Vulgar History - The Six Foot Tall Russian Empress Who Loved To Crossdress

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00:00:30.000 so hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast and i have i have 1.00

00:00:49.500 some things to say before we get going on this episode but i don't want my guest to have to sit

00:00:54.040 there quietly allison epstein is here with me welcome allison hello kids out brigade i'm very

00:00:59.060 excited to hear all of Anne's announcements. So the first one, well, I'm glad that you're here

00:01:03.660 for this one, because it's sort of not a trigger warning, but just sort of like it. Here's what's

00:01:08.580 up. This is a podcast where like, there's there's new listeners to this podcast. I know there's

00:01:13.560 always new listeners, but there's been like a recent larger influx of new listeners. So I just

00:01:17.840 want to make sure they know what's going on. So they're not startled at any point. We're gonna

00:01:22.520 swear on this podcast, I'm probably going to make fun of every country, including and especially

00:01:31.000 England and the United States. So if you're a person who is just like, not wanting to hear

00:01:39.240 that happen, like even though today on this episode, like spoiler, we're talking about Russia,

00:01:43.980 like, I'm confident at some point, I'm going to say something making fun of England and or the

00:01:49.080 United States because yes I guarantee you will exactly so even if you're like well this will be

00:01:54.780 a safe episode where Anne's not going to slander my country I live in you know what you're never

00:02:00.440 safe you're never safe so I just want people to know that you know people who might be new to

00:02:04.800 this podcast and they're expecting I don't know they're expecting they're expecting some sort of

00:02:09.460 very thing where we just read facts no there's a lot of opinions and all of our opinions are not

00:02:14.340 about what we're actually talking about there's there's tangents there's side talking and this

00:02:19.180 isn't to be like this is just so people know that's what to expect basically if that's not

00:02:23.640 your thing god bless there's other podcasts but that's what this one is like and i just want to

00:02:29.200 make sure people know allison as a person in america do you have anything anything anything

00:02:35.080 you want to add about the way i slander your country and is canadian which is close enough

00:02:40.140 to slander my country. I am American. And so I can slander my country with impunity. That's what

00:02:44.820 we fought a revolution for. And I plan to do it as much as I can. What I find interesting is that

00:02:50.020 I have, this is all inspired by a message I got by somebody who did not appreciate the way that

00:02:55.300 I spoke up with the United States in a previous episode, which was an episode about Scotland.

00:02:59.820 And I thought, you know what, I just did 25 hours of Scotland based podcasts where I think

00:03:04.880 relentlessly. Often Alison was with me. We made fun of Scotland and no one in Scotland complained

00:03:11.520 about that. So we're a very special nation of people who are uncomfortable when it is not about

00:03:16.720 us. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, this podcast is really not about you. I know that that's also the largest

00:03:23.540 proportion of listeners are the United States. So you know what? You're all cool. The people who

00:03:28.600 aren't into this podcast, God bless. Okay. So that's my first announcement. My second announcement,

00:03:33.020 I've got like several instructions, calls to action for the Tits Out Brigade, which is, if you're a new listener, then you, you, the listeners of this podcast, if you're listening to this, you are now part of the Tits Out Brigade Nation.

00:03:44.160 The second call to action is that Alison's book has just been published and everybody needs to go and get a copy of that book.

00:03:50.200 Alison, can you talk about your book?

00:03:51.820 Absolutely. Thank you for letting me be the call of action.

00:03:53.900 It is called Let the Dead Bury the Dead. It is an alternate history 19th century Russian novel following a cast of four characters who find themselves pulled into a social revolution against the empire, possibly by supernatural forces. Who is to say? It's adjacent historical fantasy. It's very queer. I had a lot of fun. And it is now terrifyingly available wherever you buy books.

00:04:21.480 Yeah, I just want to emphasize if, of course, you mentioned it, but just in case people 1.00

00:04:24.800 miss that, like the book is very gay.

00:04:27.740 Yeah, it is an Alison Epstein classic, which means there are three tokens, straight people

00:04:32.980 in this book.

00:04:34.280 And that's, there's four, there's four straight people.

00:04:37.800 I take it.

00:04:38.660 Okay, okay.

00:04:39.600 You know, a little representation for that underrepresented class, straight people.

00:04:43.080 So your book is out.

00:04:43.920 It's called Let the Dead Bury the Dead.

00:04:45.120 And do you know where it's out?

00:04:46.460 What countries people can get it in?

00:04:48.220 It is available in the US and Canada right now because foreign rights are difficult. If you are

00:04:54.740 looking for another country, you can feel free to reach out to me and we will see what we can

00:04:59.440 right now, US and Canada. Get your hands on Alison's book and read it. So it's available.

00:05:04.460 There's a book book. There's also the ebook. Is there an audio book, Alison?

00:05:08.760 There sure is. And the audio book kicks ass. So we love it. 0.98

00:05:12.880 Yeah. Well, and these people listening right now, they all clearly like listening to things.

00:05:17.220 So listen to Alison's book.

00:05:19.200 That's also available.

00:05:20.160 And then also, I wanted to say people getting your hands on the book.

00:05:22.780 If you are in Canada and the US, other countries, sit tight.

00:05:26.720 You know, the book is available wherever you get books, but that may include your local

00:05:30.020 public library.

00:05:31.520 Now, so if you're getting a book from the local public library, first of all, you go

00:05:35.080 to your library's website.

00:05:36.420 You search for Alison Epstein, Let the Dead Bury the Dead.

00:05:38.960 You place your little hold.

00:05:40.200 If you go to your library's catalog online and the book is not listed, then what you

00:05:45.220 do is you look somewhere on that website, there's a thing being like, contact us. And you punch that

00:05:50.460 button and you say, buy a copy of Let the Dead Bury the Dead by Alison Epstein. And I know as

00:05:55.780 a person who knows about public libraries, when you get when the library gets a suggestion of

00:06:00.540 people being like, please buy this book, the library nine times out of 10 is going to buy

00:06:04.340 that book. So and we love libraries here on this podcast, big 100% library stance. So I do want to

00:06:10.860 say, if you're listening to this from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, guess what? Book, ebook, e-audiobook,

00:06:16.260 I happen to know, all available to place holds. So yeah, so get Alison's book. This entire episode

00:06:21.840 is a Trojan horse that I'm not hiding. And the purpose of it is to get everyone to buy Alison's

00:06:26.600 book. It's a Trojan horse and the Trojan horse is wearing a t-shirt that says my book comes out

00:06:31.240 this week. So it's not really very sneaky. No, it's not very good. Neither was the actual Trojan

00:06:36.020 horse um what would this be instead of a horse what would it be would it be a llama i'm not sure

00:06:41.860 it's 20 000 llamas each of them wearing a shirt wearing a t-shirt with your book on it yeah yeah

00:06:50.020 we're subtle like that okay so the next thing i want to talk about is also related to allison's

00:06:55.280 book this is your next call to action tits out brigade which is i'm so delighted to announce

00:07:00.060 the first ever vulgar history book club experience. So this is a book club experience. This is

00:07:08.260 something people have suggested for a while and I've never really thought about. I never figured

00:07:12.220 out how to do it exactly, but lots of people like books. I obviously like books. You have a book.

