Catherine the Great

Mirovich was dismayed, but, driven by compulsion—and, he may have believed, also bound by his oath—he decided to proceed on his own. He assembled a group of soldiers in the fortress, told them his plan, and asked them to join him. Uneasily, each replied, “If the others agree, I will not refuse.” At half past one on the night of July 4, Mirovich mustered his followers. When the fortress commandant, aroused by the noise, rushed out in his nightshirt, Mirovich clubbed him unconscious with a musket butt. Over one hundred shots were fired between the men in the outer and inner bastions; no one was killed or wounded. Impatient to overcome the defenders of the inner casement, Mirovich dragged up an old cannon; a white flag quickly went up. Mirovich crossed the moat to the inner casement and made his way by torchlight to Ivan’s cell. Outside the door stood the two wardens, Vlasev and Chekin. Mirovich seized Chekin and demanded, “Where is the emperor?” Chekin replied, “We have no emperor. We have an empress.” Pushing him aside, Mirovich stepped into the cell. Ivan’s body lay on the floor in a pool of blood. The two officers had obeyed Panin’s command and done their duty; when they heard shots fired, they had pulled the sleeping prisoner from his bed and run him through eight times with their swords. Ivan died, only half awake, because a man he had never seen had wished to place him on the Russian throne.

Overcome by what he saw, Mirovich dropped to his knees, embraced the body, and picked up and kissed a bloody hand. His attempted coup having failed, he surrendered. When Ivan’s body was carried to the outer fortress, Mirovich cried, “See, my brothers, this is our emperor, Ivan Antonovich. You are innocent, because you were ignorant of my intentions. I assume responsibility and will take all the punishment upon myself.”

On regaining consciousness, the Schlüsselburg commandant immediately reported the episode to Nikita Panin, who was at Tsarskoe Selo with Grand Duke Paul. Panin relayed the news by the fastest messenger to Catherine in Riga. She was startled, and then her surprise was followed—she made no attempt to disguise it—by overwhelming relief. “The ways of God are wonderful beyond prediction,” she wrote to Panin. “Providence has given me a clear sign of its favor by putting an end to this shameful affair.” The Prussian ambassador accompanying the empress’s party reported to Frederick that “she left here [Riga] with an air of the greatest serenity and the most composed countenance.”

It was difficult for her to believe that the brief uprising had been a desperate act of a single man; a game played for these stakes must be the work a conspiracy. She ordered an immediate investigation. Fifty officers and men from the fortress were arrested. Interrogated by a special commission, Mirovich confessed his guilt frankly and refused to incriminate anyone else. Despite his honesty, once Catherine had examined the documents in the dossier and read Mirovich’s manifesto accusing her of being a usurper, of poisoning her husband, and of marrying Gregory Orlov, she put aside any thoughts of leniency. On August 17, an imperial manifesto announced that the investigators had found Ivan insane and that Mirovich would be tried by a special court composed of the Senate, the Holy Synod, the presidents of the colleges of War, the Navy, and Foreign Affairs, and members of the high nobility. In handing Mirovich over for trial, Catherine announced, “As regards the insult to my person, I pardon the accused. But regarding the attack on the general peace and welfare of the country, let the loyal assembly pass judgment.”

The two men who had taken Ivan’s life were never placed on trial. The court’s assignment was to judge the act committed by Mirovich, and the question of guilt for Ivan’s death was shifted from those who had actually killed the prisoner to the man who had tried to set him free. Mirovich, brought before the court three times and exhorted to implicate others, doggedly reaffirmed that he had acted alone. During the trial, Catherine herself intervened only once: when a member demanded that Mirovich be tortured to extract the names of his accomplices, Catherine ordered that the examination be conducted without torture. Ironically, in some quarters, this decision damaged her reputation, because it bred suspicion that she feared that pain would bring out incriminating disclosures. In fact, Catherine did attempt to suppress any reference to Panin’s secret orders authorizing Ivan’s keepers to kill him in the event of an attempt to free him. The few who became aware of this instruction were told that it was based on orders given by Empress Elizabeth.