Fyodor Apraksin - Later Years

Later Years

In 1715, Apraksin fell into temporate disgrace with the tsar, who had been informed about disorders and bribery in the Admiralty. After brief investigation, he was fined and dispatched to govern Estonia. In 1719, he led the Russian naval expedition into the Gulf of Bothnia. During the Persian Expedition of 1722 Apraksin barely escaped an assassination attempt by a Chechen.

Whereas his elder brother Peter Apraksin (the governor of Astrakhan) was accused of sympathizing with the Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, Fyodor was eager to demonstrate his zeal in persecuting the tsarevich, as did Count Peter Tolstoy, (1645–1729) .

Upon Peter's I death in 1725, his wife Catherine invested the ailing admiral with the Order of Alexander Nevsky and nominated him to the Supreme Privy Council, an exigence of the Great Boyars of Russia headed by influential and coming from a powerful family, Prince Dmitry Galitzine, (1665–1737), Ambassador to Turkey and Poland though necessary to govern in a less autocratic structure the Empire.

These "Six Supreme dignataries" constituting the initial Supreme Privy Council, namely Alexander Menshikov, Fyodor Apraksin, Gavrila Golovkin, Andrey Osterman, Peter Tolstoy, and Dmitry Galitzine brought about the recognition of Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna for the succession of unfortunate young Tsar-Boy Peter II deceased in 1730 aged 15 and 3 years only as a Tsar, apparently dead from small-pox provided Anna agreed about the Counselling Powers of this so called Supreme Privy Council.

Once Empress Anna Ivanovna was crowned she began to rule absolutely, and she had Dmitry Galitzine sentenced to death but later commuted his sentence to exile.

D. M.´s brother however, Mikhail Galitzine, (1675–1730), commanded Russian operations in Finland (1714–21) during the Northern War with Sweden and was responsible for the Treaty of Nystad, concluded at the end of the war.

It is said that as governor of Finland, M. M. G. was popular with the Finns.

Apraksin's last expedition was to Revel in 1726, to cover the town from an anticipated attack by the English government, with whom the relations of Russia at the beginning of the reign of Catherine I were strained.

Though frequently threatened with terrible penalties by Peter the Great for his incurable vice of peculation, Apraksin, nevertheless, contrived to save his head, though not his pocket, chiefly through the mediation of the good-natured empress, Swedish born common law wife and later formal wife of Peter I, Catherine I, sole Ruling Empress of Russia from 1725 to 1727.

She remained his friend to the last, grateful probably, because of his pulling to place flexible and astucious Catherine I on the throne on the death of Peter.