The son of the niece of Empress Anna Ioannovna, Princess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg and Duke Anton-Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg, was born on August 23 (12 old style) August 1740. As an infant, Anna Ioannovna's manifesto of October 16 (5, old style) October 1740 declared him heir to the throne.
On October 28 (17 old style) 1740, after the death of Anna Ioannovna, Ivan Antonovich was proclaimed emperor, and the manifesto of October 29 (18 old style) announced the awarding of the regency until John came of age to the Duke of Courland.
On November 20 (9 according to the old style) of the same year, after the overthrow of Biron by the field marshal, the regency passed to the mother of Ivan Antonovich, Anna Leopoldovna.
On the night of December 6 (November 25, old style) 1741, the ruler of Russia with her husband, one-year-old emperor and five-month-old daughter Catherine were arrested in the palace by the daughter of Peter I, who was proclaimed empress.
The entire Brunswick family was placed under surveillance in the former palace of Elizabeth. The manifesto of December 9 (November 28, old style) 1741 noted that the entire family would be sent abroad and would receive a decent allowance.
On December 23 (12 according to the old style) December 1741, Lieutenant General Vasily Saltykov with a large convoy took John with his parents and sister from St. Petersburg. But Elizabeth decided to detain John in Russia until the arrival of her nephew, Prince Peter of Holstein (later Emperor Peter III), whom she had chosen as heir.
On January 20 (9 according to the old style) January 1742, the Brunswick surname was brought to Riga, where Anna Leopoldovna, at the request of the Empress, signed an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth Petrovna on behalf of herself and her son.
Rumors about Anna Leopoldovna's hostility towards the new government and the attempt by the chamberlain Alexander Turchaninov to kill the Empress and the Duke of Holstein, made in favor of Ivan Antonovich in July 1742, made Elizabeth see Ivan as a dangerous contender, so she decided not to let him out of Russia .
On December 13, 1742, the Brunswick family was placed in the Dinamunde fortress (now Daugavgriva Fortress, Latvia). When Lopukhin’s “conspiracy” was discovered in July 1743, in January 1744 it was decided to transfer the entire family to the city of Ranenburg (now Chaplygin, Lipetsk region).
In June 1744, it was decided to send them to the Solovetsky Monastery, but the family only reached Kholmogory, Arkhangelsk province: the accompanying chamberlain Nikolai Korf, citing the difficulties of the journey and the impossibility of keeping their stay on Solovki a secret, convinced the government to leave them there.
During the reign of Elizabeth and her immediate successors, the very name of Ivan Antonovich was persecuted: the seals of his reign were altered, the coin was recast, all business papers with the name of Emperor Ivan were ordered to be collected and sent to the Senate.
With the accession of Peter III to the throne in December 1761, Ivan Antonovich’s position did not improve - instructions were given to kill him while trying to free him. In March 1762, the new emperor paid a visit to the prisoner.
After the accession of Catherine II to the throne, a project arose for her marriage with Ivan Antonovich, which would allow her to legitimize (legitimize) her power. According to existing assumptions, in August 1762 she visited the prisoner and considered him crazy. After the revelation in the fall of 1762 of the Guards conspiracy to overthrow Catherine II, the regime for keeping the prisoner became stricter, and the Empress confirmed the previous instructions of Peter III.
On the night of July 16 (5, old style), 1764, second lieutenant of the Smolensk infantry regiment Vasily Mirovich, who was stationed in the garrison of the fortress, attempted to free Ivan Antonovich and proclaim him emperor. Having won over the garrison soldiers to his side with the help of forged manifestos, he arrested the commandant of the fortress, Berednikov, and demanded the extradition of John. The officers assigned to Ivan first fought off Mirovich and the soldiers who followed him, but then, when he began to prepare a cannon to break the doors, they stabbed Ivan Antonovich, according to the instructions. After the investigation, Mirovich was executed.
The body of the former emperor was secretly buried according to Christian rites, presumably on the territory of the Shlisselburg fortress.
