Anna of Russia - Policies of Her Reign

Policies of Her Reign

As one of her first acts to consolidate this power she restored the security police, which she used to intimidate and terrorize those who opposed her and her policies. In 1731 she established a Cadet Corps. Although she did not move the capital back to Moscow, she spent most of her time at that city in the company of her foolish and ignorant maids. Anna loved cruel jokes. She had fire bells rung throughout St Petersburg just to see the panic. She had Prince Nikita Volkonski feed her dog with cream; his wife fed lettuce to her rabbit with her teeth. Volkonski would be forced to 'marry' Prince Galitzine; they had to dress as birds, sit in a straw basket outside Anna's bedroom, and squawk. Finding delight in humiliating old nobility, she arranged the marriage of old Prince Galitzine, who had incurred her displeasure by marrying an Italian Catholic, with one of her maids (after the death of his first wife), an elderly Kalmyk called Avdotaya Ivanovna. The couple were presented with a fleet of carriages, each carrying a member of one of the empires races, each pulled by a different farm animal. The couple had to ride an elephant. Anna dressed them as clowns, and had them spend their wedding night naked in a specially constructed ice palace during the exceptionally harsh winter of 1739–40. This palace was 80 feet long, 30 feet high and 23 feet deep. It even had a stove. It cost 30,000 roubles and came with a bed, clock, Cupid, elephant, dolphins, cannon trees and plants: all were made of ice. The dolphins squirted naptha and the elephant squirted water. Somehow the couple survived their wedding night.

Having a distrust of Russian nobles, Anna kept them from powerful positions, instead giving those to Baltic Germans. She raised to the throne of Courland one Ernst Johann von Biron, who gained her particular favour and had considerable influence over her policies. He would exile 30,000 people to Siberia, mainly Old Believers. His archrival, the anti-German cabinet minister Artemy Petrovich Volynsky, was executed several months before Anna's death. Biron was sufficiently prudent not to meddle with foreign affairs or with the army, and these departments were in the able hands of two other foreigners, who thoroughly identified themselves with Russia, Andrey Osterman and Burkhardt Munnich.

They allied the country with Charles VI, (Holy Roman Emperor from 1711 to 1740), and committed Russia during the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735). Afterwards, they made Augustus III the king of Poland at the expense of Stanisław Leszczyński and other candidates. In 1736 Anna declared war on the Ottoman Empire, but Charles made a separate peace with the Porte, forcing Russia to follow suit and to give up all recently captured territories with the exception of Azov. This war marks the beginning of that systematic struggle on the part of Russia to drive to the South which was brought to fruition by Catherine II. Anna's reign saw the beginnings of Russian territorial expansion into Central Asia.

On the other hand, Anna gave many privileges to the nobility. In 1730 she repealed the primogeniture law of Peter the Great so estates could be subdivided again. From 1731, landlords were responsible for their serfs' taxes and their economic bondage was tightened. In 1736, the age when they had to start service was raised from 15 to 20, service was now for 25 years not life and families with more than one son could keep one to manage the estate. Some nobles managed to start service as young as eight so they could retire at 33. Serfs now needed the landlords' permission before getting work elsewhere. Landlords could now move serfs from place to place.