00:07:18.440 So we're going to be doing this online book club experience inspired by the Oprah's book club in

00:07:23.340 the sense of it's going to be all online. So what you do starting today, actually, when you listen

00:07:28.440 to this episode, if you go to vulgarhistory.com book club, there's going to be all the information

00:07:33.560 there about how to join and what it's going to be. So yeah, we're going to be talking about your

00:07:37.620 book, Alison. You don't have to be involved at all. I know you're busy. I want the listeners

00:07:41.540 to know that Anne messaged me two days ago at about 1030 in the morning and said, how do you

00:07:47.860 feel about doing a book club with a kids out brigade? And I was in the work meeting and about

00:07:52.000 1130, she said, sorry, we're already doing it. And so I was like, okay, cool. Really delighted

00:07:57.540 about this. It happened entirely while I was not paying attention. Yeah, no, it's all how you don't

00:08:02.320 you're busy. You're busy promoting your book. Actually talk about that. Where are you going

00:08:05.620 to be promoting your book? If people want to see Allison in person, you're going to be making

00:08:08.840 appearances, right? I am. If you happen to live in or around the Midwest of the United States,

00:08:15.600 I have a couple of events coming up. We're doing well, we did one yesterday. So sorry if you weren't

00:08:20.940 there. But we're all I also have an event coming up in Wisconsin, an event in Michigan. I also have

00:08:26.380 a very exciting virtual event coming up very soon that I am tossing this to Anne as a segue.

00:08:32.520 But if you want to know where I'm going to be all the time, you can check my website. It's all up

00:08:36.060 on there. Which is AlisonEpstein.com. So the very exciting live event that's coming up, this is my

00:08:41.520 fourth call to action. No, third. Third, this episode, which is we're going to be doing a

00:08:47.980 live stream of Vulgar History. Well, Vulgar Peace Theater, technically, live stream coming up this

00:08:53.080 Saturday, which is, I want to say the dates correctly, which is the 21st, October 21st

00:09:02.520 at 5.30 p.m. Central Time. That is the time that it is where you are, Allison, in Chicago.

00:09:10.220 And for all other listeners, if you type 5.30 p.m. Central Time into Google and then also your

00:09:15.260 time zone, it will tell you what it is because if we try to do the time zones, we'll do it wrong.

00:09:19.740 so yeah absolutely 100 so 5 30 p.m central time you could go into your little thing and be like

00:09:27.400 central time to peru central time to ireland central time to saudi arabia wherever you are

00:09:33.240 and you can see what time that's going to be but also if that's a weird time for you if that's like

00:09:36.580 1 a.m the video will still be there afterwards and so the way that you can attend this live show

00:09:41.360 is going to youtube if you go to youtube and look for vulgar history and then live events that is

00:09:46.960 where it will be. Both if you go on Saturday, October 21st, or also after that, if you just

00:09:52.980 look up the live events. We should tell the people what film we are watching for this live show,

00:09:57.980 because it is highly requested, I believe. Yeah, no, and I believe you just watched it

00:10:03.300 as well, Alison. So don't, don't spoil your thoughts. But it is the 2018 movie,

00:10:09.280 Mary Queen of Scots, starring Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie. David Tennant and his 8,000 pounds

00:10:15.240 of fake facial hair david tenet plays john knox and david tenet his entire body weight's worth

00:10:22.220 of fake hair both on his head it's so much it's he's basically in a chewbacca costume in this

00:10:29.380 movie he must be so hot and so tired the whole time yeah i think he would have had to i don't

00:10:35.200 know you know do just a lot of sort of strength exercises to be able to support that much fake

00:10:40.060 care every day on set but yeah so it's a 2018 movie Mary Queen of Scots starring Saoirse Ronan

00:10:45.500 I think it's a perfect way to sort of celebrate the end of the never-ending Mary Queen of Scots

00:10:51.900 season but you know there's gonna there's characters like you just watched I watched

00:10:55.480 it when it came out in 2018 but I haven't since but Allison there's characters in it who we all

00:10:58.720 know from the story they're oh oh yes um Anne is coming in with all of the facts still in her brain

00:11:07.020 from this season and I'm coming in with unsubstantiated Darnley feelings because they did

00:11:10.980 things to this Darnley that I have thoughts and opinions about oh yeah Darnley is in the movie

00:11:16.780 um Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart is in the movie not the actual Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart but

00:11:21.280 the character Hollywood icon Jimmy Stewart jewel torches of our heart David Rizzio

00:11:24.920 all of our friends are there so it'll be interesting anyway so that's going to be on

00:11:30.680 the 21st so everybody so just to recap our calls to action are well firstly it's just like I'm

00:11:35.860 going to slander the united states secondly get your hands on allison's book thirdly vulgarhistory.com

00:11:43.220 book club to talk about this book allison's book with the other rest of the tits of brigade and

00:11:48.160 then fourthly live episode this saturday october 21st 2023 5 p.m central time those are all of my

00:11:56.040 announcements i i know it's a lot i know it's a lot we're going to repeat them all at the end

00:12:00.720 as well um there's going to be a fifth call to action midway through this episode but stay tuned

00:12:05.620 you know what the tits of brigade like they're there they're ready for action it's a brigade

00:12:09.540 and brigade's gonna they gotta act what a brigade is for a brigade doesn't just sit around that's

00:12:15.420 that's not a brigade that's just a i don't know a cluster so today is a special episode for me

00:12:23.160 because i didn't have to research allison did all the research and so it's going to be reverse of

00:12:28.720 our usual dynamic, Alison telling me a story. Yes. This is similar to one of the most popular

00:12:36.680 episodes of the show, actually. So this asshole Napoleon, which was also you telling me a story. 0.97

00:12:43.960 So this is going to be you telling me a story. And so what is the connection between 0.99

00:12:47.380 the story you're telling me and your book? I assume there is one.

00:12:50.800 There is. It is a somewhat tangential connection because my book takes the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia and I kind of imagine a splinter branch out of it. And I did this because I wanted to combine a lot of different historical events into one moment in time where all of these events were not actually happening.

00:13:11.040 And so I was like, let's imagine this slightly parallel universe where things are almost

00:13:15.300 the same, but not quite.

00:13:17.280 And so this person does not actually appear in my book, but her vibes heavily inspire

00:13:23.380 many of the characters who are in this book.

