The daughter of the Moldavian prince Maria Cantemir is the last favorite of Peter I. Their romance began already at the sunset of the life of the first Russian emperor. It was complicated by palace intrigues and the marriage of Peter and Catherine I. Maria became pregnant by the king, but the baby born soon died. The favorite survived the autocrat for 32 years.
A family
Maria Cantemir was born in 1700 in the family of the Moldavian prince Dmitry Kanteminovich. The girl spent her childhood in Istanbul, where her high-ranking father lived. In 1711, Tsar Dmitry swore allegiance to the Russian Tsar. Peter I then began the Prut campaign, intending to gain a foothold in the Black Sea and weaken the Turkish Sultan, whose vassal had previously been Cantemir. The military campaign failed. Peter I had to sign an unprofitable peace treaty, and his Moldovan defector to remain in Russia (Peter called him āreasonable and capable of adviceā).
Following the example of her father, Maria Cantemir, having Romanian roots, received a Greek education. She knew Latin and Italian, astronomy, the basics of mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy and history. Reading in ancient Greek opened ancient literature for her. The girl was fond of drawing and music.
Relocation to Russia
In 1711, Maria Kantemir and her family moved to Kharkov, and in 1713 ended up in Moscow. In addition, her estates were granted large estates in the Sevsky and Kursk counties. The place of permanent residence of the family was a village near Moscow with the remarkable name Black Dirt. It was located on the road that led to the new capital, St. Petersburg. Previously, this estate belonged to Prince Vasily Golitsyn, the favorite of Tsarevna Sofia.
Kantemir Maria Dmitrievna settled in a wooden house built in the old Russian style. One-story, with sloping roofs, it was very different from the usual child architecture. Mary generally had to rediscover the world. Russian literacy was taught by the famous writer and translator Ivan Ilyinsky. Maria also developed a love of reading thanks to her mother, Cassandra, who was gifted with many good qualities. It was she who was responsible for raising children in those periods when the father could not deal with children. Maria had a sister Smaragda and four brothers: Matvey, Konstantin, Sergey and Antioch (all of them had to each other almost weather).
Istanbul teacher
Another teacher who influenced the fate of the last woman of Peter the Great was Anastasius Kondoidi. This man was a Greek priest and connected his life with the Kantemirov family back when she lived in Istanbul. In the Turkish capital, the Russian Tsar, as expected, had a carefully conspiracy spy network. Anastasiy Kondoidi occupied an important position among those Moscow secret agents. He transmitted his information through the diplomat Peter Tolstoy. With the omnipotent Count Kantemir, Maria Dmitrievna will maintain relations while already in the capital.
As for Kondoidi, it was he who introduced his pupil to Italian culture (the priest spent a lot of time on the Apennine Peninsula). Anastasia's espionage activities aroused suspicion in Istanbul, and he had to flee the Ottoman Empire. He reunited with the Cantemirs after they moved to Russia, and in his old age, under the name Athanasius, became a monk.
Life in Moscow
The still very young mother of Maria Kantemir Kassandra died in 1713 at the age of 32. Alien burdened her, and the trials associated with moving and shocks, undermined fragile health. Children remained in the care of only one father. He gave them all his time until the Kantemirov moved to Petersburg. His reason was the rapprochement of Dmitry Konstantinovich and Peter.
In 1717, the king arrived in Moscow, where he lived 2.5 months. It was one of the most difficult periods in the life of the autocrat. The day before, his son Alexey fled abroad. Now Tsarevich tried to return Count Tolstoy to his homeland, and Peter was in a bad mood in Moscow. At the beginning of 1718, Alexei officially abdicated the throne. The ceremony of deprivation of the right to the throne was held in the Assumption Cathedral. Then Peter and Dmitry Kantemir began to communicate much more than before. The former Moldavian ruler began to frequent the king. Unfortunately, the subject of their frequent conversations of that time remained a mystery.
Meeting the king
For the first time, Maria Cantemir saw Peter I in 1711 during the Prut campaign, when he and his wife Catherine visited the Moldavian capital Iasi. A personal acquaintance took place in 1717 in his fatherās house near Moscow. Peter 1, having dealt with his family affairs (Tsarevich Alexei returned in prison), also got rid of many of his close officials, whom he suspected of treason. Now the king needed new people. This circumstance explains his call of Dmitry Kantemir to St. Petersburg.
Judging by how the Moldavian prince hesitated to move, he did not want to leave Moscow at all. Nevertheless, he could not refuse the formidable king. In the newly founded capital, he took with him children, including young Mary. Petersburg met guests with unprecedented orders of high society in Moscow. The 57-year-old nobleman fell in love with the court beauty Anastasia Trubetskoy, whom he soon married. After this unexpected turn, Princess Maria Cantemir was forced to say goodbye to her former power-law closed life.
In the capital
Petersburg high society lived according to the tsarās habits. Peter 1 could not stand the Moscow patriarchy and made the new capital a cloister of Western customs. For Maria, born in Moldova, such orders were all the more unusual. She was very reluctant to abandon her usual oriental dress and put on European clothes fashionable in St. Petersburg.
