PETER THE GREAT'S SUCCESSORS Peter met with opposition in his own family : his son Alexis grew up under the influence of the clergy and obviously dis approved of Peter's reform. He fled abroad from Peter's menaces, was brought back by fraud and imprisoned on suspicion of a conspiracy against his father's life and died by torture (1718).
There remained only two daughters from the second marriage of Peter with a Livonian prisoner, Martha Catherine : Anne and Elizabeth. In 1722 Peter reserved for the monarch the right to designate his successor. But at the moment of death on January 28,1725, he failed to do so. Peter's upstarts, like Menshikov, who had everything to fear from the survivors of old nobility, resorted to the guards and with their help proclaimed Catherine. The legitimate heir, the son of Alexis, Peter, was thus put aside. The Russian throne became "not hereditary and not elective, but occupative." The period from Peter's death to Catherine II.'s accession (1725-1762) was an eclipse. Male members of the Romanov dynasty, the grandson of. Peter (the son of Alexis) Peter II. and his other grandson (son of Anne of Holstein) Peter III. were frail and feeble of mind. The women—both Peter's niece Anne (John's daughter) and his daughter Elizabeth —were stronger in mind and body. But they shared their power with favourites, and their choice was not always a happy one. Court life flourished under these women's reign and it became very luxurious and expensive. A special school was founded by Anne ("the corps of nobles") to teach the noble guards foreign languages, dances and good manners. Balls, theatrical plays, musical entertainments—chiefly by foreign artists—became a reg ular pastime. The country was badly ruled; foreign policy was
venal. Russia took part in European wars with little benefit for herself. From reign to reign the noble guards gained in influence, as they practically disposed of the throne. Catherine I. (1725-27) was followed by the rightful heir Peter II. (1727-1730), owing to a compromise between Menshikov and the representathies of the old nobility. His reign was fraught with struggle between the two. But Anne, the widowed Duchess of Courland, pos sessed a "bad title." The aristocrats offered her the throne on the condition of limiting her power by the "supreme council" (created under Catherine I.) in questions of her marriage, suc cession, war and peace, taxation, military appointments, etc. Anne signed, but profiting by the guards' dissensions tore up the signed charter, and reigned as an autocrat, aided by her favourite, Biren (173o-174o). She tried to secure the succession in the lineage of her sister, the deceased Catherine of Mecklenburg, by designating as successor under the regency of Biren the baby Ivan, just born to her niece, Anne of Brunswick. After a few months the guards showed their hatred of the rule of the "Ger mans" by overthrowing the regency of Anne and enthroning Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, who was expected to return to Peter's national policy (1741-1761). And indeed the first fruits of Peter's reforms ripened during Elizabeth's reign : national poetry, a theatre and the first Russian university which was created in Moscow (1755), all auguring a deeper culture and knowledge for the next generation.