In the history of our country there have been many impostors, including those clearly parodic - literary ones: let us recall Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov from the play "The Inspector General" by N. V. Gogol. V. G. Korolenko even issued a once biting phrase, calling Russia "a country of impostors."
With impostors, the situation was different, which is associated with the subordinate position of women in Russia and in the Russian Empire. Even Lzhemarin Mnishek did not appear in Russia during the Time of Troubles. At the beginning of the 19th century, the well-known cavalry girl Nadezhda Durova acted as a vaudeville impostor, but even she claimed only the title of a cornet, nothing more. And only in the twentieth century, impostors suddenly poured out, as if from a leaky bucket: as such were numerous applicants for the "title" of the executed daughters of Nicholas II. Some took the name of the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria. Of these, the most fortunate was a certain Marja Boodts, who, posing as Olga, lived happily in a villa near Lake Como, receiving a pension from Prince Nicholas of Oldenburg and Crown Prince Wilhelm - until her death in 1970. But Anastasia, for some reason, “fell in love” with these adventurers most of all. In different countries and at different times, at least 30 False Anastasias appeared. The most famous of them was Anna Anderson, the last was Natalia Belikhodze, who died in 2000. It is impossible to take these impostors seriously, the stories they invented have a very strong flavor of Disney cartoons, operetta or opera-buff.
But there was also a tragic figure of a truly "Shakespearean" scale among the Russian impostors. We are talking about a mysterious woman posing as the daughter of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and her secret husband, Alexei Razumovsky.
Mysterious stranger
She called herself Mrs. Frank, Shawl, Treimul, Ali Emete, Betty from Oberstein, Alina (Eleanor) - Princess of Azov, Countess Pinneberg, Princess Volodymyr. And only by this, well-known name, she never called herself. She received it from the French diplomat Jean-Henri Caster, who called her so in his book "The Life of Catherine II, Empress of Russia", published in 1797, 22 years after the death of the adventurer. It is believed that the origin of this surname comes from the nephews of Elizabeth Petrovna's secret husband - Alexei Razumovsky. In the original, their surname sounded like Daragan, and in the camera-furrier magazine they were called "Daraganovs".
You probably already guessed that we are talking about the famous "Princess Tarakanova". More precisely, about the two "princesses", since the supposed "princess Augusta" also claimed the role of "Elizabeth's daughter" - a mysterious woman who was practically imprisoned by Catherine II in a solitary cell of the Moscow Ivanovsky monastery.
The greatest interest, of course, is the first of them. In the history of the life of this fatal beauty, there seems to be everything: appearance from nowhere and a meteoric rise, rivalry with the empress of a huge country, love, betrayal and tragic death. "Princess Augusta" against her background looks colorless, dull and "fresh".
Let's start in order.
The appearance of the heroine
The great adventurer is believed to have been born between 1745 and 1753. The Marquis Tommaso d'Antici, whom she met in Rome, considered her to be German. John Dick, the English envoy to Livorno, claimed that she was the daughter of a Nuremberg baker. It was also said that she was the daughter of an innkeeper from Prague. The Soviet historian V. A. Dyakov, having studied her correspondence with Count Limburg, came to the conclusion that, by birth, she was French. And outwardly, False Elizabeth looked like an Italian. Alexey Orlov left the following description of her appearance:
“She is small, her body is very dry, her face is neither white nor black, and her eyes are large and open, the color is dark brown, her braids and eyebrows are dark blond, and her face also has freckles.”
Some point to the squint, claiming that it "did not spoil her face."
The false Elizabeth knew several European languages, assured that she also spoke Arabic and Persian (there were no experts who could check). She was well versed in art, in particular, in architecture, drew well, played the harp.
Prince A. M. Golitsyn, who led the investigation into the case of the impostor in St. Petersburg, spoke about her like this:
"With the natural quickness of her mind, with extensive information in some areas, and finally, with an attractive and at the same time imperative appearance, it is not surprising that she aroused in people confidence and reverence for herself."
