Ivan VI

John Antonovich was born on August 12, his namesake was on August 29 - the day of the beheading of the head of John the Baptist.

After the death of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the son of Anna Leopoldovna (niece of Anna Ioannovna) and Prince Anton Ulrich Braunschweig-Bevern-Luneburg , two-month-old Ivan Antonovich was proclaimed emperor during the regency of the Duke of Courland Biron .

He was born at the very end of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, so the question of who to appoint the regent for a long time tormented the empress who was also at death. Anna Ioannovna wanted to leave the throne for the descendants of her father Ivan V and was very worried that he would not pass to the descendants of Peter I in the future. Therefore, in the will, she stipulated that the heir is John Antonovich, and in the event of his death, the other children of Anna Leopoldovna in order of seniority, if they are born.

Two weeks after the accession of the baby, a coup occurred in the country, as a result of which the guards , led by Field Marshal Minich , arrested Biron and removed him from power. The new regent was announced by Anna Leopoldovna, the mother of the emperor. Unable to rule the country and living in illusions, Anna gradually transferred all her power to Minich, and after it Osterman took possession of him, who dismissed the field marshal. But a year later a new revolution took place. The daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth and the Transfiguration, arrested Osterman , the baby emperor, his parents and all their close associates.

At first, Elizabeth intended to expel the “ Braunschweig family ” from Russia (as was officially indicated in the manifesto substantiating her right to the throne), but changed her mind, fearing that she would be dangerous abroad, and ordered the former regent and her husband to be imprisoned.

In 1742, secretly from everyone, the family was transferred to the outskirts of Riga - Dunamunde . After the discovery of the so-called “ Lopukhina conspiracy ” in 1744 , the whole family was transported to Oranienburg , and after that, away from the border, to the north of the country, to Kholmogory , where little Ivan was completely isolated from his parents. He was in the same bishop’s house as his parents, behind a blank wall, which none of them knew. The chamber-chamber of the ex-emperor, who now began to be called Gregory at the direction of Elizabeth Petrovna , was arranged so that no one but Miller and his servant could go to him. They kept Ivan in prison strictly. Long northern ordeals greatly affected the health of Anna Leopoldovna: in 1746 she died.

The personality of the former sovereign and his brief reign soon came under the law on the condemnation of the name : on December 31, 1741, the empress issued a decree on the surrender by the population of all coins with the name of John Antonovich for subsequent re-melting. After some time, these coins were no longer accepted at face value, and since 1745 their storage has become illegal. Persons who found coins of John Antonovich or who tried to pay them, were tortured and exiled as state criminals. Currently, the coins of this reign are extremely rare.

An order was issued to destroy portraits depicting John Antonovich, as well as to replace business papers, passports, church books and other documents with the name of the emperor (“affairs with a famous title”) with new ones. Some of these documents were burned, and some were stored in sealed archives. Propaganda materials were also seized, for example, published sermons mentioning the name of John, an ode to Lomonosov in his honor, and other artifacts. This process continued throughout the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and was stopped only after the accession to the throne of Catherine II. Even more than a century and a half later, during the anniversary events of 1913-1914, the baby emperor was missed at the Romanovsky Obelisk in the Alexander Garden and on the Faberge Egg “The Centenary of the Romanov Dynasty ”.

After the testimony of the captured conspirator I.V. Zubarev was presented to Elizabeth , the empress’s fear of a possible new coup led to Ivan’s new journey ^[3] . In 1756 he was transported from Kholmogor to a solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress . In the fortress, Ivan (officially called the “famous prisoner”, sometimes “the nameless prisoner”) was in complete isolation, he was not allowed to see anyone, even serfs. There is a historical myth that Ivan's isolation was so dense that he never saw a single human face for the entire time of his imprisonment, but modern historians claim that this is not confirmed by documents ^[4] . On the contrary, the documents indicate that the prisoner knew about his royal origin, was taught to read and write, read the Bible in the cell ^[5] and dreamed of living in a monastery.

Since 1759, Ivan began to observe signs of inappropriate behavior. Empress Catherine II , who saw Ivan VI in 1762, confirmed this with full confidence; but the jailers thought it was just a miserable simulation.

While Ivan was imprisoned, many attempts were made to free the deposed emperor and re-establish him to the throne. The last attempt turned to death for the “nameless prisoner”. In 1764 , when Catherine II already reigned, Second Lieutenant V. Ya. Mirovich , who was on guard at the Shlisselburg Fortress , bowed a part of the garrison to his side in order to free Ivan.

