5 January — In Saint Petersburg, at around four o’clock in the morning, Elizaveta Petrovna died in her 53rd year of life. She had been Empress of Russia since 25 November (6 December) 1741, of the Romanov dynasty, the daughter of Peter I and his mistress Ekaterina Alexeyevna (the future Empress Catherine I).
Peter III was proclaimed Emperor. He ruled for 186 days. He was not crowned. The son of Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp and Anna Petrovna, daughter of Emperor Peter I, he was first raised as heir to the Swedish throne. The boy, named Karl Peter Ulrich at birth, lost his mother soon after he was born, and at the age of 11 he also lost his father. Peter grew up a nervous and impressionable boy, loved the arts, and adored everything military—indeed, all his ambitious thoughts were connected with military affairs. Having become Empress in 1741, Elizaveta Petrovna wanted to secure the throne along her father’s line.
In 1742 she summoned her nephew to Petersburg, baptized him under the name Peter Fyodorovich, and declared him heir to the Russian throne.
In 1745 he was married to the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, the future Empress Catherine II, who bore him a son, Paul (the future Emperor Paul I). During the years spent in Russia, Peter never attempted to get to know the country, its people, or its history; he neglected Russian customs, behaved inappropriately during church services, did not observe fasts and other rites. Upon ascending the throne, the Emperor launched into frenetic activity, the main goal of which was to prove that he could govern the country better than his late aunt. However, he had no clearly defined political program. In six months of reign he managed to issue a considerable number of legislative acts, among which the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility and the decree on the secularization of the church’s landed property must be noted. An undoubtedly liberal step on Peter’s part was the abolition of the Secret Chancellery for Investigative Affairs. The Emperor’s policy was marked by religious tolerance: he stopped the persecution of the Old Believers and intended to carry out a reform of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In the army, however, he began consistently introducing Prussian regulations, which did not add to his popularity. Peter III’s position in society was precarious, but Catherine’s position at court was also unstable. Peter III openly said that he intended to divorce his wife in order to marry his favorite, Elizaveta Vorontsova. After half a year of reign,
22 June — the last of the 18th-century palace coups in Russia took place, ending with Peter III being removed from the throne. Catherine II began to rule the country.
Emperor Peter III was not crowned, nor was the boy-emperor Ivan VI. Empress Catherine II, already a week after her accession to the throne, published a manifesto announcing the forthcoming Coronation. The coronation took place on 22 September. The ceremony was the same as under Empress Elizaveta. A celebration for the people was held on 28 September: money was distributed to the poor; in many places tables were set up for the poor with snacks; roasted bulls and barrels of beer and mead were taken through the streets for the people. On the day of the Coronation, a manifesto was issued granting forgiveness to those who had fallen into crimes, remitting arrears and state exactions, so that, “while preserving, as far as possible, duty to justice, those who had fallen into various crimes might also be made participants in the common joy”; the Russian army had confirmed to it the “rights and privileges granted by Empress Elizaveta.”
20 December — the future Emperor Paul I becomes General-Admiral of the Russian Imperial Navy. Quite recently, on 4 June, Paul had become a colonel of the Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment of the Russian Imperial Guard.