Elizabeth I, Empress of Russia

by Robert Nisbet Bain

Overview

A short biography of Elizabeth I, Empress of Russia. She led the country into the two major European conflicts of her time: the War of Austrian Succession (1740–8) and the Seven Years' War (1756–63). Her domestic policies allowed the nobles to gain dominance in local government while shortening their terms of service to the state. She encouraged Mikhail Lomonosov's establishment of the University of Moscow and Ivan Shuvalov's foundation of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. She also spent exorbitant sums of money on the grandiose baroque projects of her favourite architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, particularly in Peterhof and Tsarskoye Selo. The Winter Palace and the Smolny Cathedral in Saint Petersburg remain the chief monuments of her reign. She remains one of the most popular Russian monarchs due to her strong opposition to Prussian policies and her abstinence from executing a single person during her reign.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148797463
Publisher:	Shamrock Eden Publishing
Publication date:	08/31/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	698,907
File size:	61 KB

About the Author

Bain was a fluent linguist who could use over twenty languages. Besides translating a number of books he also used his skills to write learned books on foreign people and folklore. Bain was a frequent contributor to the Encyclopædia Britannica. His contributions were biographies and varied from Andrew Aagensen to Aleksander Wielopolski. He taught himself Hungarian in order that he could read Mór Jókai in the original after first reading him in German. He translated from Finnish, Danish and Russian and also tackled Turkish authors via Hungarian. He was the most prolific translator into English from Hungarian in the nineteenth century. He married late and died young after publishing a wide range of literature from or about Europe.