00:13:25.500 I happen to love her very dearly in a way that is as problematic as it is to ever love 0.98

00:13:31.940 a historical character because they all suck. 0.72

00:13:34.080 But the vibes are impactful.

00:13:36.700 And what is the name we're using for this person?

00:13:39.200 I am referring to her as Empress Elizabeth, which I am aware is confusing for listeners of this podcast who already know Empress Elizabeth of Austria, but we call that Cece and this is Elizabeth, so it is two separate people.

00:13:53.360 And she's also called sometimes Elisaveta Petronova?

00:13:58.380 Elisaveta Petrovna, that's her Russian.

00:14:01.060 Okay, but she's Empress Elizabeth of Russia.

00:14:03.980 Yes, indeed.

00:14:04.400 okay and so well we're gonna get into this but just to tease the connection if you've watched

00:14:10.400 the great the tv show guess what she does appear on that show asterix kind of technically she is

00:14:17.780 technically an appearance in that show yeah listeners of uh vulgar peace theater will know

00:14:25.420 that i have a blood grudge against the show the great i it is the one i would fight in the street

00:14:31.420 so this is partly why yeah yeah okay so we are going to talk about elizabeth so take it away

00:14:37.660 yes so i'm going to tell the story of elizabeth empress elizabeth of russia but in order to tell

00:14:43.780 the story of empress elizabeth of russia i have to step back a couple of steps and tell you kind

00:14:49.320 of where we are and who her parents are and what's going on in the world i will try to be brief

00:14:53.760 about that but generally speaking we're talking about this story starts when elizabeth is born

00:14:59.800 which is 1709 in Moscow, which at that time was the capital of Russia. In about three to five

00:15:07.400 years, it wouldn't be, and then it would be again, but that doesn't matter. Elizabeth was the third

00:15:11.960 and final surviving child of Peter I, also known as Peter the Great. Okay, I have a question. Sorry,

00:15:19.320 just to stop you. Are all Russian leaders called the Great? Is that their last name? No.

00:15:23.940 No, just Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. It's because they were a little bit

00:15:29.480 extra megalomaniac and they decided to go with that so elizabeth elizabeth is not aka elizabeth

00:15:35.480 the great no she's great in my heart but not in her title okay so her dad peter the great she's

00:15:42.060 just just she's just elizabeth yeah yes yeah got it so in terms of like and you might be able to

00:15:50.280 help me out here in terms of other vulgar history things going on at the time i tried to go through

00:15:55.820 would remember who was early 1700s in previous vulgar history episodes queen anne the favorite

00:16:02.660 was currently queen in england so here we are back in england again this is also a couple of years

00:16:08.360 before lana wood johnson's favorite person maria theresa um marie antoinette's mother and chief

00:16:14.500 so what what year are we i'm just i'm just bringing up my spreadsheet 1709 uh let's see

00:16:21.740 you know, who was born in 1701, Mary Toft of the Rabbit Pieces. I was going to say unfortunate

00:16:28.160 rabbit lady. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. So that was happening, but you know, there was some, I don't

00:16:34.100 think Russian, but there was some European people involved in that, all those dirtbag doctors who 0.94

00:16:37.740 were like imported. So that's around then. Let's see. There's not a lot happening vis-a-vis vulgar 1.00

00:16:43.320 piece theater people. Let's see. That's what I was realizing. The 1700s, quiet vulgar history

00:16:48.700 period no um flora flora mcdonald from scotland she was born 1722 so like we've got a little

00:16:56.680 so that era as well but early 1700s we don't have a lot going on although there is going to be a

00:17:02.180 crossover with somebody who was born in 1728 but i'll wait until we get to that part of the story

00:17:06.300 that is a spoiler for hopefully within the next two hours because i'm gonna try and keep us on

00:17:10.780 track yep so i don't want to spend a lot of time talking about peter the great because i find him

00:17:16.960 exhausting but we do need to know a little bit about him for elizabeth's story to make sense

00:17:21.780 he's like one of the three stars of russia that most people in america have heard of

00:17:27.840 the other one is nicholas ii who is the dad from the cartoon anastasia the left

00:17:34.000 and the other one is katherine the great from the tv show the great as we've established some

00:17:39.760 people have heard of ivan the terrible no one knows anything about ivan the terrible except

00:17:42.960 that he sucks so you know i've heard that but i would just sort of put him in a category of like

00:17:46.840 Vlad the Impaler just I couldn't have told you what country he was from what era he was from 0.97

00:17:50.500 yeah so he's like three and a half but anyway Peter the Great Elizabeth's dad became Tsar of

00:17:56.960 Russia in 1682 when he was like 10 years old and he was actually co-Tsar with his older brother

00:18:05.400 Ivan V who every source that I find about Ivan V says something deeply ableist and awful about him

00:18:14.320 but it's what historians are guessing now is that he may have had down syndrome or something

00:18:20.800 similar all you can imagine how awful all the historical sources are talking about this person

00:18:25.360 there but so this is why there was a co-czar situation because his brother ivan was for

00:18:31.280 whatever reason not seen as being able to rule on his own the guy so peter kind of came up as

00:18:36.420 second czar and then eventually he you know kicked out the region and did whatever and became actual

00:18:43.040 Tsar in the late 1680s. So he's now all by himself. I'm bringing up his brother because

00:18:48.980 he'll come back later. There's lots of tangential relatives in this story. But right now, when Peter

00:18:54.880 is Tsar, his big project, the reason that he's known kind of outside of the things that he did

00:19:01.080 is his project was, quote unquote, westernizing Russia. He wanted Russia to be part of Europe and

00:19:06.860 he wanted all russians to behave as if they were germans essentially there's a lot of awkward

00:19:13.740 orientalist kind of racist things tangled up in that and i'm not going to get into it for this

00:19:19.120 story but the point is peter was like i'm gonna revolutionize this country and make it the the

00:19:25.460 gateway to europe i'm gonna make sure everyone dresses in european clothes nobody can have long 0.85

00:19:31.380 beards because that's Russian and therefore that's uncivilized. And he decided he wanted to 1.00

00:19:37.300 build a brand new European capital that would make Russia feel like Germany or France or Italy or

00:19:43.600 whatever. And so he built St. Petersburg in his reign, named it after himself, like an asshole. 1.00

00:19:51.080 Wait, is he a saint? He is not, but he could have picked any saint. And the one he picked 1.00

00:19:56.340 was the one that happened to have his own.

00:19:58.500 Okay, okay.

00:19:59.600 Also important for this story,

00:20:01.620 Peter the Great,

00:20:02.460 named Peter the Great

00:20:03.180 because he was very important,

00:20:04.240 also because he was reportedly

00:20:05.720 six foot eight inches tall, 0.99

00:20:07.280 which is fucking insane for the 1700s. 0.98

00:20:10.640 But he was a very tall, 0.98

00:20:12.600 very important looking man.

