Empress Elizabeth of Russia
Elizabeth of Russia seized the throne in a night coup, reigned for twenty years, and executed nobody. Born in 1709, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I, she was left out of the succession repeatedly through the chaotic reigns that followed her father's death, and lived in semi-disgrace under Anna Ioannovna, watched by spies and kept short of money. In November 1741 she walked into the barracks of the Preobrazhensky Guards at night, reminded them whose daughter she was, and led three hundred grenadiers to the Winter Palace, where she arrested the infant emperor Ivan VI and his regent mother without a shot. She had reportedly vowed that if she succeeded she would put nobody to death, and she kept it — a remarkable thing in eighteenth-century Russia, though the alternatives included the knout, tongue-slitting and Siberia. Her reign was consciously a restoration of her father's line and policies. She reduced the German influence at court, restored the Senate's authority, abolished internal customs barriers, and founded Moscow University in 1755 and the Academy of Fine Arts in 1757, both promoted by Mikhail Lomonosov. She built the Winter Palace, the Smolny convent and Tsarskoye Selo through Rastrelli, and made the court one of the most extravagant in Europe. She is said to have owned fifteen thousand dresses. She took Russia into the Seven Years' War against Frederick the Great, and Russian troops occupied Berlin in 1760. Her death in January 1762 saved Prussia, since her successor Peter III idolised Frederick and made peace immediately.
- Lived: 1709 CE – 1762 CE
- Nationality: Russian
- Roles: empress, head_of_state
