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Emperor Peter III
Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias
Emperor Peter III, 1762
Reign	January 5 1762 [O.S. 25b December] – July 9 O.S. June 28] 1762
Full name	Karl Peter Ulrich
Titles	Duke of Holstein-Gottorp King of Finland
Born	January 21 1728(1728--)
	Kiel
Died	July 17 O.S. July 6] 1762
	Ropsha
Buried	(exhumed and currently buried at)Peter and Paul Cathedral
Predecessor	Elizabeth
Successor	Catherine II the Great
Consort	Sophia Augusta Fredericka of Anhalt-Zerbst (a.k.a. Catherine II the Great)
Issue	Paul I Anna Petrovna (1757-1759)
Father	Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp
Mother	Anna Petrovna

Peter III (February 21, 1728 – July 17, 1762) (Russian: Пётр III Фëдорович, Pyotr III Fyodorovitch) was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. According to most historians, he was mentally immature and very pro-Prussian, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II.

Early life and character

Peter was born in Kiel. His parents were Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (nephew of Charles XII of Sweden) and Anna Petrovna, a daughter of Emperor Peter the Great of Russia and his second wife, Catherine I of Russia. In 1739, Peter's father died, and he became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp as Karl Peter Ulrich. He could thus be considered the heir to both thrones (Russia and Sweden).

When Anna's sister Elizabeth became Empress of Russia she brought Peter from Germany to Russia and proclaimed him her heir in the autumn of 1742. Previously in 1742 the 14-year-old Peter was proclaimed King of Finland during the Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743) when Russian troops held Finland. This proclamation was based on his succession rights to territories held by his childless great-uncle, the late Charles XII of Sweden who also had been Grand Duke of Finland. About the same time, in October 1742, he was chosen by the Swedish parliament to become heir to the Swedish throne. However, the Swedish parliament was unaware of the fact that he had also been proclaimed heir to the throne of Russia, and when their envoy arrived in Saint Petersburg it was too late. It has been reported that the underage Peter's succession rights to Sweden were renounced on his behalf (such an act in name of a minor has been regarded as questionable and probably invalid).

Empress Elisabeth arranged for Peter to marry his second cousin, Princess Sophia Augusta Fredericka of Anhalt-Zerbst, daughter of Christian August and Johanna Elisabeth of Anhalt-Zerbst (for her pedigree, see Russian ancestry of Catherine the Great). The young princess formally converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna, i.e Catherine. The marriage was not a happy one, but produced one son; the future Emperor Paul, and one daughter; Anna Petrovna (20 December 1757 - 19 March 1757). Catherine later claimed that Paul was not fathered by Peter. During the sixteen years of their residence in Oranienbaum Catherine took numerous lovers, as did her husband.

The classical view of Peter's character is contained in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, dressed in a generous dose of old-time anti-German sentiment:

"Nature had made him mean, the smallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome. And Peter had all the sentiments of the worst kind of small German prince of the time. He had the conviction that his princeship entitled him to disregard decency and the feelings of others. He planned brutal practical jokes, in which blows had always a share. His most manly taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which has been defined as corporals mania, the passion for uniforms, pipeclay, buttons, the tricks of parade and the froth of discipline. He detested the Russians, and surrounded himself with Holsteiners".

The reign

After Peter gained the throne in 1762, he incurred many nobles' displeasure by withdrawing from the Seven Years' War and making peace with Prussia, in which Russia did not gain anything, in spite of Russia's occupation of Berlin and virtual victory in the war. He formed an alliance with Prussia and planned an unpopular war against Denmark in order to restore Schleswig to his Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. It is also claimed that he wanted to force the Russian Orthodox Church to adopt Lutheran practices.

During Peter's short reign, Russia saw several minor but important economic reforms that encouraged development of Western-European style capitalism and mercantilism and to move away from Russia's traditional social practices of subjugating peasants and townspeople and reserving leading positions for nobility. He issued an edict abolishing the practice allowing industrialists to purchase serfs as workers for their enterprises. He also forbade the importation of sugar into Russia to stimulate domestic manufacturing.

Peter's major social reform was the introduction of the Liberty for Nobility, abrogating Peter the Great's policy of forcing all male members of Russian nobility to serve in the military or civil service without regard for individual preference for a particular occupation.

Catherine, along with her lover Grigori Orlov, planned to overthrow Peter, as she believed he would divorce her. The Leib Guard, on which Peter planned to impose harsher discipline, revolted and Peter was arrested and forced to sign his own abdication; Catherine became Empress with the support of most of the nobility. Shortly thereafter, Peter was killed while in custody at Ropsha. While Catherine did not punish the responsible guards, doubts remain as to whether she ordered the murder or not.

Aftermath

In December 1796, Peter's son the Emperor Paul, who disliked his mother, arranged for his remains to be exhumed and then reburied with full honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where other tsars were buried.

There have been many attempts to revise the traditional characterisation of Peter and his policies, which were obviously influenced by his wife's memoirs and other biased accounts. It was during his reign that some of Catherine's reforms were prepared and the nobles were relieved from the burdensome obligation of serving in the army. Most recently, a Harvard historian Carol S. Leonard published a revisionist history of Peter III with her book Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter III of Russia.

Ancestry

Peter III's ancestors in three generations

Peter III of Russia	Father: Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp	Paternal Grandfather: Frederick IV, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp	Paternal Great-grandfather: Christian Albrecht of Holstein-Gottorp
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Frederika Amalia of Denmark
		Paternal Grandmother: Hedvig Sophia of Sweden	Paternal Great-grandfather: Charles XI of Sweden
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Ulrike Eleonore of Denmark
	Mother: Anna Petrovna of Russia	Maternal Grandfather: Peter I of Russia	Maternal Great-grandfather: Alexis I of Russia
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Nataliya Kyrillovna Naryshkina
		Maternal Grandmother: Catherine I of Russia	Maternal Great-grandfather: Samuel Skavronsky
			Maternal Grat-grandmother: Elisabeth Moritz

External links

• (Russian) The ancestors and descendants Pyotr III Fyodorovitch, Emperor of Russia
• (Russian) Biography of Pyotr III Fyodorovitch

Emperor Peter III of Russias House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov Cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg Born: February 21 1728 Died: July 17 1762
Preceded by Elisabeth	Emperor of Russia January 5 – June 28, 1762	Succeeded by Catherine II
German nobility
Preceded by Karl Friedrich	Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp 1739–1762	Succeeded by Paul

Persondata
NAME	III, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Ulrich, Karl Peter
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Emperor of Russia
DATE OF BIRTH	February 21, 1728
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kiel
DATE OF DEATH	July 17, 1762
PLACE OF DEATH	Ropsha