00:20:14.320 So that's the context you need

00:20:16.120 for Elizabeth's dad.

00:20:17.200 More importantly for the listeners

00:20:18.840 of this podcast probably 0.96

00:20:20.060 is Elizabeth's mom, 1.00

00:20:21.500 who's actually super badass.

00:20:23.860 And if you ever want to do 0.91

00:20:25.440 an additional Russian queen on this podcast, I highly recommend you look into her mom,

00:20:31.460 Catherine I. So Catherine was born as a peasant in what today would be Poland. And she kind of

00:20:40.260 worked her way up through possibly sex work, possibly relationships where it's not exactly 0.77

00:20:46.260 clear in the sources, through the Russian army and then eventually became the mistress of Peter

00:20:51.840 the great so that's like pretty impressive for a girl just scheming her way to become like the

00:20:57.860 queen of russia um and she had two children with peter the great both daughters anna who was born

00:21:04.660 in 1708 and our girl elizabeth who was born in 1709 wait you're gonna clarify this i think but

00:21:11.380 they were illegitimate daughters when they were born or not were they married they were not

00:21:17.860 married publicly Peter I'm sorry be super secret sexy married there was a super secret sexy

00:21:26.160 marriage between Catherine and Peter the Great which we love to see on this podcast but annoyingly

00:21:32.780 for Elizabeth we don't know if it happened before she was born or after she was born so like was she

00:21:40.280 technically legitimate was she legitimized after the fact I don't know no one really knows and

00:21:47.080 that's going to be a problem for her later okay but so did peter have other children he had a first

00:21:53.660 wife and he had a son with his first wife and the first wife did not like catherine at all as you

00:21:59.460 can imagine then you know that went badly i think peter and his wives had a total of 13 or 14

00:22:06.900 children but only three of them survived past the age of like six or seven because it's the 17th

00:22:12.680 18th century. And that's unfortunately how it goes. Yep. So, okay. Catherine, great peasant

00:22:18.360 girl, has these two daughters, secret sexy marriage with Peter the Great. Yes. And then

00:22:23.580 she gets an actual, not secret, still sexy public marriage in like 1712 when Elizabeth is three

00:22:30.760 years old. So they are technically legally married, technically legitimized. But as we know from all

00:22:38.960 of history ever technically legitimized is not the best kind of legitimized so especially for a 0.92

00:22:44.080 girl hell but fortunately elizabeth was kind of awesome as a kid she was reportedly peter's 1.00

00:22:52.780 favorite kid even though he had a son which i think is dope she was super smart she spoke 1.00

00:22:58.480 four languages french russian i think she was a dancer she loved to party she was like the fun 1.00

00:23:08.500 kid you would want to hang out with at the club and much like our girl mary queen of scots who 0.71

00:23:14.360 we just talked about she was like really striking she was also five foot eleven because her dad was 1.00

00:23:19.800 six foot eight so there's just like this tall gorgeous party girl flirting with everybody and

00:23:26.360 having a great time and people are like oh she's we her sister anna was uh shorter very very shy 0.72

00:23:34.520 did not want to be out in public at all and kind of would have rather stayed at home like with her

00:23:39.800 books having a nice time i'm sorry i know that this is this is russia but this is giving me like

00:23:44.840 anna and elsa from frozen vibes but reverse in the sense that instead of elsa staying inside

00:23:51.480 because of her snow powers here it's anna staying inside because of her just introversion yes but

00:23:56.620 yeah you've got the fun sister who wants to party and then you have the other sister who's like 0.98

00:23:59.940 Yeah, I think of them as the Lydia and Mary Bennetts of Russian history, which is just like one of them's out flirting with soldiers.

00:24:06.920 The other one's like, I'm going to stay in here and play my harpsichord. 0.98

00:24:09.940 So those are the girls we're working with.

00:24:12.720 And because Peter the Great is so jazzed about Europe at this point, and he's got two daughters, any dad's going to be like, OK, what kind of advantageous marriages can I make for these two girls?

00:24:25.480 For Peter, it's what specifically European marriages

00:24:28.420 can I make for these girls

00:24:29.400 so I can build alliances with Europe 1.00

00:24:31.140 and everyone can know how civilized and Western we are.

00:24:36.660 So he has a reasonably good time doing this with Anna.

00:24:40.040 She gets engaged to a German prince

00:24:42.720 who will come up later,

00:24:44.160 but I don't remember his name

00:24:45.220 and I don't remember where he is in Germany

00:24:46.860 because Germany exhausts me.

00:24:50.660 Yeah, no, this is like Lannua Johnson is not here on call.

00:24:54.280 I know. 0.96

00:24:54.980 She's probably listening at home screaming at me.

00:24:57.260 She's like, the German princes, they all matter, but they don't matter.

00:25:00.840 It's a German guy.

00:25:02.260 Yeah.

00:25:03.700 But for Elizabeth, Peter's like, this daughter rocks.

00:25:07.680 I'm going to really, like, aim high for her.

00:25:09.880 And so he tries to get her engaged to the Dauphin of France, which is the son of Louis

00:25:17.920 Catorze, who is the Sun King, a.k.a.

00:25:19.960 the fanciest man in France.

00:25:21.460 so this is like very impressive it would be great for russia if this worked out however

00:25:28.220 as we talked about a second ago technically legitimate is not going to do it for the king

00:25:33.440 of france and so he writes back says like this is very obviously the daughter of your polish

00:25:38.580 mistress you can't fool me come back when you have a legitimate daughter and peter's all mad

00:25:43.580 about it but he's like there are so many german princes in this country that i'm going to grab

00:25:49.120 another one and so he grabs a random german man for elizabeth and everything seems to be fine

00:25:53.740 for the time being except then we enter the part of this story where my notes just say

00:25:58.860 everything goes to shit for elizabeth she has a very very bad two years in her in 1725 so she'd be

00:26:08.120 in her late teens at this point her father peter the great dies i did not know this until researching 0.87

00:26:15.180 this story peter the great died of gangrene of the bladder oh ah no i don't even know what that

00:26:22.940 means but it sounds horrible i don't want it no so now there's no czar on the throne of russia

00:26:30.340 and cool fact peter's second wife katherine steps up and becomes the first empress of russia

00:26:38.040 she's yeah no i just learned that from um episode one of the great the tv show which i just watched

00:26:44.100 where they explained in Russia,

00:26:46.920 unlike any other country I've ever looked at

00:26:49.320 on this podcast ever,

00:26:50.460 when the king dies,

00:26:51.880 his wife can become the new Tsar. 0.66

00:26:54.880 It doesn't necessarily go to his child.

00:26:56.680 Yeah.

