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From the very day he was born in the Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna on 20 September 1754, the life of Paul I unfolded like a drama. When the young prince visited Vienna in 1781, a gala performan...
Catherine II was born on 2 May 1729 in the town of Stettin (now Szczezin) in Pomerania, where her father, Prince Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst, commanded a regiment in the Prussian army (he was l...
Peter III was born in Kiel on 10 February 1728. He was the son of Duke Carl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp and Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great. When the child was born, he was given the nam...
Elizabeth Petrovna was the fifth child and third daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I. She was born at Kolomenskoe near Moscow on 18 December 1709. Because she was born to unmarried parents, E...
Ivan VI was born in St Petersburg on 12 August 1740. He was the son of Prince Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Anna Leopoldovna, niece of Empress Anna Ioannovna. The boy was named after his...
Anna Leopoldovna was born in Rostock on 7 October 1718. She was the daughter of Duke Carl Leopold of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Ekaterina Ioannovna, elder sister of Anna Ioannovna and niece of Peter th...
Anna Ioannovna was the fourth child and fourth daughter of Ivan V and Praskovia Saltykova. She was born in Moscow on 28 January 1693. After the death of her father in 1696, Anna moved with her mother...
Peter II was born in St Petersburg on 12 October 1715. He was the son of Tsarevich Alexis Petrovich and Princess Charlotte Christine Sophie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Peter’s mother died when he was ...
On the morning of 28 January 1725, following the death of Peter the Great, Russia woke to find that it had a new ruler – Catherine I. The unexpected had happened. A commoner, a foreigner by birth, an...
Peter the Great is probably the most famous member of the Romanov dynasty. He single-handedly changed the course of Russian history, turning the country into a powerful empire ranking alongside the o...