How Cossack Rozum Became Count and Field Marshal

In 1730 Colonel Vishnevsky, en route from Hungary to Saint Petersburg, was passing through the settlement of Chemery, Chernihiv province. He called at a local church and heard the charming voice of a handsome youth, Cossack Oleksiy Rozum, born in the village of Lemeshi, now Kozelets district, Chernihiv oblast. The metropolitan dignitary took him away to the capital to sing in the royal court choir. Once the Winter Palace church was visited by Princess Royal Elizabeth, daughter of Peter I. She fell in love with the attractive Cossack at first sight. Elizabeth successfully persuaded Court Grand Master Loewenwold to cede Oleksiy to her own court church. The future empress’s love for an ordinary Ukrainian would last for years on end.

After the death of Empress Anna Ivanovna on October 17, 1740, Russia entered a period of uncertainty. Already on her death bed, Anna signed an act specifying that all supreme power in the country be transferred to the unpopular Duke of Courland Ernst Johann Biron, until Ivan, born from the marriage of her niece three months before Anna had died, Princess Anna of Mecklenburg, daughter of Leopold, and Duke Anton-Ulrich of Brunswick, came of age. But the Life Guards, who took an utterly negative view of Biron, overthrew him 22 days later in favor of the infant Ivan IV. The new regent, Anna, daughter of Leopold and mother of the infant tsar, ruled a little more than a year. Yet, the army was still full of dissent, a palace revolution was imminent, to which the French envoy to S t.Petersburg, Marquis de la Chetardie, contributed in all possible ways. In addition, the latter played a double game, trying to carry on an intrigue with the Swedes who hoped to regain the Baltic provinces Peter I had conquered during the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Elizabeth was not so credulous as to take this step.

On November 25, 1741, the princess royal decided on the palace revolution: life guardsmen Vorontsov, Shuvalov and Elizabeth’s favorite Aleksei (former Oleksiy) Razumovsky showed up at Anna Leopoldovna’s palace at the head of the Preobrazhensky (Transfiguration) Regiment grenadier company and arrested her with her husband and son, the eighteen-month-old tsar.

Aleksei Razumovsky, one of the most active participants in these events, was generously rewarded immediately after Elizabeth’s coronation: he was elevated to official chamberlain, then he was successively commissioned life guards lieutenant and lieutenant-general. Cossack Rozum was climbing up the hierarchical ladder with lightning rapidity. He was appointed master of the hunt, awarded a chest full of medals, including the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle. A. G. Razumovsky was also vested with the title of Count of the Holy Roman and Russian Empires and, finally, was promoted to General Field Marshal on September 5, 1756. A legend (for want of documentary evidence) has it that, just a year after ascension to the throne in November 1741, Empress Elizabeth secretly married Aleksei Razumovsky, with the church wedding rites performed at the village of Perovo near Moscow. He was endowed with vast estates near St. Petersburg, Moscow, and in Ukraine as well as with huge amounts of money. Incidentally, already at 22, the future count still had to graze communal cattle, for the Rozums were so poor that the mother even had to beg for a living. The father, when drunk, would often punish the curious boy for reading books. Once Oleksiy ran away to the village of Chemery, where he stayed for some time with the local deacon, improving his knowledge and singing in the church choir. It is here that, as if by God’s grace, Colonel Vishnevsky heard him.

As Empress Catherine II wrote of Aleksei Razumovsky, “with no formal education at all but possessing a broad mind, he was showered with honors but still displayed no unseemly pride. Always generous and open-hearted, he nevertheless was tough and heavy-fisted when inebriated.” His contemporaries also noted that the count “was gentle, compassionate, and amiable toward his subordinates; he liked to intercede for the unfortunate and enjoyed universal love.” All things “Little Russian” were in vogue at the royal court. Traditional Ukrainian dishes were served at court balls, Ukrainian singers sang in church choirs, even bandura players were invited to parties.

Although Aleksei Razumovsky almost never dealt with government affairs, he still made great effort to win privileges for the Ukrainian nobility, Cossacks, and clergy. For example, in 1744 he helped organize the empress’s visit to Ukraine, during which the Cossack officers convinced her majesty that the hetmanate should be restored. A year later he succeeded in having the Kyiv metropolitan see revived, and in 1747 the tsarina proclaimed that Kyrylo Razumovsky (1724-1803), Oleksiy’s younger brother, be elected hetman of Ukraine.

A trendsetter in court male fashion, Aleksei Razumovsky always tried to look impeccable; he was the first to wear diamond buttons, stars, medals, and epaulets on his jacket. A legend says that when his mother Natalia Demyanivna came to St. Petersburg she could not believe the brilliant courtier was her son, and Aleksei had to undress and show his birthmarks as proof. The empress bestowed the title of lady-in-waiting on Natalia, a clever but patriarchal woman. Elizabeth elevated to nobility all the count’s relatives: she sent his younger brother Kyrylo abroad for studies, then, when he came back, appointed him president of the Academy of Sciences and, finally, in fact enthroned him as hetman.

Elizabeth enviously protected the honor of the clan she had exalted. The archives are still full of many files kept by the Secret Chancery: those accused of spreading insulting comments about the sovereign’s favorite and his parents would face such tragic ends as the dungeon, rack, whip, rod, cat-o’-nine-tails, the gauntlet, or banishment plus hard labor. Aleksei Razumovsky himself was not involved in the investigation of these cases. Contemporaries believed he was a very goodhearted, straightforward, if hot-tempered at times, but never a haughty or arrogant person. The favorite’s entourage included many remarkable people of those times. The Anichkov Palace was patronized, at different times, by Vasily Adadurov, the first Russian professor, and Aleksandr Sumarokov, a poet and playwright who was A. G. Razumovsky’s aide in 1740. Our hero was often visited by the future Emperor Peter III who liked to smoke an after-dinner pipe and play cards in the evenings at his palace.

For many years the empress lived with Razumovsky in full harmony. But, as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. The tsarina took on a new favorite, Ivan Shuvalov. This young man differed from Aleksei Razumovsky in that he had far more refined manners and belonged to an old Russian noble clan. Yet, the former favorite was not deprived of the monarch’s grace; he assumed, at least publicly, a friendly attitude toward his younger rival.

After his benefactress died in 1761, Aleksei Razumovsky discontinued all activities and Peter III accepted his resignation. He stayed away from Catherine II’s palace revolution in 1762, following which he still wielded a certain influence at court for some time. The count lived his last years at the Anichkov Palace, a gift from the empress on his birthday. He died childless in 1771, aged 62, with all his colossal property being handed down to his brother Kyrylo Razumovsky, the last hetman of Ukraine and president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.