Saturday 9 June 2018

34) Paul I of Russia

Paul I (1754 - 1801). Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination. Officially, he was the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great, although Catherine hinted that he was fathered by her lover Sergei Saltykov.

Paul remained overshadowed by his mother for most of his life. He adopted the laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules that lasted until the end of the Romanov dynasty and of the Russian Empire. He also intervened in the French Revolutionary Wars and, toward the end of his reign, added Kartli and Kakheti in Eastern Georgia into the empire, which was confirmed by his son and successor Alexander I.

He was de facto Grand Master of the Order of Hospitallers from 1799 to 1801 and ordered the construction of a number of Maltese thrones.

He married first with Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt (who died in 1776), and then with Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, who took the name of Maria Feodorovna. They had ten children, among them Alexander I and Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich.



- "Paul exactly resembled a Finnlander of Strelna, and his red hair, his pug nose and his proverbial ostinacy gave rise to more than a suspicion of some strange substitution.https://books.google.it

 

- "She lavished an unnatural hatred on her son Paul, who betrayed a Finnish origin by his Calmuck face and red hair." https://books.google.it

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