In 2008, alleged remains belonging to the Russian Emperor John VI Antonovich were found in Kholmogory.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
- sometimes also called Ivan III (according to the kings), the son of the niece of Empress Anna Ioannovna, Princess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg, and Duke Anton-Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg, b. On August 12, 1740, and by Anna Ioannovna’s manifesto, dated October 5, 1740, he was declared heir to the throne. After the death of Anna Ioannovna (October 17, 1740), Ivan was proclaimed emperor, and the manifesto of October 18. announced the awarding of the regency until Ivan came of age, that is, until he turned 17 years old. Duke of Courland Biron. After the overthrow of Biron by Minich (November 8), the regency passed to Anna Leopoldovna, but already on the night of December 25. 1741 ruler with her husband and children, including the emperor. Ivan, were arrested in the palace by Elizaveta Petrovna and the latter was proclaimed empress. At first, she intended to send the deposed emperor and his entire family abroad, and on December 12. In 1741 they were sent from St. Petersburg to Riga, under the supervision of Lieutenant General. V. F. Saltykova; but then Elizabeth changed her intentions and, before reaching Riga, Saltykov received orders to travel as quietly as possible, delaying the journey under various pretexts, and to stop in Riga and wait for new orders. The prisoners stayed in Riga until December 13. 1742, when they were transported to the Dynamünde fortress. During this time, Elizabeth finally decided not to let Ivan and his parents, as dangerous pretenders, out of Russia. In January 1744, there was a decree on a new transportation of the former ruler and her family, this time to the city of Ranenburg (now the city of Ryazan province), and the executor of this order, captain-lieutenant Vyndomsky, almost brought them to Orenburg . On June 27, 1744, Chamberlain Baron N.A. Korfu was ordered by decree of the Empress to take the family of royal prisoners to the Solovetsky Monastery, and Ivan, both during this trip and during his stay in Solovki, was to be completely separated from his family and none of outsiders should not have access to it, except for a specially assigned overseer.
Korf took the prisoners, however, only to Kholmogory and, presenting to the government all the difficulty of transporting them to Solovki and keeping them secret there, convinced them to leave them in this city. Here Ivan spent about 12 years in complete solitary confinement, cut off from all communication with people; the only person with whom he could see was Major Miller, who was watching him, and in turn was almost deprived of the opportunity to communicate with other persons guarding the family of the former emperor. Nevertheless, rumors about Ivan’s stay in Kholmogory spread, and the government decided to take new precautions. At the beginning of 1756, the sergeant of the life campaign Savin was ordered to secretly take Ivan out of Kholmogory and secretly deliver him to Shlisselburg, and Colonel Vyndomsky, the chief bailiff of the Brunswick family, was given the order: “The remaining prisoners will be kept as before, even more strictly and with adding more guards so as not to show that the prisoner has been taken out to our office and, upon departure of the prisoner, to report that he is under your guard, as they reported before.” In Shlisselburg, the secret had to be kept no less strictly: the commandant of the fortress himself was not supposed to know who was being held there under the name of a “famous prisoner”; Only three officers of the team guarding him could see Ivan and knew his name; they were forbidden to tell Ivan where he was; Even a field marshal could not be allowed into the fortress without a decree from the Secret Chancellery.
With the accession of Peter III, Ivan's position did not improve, but rather changed for the worse, although there were rumors about Peter's intention to free the prisoner. The instructions given by gr. A.I. Shuvalov, Ivan’s chief bailiff (Prince Churmanteev), ordered, among other things: “If the prisoner begins to create any disorder or displease you, or says something obscene, then put him on a chain until he pacifies, and if he does not listens, then beat you with a stick and a whip." In the decree of Peter III, Churmanteev dated January 1, 1762, he was ordered: “If, beyond our expectations, whoever dares to take a prisoner away from you, in this case, resist as much as possible and do not give the prisoner alive into your hands.” In the instructions given upon Catherine’s accession to the throne by N.I. Panin, to whom she was entrusted with the main supervision of the maintenance of the Shlisselburg prisoner, this last point was expressed even more clearly: “If, beyond expectation, it happens that someone comes with a team or alone, even if it were the commandant or some other officer, without a personal order signed by Her I.V. or without a written order from me, and wanted to take the prisoner from you, then do not give him to anyone and consider everything as a forgery or an enemy hand. If this hand is so strong that it is impossible to escape, then the prisoner will be killed, and not given into the hands of anyone alive.”
According to some news, after Catherine’s accession, Bestuzhev drew up a plan for her marriage to Ivan. It is true that Catherine saw Ivan at this time and, as she herself admitted later in the manifesto, found him damaged in mind. Ivan was portrayed as crazy, or at least easily losing his mental balance, in the reports of the officers assigned to him. However, Ivan knew his origins, despite the mystery surrounding him, and called himself sovereign. Despite the strict prohibition of teaching him anything, he learned to read and write from someone, and then he was allowed to read the Bible. The secret of Ivan’s stay in Shlisselburg was not preserved, and this completely destroyed him. Second Lieutenant of the Smolensk Infantry Regiment Vas, stationed in the garrison of the fortress. Yak. Mirovich decided to release him and proclaim him emperor; on the night of July 4-5, 1764, he began to carry out his plan and, having won over the garrison soldiers to his side with the help of forged manifestos, arrested the commandant of the fortress, Berednikov, and demanded the extradition of Ivan. The bailiffs at first resisted with the help of their team, but when Mirovich aimed a cannon at the fortress, they surrendered, having previously, according to the exact meaning of the instructions, killed Ivan. After a thorough investigation, which revealed the complete absence of accomplices among Mirovich, the latter was executed.
