anna proceeded to Jelgava, the capital Courland (now western Latvia) and ruled that province for almost  twenty years, from 1711 to 1730. During this period, the Russian resident, Peter Bestuzhev, was her adviser (and sometimes  lover). She never remarried after the death of her husband, but her enemies said  she conducted a love affair with Ernst Johann von Biron, a prominent courtier,  for many years.

Accession

 

In 1730, Tsar Peter II (grandson of Peter the Great) died childless at a young age.  His death made extinct the main line of the Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for  over a century, since 1613. Possible candidates for the throne were the three  surviving daughters of Ivan V, namely Catherine (b.1691), Anna (b.1693) and Praskovya (b.1694), and the two surviving  daughters of Peter the great, namely Anna (b.1708) and Elizabeth (b.1709).

Ivan V had been the older brother of Peter the Great and co-ruler with him,  and by that reckoning, his daughters may be considered to have the prior right.  However, if seen from the perspective that the successor should be the nearest  kin of the most recent monarch, then the daughters of Peter the great were  nearer to the throne, because they were the aunts of the recently deceased Tsar Peter II. The dilemma was made greater  because the daughters of Peter the Great had been born out of wedlock, and had  been legitimized later by him, after he formally married their mother Catherine I, who had previously been a maid in  his household. On the other hand, Praskovia Saltykova, the wife of Ivan V, had  been a nobleman's daughter and a devoted wife and mother; moreover, she had been  a lady greatly respected for her many virtues, not least her chastity.

 

 

Finally, the Russian Supreme Privy Council led by Prince Dmitri Golitzyn selected Anna, the second  daughter of Ivan V, to be the new Empress of Russia. She was selected in  preference to her elder sister Catherine even though Catherine was at that  time resident in Russia whereas Anna was not. There were some reasons for this:  Anna was a childless widow and there was no immediate danger of an unknown  foreigner wielding power in Russia; she also had some experience of government,  because she had been administering her late husband's duchy of Courland for almost two decades. Catherine on  the other hand was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; she was now  separated from him and living in Russia, but this was in itself disgraceful; and  whether her husband was present or absent, his existence could raise problems at  her very coronation. His intervention at some later point could hardly be  prevented, especially since Catherine had a daughter by him; and being a ruling  prince of ancient lineage, he would not be as amenable to the council's advice  as a Russian princess. Also, the fact that Catherine had a daughter already  would provide a certainty of succession which the nobles perhaps preferred not  to have.

The Supreme Privy Council preferred the childless  and widowed Duchess of Courland. They hoped that she would feel indebted to the  nobles and remain a figurehead at best, and malleable at worst. To make sure of  that, the Council convinced Anna to sign a declaration of "Conditions"  to her accession, modeled after a Swedish precedent, which stated that Anna was  to govern according to their counsel and was not permitted to start war, call  for peace, create new taxes or spend the revenue generated by the state without  their consent. She could not punish nobility without trial, could not make  grants of estates or villages, could not appoint high officials, and could not  promote anyone, whether foreigners or Russians, to court offices without the  consent of the Council.

Anna signed the document of "Conditions"  on 18 January 1730 at her capital, Jelgava in Courland (then known as Mitau), and  proceeded to the Russian capital. On 20 February 1730, shortly after her  arrival, Empress Anna exercised her prerogative to do away with her  predecessor's Privy Council and dissolved that body. The Supreme Privy Council  which had stipulated those onerous "Conditions" had been composed largely of the  families of the princes Dolgorouki and Galitzin. Within a matter of days,  another faction rose at court which was opposed to the domination of these two  families. On 7 March 1730, a group of people belonging to this faction  (numbering between 150 and 800 people, depending on source) arrived at the  palace and petitioning the empress to repudiate the "Conditions" and assume the  autocracy of her predecessors. Among those who urged Anna to do so was her elder  sister Catherine. Anna duly repudiated the document of Conditions, and for good measure  sent some of the framers of the document to the scaffold, and many others to Siberia. She then assumed autocratic powers and  ruled as an absolute monarch, in the same fashion as her predecessors.

Policies

 

 

Anna continued lavish architectural advances in St. Petersburg. She completed  a waterway that began construction under Peter the Great and called for  seafaring ships to accompany this new canal and continue naval expansion.

