INTRODUCTION
The time of the rule of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1761) does not rank among the periods of Russian history that have been well studied by native and foreign historiography. Elizabeth's reign, like those of her predecessors on the throne-Catherine I, Peter II, and Anna Ivanovna-has remained as if in the shadow of the grandiose era of reforms in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Probably this very fact may explain the sparsity of scholarly literature on the history of Russia right after the death of Peter I up to the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796).
The works of scholars of the nineteenth century devoted primary attention to gathering facts relating to the rule of Elizabeth and, secondarily, attempted to examine this period in the general context of the so-called era of palace revolutions (1725-1762) that was marked by political instability. The natural process of accumulating facts for historical knowledge about the period under review was inhibited in the first half of the nineteenth century by the autocracy, which kept the documents of the "scandalous" eighteenth century locked away under seven seals. For that very reason the books and articles of A. Veidemeier, N.A. Polevoi, I. Shishkin, S.V. Eshevsky, P.K. Shchebalsky and others rested on the scanty materials of rare documentary publications. Only a few historians (M.I. Semevsky, K.I. Arsenev ) succeeded in bringing new sources into circulation.
From an interpretive perspective the historical scholarship of the nineteenth century gradually renounced the explanation of the frequent changes of power through the "debauchery of passions," the vices of certain rulers and favorites, and came to understand the post-Petrine period as an entirely predictable continuation of the Petrine era of reforms. The disdainful attitude toward the rule of Elizabeth and her personality characteristic of the times of N. M. Karamzin (1766-1826) even disappeared. Indeed, the reign of the daughter of Peter the Great started to be idealized and reconsidered as a period of the rebirth of the forgotten Petrine legacy. A similar interpretation took root in historiography largely as a result of the uncritical acceptance of official documents of the Elizabethan age that had pursued the aim of consolidating Elizabeth's position on the throne and implementing the doctrine of the daughter's succession as linked to the "beginnings" of the great father.
In the framework of the concept of a "return to the principles of Peter the Great" the prominent Russian historian S.M. Soloviev wrote and dedicated to Elizabeth's era four volumes of his History of Russia from Earliest Times. His gigantic labor remains unique even now in the quantity of archival material collected. Yet amid this flood of facts the historian failed to single out the main factors that defined the character of the country's development and the policies of its government. S.M. Soloviev retreated from the critical attitude toward his sources that had distinguished the first volumes of his History and confined himself to an apologetic appraisal of Elizabeth's personality and her government's policies. Moreover, demonstrating an exclusive interest in political history, he did not review in detail the economic, social, cultural and everyday life of the people of that time.
The next step in the reconsideration of Elizabethan times and in general of the "era of palace revolutions" was taken in the lectures of V.O. Kliuchevsky, who first used that term, and also in the articles, books, and lectures of S.F. Platonov, N.N. Firsov, M.M. Bogoslovsky and others. Many fresh and interesting ideas that have not been outmoded even now were set forth by V.A. Miakotin. Considering the palace revolutions an elite phenomenon that touched only the "everyday political life" of the nobility, he especially emphasized that the significant strengthening of the economic and political position of the nobility in the post-Petrine epoch had proceeded on the basis of a sharp intensification of the serf regime.
Resting on the foundations of the positive knowledge of the preceding historiography and its evaluation by the new principles of Marxist-Leninist methodology, Soviet historical scholarship continued the study of the post-Petrine period. In the literature of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s basic attention was devoted to dimensions that had been forgotten in prerevolutionary historiography-the socioeconomic life of the country. Works on this theme have enriched our concepts concerning the paths of development of industry, trade, agriculture, and economic policies in the period of Elizabeth's rule. They have enabled us to discern the dynamics of the development of serfdom, manifestations of the class struggle, and peculiarities of the structure of society in the first half of the eighteenth century. A series of generalizing works published in the 1950s and 1960s contained fundamental evaluations of the entire "era of palace revolutions" including Elizabeth's reign. These have stated, in particular, that the political revolutions of the post-Petrine period did not fundamentally alter the framework of an intra-class struggle of the considerably strengthened nobility, and that neither in the economic nor the cultural sense was the post-Petrine epoch a time of decline or stagnation. Rather, the dynamics of economic development underwent further acceleration in the decades under study, which indicated that the resources of the feudal mode of production had not been exhausted entirely.
But it has become evident that the better we understand the defining currents of economic and social development the more we exhibit an interest in political history, for we can evaluate it more deeply than our predecessors have done. Yet works illuminating political events of the 1740s up to the beginning of the 1760s are in fact quite lacking. There has been no fulfillment of the late S.M. Troitsky's desire expressed twenty years ago about the need "to devote special attention to exploring specific manifestations of the contradictions within the ruling feudal class in those forms which the struggle assumed among the separate feudal strata at one time or another."
The author of the present book does not approach this task in its full complexity. His more modest purpose is to take a look at the period of Elizabeth's reign from the standpoint of the knowledge accumulated by contemporary scholarship, recognizing the invaluable labor of generations of historians who have constructed for us the edifice of historical scholarship, and to recount it in a form accessible to a broad range of readers.
Whoever has touched the documents of the post-Petrine era even once will not remain indifferent to the astounding events that occurred right after the epoch of the Petrine reforms. The post-Petrine period, and in particular the Elizabethan era, was not an "untimely" kaleidoscope of events at court. It was one of the links of that unbroken chain of events, facts, and phenomena that connects us with our past. In these very years the Petrine transformations showed their viability, passed the test of time, and Russia was established firmly as one of the leading world powers.
Over the two or three decades that followed the memorable year 1725 "the fledglings of Peter's nest" (Pushkin's phrase) either had gone to the grave or were living out their days on estates distant from the capital. In a word, a change of generations occurred-the inevitable process of renewal. New people-younger brothers, sons, and grandsons of the victors of the battles of Poltava and Hangö-had been brought up differently and looked on the world differently. At one and the same time people lived and worked without whom it is difficult to imagine the history and culture of Russia: Mikhail Lomonosov, Alexander Sumarokov, Fedor Volkov, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Fedot Shubin, Anton Losenko. Somewhere shoulder to shoulder on the fields of battle of the Seven Years War there might have appeared Lieutenant Grigory Orlov, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Suvorov, the Don cossack Emelian Pugachev and dozens, even hundreds of others with whom, as we now know, the next period of Russian history, the second half of the eighteenth century, was connected. The fate of these and many other people were intertwined like threads at the base of an old Gobelin tapestry. Let us examine this Gobelin of history more closely.
The author is sincerely obliged to all those who helped in the work on the manuscript of this book. Special thanks are expressed by the author to his colleagues of the Russian Museum, M.A. Alekseeva and B.A. Kosolapov, and to his colleagues of the State Hermitage, G.B. Vilinbakhov and G.A. Miroliubovaia, without whose kind cooperation the book would not have had its interesting illustrations.