During the reign of Elizabeth and her immediate successors, the very name I; was persecuted: the seals of his reign were altered, the coin was overflowed, all business papers with the name of the imp. Ivan was ordered to be collected and sent to the Senate; manifestos, sworn certificates, church books, forms of commemoration of persons of the Imp. houses in churches, sermons and passports were ordered to be burned, the rest of the files should be kept under seal and when making inquiries with them not to use the title and name of Ivan, hence the name of these documents “deeds with a well-known title.” Only the highest approved on August 19. In 1762, the Senate report stopped further destruction of the affairs of Ivan’s time, which threatened to violate the interests of private individuals. Recently, the surviving documents were partly published in their entirety, partly processed in the Moscow edition. archive min. Justice.
Literature: Soloviev, “History of Russia” (vols. 21 and 22); Hermann, "Geschichte des Russischen Staates"; M. Semevsky, “Ivan VI Antonovich” (“Otech. Notes”, 1866, vol. CLXV); Brickner, "Emperor John Antonovich and his relatives. 1741-1807" (M., 1874); “The internal life of the Russian state from October 17, 1740 to November 20, 1741” (published by the Moscow Architectural Ministry of Justice, vol. I, 1880, vol. II, 1886); Bilbasov, "Geschichte Catherine II" (vol. II); some minor information is also in the articles “Russian Antiquities”: “The fate of the family of the ruler Anna Leopoldovna” (1873, vol. VII) and “Emperor John Antonovich” (1879, vols. 24 and 25).
V. M-n.
Encyclopedia Brockhaus-Efron
On July 17 (July 4, Old Style), 1764, the innocent sufferer Sovereign Passion-Bearer John VI Antonovich was killed.
Brief historical background:
Ivan VI (Ioann Antonovich) (12 (23) August 1740, St. Petersburg - 5 (16) July 1764, Shlisselburg) - Russian emperor from the Brunswick branch of the Romanov dynasty from October 1740 to November 1741, great-grandson of Ivan V. Formally reigned for the first year his life under the regency of first Biron, and then his own mother Anna Leopoldovna. A year later there was a revolution. Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth and the Transfiguration men arrested the emperor, his parents and all their associates. In 1742, the entire family was secretly transferred to the Riga suburb of Dunamünde, in 1744 to Oranienburg, then to Kholmogory, where little Ivan was completely isolated from his parents. In 1756 he was transported to solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress. Ivan (who was called a “famous prisoner”) was not even allowed to see the serf servants. The infant emperor was overthrown, spent almost his entire life imprisoned in prisons, in solitary confinement, and already during the reign of Catherine II he was killed by guards at the age of 23 while trying to free him. During his entire imprisonment, he never saw a single human face. But documents show that the prisoner knew about his royal origin, was taught to read and write and dreamed of life in a monastery. The guards were given secret instructions to kill the prisoner if they tried to free him (even after presenting a decree from the empress to this effect). In official lifetime sources he is mentioned as John III, that is, the account is traced back to the first Russian Tsar, Ivan the Terrible; in later historiography, a tradition was established to call him Ivan (John) VI, counting from Ivan I Kalita.
Russian history has many blind spots and dark places, complicated plots and forgotten heroes. One of its most mysterious and tragic characters is Emperor John Antonovich (born August 2, 1740, killed July 4, 1764).
Little is known about him.
John VI with his mother Anna Leopoldovna
Monogram of John VI
His entire official biography could be summarized in a few lines. He was the son of Prince Anton-Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Anna Leopoldovna, granddaughter of Tsar John Alekseevich. He became Emperor of Russia according to the will of Anna Ioannovna in 1740. But his reign did not last long. On the night of November 24-25, 1741, the young Emperor was overthrown from the throne, which passed to Elizaveta Petrovna, daughter of Emperor Peter I. Throughout his entire life he was in prison, where he died after a failed attempt at the “Mirovich conspiracy.”
Being in inhuman conditions, John Antonovich read the Gospel and prayed to God, although he did not have any conditions for normal church life.
The Baby Emperor who became the Martyr Emperor...
It seems that not a single ruler of Russia had such a sad fate. Of the less than twenty-four years of his life, he spent more than twenty in the most sinister prisons of the Russian Empire, guilty without guilt.
