Anne was thirty-five years old when she was crowned as czarina. (p. 177)
She had been in Germany so long that she preferred to surround herself
with Germans who did serve her well, but they naturally aroused the
jealousy and hatred of the Russian nobles. In 1733, Augustus II, King
of Poland, died. Russia, Prussia, and France, each had a candidate.
Austria and Russia favored Augustus III of Saxony, and Louis XV of
France supported his father-in-law Stanislas Lecszinski.
This candidate secretly proceeded to Warsaw, where he was elected by a
vote of 60,000 against 4,000. A Russian army crossed the frontier,
whereupon Stanislas withdrew to Dantzig and the Russians proclaimed
Augustus III. The war spread and a Russian army of 20,000 men advanced
as far as Heidelberg in Baden. It ended in 1735, by the Peace of
Vienna, but Russia became involved in a war with Turkey, as an ally of
Austria.
In 1736, the Russians took Azof and ravaged the western Crimea. In the
following year they laid waste its eastern part, and in 1739 they
gained a great victory at Savoutchani. Austria was not anxious to have
Russia as a close neighbor, and arranged the Peace of Belgrade.
(1739.) Russia surrendered all the conquests, except a small tongue of
land between the Dnieper and the Bug. Sweden threatened war, but it
was averted. The following year, 1740, Anne died, leaving the throne
to her infant son, Ivan of Brunswick.
Anne Ivanovna introduced western luxury into Russia. Prior to her
arrival, fashions were unknown, and people used to wear their clothes
until they were worn out. Soon after restoring autocracy, she (p. 178)
returned to St. Petersburg where she endeavored to establish a court
in imitation of that of France. She could compel her nobles to appear
in the costume of the west, and, unless they were very wealthy, make
them sacrifice estates and serfs to pay his increased expenses, but of
the refinement which creates fashion, there was none. One of her
guests, a procurator-general was so intoxicated at one of her
receptions that he insulted one of Anne's most trusted advisers; she
was a witness, but only laughed heartily.
The young nobles benefited by the German influence at Court, since
they received a better education. A law was made requiring them to
study from their seventh to their twentieth year, and to serve the
government from that age until they were forty-five. Between the age
of twelve and sixteen they were made to appear before an examining
board, and any one failing to pass the second time in catechism,
arithmetic, and geometry, was put into the navy. In the schools for
young nobles,--the serfs received no instruction of any kind,--the
course of studies was enlarged after the German system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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