Alexey Razumovsky - Later Years and Posterity

Later Years and Posterity

Before her death the empress made her successor Peter III promise not to offend her former favorites. In 1762 he submitted his resignation and moved from the Winter Palace to Anichkov Palace presented to him by Elizabeth. After Catherine II's accession to the throne he refused the title of highness that was offered to him. On the Empress' request he destroyed all documents about his marriage with Elizabeth. He died on July 6 (NS July 17) 1771 in St.Petersburg and was buried in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Alexandro-Nevskaya Lavra.

The question of Razumovsky and Elizabeth Petrovna's posterity remains open. About their postulated children there are many legends. The most known pretenders to this rank are two princesses Tarakanova, one of which (August) became a nun under name Dosifeya died in 1810 and was buried in the Romanov family crypt, and another (Elizabeth Tarakanova) who was arrested in Livorno by Aleksei Grigoryevich Orlov and delivered to Russia in February 1775, and was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress where she died from tuberculosis. The legend of her being drowned during the severe flooding 1777 served as the plot for a painting by artist Konstantin Flavitsky (1864, Tretyakov Gallery).

Mistresses and minions of Russian Emperors and Empresses
1700–1762
  • Anna Mons
  • Willem Mons
  • Avdotya Chernysheva
  • Mary Hamilton
  • Maria Cantemir
  • Catherine Dolgorukova
  • Ernst Johann von Biron
  • Aleksey Razumovsky
  • Ivan Shuvalov
  • Elizaveta Vorontsova
1762–1796
  • Grigory Orlov (1762–72)
  • Alexander Vasilchikov (1772–74)
  • Grigory Potemkin (1774–76)
  • Pyotr Zavadovsky (1776–77)
  • Semyon Zorich (1777–78)
  • Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov (1778–80)
  • Alexander Lanskoy (1780–84)
  • Alexander Yermolov (1784–85)
  • Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov (1785–89)
  • Platon Zubov (1789–96)
1796–1917
  • Anna Lopukhina
  • Maria Naryshkina
  • Varvara Nelidova
  • Catherine Dolgorukova
  • Mathilde Kschessinska
  • Natalia Brasova

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