The theme of the Royal Family and, more broadly, the Romanov Dynasty attracts the attention of many historians, publicists, church and cultural figures. However, among the huge number of publications on this topic, not all works are trustworthy. One gets the impression that some authors see their task as creating a new mythology. The history of the Brunswick family in Russia is especially indicative in this regard.
Before the 1917 revolution, this topic was taboo for obvious reasons.
Although even then there were researchers who studied this topic. In this regard, we note the activities of S.M. Solovyova, M.I. Semevsky, N.N. Firsova, V.O. Klyuchevsky, A.G. Brickner, M.A. Korfa.
After the revolution, the entire history of Russia from the pre-Soviet period was banned. It was as if she didn't exist at all.
With the collapse of Soviet power, the situation began to change little by little. However, the bibliography dedicated to the Brunswick family in Russia is still very modest.
Among the works of modern Russian authors, it is worth highlighting the publications of E.V. Anisimova, L.I. Levina, I.V. Kurukina, N.I. Pavlenko, K.A. Pisarenko, A.V. Demkin, who introduce little-known documents from Russian and foreign archives into scientific circulation.
These documents allow us to better navigate the intricacies of Russian politics in the post-Petrine era. The heroes of that time also appear in a new way: ruler Anna Leopoldovna, Generalissimo Anton-Ulrich, their children, including Emperor John Antonovich.
Even the burial place of Emperor John Antonovich is still unknown. Either this is the Shlisselburg Fortress, or the Tikhvin Mother of God Monastery...
But this is our Russian Emperor, who had the same rights to the throne as “Petrov’s daughter” Elizabeth and his grandson Karl-Peter-Ulrich (Peter III).
The royal baby was separated from his parents and did not have any proper care or education. However, he independently mastered the Holy Scriptures. He prayed a lot and earnestly. I kept my fasts. He expressed a desire to take monastic vows.
Did not work out.
But he went down in history as the righteous Emperor.
The bullying of the jailers did not break Emperor John VI. He did not die spiritually. And if so, then, according to the logic of the struggle for power, he should have been eliminated! Him, the living, sane, legitimate Emperor of Russia!..
Therefore, the persons guarding John received unspoken instructions to mock him and bully him in every possible way. In written instructions they were recommended to use physical violence against John, and in case of alarm, to kill him.
The prisoner even lost his real name.
He was called either the “Nameless” convict or “Gregory” (a mocking analogy with the impostor Grigory Otrepyev).
On December 31, 1741, the empress issued a decree on the population handing over all coins with the name of Ivan Antonovich (see in the photo) for subsequent melting.
Any images of Ivan Antonovich were removed from circulation, as well as all documents where his name was even accidentally mentioned. The later falsifiers of Russian history had a lot to learn from the figures of the post-Petrine era.
Future regicides received a “safe-conduct” for any atrocities. They understood perfectly well that nothing threatened them personally. They were not afraid to “go too far”, since their bosses strongly recommended that they use it more often.
The executioners went about their favorite business: driving a person completely and completely dependent on them to madness. Along the way, they ate heartily, drank sweetly, dressed well and made a living at his expense.
And since the guards were also rare selfish people who deliberately chose a career as prison guards, they most naturally sought not only to conscientiously fulfill the order, but also to protect themselves. And so that their disgusting actions, unworthy of the honor of Russian officers, would not cause censure from their superiors, they also cried about their miserable fate and unhappy lot.
What a “monster” they have to protect! After all, they are so kind and soft. But what kind of meanness can you do “for the sake of the Fatherland” if your superiors order it!
That's what they did. With feeling, with sense, with arrangement.
And their bosses helped them with this with their detailed “instructions.”
This is where these endless lies about the inappropriate behavior of the “mad prisoner” come from!
The guards first provoked the Emperor to perform extraordinary actions, and then, having mocked the defenseless man, described them with relish in their illiterate and deceitful denunciations.
They especially made fun of the devout faith of the Orthodox Emperor. They were amused precisely by the fact that the Tsar, who was in inhuman conditions, humbled himself, apparently accepting the feat of foolishness.
This, in our opinion, explains the “inappropriate” behavior of John VI, who combined the shocking actions of a holy fool with the depth and wisdom of an ascetic. However, the jailers could not give a correct assessment of this behavior due to their deep ignorance.
If Ivan Antonovich was insane, then why was he guarded so vigilantly? If he was insane, then why kill him?
The historical facts that have reached us indicate that he was not crazy.