However, Ivan’s guards, Captain Vlasyev and Lieutenant Chekin, were given a secret instruction to kill the prisoner if they tried to release him (even by presenting the Empress’s decree about this), so in response to Mirovich’s demand for surrender, they stabbed Ivan and only then surrendered.

Mirovich was arrested and beheaded in St. Petersburg as a state criminal. There is an unconfirmed version according to which Catherine allegedly provoked him to get rid of the former emperor.

The burial place of Ivan VI is not known exactly. As is commonly believed, the "famous prisoner" was buried in the Shlisselburg fortress.

In September 2010, a number of archaeologists announced the identification of the remains found in the church of the Assumption of the Virgin ( Kholmogory ) as imperial ^[6] . However, the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences expressed doubt about the authenticity of the remains of John VI ^[7] . Moreover, it was noted that the search activities under the leadership of businessman Anatoly Karanin ^[8] , who is not an archaeologist, were conducted informally, without a scientific methodology and permission for archaeological excavations (“Open Leaf”) ^[8] . However, the request to the prosecutor’s office, initiated as a result of excavations by the Petersburg deputy and archaeologist Alexei Kovalyov, remained inconclusive, since the prosecutor’s office did not find criminal acts in this case ^[8] . “The Archangel diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church has taken measures to prevent the destruction of a previously unknown burial site in connection with the impending demolition of the water tower,” the prosecutor’s response to the request says ^[8] .

In Fiction

In Voltaire’s novel Candide, or Optimism (1759), during the Venetian carnival, the protagonist meets a masked man who is recommended to him as follows: “My name is Ivan, I was the All-Russian Emperor; still in the cradle they deprived me of the throne, and imprisoned my father and my mother; I was raised in prison, but sometimes I am allowed to travel under the supervision of a guard. ”

The Brazilian author, Geraldo Mattos, wrote the tragedy in Esperanto in 5 acts in the verses of “Ivan the 6th” (1953, reprinted in 2017).

Danilevsky’s novel Mirovich (1879) about Mirovich enjoyed great success in Russia, in the manuscript titled “The Royal Prisoner” and first revealed to the general public the circumstances of the death of Emperor John Antonovich , previously classified. The publication of the book, delayed by censorship for four years, became a real sensation.

In the cinema

In the first series of the television series "Catherine" there is an episode in which Empress Elizabeth, in order to tame the heir to the throne of Grand Duke Peter III , who, raising his voice on the empress, exclaimed about his desire, ascending the throne, to ban the "wrong" Russian traditions and establish the "right ”, Brought him to the Peter and Paul Fortress , where he showed a boy who lived there in complete isolation and oblivion, calling the boy John Antonovich. At the same time, the real John Antonovich was never contained in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Later in this series, John Antonovich was shown in Shlisselburg , where before his death, Catherine II visited him. This moment also does not correspond to reality: the film shows that John was killed at about the same time as Peter III , that is, in 1762, and in fact, John Antonovich was killed in 1764.

There is another inaccuracy in the film regarding John Antonovich: Elizabeth says that he ruled for 2 weeks, in fact, John ruled from October 1740 to November 1741.

Possible Canonization

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin noted that Emperor John VI serves as an example of spiritual achievement, hieromonk Nikon (Belavenets) believes that it is necessary to study in detail the biography of the murdered emperor and, possibly, begin the process of canonization. ^[9]

• Nameless (Prisoner of Kexholm)

• Anisimov E. Ivan VI Antonovich . - M .: Young Guard , 2008 .-- 368 p. - ( ZHZL ). - ISBN 978-5-235-03026-8 .
• Brickner A.G. Emperor John Antonovich and his relatives (1741-1807) . - M .: Univ. type of. (Katkov and Co.), 1874 .-- 149 p.
• Librovich S.F. The Emperor is banned . - M .: Zakharov, 2008 .-- 160 p. - ISBN 978-5-8159-0862-8 .
• Danilevsky G.P. Mirovich. - M .: Fiction, 1977.
• Information about John or Ivan Antonovich, great-grandson of Tsar John Alekseevich. From the manuscripts of the Imperial St. Petersburg Public Library // Russian Antiquity . - SPb. , 1894. - T. 82 , No. 12 . - S. 82—97 .

• Family tree of emperor Ivan VI Antonovich
• The remains of the Russian emperor Ivan VI
• Emperor John Antonovich (Ivan VI) .Portrait.