Malta - the province of Russia

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Malta - the province of Russia

Vladimir Borovikovsky. Portrait of Paul in a coronation vestment, 1800. On the emperor - signs of the Order of Malta

After the Knights of St. John chose the Grand Master of the Maltese Order of Emperor Paul I, Malta formally became one of the territories of the Russian Empire



Contemporaries, who knew the Emperor Paul I, noted "features of chivalry in his character. It is these features that he elevated to the principle of his everyday and social behavior. ”

The idea of ​​Pavel Petrovich’s chivalrous idea was especially vividly manifested in his relations with the Order of St. John, a Christian historywhose knights fought against the Muslim invaders and repelled raids by North African pirates. Despite the unfavorable circumstances, the Order managed to survive, the island Malta became the main place of its deployment, and when especially difficult times came for the Order, its leadership began to seek help from Russia and Paul I. And the Russian knight-emperor supported them, which, incidentally, corresponded not only its noble character, but also the national interests of Russia.

Already Catherine II was aware of the strategic importance of Malta and noted the need to have a Russian diplomat here: “for political reasons, to contain ... a person’s attorney”. Under Catherine, Russia returned the status of a great maritime power, and in conditions of constant wars with Turkey, a naval base in the Mediterranean was extremely necessary.

At the same time, Malta has become a bargaining chip in the geopolitical struggle of England and France. The goal of England was to provoke the French military actions against Malta and thereby draw Russia into the war with France. It was not difficult to confront the Jacobins-anticlericals with the religious Order; in 1792, the Order’s activities on the territory of the French Republic were banned, property was confiscated, and six years later French troops captured the last stronghold of Johannites - Malta.

For Emperor Paul, who had been the protector of the Order since August 1797, the occupation of the territory he had vowed to defend was a personal challenge. Russia joined the anti-French coalition, in November 1798, Pavel was awarded the title of Grand Master of the Order, and in December of the same year the knights elected the Russian monarch Grand Master of the Order of Malta. The Russian emperor thereby demonstrated Russia's readiness to assist the Catholics in the fight against godless Jacobins.

Despite the fact that such an appointment cannot be called legitimate, firstly, according to the statute, the Order can be headed only by a Catholic, secondly, some Spanish and Italian Johnites did not recognize his election, the Roman pontiff Pius VI recognized this election and called the Russian emperor a "friend of humanity and protector of the oppressed. "

The grandmaster provides refuge in Russia to the Knights Hospitallers, Malta is declared protected by Russia, and Andrei Nikolai, president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, is assigned the island of Malta on the maps and calendar as the province of the Russian Empire. A year later, in St. Petersburg, St. John’s will transfer the ancient Christian shrines: a piece of the tree of the Cross of the Lord, the Philerm Icon of the Mother of God and the right hand of St. John the Baptist. The emblem of the Order will be included in the draft of the updated State Emblem of Russia.

Since Russia became a member of the anti-French coalition, it sent an army under the command of Suvorov to northern Italy, and a squadron under the command of Ushakov into the Mediterranean Sea.

As part of the anti-French coalition, in December 1798, two agreements were signed, in which Russia, England and Naples agreed on the procedure for introducing garrisons into the occupied Malta. Valletta, the capital of the island, was to be occupied by the Russian garrison, and the island was governed by a military council, in which the key posts belonged to the Russians.

Russia fulfilled its obligations to the allies, but the British violated them. They inclined the King of Neapolitan, who, thanks to the Russian sailors, returned his possessions, to abandon the treaty and not to transfer the island to the control of a foreign power.

The Russian squadron, which liberated the Ionian archipelago and southern Italy, was ready to knock the French out of Malta. Fyodor Ushakov wanted to end the Mediterranean march by storming the last French outpost on the Mediterranean.

“I am very incomparably regretful that our affairs and preparations in Malta’s argument were upset and, so to speak, all the work was lost,” the celebrated admiral noted with bitterness.


Stepan Schukin. Portrait of Paul I in the costume of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, 1799

Paul I did not unreasonably believe that today's ally could suddenly turn into an enemy and strike at our the fleet, therefore, ordered the squadron to return home. The British were captured by Malta in August 1800, and the island was in their hands for over a century and a half.

Russian diplomacy delivered a reciprocal and rather tangible blow to the treacherous ally. The geopolitical alignment and allied blocs began to be rapidly restructured, Petersburg decided to establish diplomatic relations with Paris. An experienced diplomat Kolychev was sent to the capital of France, who managed to agree on the exchange of prisoners; the French, for their part, released 8 of thousands of Russian prisoners of war. There was a discussion in the plans and the fate of Malta, obviously, in resolving this issue, Napoleon would go to meet Russia (which confirms the subsequent agreement on providing Russia and France with “freedom of the seas”).

However, while in Paris, Kolychev received news of the demise of Emperor Paul I, an English trace clearly appears in his death. England did everything to ensure that the base on the island remained behind her. To some extent, Malta cost Emperor Paul I life.

His successor on the throne, Alexander I, refused the title of grandmaster of the Order of Malta, and the legitimate reason for the entry of Malta into Russia was eliminated.
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  1. +8
    10 December 2017 15: 32
    Poor, poor Paul, the last knight monarch on our planet
    1. +3
      10 December 2017 16: 34
      Quote: polpot
      Poor, poor Paul, the last knight monarch on our planet

      Well, I do not. What about Nicholas II? That KNIGHT, so a knight ...
      1. +3
        10 December 2017 17: 04
        Quote: svp67
        Quote: polpot
        Poor, poor Paul, the last knight monarch on our planet

        Well, I do not. What about Nicholas II? That KNIGHT, so a knight ...