00:26:57.300 Especially when his children are fairly young

00:26:59.220 and his wife is a badass 0.98

00:27:00.320 who just like fought her way up 1.00

00:27:02.040 from the Polish countryside to like...

00:27:04.460 What was she? 1.00

00:27:04.940 She was like a Polish peasant girl 1.00

00:27:06.760 and now she's just like step back. 0.99

00:27:08.420 The first empress of Russia.

00:27:09.640 She's like, you want to go?

00:27:11.360 Let's go.

00:27:12.420 Like, good for her.

00:27:14.100 And this is another reason why I beef with the show The Great is because they're pretending that like women are so subservient to their husbands in Russia at this time.

00:27:22.940 And I'm like, we had Catherine as an emperor, like not that long ago.

00:27:26.640 Like women were doing stuff. 1.00

00:27:29.060 Unfortunately, Catherine I was only empress of Russia for two years because she died of tuberculosis because it is the 1800s and a Volker history episode. 1.00

00:27:38.040 So someone has to die of tuberculosis.

00:27:40.400 Yeah, tuberculosis is a guest star

00:27:43.420 almost every week on this podcast.

00:27:45.380 So that was 1727.

00:27:47.560 And later in 1727, 0.94

00:27:49.460 the random German man

00:27:50.760 that Elizabeth was engaged to

00:27:52.760 also died.

00:27:54.420 He died of smallpox,

00:27:55.700 which I think is basically

00:27:56.800 spicy tuberculosis.

00:27:58.120 It's basically the same thing.

00:27:59.600 So he, they never actually got married,

00:28:01.320 her and random German guy.

00:28:02.560 No, they were engaged

00:28:04.240 and it was all ready to go.

00:28:05.400 And then her parents started dying

00:28:06.960 and then he died.

00:28:07.880 And so like things were,

00:28:09.480 Okay. So at this point in the story, Elizabeth is 18 years old. She's an orphan. She's newly

00:28:16.440 single. And she's like, okay, I'm still pretty close in the line of succession to the Russian 0.88

00:28:21.480 throne, right? Like both my parents are dead and I am a daughter, but you know, I'm the direct

00:28:27.640 child of Peter the Great and everyone loves me. So, you know, you would think maybe the throne

00:28:33.140 could come to me. Gender doesn't matter quite as much in this situation, but it mattered 0.91

00:28:37.300 that she was only technically legitimate. 0.99

00:28:40.140 That was the problem we were working with.

00:28:42.220 So instead of giving the throne to Elizabeth, 0.99

00:28:44.840 who was cool and well-liked,

00:28:46.900 they gave the throne to her half-cousin, Peter II.

00:28:51.720 So this is the son of Peter's son with his first wife.

00:28:57.260 Oh, the first wife.

00:28:58.440 Okay, yeah, he had the son. 0.90

00:28:59.820 So Peter had the son, and then that son had a son.

00:29:02.680 And I assume Peter's son did not live very long

00:29:06.300 because otherwise it would have gone to him.

00:29:07.560 I don't remember actually how he died.

00:29:08.880 But anyway, it went to back down the legitimate branch

00:29:11.940 of the family, which like makes sense.

00:29:14.160 I'm not mad about that one.

00:29:15.620 That's fine.

00:29:16.680 The king of France was probably like,

00:29:18.080 yeah, absolutely.

00:29:18.780 This is a legitimate child.

00:29:20.000 I have no problems with this.

00:29:21.400 But don't worry too much about that part of the family tree

00:29:23.580 because Peter II dies like a year later.

00:29:26.640 So.

00:29:27.460 Okay.

00:29:28.160 So everybody is called Peter in the story.

00:29:30.960 I just wanted to note that.

00:29:32.540 There are actually only two Peters.

00:29:34.680 there is about two of everybody in this story okay okay so only two peters okay there's not

00:29:41.240 because i was waiting for you to be like and so the next czar was also called peter no scotland

00:29:45.760 has one name and that name is james and russia has three names and it's peter nicholas and ivan

00:29:51.420 those are the three names we have okay okay okay so peter the second the legitimate child he's dead

00:29:58.560 and so you would think okay now we've we've gone all the way through that branch of peter the

00:30:03.720 grace family wait yes question do we know what peter ii died of was it mysterious circumstances

00:30:09.980 i did not write it down it was not one assumes it was tuberculosis well because i was like is 0.92

00:30:15.480 this elizabeth being like fuck you like i don't think so i think at this point she's like you 0.90

00:30:20.880 know what i get it sure go through the legitimate branch no problem no it's true and i think we've 1.00

00:30:25.740 seen well this is russia but we've seen in other places the young men just tend to be very sickly 0.97

00:30:31.880 and die while the women are hearty and don't and that's why it's dumb that patriarchy exists yeah

00:30:37.540 anyway okay so they have to go find somebody else to replace peter the second and this is where if 0.93

00:30:42.960 i was elizabeth i'd be pissed off because do you remember peter the great's older brother who had

00:30:48.380 down syndrome they went back to his branch of the family and went down to his daughter which was a

00:30:57.320 woman named Anna another this is the second Anna in this story but okay let's go to your half cousin

00:31:03.500 Anna the daughter of Ivan the fifth she can be king wow so even a woman like I can see like if 0.92

00:31:10.240 you go weirdly in the family tree just so you can get to a guy but you go weirdly in the family tree 0.99

00:31:14.480 and it's so interesting but also women are cool in Russia at this point they're like so she's the

00:31:18.420 second female emperor of Russia Empress Anna she's got like yeah I'm sorry to keep bringing it back 0.57

00:31:24.640 to england for reference points but i think of her as like a mary the first sort of person where

00:31:29.960 she's like not great not terrible but she had like a really off-putting personality and so when you

00:31:37.280 read about her in history people are like oh she sucked so bad and it's like or was she just a

00:31:41.620 woman who didn't smile very yeah yeah the point is elizabeth now the daughter of the czar is like 0.98

00:31:48.620 why are we dancing all over the goddamn family tree finding all these other people i'm right 0.89

00:31:53.220 you're and i'm awesome and not only can she not rule the country all of this dancing around her 1.00

00:31:59.700 is making it really hard for her to find a husband too because no one wants to marry like the 1.00

00:32:03.940 illegitimate black sheep of the russian family when you could get like better and cooler on the 0.92

00:32:09.500 family tree so she's tired and annoyed and a party girl and loves to flirt and she's like okay so

00:32:16.820 you know what I'm going to do now, obviously. Go have an affair with someone in the army

00:32:21.980 because I am Lydia Bennett and I know no other way to be. So she goes and tracks down a hot army 1.00

00:32:29.540 sergeant. His name is Alexander Shubin. And she's like, okay, we're going to have an affair,

00:32:34.900 but no one tell Empress Anna because she'll be pissed off. Of course, Empress Anna finds out.