Apparently, Peter III, and then Catherine II, were very surprised when, instead of the “vegetable” man they expected, broken by many years of imprisonment, they saw, although sick (where does health come from in such conditions?), but a very intelligent man who well understood who he was . It was this, and nothing else, that apparently brought the Emperor’s death closer.
The result of the story is this. In June 1764, Saint Blessed Xenia of Petersburg began to cry bitterly all day long. All the people who met her, seeing her in tears, pitied the blessed one, thinking that someone had offended her. Passers-by asked: “Why are you, Andrei Fedorovich, crying? Did anyone offend you?”
The blessed one answered: “There is blood, blood, blood! There the rivers are filled with blood, there are bloody canals, there is blood, blood.". And she cried even more.
But no one understood these strange words then.
And three weeks later, Blessed Xenia’s prediction came true: during an attempt to liberate, Ivan Antonovich was brutally killed in the casemate of the Shlisselburg fortress.
In 1764, when Catherine II was already reigning, second lieutenant V.Ya. Mirovich, who was on guard duty in the Shlisselburg fortress, won over part of the garrison to his side in order to free the prisoner. In response to Mirovich’s demand for surrender, the guards stabbed Ivan Antonovich and only then surrendered. Second Lieutenant Mirovich, who tried to free Emperor Ivan Antonovich, was arrested and on September 15, 1764, beheaded in St. Petersburg as a state criminal.
There is an unconfirmed version that Mirovich was provoked into attempting a coup in order to get rid of Emperor Ivan Antonovich. Mirovich's "revolt" served as the theme for the novel by G.P. Danilevsky "Mirovich".
Mirovich in front of the body of Ivan VI. Painting by Ivan Tvorozhnikov (1884)
The regicides received a generous reward.
From the depths of centuries the words of Ivan Antonovich reach us: “I am the prince and your Sovereign of the local empire!”
The past, of course, cannot be changed. But historical justice must still prevail. We must remember this name!
Anatoly Trunov, Elena Chernikova, Belgorod
Dedicated to the innocently murdered Russian Emperor John VI Antonovich
The flower grew among the stones,
He dreamed of the sun
About love and goodness
Quietly I cried out to God!
Was hidden from the light
The cold prevailed
That beautiful flower
He grew up on the rocks.
He wanted to surprise
The world with its beauty,
Shine at dawn
Cold dew.
He wanted, shuddering,
Stand in the wind
Substituting petals
I'll rain in the morning.
He grew painfully
I was completely alone.
And with a villainous hand
The Flower was destroyed!
Was mercilessly torn down
Without leaving a trace.
Only left on a stone
Like tears are dew...
An angel descended from heaven
And collected the petals.
Birds were screaming in the sky
From insane melancholy.
But the Flower did not disappear, -
He went to the Garden of Eden
So that someday again
Go back.
To remind you
That our world will be saved by beauty,
Teach us patience
In the name of Christ.
I fell on a stone,
I'll silently shed tears
Where that Flower grew
In that harsh land...
Elena Chernikova
Emperor John VI AntonovichThe future Emperor John VI was born on August 12, 1740 (new style). He was the son of Anna Leopoldovna, the niece of the reigning Empress Anna Ioannovna and Duke Anton of Brunswick.
On October 17 of the same 1740, when the baby John was just over two months old, his great-aunt, Empress Anna Ioannovna proclaimed him heir to the Throne. Anna Ioannovna appointed her favorite Duke of Courland Ernst Johann Biron as regent under the young Sovereign.
On October 18, 1740, Anna Ioannovna died.
And from this day began the period of “reign” of the two-month Emperor. In the first period of his short “reign,” the regent was the favorite of the late Anna Ioannovna, Duke Biron. But Biron, like A.D. Menshikov, did not calculate and did not understand his true position. He did not realize that after the death of his patroness Anna Ioannovna, he was not heading towards omnipotence, but towards downfall. Many nobles hated Biron, but were afraid of Anna Ioannovna. The guards also hated him because he imposed officers of German origin on the guards’ necks. After the death of Anna Ioannovna, this hatred became simply dangerous for Biron. No one could hold her back anymore.
And Field Marshal Ivan Khristoforovich Minikh took advantage of this universal hatred. Minikh began his career under Peter the Great and, despite the fact that he was also German by birth, he was still more loved by the guard and the people than Biron. Minikh enlisted the support of Baron Andrei Ivanovich Osterman. Osterman was a famous diplomat from the time of Peter the Great, and after the death of the Reformer he became the most famous intriguer and architect of all the palace coups of the first half of the 18th century. It was with the support of Osterman that Menshikov was able to place Catherine the First and then Peter the Second on the throne. The same Osterman was the architect of the overthrow of Menshikov. Then it was Osterman who “overthrew” the Dolgoruky family and brought Anna Ioannovna to power. And now again Osterman stood behind the scenes of another coup. With the support of Osterman, on November 8, 1740 (new style), Minich surrounded Biron's palace with the help of guards and arrested the regent. The next day, a manifesto was announced according to which Emperor John VI, who was only three months old, “granted” the regency to his mother Anna Leopoldovna. Biron, by decree of the infant Emperor, was sent into exile.