For the first time on the pages of historical documents, she appeared in 1770 under the name of Fraulein Frank: she lived first in Kiel, then - in Berlin and Ghent. In the last city, her adventures began. Here she met a certain van Tours - the son of a wealthy merchant, who became the first victim of the female charms of the adventurer. Having spent all his savings on Fraulein Frank, he left his wife and went with her to London. Here his passion took the name of Madame de Tremouille and took a large loan from one of the merchants of this city. When the time came to pay the bills, the unfortunate lover, desperate to satisfy the adventurer's appetites, fled to Paris. Soon his beloved also appeared there: under a new name (Princess Volodymyr) and with a new admirer - Baron Schenk. Under the strict guidance of Mrs. Volodimirskaya, both lovers soon ended up in a debt prison, while she herself went to Frankfurt, where she met a truly serious man - Philip Ferdinand de Limburg. He was born in 1734 in the family of Count Christian Otto Limburg-Stirum and his wife Caroline Juliana. From his mother he inherited the small county of Wilhelmsdorf in Bavaria. In 1766, Philip Ferdinand received the title of "foreign prince" from the French authorities. In addition, he claimed Holstein, the duke of which was the Russian Tsarevich Pavel. Thus, although the new "patron" of the False Elizabeth could not be called either a sovereign ruler of a large state, or a very rich man, at the time described he had his own Court in the image of Versailles, and he had the right to award his own orders - Saint Philip and the Four Emperors. Having paid off the debts of the beauty that charmed him, Philip Ferdinand invited her to his castle, and when she announced pregnancy, as an honest man, he offered her "a hand and a heart." Becoming his wife would be the ultimate desire for any obscure adventurer. But our heroine "any" has never been. And in December 1773, rumors suddenly appeared that under the name of "Princess Vladimir" - the bride of Philippe de Limburg, the daughter of Elizabeth Petrovna and her favorite, Count Alexei Razumovsky, who entered into a secret (but legal) marriage in 1744, are hiding. their secret wedding - the Church of the Resurrection in Barashi.
It was said that before the cross of this church was even decorated with a crown. They also showed the house in which the wedding allegedly took place - then it was occupied by the 4th Moscow gymnasium.
However, some people call another place of the Empress's wedding - the temple of the Sign in the village of Perovo near Moscow.
One way or another, the very fact of the wedding of Elizabeth and Razumovsky does not cause doubts among most historians, it took place in front of witnesses, the count was even given supporting documents.
Immediately after the wedding, Razumovsky received the title of Field Marshal and the so-called Anichkov Palace (from the name of the Anichkov Bridge located nearby) as a gift.
Applicant
Thus, a "legitimate claimant" to the Russian throne suddenly appeared abroad - the Grand Duchess Elizabeth. Now it seems like some kind of anecdote: who is this wandering adventurer, how and on "what field" can she compete with the empress of a great country? However, both contemporaries and Catherine II took this news quite seriously. The fact is that Catherine herself was not the legitimate monarch of Russia: she usurped the throne, to which she did not have the slightest right. It was this vulnerability from the point of view of dynastic law that caused alarm. Of course, it was clear to many that the applicant who appeared out of nowhere was an impostor. But after all, not everyone believed in the tsarist origin of the "named Demetrius" - both in Poland and in Moscow. That did not stop him from seizing the Russian throne. Therefore, no one was going to underestimate False Elizabeth.
The impostor at different times put forward different versions of her biography. Most often, she looked something like this: in infancy, she - “the daughter of Elizaveta Petrovna”, was taken out of Russia, first to Lyon, and then to Holstein (Kiel). In 1761, she returned to St. Petersburg, but very soon the new emperor, Peter III, ordered to send her either to Siberia or to Persia (most often she chose this option for some reason). Only then did she find out about her origin, and, fearing for her life, moved to Europe (everything is logical here - after the conspiracy of Catherine and the murder of her accomplices of the legitimate emperor, anyone will be frightened).