00:32:40.160 He's like, fuck you for being with an army sergeant in my court. How dare you? And he is 1.00

00:32:45.240 exiled to Siberia. RIP, Alexander Shubin. I'm sure he was cool. Can I tell you something about

00:32:50.760 Siberia? Now, I think this is true. I've heard it repeated enough times. I think it's true.

00:32:57.740 But I believe that Skatchewan, where I live, and Siberia are similar latitudes. So where they're

00:33:05.320 like, we're going to send them to Siberia because it's like the coldest, most godforsaken place in

00:33:08.460 the world. And I'm like, so is this. So I feel sort of a kinship with Siberia in that way.

00:33:13.740 But fortunately, you were in a lovely snug house and not in a prison camp.

00:33:16.840 So you are doing better than this guy was.

00:33:19.600 Yep.

00:33:20.200 That's hilarious.

00:33:21.040 I hope you take great pride in that.

00:33:23.520 I do.

00:33:24.640 Yeah.

00:33:25.700 So Elizabeth is now down a secret lover, but she is not to be deterred.

00:33:31.420 She's like, I'm going to find another secret lover.

00:33:34.740 And this time she hit the jackpot because she took up with a man whose name is Alexei

00:33:40.600 Razumovsky.

00:33:41.640 And he's my favorite person in this story.

00:33:43.740 I love him so much. He was much like a favorite podcast, Davey Rizzio. He was a musician in the

00:33:55.080 court of Empress Anna. He was a serf from Ukraine who sang in the court choir. And she was like,

00:34:01.800 and she's like, look at this hot man with his incredible singing voice. I don't care that he

00:34:09.400 is a peasant. I would like to be in love with this man. And Razumovsky, like the legend he is,

00:34:16.200 is like, yes, this extremely hot, extremely charismatic royal woman would like to be in

00:34:21.900 love with me. He does not want power. He does not want money. Later on in the story, other people in

00:34:28.840 royal court will be like, would you like a title? Would you like to be a baron of something? And

00:34:32.780 he's like, no, I just love Elizabeth. I don't really need any titles. I'm good. Just let me

00:34:38.340 stay here with her he is he's the ken to elizabeth barbie he's just happy to be included and he never

00:34:47.240 betrays her ever in the rest of the story he's just like her hot pimple husband with a great

00:34:54.100 singing voice here to have a nice time okay so i'm just like this is so in the pantheon of both

00:35:00.860 my life experience and this podcast i'm like who ritzio is the closest i can think of but that

00:35:07.020 wasn't a romantic partner that was that was a a gay best friend so this is like what if rizzio

00:35:12.240 was also the lover the closest i can think of in terms of this podcast is um from the

00:35:18.440 international season when i talked about ronnie didda from kashmir she had tanga the buffalo

00:35:24.120 herder i remembered him and i was like it's like the buffalo herder just a guy who's just like

00:35:30.320 there and he's just like supporting her and like that's great but he's also like smart and with it

00:35:36.600 and you know this is what what's his name Alexi Alexei yeah this is the relationship every strong

00:35:44.320 person whatever your gender is I think deserves you know to just like someone who just like lets

00:35:50.520 you shine someone who's just like you know what to eat like it's the opposite of this is like a

00:35:55.900 couple years ago Cardi B was I think it's the Met Gala or something she came in this amazing it's 0.98

00:36:01.060 like she was like Venus emerging from the seashells in this like wild outfit and her goddamn 0.99

00:36:06.440 um offset her like baby daddy crap like he she's on the red carpet he just started showing up he 0.98

00:36:11.780 just started being in all the pictures with her because like he couldn't let her shine 0.97

00:36:14.300 this is not about you it reminds me of is serena williams's husband whose name i don't know because

00:36:20.040 serena williams is number one hype man and that's who this guy is he's just like you're so talented

00:36:25.780 you're so beautiful you're so amazing i am blessed to know you no and his name is there we go

00:36:32.240 no it's you know what the vibe is definitely so not offset and cardi b it's serena williams's

00:36:38.500 husband who's just like i am yeah he's just like look at how great she is i'm so lucky that she

00:36:42.780 married me i'm just gonna like make pancakes for our daughter and just like support her dreams

00:36:46.660 this is what i want for every single listener someone who is that for you i don't want yeah i

00:36:52.660 want i want this this is what i want for all of you it's my dream and i esther love it because

00:36:57.200 katherine the great story is better known generally but she has she's well known for 0.91

00:37:01.400 having like lots of lovers she has a rotating cast of male favorites and they all suck so bad

00:37:07.740 they're all just like but what if i was in charge what if i was important why don't you love me 0.94

00:37:13.180 enough and i'm like yeah you have this guys like this were right here you could have just like

00:37:18.180 looked around a little bit and found a hot ukrainian chorister and been like done this is

00:37:24.080 like it just i i'm really dwelling on this point because it's so great and so it's the opposite of

00:37:30.660 married queen of scots you know it's just how about this one guy who just like loves you and

00:37:36.100 is cool the bar is so low for dudes in historical stories that are nice that like i'm willing to

00:37:42.860 spend five minutes talking about alexei because i think this is great this is where and you know

00:37:49.460 i haven't recently gotten any sort of like hate mail being like he's me of being uh what's it

00:37:55.680 called misandrist misandrist I have in the past but I'm just like no you know what I like men

00:38:03.240 like this I don't hate men I hate patriarchy but like this is this okay I mean at the end of this

00:38:13.680 episode we're gonna do some scoring but I feel like we have a I was really hoping we could award 0.96

00:38:18.740 him something he is some alexei you know what thank you thank you you you've redeemed my faith

00:38:27.120 in men okay great and you know what good for elizabeth not like having you know there's so

00:38:33.440 many again i'm just dwelling on this point but i will i will sit on this point and dwell on it

00:38:37.120 there's so many people who are just like oh here's this guy and he's shitty but he's so nice to me

00:38:42.040 or whatever it's like no so many people and i'm gonna say like heterosexual women settle for such 0.98

00:38:48.660 shitty men yes you know there's like that famous picture of hayley bieber dressed to the nines 0.97

00:38:55.260 justin bieber in a hoodie with the cord tied looking like he's angry he got pulled out of

00:39:00.340 his like basement playing video games not that there's anything wrong with that but it's just 0.97

00:39:03.560 like this is her moment and this is what you're doing it's like so many women settle for shitty 0.96

00:39:08.460 men but it's like guess what there is out there not shitty men you just have to look around and 0.98

00:39:14.000 wait be okay with them i'm gonna you know what i'm gonna tell you one more story about someone

00:39:20.220 i won't say her name but it's a person who i know in real life and so she had had this is like when

00:39:24.980 we're like in our early 20s she'd had you know like various shitty boyfriends or whatever and