Anna Leopoldovna was incapable of governing and transferred actual power to Minich, remaining regent only formally.
But Minich, being a military man, was not experienced in politics. And so he “missed” the new intrigue of the experienced intriguer Osterman. At the beginning of 1741, Osterman was able to dismiss Minich and seize power himself.
But Osterman, with his sophistication in intrigue, did not see that the coup was being prepared by a force that, since the death of Peter the Great, and especially her wife Catherine I, had already managed to forget. This force was the supporters of Peter the Great's daughter Elizaveta Petrovna. And in particular Elizaveta Petrovna herself.
On December 6, 1741 (new style) Elizaveta Petrovna put on the uniform of her great father Peter the Great and, at the head of the guards regiments, took power in the country into her own hands.
The era of Elizabeth Petrovna's reign was a very bright era in the history of Russia. But not for Ivan Antonovich and his relatives...
At first, Elizaveta Petrovna simply wanted to expel the Brunswick family from Russia. In 1742 they left St. Petersburg and reached Riga. But suddenly Elizaveta Petrovna, on the advice of her chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev, decided to arrest the Brunswick family, considering that they could be dangerous outside Russia.
Young Ivan Antonovich and his parents were arrested and placed in the Dynamunde fortress (Ust-Dvinsk) at the mouth of the Western Dvina.
In 1744, a conspiracy was discovered by the Lopukhins, relatives of the first wife of Peter the Great, Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina. The Lopukhins wanted to return Ivan Antonovich to the Throne as a legitimate Russian Sovereign and surround him with Russian, not German, advisers. The conspiracy failed. Elizaveta Petrovna, faithful to the commitment taken upon her accession to the Throne not to put anyone to death, subjected the Lopukhins, as well as a relative of Chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev (the wife of his brother Mikhail) Anna, to civil execution and exiled to Siberia. John and his family were transported from Riga to the city of Raneburg, Ryazan province. The Raneburg fortress was built by A.D. Menshikov in the times of Peter the Great and was later used more as a prison for exiles than as a fortress. In particular, A.D. Menshikov himself was imprisoned in this fortress.
At the same time, the official accompanying the exiles, misunderstanding the order, almost brought them... to Orenburg!!
In 1746, the Brunswick family was transferred even further to Kholmogory on the shores of the White Sea. On the way to Kholmogory, Anna Leopoldovna died. She could not endure long forced transfers.
In Kholmogory, young Ivan Antonovich was separated from his father, as well as his brothers and sisters who were born during the years of exile.
A new journey followed in 1756. The reason for it was a new conspiracy to free the Emperor. A certain merchant named Zubatov was captured by employees of the Secret Chancellery of A.I. Shuvalov and admitted that the Prussian King Frederick II the Great, with whom Russia was then starting a war, planned, through the Old Believers who were hostile to the authorities, to kidnap John VI from Kholmogory and commit it in Russia civil strife, exposing John as the legitimate Sovereign.
As a result, Ivan Antonovich was transferred from Kholmogory to the Shlisselburg fortress, where he was placed in a special cell and even deprived of his name. He was ordered to be called the prisoner "Nameless".
At the same time, one of the closest associates of Elizabeth Petrovna, and later Catherine the Great, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin (Count N.I. Panin was also the educator of the future Emperor Paul I) issued instructions regarding Ivan Antonovich. According to this instruction, John was to be kept in the strictest isolation, completely prohibiting communication with the outside world and even with other prisoners. And if some force appears that wants to free him and it will not be possible to defeat this force, destroy the “prisoner of the Nameless” (i.e. Emperor John Antonovich) ..”
Thus began the prison life of this sufferer Sovereign... He became our domestic version of the famous "iron mask"... ("Iron mask" was the name given to a secret prisoner in France during the time of Louis XIV. This man had the audacity to be too much like the Sun King himself ( and, according to some legends, to be his twin brother) and therefore, in order to prevent civil strife, Cardinal Mazarin ordered to imprison him in a separate secret prison and put an iron mask on his face, forbidding him to remove it until the end of his days)..
On December 25, 1761, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna reposed.
She was succeeded by her nephew, the son of her elder sister Anna Petrovna, Peter III.