        Yeah, abdicated from the throne "knightly" "Abdicated, as if the squadron had surrendered ...", as he put it
        Major General of the Suite of His Imperial Majesty Dmitry Nikolaevich Dubensky.
        1. +1
          10 December 2017 17: 15
          Quote: Proxima
          Renounced, as if the squadron had surrendered ..

          The knight is ... the horse is more important to him ...
      2. +5
        10 December 2017 20: 20
        Well, well ... Knights are fighting with their peers .... Bloody Sunday and Lensky shooting remember ???? Millions of dead in the Civil War, for which there are no monuments !!! That’s who the Saints are not killed for anything! Read the terrible narratives of Babel ... And then let the king go to saints ... Children, of course, Saints. And this is true ... Like everything with us, Russians have no middle ground ... One way, now another ... Hatching their eyes and not listening to anyone ... It’s especially fun when the deserter and coward Solzhenitsyn were appointed a prophet and a classic ....
        1. +1
          10 December 2017 22: 00
          Quote: moskowit
          Well, well ... Knights are fighting with their peers .... Bloody Sunday and Lensky shooting remember ???? Millions of dead in the Civil War, for which there are no monuments !!! That’s who the Saints are not killed for anything! Read the terrible narratives of Babel ... And then let the king go to saints ... Children, of course, Saints. And this is true ... Like everything with us, Russians have no middle ground ... One way, now another ... Hatching their eyes and not listening to anyone ... It’s especially fun when the deserter and coward Solzhenitsyn were appointed a prophet and a classic ....

          I agree one hundred percent!
  2. +3
    10 December 2017 15: 33
    And what, EXCELLENT PURCHASE. Maybe it's time to claim his rights to him? A base that is sea, that is air, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, certainly, would not be superfluous now ...
    1. +1
      10 December 2017 15: 58
      Quote: svp67
      And what, EXCELLENT PURCHASE. Maybe it's time to claim his rights to him?

      We can claim a lot of things. Everyone knows about Russian possessions in America fellow (modern American states - Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California). But for example, few have heard about our possessions in the Hawaiian Islands and in Hokkaido.
      With the "Russian South America" ​​generally came a funny thing. belay The Russian colony off the coast of South America could be the island of Tobago, which was a colony of Courland, which became part of the Russian Empire.

      In 1652, the Duke of Courland Jacob took possession of Fr. Tobago off the coast of South America. Over the course of 30 years, 400 Courlandians moved here, and more than 900 Negro slaves were purchased in Africa. In Africa, the Courlandians acquired St. Andrew's Island (James Island, now part of the Gambia).

      However, in 1661, these territories in two hemispheres passed into the use of England: the Duke of Courland actually contributed them as a guarantee for loans. When Courland became part of the Russian Empire, Catherine II until 1795 tried to seize the British islands with these two islands, but to no avail.
      1. 0
        10 December 2017 20: 00
        You can still add Papua New Guinea to this list.
        1. +1
          10 December 2017 21: 49
          Quote: San Sanych
          You can still add Papua New Guinea to this list.

          I then, sinfully, thought that Miklouho-Maclay was an ethnographer, but he turned out to be a colonizer? belay
  3. +2
    10 December 2017 15: 36
    and six years later, the French troops captured the last stronghold of the Johannites - Malta.
    ... Malta was surrendered to the French without a fight, and several weeks before the surrender, many knights of the order were in Russia. From the very beginning of the appearance of the "Maltese" at court, the higher ranks of the Russian Empire stopped even more trying to sympathize with the already unpopular Paul I. Members of the Order of Malta began to feed from the Russian estates. The order could not organically fit into the system of views of the nobility. "The Maltese "were not satisfied with all sectors of society. For the progressive part of society, he was a strange anachronism. Members of numerous Masonic lodges did not accept him because of disagreements on issues related to the church. Among the conservative part of the Russian nobility, the Orthodox emperor’s appeal to Catholic chivalry also did not find a response. After Malta switched to the British, they increasingly began to find a common language with the capital and Moscow Freemasons, who were increasingly dissatisfied with the ban on the activities of lodges. .In March 1801, Paul I was killed in his bedroom. Historians do not directly accept the assassination of the Russian emperor with his protectorate over the Order of Malta.
    1. dSK
      +4
      10 December 2017 18: 06
      Quote: parusnik
      In March 1801, Paul I was killed in his bedroom. It is not customary for historians to directly link the murder of the Russian emperor with his protectorate over the Order of Malta.
      Hello Alexey Bogomazov! When is it interesting that Masons confessed to their black deeds? They bought Pavel, having “presented” a beautiful trinket for salvation from the frazuzs, he warmed the snake not only to his death, but also to his descendants. The "noble" hospitals - the Illuminati - free masons "thanked" the royal dynasty to the fullest - even the children of the last monarch were not sorry.
  4. 0
    31 January 2018 14: 28
    Pavel Petrovich ... If you were a knight also in relation to your close people, you would look and you wouldn’t have smoked a snuff on the head ...

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