Tuesday 14 September 2010

Remains of Ivan VI found in Russia?

According to a TT/Inferfax article in Dagens Nyheter yesterday (external link) Russian scientists believe they have found the remains of Emperor Ivan VI in the town of Kholmogory, 75 kilometres southeast of Arkhangelsk.
Ivan VI was the great-grandson of Ivan V, brother and co-monarch of Pyotr I (“Peter the Great”), and succeeded his great-aunt Empress Anna on the Russian imperial throne in October 1740. Thirteen months later he was however overthrown by Jelizaveta Petrovna, Pyotr I’s daughter, and imprisoned with his family.
Eventually he was moved to the fortress in Shlisselburg, where he was murdered during an attempt to free him on 5 July 1764. It has been believed that he was buried in Shlisselburg, but according to one of the Russian scientists quoted in the article, Anatoly Karanin, they are quite certain that the remains found in Kholmogory are his.
Kholmogory was one of the places where Ivan VI had been imprisoned before being moved to Shlisselburg, where his parents died in 1746 and 1776 respectively. His four siblings were released only in 1780 and sent to Denmark, where they lived in Horsens under the supervision of their father’s sister, Queen Dowager Juliane Marie of Denmark-Norway.

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