But here Philip de Limburg already doubted: the bride is the heir to the Russian throne, this, of course, is very good. But it's dangerous. In addition, the "well-wishers" told him some details about the early adventures of "Princess Volodymyr". He also received information that Prince Golitsyn, whom the bride called her guardian, did not even know about such a ward. Therefore, the groom demanded from False Elizabeth documents confirming her origin. However, at this time, the adventurer had other plans for the future. And so she easily parted with the count from boring Wilhelmsdorf. Changing her name again, and now becoming Betty from Oberstein, she began to spread rumors that Emelyan Pugachev, who had raised the uprising in Russia, was her paternal brother, "Prince Razumovsky", who was acting in her interests. A year later, she corrected this version, telling the British ambassador in Naples that Pugachev is just a Don Cossack who acts in her favor out of gratitude, since Elizaveta Petrovna, at one time, helped him to get a "brilliant European education."
The reason for such a sharp change in priorities was the acquaintance with influential Polish emigrants, who, apparently, well remembered the story of False Dmitry, and therefore decided to use the adventurer for their own purposes.
Polish question
In 1763, the Polish king Augustus of Saxony died. A year later, with the active assistance of his former mistress, now the Empress of Russia, Catherine II, Stanislaw August Poniatowski, from the Czartoryski family of magnates, was elected king of Poland. In 1768, after the so-called Repninsky Sejm (by the name of the representative of Catherine II), which equalized the rights of Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and the conclusion of the Warsaw Pact of eternal friendship with Russia, part of the discontented gentry united into the Bar Confederation. The Confederates immediately began an armed struggle against anyone they could suspect of sympathy for Russia.
Kazimir Pulawski, who would then flee to Turkey, and eventually end up in the United States, becoming the “father of the American cavalry,” then issued an interesting proclamation. Among other things, it said that the Russians are "animals, persistent, but obedient, who … obey only the fear of the whip and punishment."And also that the Russians "have always been slaves", they "can be defeated even by Polish claps", and the gentry are ashamed to fight with them.
In 1996, forensic anthropologist Charles Merbs from the University of Arizona in 1996 examined the remains of K. Pulavsky and unexpectedly found out that his skeleton, with traces of bullet wounds and changes in the pelvis, characteristic of a cavalryman, is … female. After 20 years, DNA examination confirmed that this skeleton belongs to a representative of the Puławski family. Merbs suggested that Casimir Pulawski was a hermaphrodite, or, as they say now, intersex. Perhaps he himself was unaware of his "dual nature." There was probably a certain femininity of the figure and facial features. Perhaps there is a problem with the potency, but it is unlikely that he spread about them.
But back to the 18th century. The Confederates were supported by Elizabeth's recent allies in the Seven Years' War - the Austrians and the French. And the deposed Stanislav Ponyatovsky turned to Russia for military assistance. The Confederates also had high hopes for the Ottoman Empire. However, the sultan did not want war with Russia, and therefore not only did not send his troops, but also forbade his vassals - the Crimean Khan and the Lord of Moldova - to interfere in Polish affairs.
The young brigadier A. V. Suvorov took part in this war, who was promoted to major general for the defeat of the Confederates at Orekhov in 1769. And in 1771 he defeated the French General Dumouriez, who was sent by Paris to help the Confederates.
As a result, as expected, the Confederates were defeated, almost 10 thousand Poles were captured, most of them (about 7 thousand) were then in Kazan, where they did not live in poverty. A whole palace was allocated to accommodate only Anthony Pulawski, the brother of Casimir who managed to escape. After the beginning of the Pugachev uprising, many Polish aristocrats joined the Russian army, and their subordinates - in droves went over to the side of the "rebels". The most curious thing is that, among those who went over to Pugachev, there was also Anthony Pulavsky! The explanation is simple: the Confederates dreamed of revenge and wanted to establish ties with the leader of the rebels. But Pugachev was not a man who could allow himself to be used as a puppet, and therefore the disappointed Pulavsky soon left the camp of the Russian rebels.
And the main leaders of the Bar Confederation from August 1772 settled in Germany and France. In exile, they founded the so-called General Confederation. Very soon, their attention was attracted by our heroine, whom they dragged into their game. Their first emissary was Mikhail Domansky, who, however, very soon turned from a catcher into a prey, as he could not resist the spell of "Casanova in a skirt" and seriously fell in love with her.
