IVAN VI

born Aug. 12 [Aug. 23, New Style], 1740, St. Petersburg, Russia died July 5 , 1764, Shlisselburg Fortress, near St. Petersburg in full Ivan Antonovich infant emperor of Russia in 174041. The son of Prince Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Bevern-Lneburg and Anna Leopoldovna, the niece of Empress Anna (reigned in Russia 173040), Ivan Antonovich was named heir to the throne by the empress on Oct. 16 (Oct. 27), 1740, and proclaimed emperor the next day. The empress' favourite, Ernst Johann Biron, the Duke of Courland, became regent for him. Although Biron was overthrown by the vice-chancellor, Andrey Osterman, and Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph, Count von Mnnich, three weeks later, Ivan remained the nominal ruler of Russia, and his mother was installed as regent. On Nov. 25 (Dec. 6), 1741, however, Elizabeth, the daughter of Emperor Peter I the Great (reigned in Russia 16821725), organized a group that opposed Anna Leopoldovna's foreign policy and her German advisers and deposed the regent, the ruling German clique, and Ivan VI. For the next 20 years Ivan remained in solitary confinement in various prisons. Although his mental and emotional development were thereby retarded, a second lieutenant of the Shlisselburg garrison, Vasily Yakovlevich Mirovich, tried in 1764 to free Ivan in order to remove Catherine II the Great, who had recently seized the throne (1762), and to restore him to power. In the course of Mirovich's mutiny, however, Ivan was assassinated by his jailers.