Cadet Corps

Anna founded the Cadet Corps in 1731, one year after coming to the throne.  The Cadet Corps was a group of young boys starting at the age of eight being  trained for the military. There was a very rigorous training program and this  also included all the schooling that was necessary for someone to be in an  important position in the military. As time went on though, the program was  later improved by other emperors and empresses, such as Catherine the Great.  They began to include the arts and sciences into their schooling, rather than  just the knowledge that is considered necessary for only a career in the  military.

Academy of Science

Started by Peter the Great, Anna continued to fund the Russian Academy of Science. The point of this  school was to further the sciences in Russia and to help bring the country that  was so far behind up to where the Western Countries were. Some of the sciences  that were taught were mathematics, astronomy, and botany. The Academy of Science  was also responsible for a lot of the expeditions, specifically to the Bering  Sea. The Bering Sea Expedition is one of the more famous ones that was done by  the Academy of Science. While they were trying to find out if America and Asia  had been at one point connected, they also studied Siberia and its people, these  studies were used long after they returned from Siberia. But there were also  some troubles for the scientists. Oftentimes, the government and the church  would meddle in their funding and their experiments, changing the data to how  they wanted to see it. This school of science was very small, never exceeding a  population of twelve students in the university and barely over a hundred in the  secondary school. But still it was a huge step forward for education in Russia.  Many of the teachers and professors were imported from Germany bringing more of  a Western feeling to what the students were learning about. Some of the students  to learn from these German professors later became advisors or teachers to some  of the future leaders, such as Catherine the Great’s tutor, Adodurov. During  Anna’s reign, the Academy of Science began to include the Arts into their  program. For not only was there not a school for the arts yet, but Anna was a  firm supporter of the arts. Theater, architecture, engraving, and journalism  were all added to the curriculum. During this time, the foundations of what is  now the world famous Russian Ballet was laid down as well.

The Secret  Office of Investigation

There have been many rumors since the time of Anna’s reign that Biron had a  large impact on this office, but truly it was run by the senator A. I. Ushakov.  This office was resurrected during Anna’s reign to punish those for political  crimes mostly, but sometimes they would take cases that were not as political.  The punishments that came from the crimes that were committed, were often very  painful and disgusting. For example, some people that had supposedly been  plotting against the government had their noses slit as well as being beaten  with the knout. Russian authorities listed a total of around 20,000  Russians—including some of the highest native nobility—fell victim to Biron and  Anna's police.

Nobility

Anna gave many privileges to those that were considered the nobility. In  1730, she made sure that the law of Peter the Great outlawed states from being  subdivided, the primogeniture law, was repealed. Starting in 1731, landlords  were responsible for their serfs' taxes, and their economic bondage was  tightened again. In 1736, when the age of service changed to 20 with a 25-year  service time, Anna and her government also determined that if the family had  more than one son, one could stay behind so that he could work the estate.

Westernization

Westernization continued after Peter the Great’s reign in areas of prominent  Western culture such as the Academy of Science, cadet corps education, and  imperial culture including theater and opera. Although not at the fast-paced  speed of Westernization under her Uncle Peter’s reign, it is evident that a  culture of the expansion of knowledge continued during Anna’s rule and affected  mostly nobility. It is argued that this success in Westernization is due to the  efforts of the German court nobility; the foreigners’ impacts are viewed both  positively and negatively.

Anna’s reign is different from that of other imperial Russian rulers in one  respect: her court was almost entirely made up of foreigners, the majority of  whom were German. Some observers have argued that historians isolate her rule  from Russian history due to their long-term prejudice towards Germans, towards  whom Anna seems to have had a soft corner.

There is a lot of mention of Germans throughout the reign of Anna. For  example, she often gave them ruling positions in her cabinet and other important  decision making positions. This was because she had very little trust in the  Russians. It was because of this strong German influence in government that many  Russians came to resent them.

Foreign affairs

During Anna’s reign, Russia became involved in two major conflicts, the War of the Polish Succession and the Turkish wars. In the former, Russia worked with Austria to support Augustus II's son Augustus against the candidacy of Stanisław Leszczyński, who was dependent on the French and amiable with Sweden and Turkey. Russia's involvement with the conflict  was quickly over, however, and the 1736–39 Crimean War was much more important.