In May 1774, the False Elizabeth arrived in Venice under the name of Countess Pinnenberg. In addition to Domansky, she was accompanied by Baron Knorr (court marshal!), The Englishman Montague and some others, whose names have not been preserved in history. Here, in the house of the French consul (the adventurer has a good scale!) Prince Karol Stanislav Radziwill met her - one of the richest people in Europe, among whose titles were: Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, headman of Lviv, voivode of Vilnius, swordsman great of Lithuania, ordinate of Nesvizh and Olytsky, Marshal of the General Confederation. Or simply - Pane Kohanku. Earlier, in his correspondence, he called the impostor "called by Providence to save Poland."
Pane Kohanku
This strange, but, of course, outstanding person was born on February 27, 1734 and he was not a Pole, but a Lithuanian, the capital of his possessions - the famous Nesvizh.
Karol's father was the IX Nesvizh ordinate Mikhail Kazimir Radziwill Rybonka, his mother was Francis Ursula Radziwill, the last of the old Vishnevetsky family, who is called the first Belarusian writer (but in Ukraine they emphasize that she is Ukrainian).
Karol Stanislav had a twin brother Janusz who died at the age of 16. To teach the boy to read and write, he had to resort to a trick: he was offered to shoot with a pistol at the letters written on wooden tablets, thus making up words and sentences.
The character of this man is well conveyed by the "holiday of winter in the middle of summer" arranged by him, when the road from the castle to the church was covered with salt and sledged along it. As a result, the neighboring peasants stocked up on this expensive product for a long time. Another interesting story associated with this hero is his joke with a then little-known dynamo machine, ordered from France: he showed it to guests during a thunderstorm, claiming that he was the "god of thunder." The result turned out to be quite unexpected: one of his guests, whose house in Slutsk was later burned down due to a lightning strike, demanded compensation from Radziwill, as the "lord of the thunderstorm", which he paid without further ado.
The stories that Karol Radziwill sometimes "gave out" at the dinner table are worthy of the pen of Erich Raspe. Two of them are particularly noteworthy. In the first, he talked about the capture of a devil in Nalibokskaya Pushcha, which he then soaked in holy water for three days. In the second - about how he climbed into hell through the Mount Etna and saw there a lot of Jesuits sitting in sealed bottles: fearing that they would convert all devils to Catholicism, Lucifer himself imprisoned them there.
And he got his nickname due to the fact that he addressed all his acquaintances: "Pane kokhanku" ("My beloved").
The following description of his appearance has survived:
“Prince Karl was less than average in height, very fat and always dressed in the old Polish fashion, most often he appeared in the uniform of a Vilna voivode: garnet-colored kuntush, zhupan and crimson cuffs and gold buttons. A saber, showered with large diamonds, in a gold scabbard, moose gloves behind a belt, and a crimson confederate on his head. He wore a long mustache and shaved his forehead. On the crown of his head he had a growth the size of a volosh nut. Both the voivode himself and all the Lithuanians wore a wide and even baggy dress, which they considered an old-world fashion, which everyone willingly adhered to."
The English envoy at the St. Petersburg court D. Harris left a rather impartial comment about him:
“He could not speak French, and morally stood no higher than the last of his vassals. He was a great fool and a cruel drunkard."
The prince's behavior was indeed distinguished by charming spontaneity, which in any other case would have been regarded as tyranny, but for Pane Kohanku, contemporaries made an exception, speaking only about the "eccentricities" of this magnate. Having nominated himself as a candidate for the post of ambassador to the Seim, he presented his "program" at the market in Nesvizh, sitting in a Bacchus suit on a barrel of wine, while treating everyone to come. In 1762, at the election of the hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he decided not to spend money on wine: his people "regaled" opponents with whips and even sabers. He also tried to act in the elections of the king of Poland, bringing with him a whole army of several thousand people, but was defeated, fled to Moldova, then to Dresden. There he quickly missed the abandoned estates and asked for forgiveness: both to the new king Stanislav Poniatovsky, and to a much more serious and authoritative person - the Russian Empress Catherine II:
"Imbued with a sense of the most lively gratitude to the Empress for the offered patronage, obedient to her magnanimous will for the good of the republic and all good patriots," he promised, "that he will always stick to the Russian party; that the orders that the Russian court will want to give it will always be accepted with respect and obedience and that it will carry out them without the slightest resistance, direct or indirect."
