Imperial Crown of Russia
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The Imperial Crown of Russia, or the Great Imperial Crown, is the crown that was used by the Emperors of Russia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1917. The Great Imperial Crown was first used in a coronation by the Emperor Paul I of Russia. The last coronation was in 1896 for Nicholas II. It is currently on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury State Diamond Fund.
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[edit] Background
By 1613, when Michael Romanov, the first Tsar of the Romanov Dynasty was crowned, the Russian regalia included a pectoral cross, a golden chain, barmas (wide ceremonial collar), the Crown of Monomakh, sceptre and orb. Over the centuries, various Tsars had fashioned their own private crowns, modeled for the most part after the Crown of Monomakh, but these were for personal use and not for the coronation.
In 1719, Tsar Peter I "the Great" founded the earliest version of what we now know as the State Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation. Peter had visited other European nations, and introduced many innovations to Russia, one of which was the creation of a permanent fund (фонд) to house a collection of jewels which belonged not to the Romanov family, but to the Russian State. Peter placed all of the regalia in this fund and declared that the state holdings were inviolate, and could not be altered, sold, or given away - and he also decreed that each subsequent Emperor or Empress should leave a certain number of pieces acquired during their reign to the State, for the permanent glory of the Russian Empire.
From this collection came a new set of regalia, including eventually the Great Imperial Crown, to replace the Crown of Monomakh and other crowns used by earlier Russian Tsars and Grand Princes of Muscovy, as a symbol of the adoption of the new title of Emperor (1721).
[edit] Manufacture
The court jeweller Ekart and Jeremia Pauzie made the Great Imperial Crown for the coronation of Catherine the Great in 1762. The beautiful crown reflects Pauzie's skilled workmanship. It is adorned with 4936 diamonds arranged in splendid patterns across the entire surface of the crown Bordering the edges of the "mitre" are a number of fine, large white pearls. The crown is also decorated with one of the seven historic stones of the Russian Diamond Collection: a large precious red spinel weighing 398.72 carats (79.744 g), which was brought to Russia by Nicholas Spafary, the Russian envoy to China from 1675 to 1678. It is believed to be the second largest spinel in the world.
The form of the crown is based upon a medieval Byzantine design: two half-spheres, representing the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire (and, by extension, representing the two continents spanned by Imperial Russia), connected by a full arch in the form of a garland of oak leaves and acorns (representing the temporal power of the monarchy), surmounted by a large spinel. The spinel is, in turn, surmounted by a jeweled Cross, representing the Christian Faith of the Sovereign, the God-given power of the monarchy, and the supremacy of the Divine order over earthly power. The crown is quite heavy, weighing approximately nine pounds (by contrast, the Crown of Monomakh weighs only two pounds).[1]
There was also a Lesser Imperial Crown, very similar in style and workmanship to the Great Imperial Crown, only smaller, that was used for the coronation of the Tsarina.
In 1900, the Workshop of Peter Carl Fabergé in St. Petersburg made a replica in miniature of the Imperial Regalia (the Great Imperial Crown, the Lesser Imperial Crown, the Imperial Orb and Sceptre), out of silver, gold, diamonds, sapphires, and rubies, the whole set on a marble pedestal. The work is now in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.
[edit] Coronation
Following the tradition of the Byzantine Emperors, the Tsar of Russia placed the crown upon his own head. This left no doubt that, in the Russian system, the imperial power came directly from God. The prayer of the Metropolitan, similar to that of the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Byzantine Emperor, confirmed the imperial supremacy.
After the Tsar recited the Nicene Creed as a profession of faith, and after an invocation of the Holy Ghost and a litany, the emperor assumed the purple chlamys, and the crown was then presented to him.
He would take it and place it on his head himself, while the Metropolitan recited:
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."
The Metropolitan would then make the following short address:
- "Most God-fearing, absolute, and mighty Lord, Tsar of all the Russias, this visible and tangible adornment of thy head is an eloquent symbol that thou, as the head of the whole Russian people, art invisibly crowned by the King of kings, Christ, with a most ample blessing, seeing that He bestows upon thee entire authority over His people."
The last occasion on which the Great Imperial Crown was officially used was the State Opening of the Duma in 1906.[2]
[edit] Time in Ireland
Following the October Revolution the new Russian Republic, which was seriously low on funds, sought a loan from the Irish Republic, whose finance minister, Michael Collins, had become internationally famous for his fundraising for the unofficial Irish state.
The Crown Jewels were used as collateral by the Soviet Republic for a loan of $25000 from the Irish Republic. The transfer was made in New York City between the head of the Soviet Bureau' the de-facto Soviet Ambassador to America Ludwig Martens, and the Irish envoy in the United States, T.D. Harry Boland. When Boland returned to Ireland the jewels were kept in the house of his mother, Kathleen Boland O'Donovan, in Dublin City during the Irish War of Independence. Before Boland died, during the Battle of Dublin, he instructed his mother to keep the jewels hidden from the Free State until the Irish Republicans returned to power. Ms Boland O'Donovan returned the jewels to the Irish Government under de Valera in 1938. The jewels were placed in a safe in Government Buildings and promptly forgotten about.
On their discovery in 1948, by the new government led by John A. Costello, it was originally intended that the set of Crown Jewels would be sold by public auction in London. However, after consultations as to their legal status, and negotiations with the Soviet ambassador, it was arranged for them to be returned to the Soviet Union in exchange for the sum of $25,000 originally loaned in 1920. The jewels would ultimately return to Moscow in 1950. [3]
[edit] Heraldic use
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The Imperial Crown appeared on the National emblems of the Russian Empire—the Great State Emblem (Большой государственный герб Российской Империи), the Medium State Emblem (Средний государственный герб Российской Империи), and the Lesser State Emblem (Малый государственный герб Российской Империи) of Imperial Russia.
The Great Imperial Crown was placed above the Imperial Cypher (monogram)—but only after the coronation. After ascending the throne, but before the coronation, the Imperial Cypher would bear the princely crown, but not the Imperial Crown.[4]
The crown was also placed on the arms of Congress Poland, a puppet state ruled by the Russian Empire (1814 - 1915), and the Vistulan Country which was incorporated into the empire in 1831.
The Imperial crown and crossed imperial sceptres appear on the coat of arms of the city of St. Petersburg.
Since December 20, 2000, the Imperial Crown has appeared on the Coat of arms of the Russian Federation.
[edit] Commercial use
The crown has also had a number of unofficial uses in advertising, particularly for various brands of vodka and caviar.
[edit] Notes
- ^ R. Monk Zachariah Liebmann, "Martyrology of the Communist Yoke: The Life of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II", The Orthodox Word, 153 (1990), 193-4.
- ^ The Imperial Crown of Russia (1763), accessed 2007-06-18.
- ^ Keogh, Dermot., (2005), "Twentieth Century Ireland", (Revised Edition), Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, p. 208, ISBN 0-7171-3297-8
- ^ See for example, http://www.romanovrussia.com/MFcobaltEgg.html.
[edit] See also
- Orlov diamond set in the Russian Imperial Sceptre
[edit] External links
- Russian Crown Jewels
- Imperial Sceptre
- Regalia on display at the Kremlin Armoury
- Faberge's Miniatures of the Imperial Regalia
- Description of Coronation
- The Coronation of Tsar Nicholas II Royal Russia
- Official Coronation Album
- Speech From the Throne by Nicholas II at Opening of the State Duma, Winter Palace, 27 April 1906
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