In 1732, Nader Shah had forced Russia to return parts of  the lands in the Northern and Southern Caucasus and in northern mainland Persia that had been taken during Peter the  Great's Russo-Persian War; this Treaty of Resht permitted an alliance against  the Ottoman Empire and, in any case, the provinces of Shirvan, Ghilan, and Mazanderan had been a net drain on the imperial  treasury for the entirety of their occupation. Three years later in 1735,  conforming to the Treaty of Ganja, all the rest of the  territories taken more than a decade earlier from Persia in the North and South  Caucasus were returned.

The war against the Turks took four and a half years, a hundred thousand men,  and millions of rubles; its burdens caused great stress on the people of Russia;  and it only gained Russia the city of Azov and its environs. Its effects, however, were greater than they  first appeared. Osterman's policy of southern expansion prevailed over the 1711 Peace of Pruth signed by Peter the Great;  Münnich had given Russia its first campaign against Turkey that had not ended in  crushing disaster and dissipated the illusion of Ottoman invincibility; he had  further shown that Russia's grenadiers and hussars could defeat twice their number of janissaries and spahis. The Tatar hordes of the Crimea had been exterminated and Russia's  signal and unexpected successes greatly increased its prestige within Europe.

The Russians also established a protectorate over the khan of the Kirghiz, sending officers to assist his  short-lived conquest of Khiva.

A Chinese embassy to her court at St Petersburg  was the only one ever dispatched to Europe through the late 19th century.

Relationship with  Biron

 

After being widowed weeks after her wedding, Anna never remarried; as empress  of Russia she enjoyed the power she held over all men, and may have thought that  marriage would undermine her power and position. Nevertheless, Anna’s reign is  often referred to as “The Age of Biron” (Bironovschina),  after her German lover Ernst Johann Biron. Historians aver that Biron  not only had a strong influence on Anna’s domestic and foreign policies, but  also that at times, he wielded power solely, without reference to the Empress.  Anna was attracted to Biron’s personal charm and he proved to be a good  companion to her, but his name became synonymous with cruelty and terror. In  public perception, these negative qualities became the hallmark of Anna’s reign.

Death and succession

As her health declined, Anna declared her grandnephew, Ivan VI, should succeed her, and appointed  Biron as regent. This was an attempt to secure the line of her father, Ivan V, and exclude the descendants of Peter the Great from inheriting the throne. It  was recorded that she had an ulcer on her kidneys. She continued having attacks  of gout, and as her condition worsened, her health began to fail.

Anna died on October 17, 1740, from a terrible kidney stone that made for a  slow and painful death. The tsaritsa’s final words focused on Biron. She died at  the age of 47 of kidney disease. Ivan VI was only a two-month-old baby at the  time, and his mother, Anna Leopoldovna, was detested for her German  counsellors and relations. As a consequence, shortly after Anna's death Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter I's legitimized daughter managed to gain  the favor of the populace, locked Ivan VI in a dungeon, and exiled his mother.  Anna was buried three months later on January 15, 1741, leaving behind  uncertainty for the future of Russia.

Legacy

 

In the West, Anna's reign was traditionally looked on as a continuation of  the transition from the old Muscovy ways to the European court envisioned by Peter the Great. Her government, on the whole,  was prudent, beneficial and even glorious; but it was undoubtedly severe and  became at last universally unpopular. Within Russia, Anna's reign is often  referred to as a “dark era”. The issue with Anna’s reign derives from her  personality flaws. Even considering the need of Russian rulers to avoid displays  of weakness, Anna's rule involved questionable acts towards her subjects. She  was known to enjoy hunting animals from the palace windows and on more than a  few occasions humiliated individuals with disabilities. There were continued  issues with serfdom, peasant and low class slavery, taxation, dishonesty, and  rule through constant fear. Her empire was described by Lefort, the Saxon  minister, as being “comparable to a storm-threatened ship, manned by a pilot and  crew who are all drunk or asleep. . . with no considerable future.” Anna’s war  with Turkey, economic issues, and conspiracy revolving around her accession all  bring to light an ominous glow of the empress’s reign. She restored the courts  in St. Petersburg and brought Russia’s political atmosphere back to where Peter  the Great had intended progress; the grandeur was almost unmatched in Europe or  Asia; but such lavish court life was overshadowed by the thousands of men  slaughtered in war. It is undeniable she had a vast impact in science and  culture, but it came with a price. The positive aspects of Anna’s reign are  typically ignored, though it is important to note that she had no more influence  on domestic and foreign relations and policies than any other 18th-century  ruler.