By the way, he returned to Vilno under the protection of a Russian detachment headed by Colonel Kar: the Czartoryski supporters were not very much looking forward to Pane Kohanka at home. When the Bar Confederation arose, Radziwill behaved suspiciously: he received rebel emissaries in his castle, increased the number of "militia" to 4,000 people, the number of guns - up to 32, stocked up military equipment. It got to the point that he demanded that Major General Izmailov not attack the Confederates near Nesvizh - because he is such an ardent patriot that “he cannot be an indifferent witness to the blood of his fellow citizens and, if a battle takes place near his castle, will withdraw his army ". Surprised by such impudence, Izmailov laid siege to Nesvizh, forcing Radziwill to write letters of repentance to the Russian ambassador Repnin with apologies for "involuntary mistakes." He had to hand over Slutsk and Nesvizh to the Russian authorities, disband the "militia", hand over all weapons and equipment. In June 1769, he begged to let him go to his Austrian possessions, but in the end he ended up in the émigré government - the very General Confederation.
Babette goes to war
Having met with the adventurer, Radziwill did not beat around the bush, immediately outlining the cost of the "services" of the Confederates: "Elizabeth II" should return Belarus to the Commonwealth and facilitate the return of the Polish territories seized by Prussia and Austria. It was decided that she would lead a corps of Polish and French "volunteers" who would go to the Russian-Turkish war, where the "heiress to the throne" would have the opportunity to appeal to the Russian army with an appeal to go over to her side. And, in June 1774, the False Elizabeth actually went to Constantinople, but because of the weather and various diplomatic delays, she sailed only to Ragusa (Dubrovnik), where she settled in the house of the French consul.
Here she was overtaken by the news of the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace between Russia and Turkey. For Prince Radziwill, the impostor immediately ceased to be interesting. In despair, the impostor turned to the terrible person, about whom E. Tarle said:
"Neither moral, physical, nor political obstacles existed for him, and he could not even understand why they exist for others."
And this man was Count Alexei Orlov, who was in secret disgrace, who commanded the Russian squadron of the Mediterranean.
Dangerous ties
Confident in her irresistibility, the impostor decided to take possession of him, and at the same time - the Russian fleet. In one of the letters sent to Orlov through Montague, she stated that she had copies of the original wills of Peter I, Catherine I and Elizabeth. And that she is going to publish these documents confirming her rights in European newspapers. She wrote about the brilliant successes of the popular uprising, started by her brother, "now called Pugachev." The fact that the Turkish sultan and many monarchs of Europe are helping her in everything. That she has many adherents in Russia. And she promised Orlov her protection, the greatest honors and "the most tender gratitude."
Orlov was silent, and Prince Radziwill, together with the "volunteers", left it in October 1774, moving to Venice (in 1778, after an amnesty to the participants of the Bar Confederation, he would return to Nesvizh and try to revive the former glory of this residence).
Meanwhile, the position of the impostor was now simply disastrous. In her retinue, in addition to the servants, only three people remained: Mikhail Domansky, who was in love with her, Yan Chernomsky, and a certain Ganetsky, a former Jesuit. She traveled through Naples to Rome, where Hanecki managed to arrange a meeting with Cardinal Albani.
All this carefully prepared "game" was confused by the death of Pope Clement XIV, after which the cardinal was not up to the False Elizabeth. She was desperate and was already thinking about giving up the fight. And then Alexei Orlov suddenly responded, who received Catherine's order "to seize the name that had riveted upon herself at all costs." This was the chance of a triumphant return to Russia, and Orlov was not going to let it go.
The denouement of this story, about "Princess Augusta", another candidate for the role of the daughter of Elizaveta Petrovna and Alexei Razumovsky, and some other hypothetical children of this couple will be discussed in the next article.
