Palace Coups (entry)

Categories / Social Life
PALACE COUPS is a term used for coups of the state from the 18th to the beginning of the 19th centuries, in which persons not possessing a formal right to Imperial power usurped it. One of the reasons the Palace Coups came about was an unclear order of succession to the throne in the 18th century. Palace Coups took place in St. Petersburg in 1725, with the enthronement of Empress Catherine I; in 1740, with the dethronement of regent E. I. Biron; in 1741, with the enthronement of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in 1762, with the enthronement of Empress Catherine II; and in 1801, with the enthronement of Emperor Alexander I. Palace Coups were often the result of conspiracies led by army officers or nobility, who intended to replace the current Emperor with a more favoured candidate. These plots were often conceived and executed without prior knowledge on the part of the preferred candidate. Guards were a decisive power in the Palace Coups (with the exception of the Coup of 1801), their soldiers performing the main part of all violent action (particularly arrests). Bringing the Guards' soldiers to their side was the conspirators' main task. Bloodshed rarely occurred directly at the time of the Palace Coups, with the exception of 1801, when Emperor Pavel I was murdered. But all the persons deprived of power were either exiled or imprisoned, and then either died or were killed in confinement (Anna Leopoldovna, Ioann VI, Peter III), with the exception of Biron, who was sent back to St. Petersburg after a 20-year exile, and immediately left Russia.

References: Цареубийство 11 марта 1801 года. Репр. воспр. изд. 1907 г. М., 1990; На российском престоле, 1725-1796: Монархи Российские после Петра Великого. М., 1993; Анисимов Е. В. Россия без Петра, 1725-1740. СПб., 1994.

G. V. Kalashnikov. Alexander I, Emperor
Anna Leopoldovna, Regent
Biron Ernst Johann
Catherine I, Empress
Catherine II, Empress
Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress
Ivan VI Antonovich, Emperor
Paul (Pavel) I, Emperor
Peter III, Emperor
На российском престоле, 1725-1796: Монархи Российские после Петра Великого. М., 1993
Анисимов Е. В. Россия без Петра, 1725-1740. СПб., 1994
Цареубийство 11 марта 1801 года. Репринт. воспр. изд. 1907 г. М., 1990 1725
1741
1762
1801