Paul I Petrovich Romanov
b September 20 [October 1] 1754 - night from March 11 to March 12 [24] 1801

All-Russian Emperor from 6 ( 17) November 1796, Grand Master of the Order of Malta since 29 November (10 December) 1798. Representative of the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov dynasty.

Catherine’s son and successor, Paul, mounted the throne on November 17 (November 6, Old Style), 1796, when he was 42, barely sane, and with a bitter feeling of having been deprived by his mother of his right to succeed his assassinated father, Peter III. He hated Catherine’s favourites and her policy, both internal and external. Paul stabilized the succession of the Russian throne by his imperial family statute (1797; in force until 1917). He sent Suvorov to Italy to fight against the French Revolution, but he ended his reign while preparing with Napoleon an expedition to India against England.

In social questions Paul’s policy was also inconsistent: he alleviated the burden of a serf’s compulsory work by reducing it to three days a week, but he gave away the peasants of the crown to noble proprietors as serfs in an even larger number than Catherine had (120,000 yearly). This did not make him popular among the nobility, however, as his exalted idea of the emperor’s divine right caused him to treat them in a purely condescending way. He claimed that a person could be reputed of importance only as long as he was permitted to converse with his majesty. His tyrannical proclivities inspired fear in his associates, and in the 5th year of his reign he was assassinated, on March 23 (March 11, Old Style), 1801, by court conspirators led by Leonty Leontyevich, count von Bennigsen.