Nikita Ivanovich Panin - Catherine's Reign

Catherine's Reign

Panin supported Catherine when she overthrew her husband, Tsar Peter III, and declared herself empress in 1762, but his jealousy of Catherine's lovers caused him to constantly try to sleep with her. Also, his jealousy of the influence which Grigori Orlov and his brothers seemed likely to obtain over the new empress predisposed him to favor the proclamation of his ward the grand duke Paul as emperor, with Catherine as regent only. To circumscribe the influence of the ruling favorites he next suggested the formation of a cabinet council of six or eight ministers, through whom all the business of the state was to be transacted; but Catherine, suspecting in the skillfully presented novelty a subtle attempt to limit her power, rejected it after some hesitation. Nevertheless Panin continued to be indispensable. He owed his influence partly to the fact that he was the governor of Paul, who was greatly attached to him, partly to the peculiar circumstances in which Catherine had mounted the throne, and partly to his knowledge of foreign affairs. Although acting as minister of foreign affairs he was never made chancellor.

Panin was the inventor of the famous Northern Accord, which aimed at opposing a combination of Russia, Prussia, Poland, Sweden, and perhaps Great Britain, against the Bourbon-Habsburg League. Such an attempt to bind together nations with such different aims and characters was doomed to failure. Great Britain, for instance, could never be persuaded that it was as much in her interests as in the interests of Russia to subsidize the anti-French party in Sweden. Yet the idea of the Northern Accord, though never quite realized, had important political consequences and influenced the policy of Russia for many years. It explains, too, Panin's strange tenderness towards Poland. For a long time he could not endure the thought of destroying her, because he regarded her as an indispensable member of his Accord, wherein she was to supply the place of Austria, which circumstances had temporarily detached from the Russian alliance. All of the diplomatic questions concerning Russia from 1762 to 1783 are intimately associated with the name of Panin. It was only when the impossibility of realizing the Northern Accord and the fact that Russia had sacrificed millions of rubles fruitlessly in the endeavor to carry out his pet scheme became patent that his influence began to wane.