Peter III, who himself experienced many humiliations in his youth, learned about the unfortunate Ivan Antonovich, and decided to ease his fate.
He transferred the prisoner from Shlisselburg to the dacha of one of his young associates, Ivan Vasilyevich Gudovich. At the same time, the Emperor had a grandiose project. He wanted to divorce his wife Ekaterina Alekseevna (the future Catherine the Great), whom he hated. The Emperor also wanted to remove her son Pavel Petrovich (the future Emperor Paul I) from inheritance under the pretext that this was not his son (this is possible and seems to be true, because Ekaterina Alekseevna had many favorites, and her relationship with her husband was very complicated ..). Peter III wanted to make his favorite Elizaveta Vorontsova, daughter of Chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov, the new Empress. And he wanted to make John VI the heir to the Throne!!
But fate decreed otherwise. July 11, 1762 (new style) Ekaterina Alekseevna carried out a coup and overthrew her husband. Catherine publicly declared that she would continue the course of Elizabeth Petrovna's reign and was supported by all the people and became Empress Catherine II the Great.
Almost immediately after her accession, Catherine the Great, among other things, faced two important problems. These problems were two Emperors who existed besides Catherine. These were her deposed husband Peter III and John VI.
Peter III lived in exile in Ropsha and soon sad news came from there. The former Sovereign allegedly “died of an apoplexy.” In fact, the “stroke” was somewhat different. The favorites of Catherine the Great, the guard officers, the Orlov brothers, who were guarding the Emperor, argued with him and one of the brothers, Fyodor Alekseevich, struck the Emperor in the temple with his fist. The blow was so strong that the Emperor died on the spot. The Emperor was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Catherine was not at the funeral. Later, Catherine’s son Pavel Petrovich, who became Emperor Paul I, transferred the remains of his father to the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
This is how one of Catherine the Great’s problems was solved.
Another problem remains. She was Tsar John VI. Catherine transferred John from Gudovich's dacha to one of the estates in the Kexholm area. There, by order of Empress John, doctors examined him. According to their conclusion, Ivan Antonovich lost his mind or, more simply put, suffered, in modern terms, from schizophrenia, living in some kind of his own, imaginary world.
Catherine met with John VI incognito and made her conclusion. According to her conclusion, John was healthy and was feigning madness. And this, in the opinion of the Empress, posed a danger both for her and possibly for her heirs. For John was 11 years younger than Catherine and theoretically could have outlived her, for his physical health was very strong.
At first, Catherine decided to invite John to become a monk. And it seems that John VI agreed. But suddenly Catherine decided to change her mind and send John to Shlisselburg again. In addition, she confirmed Panin’s instructions given back in the time of Elizaveta Petrovna. Those. John VI again became a “nameless prisoner,” and John’s new guards, officers Vlasev and Chekin, received orders in the event of a possible attempt to free John, not to give him alive into the hands of the liberators.
At the end of 1763, Lieutenant Vasily Yakovlevich Mirovich entered the Shlisselburg garrison. He became obsessed with the idea of freeing John and returning him to the Throne. Mirovich's motive was very prosaic. He just wanted to improve his financial affairs.. He believed that if Lieutenant Grigory Orlov, after losing at cards, was able to stage a coup and bring Catherine the Great to power and naturally powerfully improve his financial affairs, then why couldn’t the same thing succeed for Lieutenant Vasily Mirovich with Ioann Antonovich?
He involved several officers and part of the soldiers of the Shlisselburg garrison in a conspiracy and on July 6, 1764 attacked the fortress in order to free John VI. Vlasyev and Chekin, with the remaining part of the garrison loyal to Catherine, held out against the rebels for a very long time. When the rebels rolled out the cannon and it became clear that they could not be restrained, Vlasyev and Chekin entered the cell of John VI in order to carry out Panin’s “instructions”. Vlasyev and Chekin and their soldiers shot at the Emperor several times, and then finished him off, still alive, with bayonets. This is how this martyr Sovereign, who was only 24 years old, died.
After the murder of Ivan, Vlasyev and Chekin surrendered to Mirovich, but Mirovich, seeing the failure of his venture, surrendered to the authorities.
John VI was buried in the prison cemetery of Shlisselburg and later his grave was lost.. He is now the only one of all the Monarchs whose burial place is unknown.
Mirovich was executed as a state criminal on September 15, 1764. According to one version, Catherine the Great herself provoked Mirovich to revolt in order to get rid of Ivan Antonovich.
The father of the Sovereign-Martyr Anton of Brunswick died in exile in Kholmogory in 1774.
