78 accepted the council’s offer to become empress on the prescribed conditions, and at the beginning of February 1730 the council called a meeting of the nobility in order to publish the conditions and Anna’s reply. In the presence of the high officers and civil servants of the realm, Prince Golitsyn read both documents. However, the assembled nobility reacted coldly to the council’s actions, and when the question as to what formof governnient Russia was to have was raised by the assembly, Golitsyn was forced to invite the nobles to participate in the formulation of a constitution. The council’s invitation resulted in immediate activity on the part of the nobility, which during the next few days presented a series of counterproposals to the aristocratic program of the council. According to the proposals of the various noble factions, the council should either be disbanded or reorganized so that its domination by aristocrats would be terminated. However, it soon became evident that the council had no intention of abandoning the position of power it had acquired. When the members of the nobility understood that the council would simply ignore their various proposals, they decided to turn to the empress herself for aid. At the same time, many voices were raised among the nobility for the reestablishment of the autocracy. A document circulated among the guards regiments, for example, contained the following plea: “God forbid that instead of one autocrat we should have ten despotic and powerful families; and so that we, the nobility, are entirely doomed and forced, even more than earlier, to worship false gods and to seek everyone’s favor.” During a meeting between Anna and representatives of the nobility held at the end of February 1730 to discuss Russia’s formof government, finally, demands were made by the guards regiments for a restoration of the autocracy. This proposal won the support of the assembled nobility, and Anna was proclaimed autocrat of all the Russias.^®^ Eventually, Anna settled her scores with the members of the Supreme Privy Council, some of whom were sent into exile and had their estates confiscated.^®^ Heinrich Fick, too, was subjected to the empress’s disfavor. Fick was in St. Petersburg at the time of Peter IPs death, but when news of the young tsar’s passing became known he went to Moscow, where, shortly after his arrival, he requested an audience with the empress. Anna refused to see Fick and instead ordered him to return to St. Petersburg. This event naturally gave rise to speculation as to why Fick had fallen The presentation of the events of 1730 is based on David L. Ransel, “Political Perceptions of the Russian Nobility: The Constitutional Crisis of 1730,” Laurentian University Review, 4 (1972), 20—38. See also James Cracraft, “The Succession Crisis of 1730: a View from the Inside,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 12 (1978), 61—84. Hjärne, 267—268. irt3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=