00:39:29.620 then this one guy and she's who's really nice who we kind of knew as a friend before and he

00:39:34.400 they sort of hooked up and then it's like oh is this going to turn into a thing and then he

00:39:38.460 was really nice to her and she's just like i don't know about this he's being so nice to me this is

00:39:42.260 weird there was like a snowstorm on christmas and he like went through the snow to like come

00:39:48.300 to her house and deliver her a box of homemade cookies and she was just like what do i do with

00:39:52.680 this why and me and all her friends were just like you accept this love you deserve this and

00:39:57.740 you should be delighted she was she was so confused and perplexed because it wasn't what

00:40:04.340 she had thought relationships were like and he was so kind and good this can't be right

00:40:08.860 she's like this feels weird this feels wrong and we're like maybe lean into this but anyway they're

00:40:15.420 now happily married they have two children they've been together forever but yeah so just like actual

00:40:21.160 nice people we'd love to see it we love to see it we love to see it i love to see a person who is

00:40:26.380 strong enough in themselves to accept that love so everything was going great in elizabeth's love

00:40:32.180 life is what i'm getting at things were not going as great in her political life who's the czar

00:40:37.120 it's Anna at this point right now it's Anna but Anna dies in 1740 so she had been on the throne

00:40:44.880 for about 10-12 years and then she passes away and Elizabeth is standing there like okay now's

00:40:50.700 my time now has got to be my time to be Empress of Russia except it's not because the person they

00:40:57.380 pick to be on the throne next is Ivan VI who is Peter the Great's great nephew and also a baby

00:41:05.480 who's two months old wait so is this the grandson of the down syndrome brother i believe so because

00:41:13.440 that's peter the great's brother and then it's that brother like grand but it's like not through

00:41:17.780 anna it's through another one of his children who then went off to germany and there's the german

00:41:22.400 princes involved again so i lost track of the family tree at that point no but speaking of

00:41:27.800 them you just said it was like 1740 something 1740 yeah i was just looking at my spreadsheet again

00:41:34.260 And so this is around the same time the birth of the future Queen Charlotte. 0.99

00:41:38.520 So just in terms of just like people in Germany doing shit. 0.99

00:41:42.420 Yeah. 1.00

00:41:42.760 They're just like, there's so many of them. 0.83

00:41:44.820 We can marry them to whoever we want.

00:41:47.000 Yeah.

00:41:47.700 So in a real Scotland move, they're like baby king.

00:41:52.180 Yeah.

00:41:52.520 And Elizabeth is like, I'm 32 years old.

00:41:55.400 I'm hot.

00:41:56.640 Everyone loves me.

00:41:57.800 I'm six feet tall.

00:41:59.040 I have this incredible boyfriend. 0.99

00:42:00.640 and also all of the soldiers in st petersburg think i'm the shit so what does that all add up 0.99

00:42:08.400 to a coup yes i hoped you were gonna say that okay she's like all right i'm gonna go out into 0.99

00:42:16.320 the streets of st petersburg with my hot boyfriend and we're going to sneak into the army barracks

00:42:23.280 okay because i'd say sneaking into the army barracks she's gonna look very noticeable being 0.96

00:42:27.740 six foot tall unless she wears pants and looks like a man but that is in fact what elizabeth 1.00

00:42:32.640 decided to do was the opposite of that because what she did is she's got a giant four foot long 0.99

00:42:39.180 silver cross in one hand she's got a floor length gown and on top of the gown she has a full like 1.00

00:42:47.880 army breastplate of like chain mail and she just like kicks down the door into the regimental 1.00

00:42:54.780 headquarters and is like who would you like to be your empress me or that stupid baby in the 0.99

00:43:02.560 winter palace and the soldiers are like you we definitely want it to be you she kicks down the 1.00

00:43:10.800 door six feet tall like fashion moment just like listen up bitches we're taking over russia and 1.00

00:43:19.560 they're all like we will follow you yes literally i think i don't even write down the exact words 1.00

00:43:24.640 But the sense of what she said literally was, who do you want to be your empress?

00:43:28.720 Me or that illegitimate baby?

00:43:31.180 I feel like Alexei probably helped.

00:43:33.020 She was like, Alexei, what do you think about this?

00:43:34.580 And he was like, yes, yes.

00:43:36.600 And she's like, what if I what if I hold this gigantic cross?

00:43:39.200 It's like, yes, we love this.

00:43:40.880 You know?

00:43:41.760 Yeah.

00:43:42.120 Yeah.

00:43:42.320 So they go.

00:43:43.520 Oh, my God.

00:43:43.880 And her brand new army, who's so stunned by how incredible she looks, storm into the

00:43:48.620 Winter Palace.

00:43:49.140 and what i extra love about her is that ivan the sixth hostage takes his parents hostage declares

00:43:56.240 herself wait ivan the sixth being the baby takes the baby she takes the baby declares herself

00:44:01.140 empress of russia no one dies they don't kill anybody they don't kill the baby they don't kill

00:44:07.500 the baby's parents okay they're like you're a baby you're no threat to me i'm just gonna be

00:44:11.540 empress now is that cool they call this the bloodless coup which is my preferred kind of coup

00:44:16.260 so that's amazing so she puts out I'm gonna put part of this to the power of fashion she puts on

00:44:22.680 this outfit stomps and she's just like I'm taking over and everyone's just like yeah of course look

00:44:27.500 at you please things don't end well in the story of Ivan VI the baby who was no longer king but I

00:44:35.840 want to emphasize that that was not necessarily Elizabeth's fault what happens to him is she says

00:44:41.760 listen I'm not going to kill you because you're a baby but I also can't have you like running

00:44:46.620 around trying to become czar again no it's like a Mary Queen of Scots Jane Grey scenario you can't

00:44:52.240 have like a possible other monarch alive so she absolutely Mary Queen of Scots is it and it's

00:44:58.100 like I'm going to put you and your parents in this highly fortified castle and if you just stay there

00:45:03.100 and live your life I'm not going to kill you if you escape that's going to be a different story 0.95

00:45:07.220 but like stay there and it'll be fine. But the rest of Elizabeth's life, Ivan stays there and

00:45:12.160 probably doesn't have a very nice time because he's in prison, but he lives. Ivan does try to

00:45:17.160 escape after Elizabeth's death and he is killed by Catherine the Great, which is important to me

00:45:22.740 to note that it was by Catherine and not by Elizabeth because the TV show The Great would

00:45:27.220 have you believe otherwise. And that's bullshit. Wait, so the TV show The Great, I mean, full 0.98

00:45:32.720 context i've only watched the first episode of that for reasons we'll explain later so on the

00:45:37.800 tv show the great they claim that elizabeth killed him on the tv show the great they claim that

00:45:44.600 elizabeth is keeping him in a secret room in the winter palace and halfway through season one she 0.89

00:45:48.980 cuts his throat with a knife which is bullshit in episode one elizabeth is like skipping around 0.99

00:45:55.260 blowing bubbles out of a bubble wand yeah yeah is she just pretending to be silly no she is a 1.00

00:46:00.820 silly murderer it is garbage okay okay we are yes we're staying on topic we're not getting down 0.99

00:46:08.000 that rabbit hole but i just wanted it known that if people in the states know about elizabeth 0.99

00:46:13.440 they're like oh the ditzy ann who killed ivan the sixth and i'm like no neither of those things are

00:46:18.020 true i want that on the run nope anyway no yeah and now we're just gonna take a break for a word

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00:48:46.440 And we're back. 1.00

00:48:48.140 Because not only did Elizabeth not kill Ivan VI, her big hallmark of her rule is that her entire time as empress, she didn't order a single death sentence. 0.99

00:48:59.820 She did not command anybody to be killed.