The brothers and sisters of the unfortunate John VI, with the permission of Catherine the Great and the petition of their aunt, the sister of Anton of Brunswick, the Danish Queen Maria Juliana, left for Denmark. There until 1807, i.e. Until the death of the last representative of this unfortunate family, they were paid a special pension from the Russian Imperial Court.
Emperor John VI Antonovich, named Sovereign in infancy, lived the life of a martyr and victim of the political intrigues of his time.. And at the end of his short 23-year life, which passed through prisons and exiles, he accepted the crown of martyrdom..
The son of the niece of Empress Anna Ioannovna, Princess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg and Duke Anton-Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg, was born on August 23 (12 old style) August 1740. As an infant, Anna Ioannovna's manifesto of October 16 (5, old style) October 1740 declared him heir to the throne.
On October 28 (17 old style) 1740, after the death of Anna Ioannovna, Ivan Antonovich was proclaimed emperor, and the manifesto of October 29 (18 old style) announced the awarding of the regency until John came of age to the Duke of Courland.
On November 20 (9 according to the old style) of the same year, after the overthrow of Biron by the field marshal, the regency passed to the mother of Ivan Antonovich, Anna Leopoldovna.
On the night of December 6 (November 25, old style) 1741, the ruler of Russia with her husband, one-year-old emperor and five-month-old daughter Catherine were arrested in the palace by the daughter of Peter I, who was proclaimed empress.
The entire Brunswick family was placed under surveillance in the former palace of Elizabeth. The manifesto of December 9 (November 28, old style) 1741 noted that the entire family would be sent abroad and would receive a decent allowance.
On December 23 (12 according to the old style) December 1741, Lieutenant General Vasily Saltykov with a large convoy took John with his parents and sister from St. Petersburg. But Elizabeth decided to detain John in Russia until the arrival of her nephew, Prince Peter of Holstein (later Emperor Peter III), whom she had chosen as heir.
On January 20 (9 according to the old style) January 1742, the Brunswick surname was brought to Riga, where Anna Leopoldovna, at the request of the Empress, signed an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth Petrovna on behalf of herself and her son.
Rumors about Anna Leopoldovna's hostility towards the new government and the attempt by the chamberlain Alexander Turchaninov to kill the Empress and the Duke of Holstein, made in favor of Ivan Antonovich in July 1742, made Elizabeth see Ivan as a dangerous contender, so she decided not to let him out of Russia .
On December 13, 1742, the Brunswick family was placed in the Dinamunde fortress (now Daugavgriva Fortress, Latvia). When Lopukhin’s “conspiracy” was discovered in July 1743, in January 1744 it was decided to transfer the entire family to the city of Ranenburg (now Chaplygin, Lipetsk region).
In June 1744, it was decided to send them to the Solovetsky Monastery, but the family only reached Kholmogory, Arkhangelsk province: the accompanying chamberlain Nikolai Korf, citing the difficulties of the journey and the impossibility of keeping their stay on Solovki a secret, convinced the government to leave them there.
During the reign of Elizabeth and her immediate successors, the very name of Ivan Antonovich was persecuted: the seals of his reign were altered, the coin was recast, all business papers with the name of Emperor Ivan were ordered to be collected and sent to the Senate.
With the accession of Peter III to the throne in December 1761, Ivan Antonovich’s position did not improve - instructions were given to kill him while trying to free him. In March 1762, the new emperor paid a visit to the prisoner.
After the accession of Catherine II to the throne, a project arose for her marriage with Ivan Antonovich, which would allow her to legitimize (legitimize) her power. According to existing assumptions, in August 1762 she visited the prisoner and considered him crazy. After the revelation in the fall of 1762 of the Guards conspiracy to overthrow Catherine II, the regime for keeping the prisoner became stricter, and the Empress confirmed the previous instructions of Peter III.
On the night of July 16 (5, old style), 1764, second lieutenant of the Smolensk infantry regiment Vasily Mirovich, who was stationed in the garrison of the fortress, attempted to free Ivan Antonovich and proclaim him emperor. Having won over the garrison soldiers to his side with the help of forged manifestos, he arrested the commandant of the fortress, Berednikov, and demanded the extradition of John. The officers assigned to Ivan first fought off Mirovich and the soldiers who followed him, but then, when he began to prepare a cannon to break the doors, they stabbed Ivan Antonovich, according to the instructions. After the investigation, Mirovich was executed.
The body of the former emperor was secretly buried according to Christian rites, presumably on the territory of the Shlisselburg fortress.
In 2008, alleged remains belonging to the Russian Emperor John VI Antonovich were found in Kholmogory.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
