Artemy Volynsky - Condemned Under Anne

Condemned Under Anne

In 1738 he was introduced into the Russian cabinet by Biron as a counterpoise against Andrei Osterman. Volynsky, however, now thought himself strong enough to attempt to supersede Biron himself, and openly opposed the favorite in the State Council in the debates as to the indemnity due to Poland for the violations of her territory during the War of the Polish Succession, Biron advising that a liberal indemnity should be given, whereas Volynsky objected to any indemnity at all.

Biron thereupon forced Anne to order an inquiry into Volynsky's past career, with the result that he was tried before a tribunal of Biron's men. The charges faced were that he, as a minister, and Andrei Fedorovich Khrushchev (1691—1740), as an assistant minister, tried to dethrone Queen Anna for Peter the Great's daughter, Elizabeth. He was arrested on June 23, 1740 and thus condemned to be broken on the wheel and then beheaded. On the scaffold, by the clemency of the empress, his punishment was mitigated to the severing of his right hand followed by decapitation on June 27, 1740. The sentence was executed exactly 31 years after the Battle of Poltava. Volynsky had by his side architect Pyotr Mikhailovich Eropkin & A. F. Khruschov.

A tombstone in their honour was erected in 1741 by order of Elizabeth of Russia over their burial place beside St. Sampson Cathedral. That was the only thing that was visible over their grave until 1885 when a monument was placed as they were seen as national heroes because they opposed to German ideas, as represented by Biron. This point of view would have been quite amazing to their contemporaries and reflects more the concerns of the next century than of Biron's and Volynsky's time.

The charge of conspiracy appears to have been untrue. Volynsky was tortured twice but even under torture he refused to admit to conspiracy, while admitting the ancillary charge of taking bribes (of which no Russian official of the time was innocent). Volynsky's draft of a General Project of Internal Affairs of the State contained many suggestions for reforms of administration but avoided altogether the subject of imperial succession and prerogatives .