The Coinage of Peter II, 1727-1730
FROM THE SPRING of 1727 until early in 1730 Russia was under the reign of a boy-czar, Peter II, the only surviving grandson of Peter the Great. His birth was the result of a marriage arranged for dynastic reasons but the real story began many years before that.
The eldest son of Peter the Great, Alexis, was born in 1690 but was brought up by his mother, an arch-foe of the reforms then sweeping the country under the giant czar. In 1711, Alexis married a German princess, Charlotte. Alexis turned out to be a slovenly drunk and his treatment of Charlotte was an open scandal; the ultimate insult came when Alexis moved his mistress into the same house.
There were occasional reconciliations, as shown by the birth of a son, Peter, in October 1715. Charlotte died in childbirth, however, removing whatever bonds of decency and sobriety that tied Alexis to normal society. Shortly thereafter, while the Czar was abroad, Alexis fled to Austria, abandoning his infant son; the immediate cause of the flight was an ultimatum from his father, the Czar: be a man or join a monastery!
Imperial agents tracked the errant son to Austria, triggering a second flight, this time to Italy. In January 1718 he was tricked into returning but the guarantee of
