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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

EMPEROR FOR THE NIGHT How a simple Ukrainian shepherd became a Russian field marshal

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

On a cold night in the autumn of 1742, the first full-fledged Empress of All Russia, daughter of Peter I, secretly married a Ukrainian fellow by the name of Oleksiy, son of Registered Cossack Colonel Hryhory Rozum, Cherkasy Regiment. Unbelievable, but the fact is corroborated by a number of prestigious historical sources.

The following is a brief outline, something akin to a Christmas story. It is about Oleksiy Rozum, an ordinary shepherd who became miraculously transformed as a Russian Field Marshal, eventually cutting an impressive figure as an adventuresome philosopher, made count as a legitimate spouse of the formidable Russian emperor’s daughter who went down in history under the name Elizabeth Petrovna. He would make his younger brother Kyrylo the last Ukrainian Hetman.

OLEKSA ROZUM A.K.A. ALEKSEY RAZUMOVSKY

Poets wrote at the time that he who did not live in the eighteenth century had not lived at all. This adventuresome age produced a personality that would be immediately identified as yet another “new Ukrainian” these days. There is little mention made of him in historical documents. Kyrylo Razumovsky the royal-appointed Hetman is mentioned rather often, but not his brother Oleksiy. In fact, professional historians refuse to acknowledge his existence.

It all started with Empress Anna Ivanovna’s express fancy for Tokay wines. In the severely cold winter of 1731 Russian Colonel Vyshnevsky, escorting a shipment of Tokay from Hungary, stopped for the night at Lemeshi, a village in Left-Bank Ukraine 100 km from Kyiv. The Muscovites rose at dawn and went to church where Colonel Vyshnevetsky heard Oleksa Rozum with the choir. The young fellow’s bass made him a local celebrity. The Russian nobleman knew talent when he saw one. He invited Oleksa to Moscow. The fellow liked company, wine, and songs. He would spend all he had in a nearby tavern and then yell in his deafening bass: “I am Oleksa Rozum with the brightest head in the neighborhood [rozum is Ukrainian for brain or intellect - Ed.]!” His family lived in misery until the Moscow guest emerged with his invitation. Be it as it may, in 1732 Oleksa (his name was Aleksey now, of course) found himself with the choir of Herr Lewenwold, Marshal of the Russian Court, and the following year with that of Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna, the future Empress.

PETER I’S DAUGHTER DARK DAYS FOR

Elizabeth was the sure heir to the Russian throne, so Empress Anna Ivanovna resolved to marry her into any European noble family, the farther from Russia the better, reserving cloistered life as the last resort. She did not possess Peter I’s brilliance, but had inherited his common sense and cunning. She knew how to act on the sly and she was markedly kind to people while plotting the most wicked schemes behind their backs. She treasured her parentage more than anything else. Elizabeth was fluent in French and danced the Western minuet and Russian barynia (grandam) beautifully. This and her other skills did not help in arranging her match with the future French King Louis XV. Of course, everyone at the Versailles knew of her illegitimate birth (Elizabeth was born in 1709, before Peter I married Catherine), but the biggest obstacle was that Elizabeth had the nerve to share her affections with the royal contender and a handsome grenadier named Shubin (the latter was quickly exiled to Siberia). After the 1742 coup and Elizabeth’s coronation Shubin returned to St. Petersburg a triumphant newly promoted Russian army general.

As saying had it at the time, “In Russia you either drink vodka or wear shackles.” Muscovy was a whirlpool with its boundless expanses, sucking in Little Russia and wild steppe nomads, with the official Russian religion emerging as a crazy mixture of Orthodox Byzantine and Golden Horde rites.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

It was in this historical setting of decadent morals and personal wavering convictions that Tsarina Elizabeth first met a Little Russian choir singer named Oleksiy (Aleksey) Rozum, watched his darkly handsome face with fiery gray eyes under thick black eyebrows, sensed his sheer physical strength emanating from his broad shoulders and proud stature, and heard his rich bass. She was smitten, love at first sight. She was in her prime and knew she was beautiful. She saw that the man was mesmerized by her. Not as a daughter of Peter the Great, a most probable successor to the Russian throne, but as a woman he craved. She had her dark days and now she wanted to be an ordinary woman happily in love. Oleksa made the first move that could have cost him his life, stealing into her quarters. A few words were spoken, and then she was in his arms. Their love-making was frenzied, lasting for nights on end. Elizabeth was in seventh heaven and issued an edict, appointing her paramour steward of her estates and giving him a Russian-Polish name: Razumovsky, according to the best aristocratic standard.