Dmitry Kantemir with a young wife and eldest daughter was a regular guest at the royal holidays. Peter loved to organize assemblies, skating and balls. Particularly plentiful were the holidays in the winter of 1721-1722 that came after the victory of Russia over Sweden in the Northern War. Before that, Peter for two decades was constantly on the road or in the army. He lived according to an inhuman schedule and in the same way made his whole country work. Now came the weeks of unprecedented celebrations. Their apotheosis turned out to be a funny mask lasting several days. Maria Cantemir and Peter the First met several times at this endless celebration. In addition, they saw each other due to the joint work of the Tsar and Prince Dmitry.
Favorite
What could Maria Cantemir and Peter the Great be attached to each other? First of all, the Moldavian princess was very educated, especially by the standards of both ordinary and noble Russian women of that time. It is known that Peter was distinguished by wide erudition and curiosity. He was keen on sciences and constantly attracted to something new. In addition, Mary differed from the surrounding women in that she had a lot of foreign and especially Greek. Almost nothing is known about the girlās appearance. Her historical portraits were painted posthumously and composed according to fragmentary information of contemporaries.
The girl herself quickly obeyed the charm of Peter. Meanwhile, the father of Maria Cantemir was going to marry the girl. Her hands were requested by Prince Ivan Dolgoruky. Dmitry Konstantinovich gave his consent, but Mary, who already had an affair with the emperor, refused the groom. It should be noted here that the king lived in marriage. He had a wife - the future Empress Catherine I. She was not just the wife of the sovereign. Catherine remained a perennial companion of the autocrat. His wife accompanied him on military campaigns and did not shy away from state affairs. Replacing it was not easy at all.
Pregnancy
In 1722, Dmitry Kantemir wrote a detailed letter to the Tsarina, explaining that he had no idea about the connection of his daughter with the autocrat. However, biographers and historians agree that the prince lied. The mediator between him and Catherine was the same Count Peter Tolstoy, known for his intrigue. The ambitious former ruler hoped that the mistress of Emperor Peter the Great would eventually become his wife, and the Kantemira and Romanovs would unite in a dynastic marriage.
Dmitry Konstantinovichās plans came close to implementation when it became known that Mary was pregnant. Meanwhile, Peter was tired of peaceful life and set about organizing a campaign in Persia. Going east, he took with him Dmitry and his daughter as a retinue. The king needed Cantemir in order to compose an appeal in Turkish for residents of provinces bordering Persia.
Unsuccessful childbirth
An expedition to Persia started from Astrakhan in July 1722. Peter got bogged down in a new war for several months. While he was gone, Mary, who remained in Astrakhan, gave birth. She was resolved by the boy, but the child was premature and quickly died. After the death of the baby, Dmitry Cantemirās plans for Peter's marriage to his daughter crumbled. Moreover, during the campaign to Persia, the prince became seriously ill. Suhotka struck him (the sister of Maria Smaragda died of the same ailment).
Cantemirs for a long time did not dare to leave Astrakhan. Finally, a solid winter road was established. At first, the family planned to get to Moscow, but on the way turned into Dmitrovka estate in the modern Oryol region. There Dmitry Konstantinovich became even worse. Mary's father died on September 1, 1723.
Death of Peter
Princess Maria Cantemir, whose biography is a typical example of a rejected favorite, received a paternal inheritance, but actually turned out to be excommunicated from the court. In this position, she took up family affairs. The girl has four younger brothers and a very tiny sister from her second paternal marriage.
The situation radically changed in the fall of 1724. Empress Catherine began an affair with camera-cunker Willim Mons. The king became aware of this connection. Peter I was terrible in anger. He executed Mons, but did not begin to crack down on his wife, whom he had recently crowned and made his heir to the throne. However, their relationship was broken. Then Peter again became close to Mary Kantemir. However, this time, the connection between the king and the favorite was not destined to continue. At the beginning of 1725 the autocrat became ill, and died on February 8.
Future life
With the death of Peter, Mary fell into disgrace. However, it did not last long. When Catherine I died in 1727, the princess again became a court figure. At first she lived in St. Petersburg, but then moved to Moscow closer to the brothers who served in the Mother See. Mary enjoyed the favor of Natalia, sister of Emperor Peter I, and the next ruler, Anna Ioannovna, in 1830 made her maid of honor.
Cantemir never got married. Her family relationships were limited to taking care of her brothers, sister and numerous litigations with her peer stepmother. The subject of the dispute was, of course, the inheritance. In 1730, Maria Dmitrievna kept a literary salon in her own Moscow house . The vice-governor of St. Petersburg Fedor Naumov got married to her, but was refused.
Last years
In 1741, Mary attended the coronation of Elizabeth Petrovna, who ascended the throne after another palace coup. One of the princessās brothers, Antiochus, moved to Paris. Relatives maintained a curious correspondence for historians in the Greek and Italian languages.
In 1745, the favorite of Peter I acquired the Ulitkino estate near Moscow, where she began to live a quiet, measured life. There she built a new church, and in her will she indicated that she wanted a monastery to appear on the site of the temple. Mary died on September 9, 1757.