NOVEMBER COUP

He was first referred to as “the night emperor” in a message Marquis de Chetardi, the French Ambassador to Russia, sent in the immediate aftermath of the November coup when Elizabeth Petrovna had all German courtiers rallied round Empress Anna Ivanovna arrested overnight. Alexey Razumovsky helped her, of course. It was thus that “Peter I’s flesh and blood” ascended to the Russian throne, marking the most exciting period in the man’s life, something which would regrettably pass unnoticed by historians.

Overnight the disgraced tsarevna’s favorite turned into a highly influential paramour and confidant of the omnipotent empress of Russia. He was now General of the Life Guard and Head Royal Ranger, recipient of the orders of Sts. Andrew and Aleksandr Nevsky, Count of the Russian and Roman Empire with a scroll signed by His Majesty Charles VII the Holy Roman Emperor. And there is “documentary evidence” proving Count Alexey Razumovsky’s belonging to Roman Rozinski’s aristocratic Polish line dynasty, complete with excerpts from Latin and Polish genealogical sources, summing up Count Razumovsky’s noble origin “on four faultlessly proven accounts.”

He had plenty of villages, settlements, mills, and factories in his possession located all over Russia and it was not long before he was promoted to Field Marshal of the Russian Empire.

THE KIND-HEARTED AND HUMBLE OLEKSA (ALEXEY)

After Elizabeth Petrovna’s death he petitioned Emperor Paul III to leave him in possession of only one village, Adamivka, in Ukraine and be allowed to meet his dying day in peace. A gesture dictated by a kind and humble heart, no doubt. He just could not imagine life without his sweetheart Lisbeth (he would survive her by ten years), but that’s getting ahead of the story. Suppose we return to what historians describe as the “carefree” period of Elizabeth Petrovna’s reign.

She encouraged everything Ukrainian in court (e.g., cuisine, songs, needlework, even lobsters a la Baturin) and all this was considered in vogue. And almost every event of any importance bore Count Alexey Razumovsky’s hallmarks. Ukrainian Hetmans were reinstalled. The empress made a trip to Kyiv and laid the corner stone of St. Andrew’s Church. And it was there she wanted to marry Razumovsky officially. All Russian regiments deployed in every populated area having a Cossack company were withdrawn from Ukraine. Russia’s secret police (known as the Secret Chancellery at the time) regarded Count Alexey Razumovsky as a cunning Little Russian politician. He was known as a heavy drinker, but even when drunk never spilled the beans. Instead he gave vent to his savage ancestral self and used to whip his sycophants. He was suspected of staying in touch with Count Andrei Ostermann, Peter I’s diplomat, blacklisted under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and exiled to Siberia. Razumovsky thought him to be a brave, unpredictable, and sage politician. He never forgot about his own initial position as steward of imperial estates and never openly meddled in Russian politics, but he was unobtrusively interested, keeping his eyes peeled, always in the know, while posing as a simple kind-hearted and generous Little Russian, ready to share a drink and song. All the while he studied the entourage and bought all who cut some ice there. Few understood him, but everyone seemed fond of him.

HIS REAL STRENGTH

Razumovsky was a skilled diplomat. This and his tremendous influence in court allowed him to display probably the greatest feat, staying afloat even after Elizabeth Petrovna’s passing when Paul III ascended to the throne, and even after Catherine II was crowned. In Muscovy, beheading former royal favorites or exiling them to Siberia was standard operating procedure.

Russian historians portrayed Count Alexey Razumovsky as a lackey and drunk. The reason is easily understandable: the Empress of All Russia could not have possibly stayed under the influence of a poorly educated Little Russian muzhik for almost 25 years, could she? Now their Ukrainian colleagues (e.g., Kostomarov, Kulish, Danilevsky, Hrushevsky...) showed a “specific” approach to this figure. Why? This author would not know after reading everything he could find at Lviv’s and Kyiv’s libraries.

SENTIMENTAL REMARKS

There is little we can hope to learn from our “national history” after seeing a remarkable personality like Alexey Razumovsky – the clever and dedicated Ukrainian Oleksiy Rozum – portrayed as a lackey and drunk. A Polish historian named Kazimierz Waliszewski dug up Razumovsky’s other alias, “night emperor,” in some obscure Western archives, allegedly what European diplomatic envoys called him in their daily reports to the sending countries. At the same time, he acknowledged Razumovsky’s special place in the history of favoritism. After studying the Berlin Archives Mr. Waliszewski ascertained his profile as follows: “He was given to caustic remarks, without the slightest hint at obsequiousness, and he held his own philosophic views extending over an extremely broad range...”

 

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