00:49:02.440 And like, is that a low bar?

00:49:04.820 Yes.

00:49:05.160 is that a low bar for the for a ruler of the country of russia in particular no that is not

00:49:10.900 a common thing so it's not just like that's interesting and different of her but it also

00:49:16.240 perhaps it's not just like she was just like letting people run free who are traitors or

00:49:21.760 whatever it just speaks to the fact that no one was trying to make a coup against her because

00:49:25.560 everyone is just like no and why would you she's got a giant she's so cool i mean i'm sure some

00:49:32.400 people did not love this but she was the very popular daughter of the most popular czar at the

00:49:39.320 time so like legitimacy aside people liked her pretty well and she also like she'd been around

00:49:45.740 for so long i feel like you know the army took her side like she had scored up like so much support

00:49:50.340 from so many important people and that's crucial for a successful coup attempt yes there's not any

00:49:55.980 counter coups for the rest of the story she's just kind of hanging out doing her stuff yeah so it's

00:50:00.340 not just like she just like let everyone survive it's like people weren't raising arms against her

00:50:05.020 or she had really good intelligence and stopped them before they did i don't know anything about 1.00

00:50:08.980 her spy networks but i have to believe that this bitch has spies like come on oh yes please you 1.00

00:50:14.140 know yeah yeah some sort of russian flying squadron scenario i hope she has a flying 1.00

00:50:18.180 squadron of sexy spies so when i was introducing elizabeth at the top of this episode i said our 1.00

00:50:24.160 bitch loved a party and now that she is empress she has to throw her own coronation party but 0.96

00:50:30.640 when you come to a throne through a coup like the coronation is a really big deal right you're like 0.99

00:50:37.320 this is the first time everyone's gonna see me as the ruler of this country I need to make sure I

00:50:41.400 look legit I look amazing and no one's looking at me like oh you weird usurper they gotta be like 0.52

00:50:46.980 yeah that's my girl I want her so she kind of pulled out all the stops for her coronation

00:50:52.280 And I love that for her.

00:50:54.560 We have another fashion moment, fortunately.

00:50:56.960 I was, I'm just waiting for you to say.

00:50:58.680 Yeah, okay. 0.99

00:50:59.520 But first I need to say that instead of having like the Metropolitan of Moscow give her the crown and name her Empress of Russia, this bitch crowned herself, which I love. 1.00

00:51:10.100 Yes! 1.00

00:51:12.520 And not only did she crown herself, but she crowned herself with the crown that she had made just for herself. 0.92

00:51:18.620 and the crown had 5 000 diamonds in it which is like a shit ton of diamonds that'd be so heavy

00:51:27.320 wouldn't it oh and the outfit moment is she's like i'm gonna make myself this gorgeous gown

00:51:33.760 it's like four feet wide if you look at pictures of her at her coronation i'm like how did you fit

00:51:38.900 into the church wearing this it's enormous it's silver silk brocade and gold lace and it's huge

00:51:46.140 and she looks so good in it that every empress after her wore a dress that looked kind of like

00:51:51.680 hers like that silver with the gold on top they're like yeah that's the look we should definitely be 0.97

00:51:55.660 doing that but it's like victoria with a white wedding dress they're like shit we should do that 0.96

00:52:00.720 love that here's what i'm picturing i'm picturing two things firstly i'm picturing her getting 0.96

00:52:05.600 somebody to go and measure the width of the doors and she's like make my dress one millimeter less 1.00

00:52:11.740 wide is that or the other thing i'm picturing is her showing up being like hmm then she stands 1.00

00:52:17.900 sideways and then has to come in sideways it would have been the most fucking dignified scooch 1.00

00:52:24.380 you ever saw in your life yeah yeah we love a scooch uh she's also throwing parties all over 0.97

00:52:31.260 the city balls parades operas fireworks my favorite part of the coronation ceremony though 0.92

00:52:37.980 that she has two fountains set up in the streets of Moscow, one of them shooting up red wine and

00:52:43.600 the other one shooting up white wine. So everyone had a preference. This is like, okay, first of

00:52:48.660 all, iconic. Yes. Christina of Sweden had a wine fountain at her coronation as well. So I'm always

00:52:54.320 here for a wine fountain. Anyone out there throwing any sort of extravaganza, party, wedding, I don't

00:53:00.880 care. Consider a wine fountain. Consider. I mean, COVID-19 is whatever, right? We just get to get

00:53:07.500 everyone's germs this is why everyone was dying of tuberculosis by the way they're just

00:53:11.360 on the wine fountain drinking out of it like a water fountain yeah okay so this is that's 0.98

00:53:19.100 her coronation moment it lasts for two months which fuck yes yes and then she's like okay 1.00

00:53:25.340 maybe i should stop the party and like now and for all the records that i can see she did a pretty 0.96

00:53:30.880 damn good job of it she's very popular in like modern russian history as like one of the better

00:53:37.060 ones I mean she's against like people like Ivan the Terrible who just murdered people all the 0.97

00:53:41.600 time so like again the bar is on the ground but she was very popular with people at the time

00:53:46.300 because she started undoing some of those weird racist Europeanizing policies her dad put in place

00:53:53.200 like people in Russia really wanted to wear beards and Peter was like you can't wear a beard

00:53:57.380 that's uncivilized Elizabeth was like you can wear a beard I don't care put your beards back on

00:54:02.020 and so that was like one of her first acts and that was so smart on her part because everyone's 1.00

00:54:06.680 like we love this bitch we would die for this bitch that's why nobody tried to get rid of her 1.00

00:54:12.060 they're all just like she let me have my beard back like they're like what's the thing that's 1.00

00:54:15.800 annoying the people the most let's undo that it's truly like let's um cancel student loans on my

00:54:21.440 first day in office and everyone's like i would do anything for this person and as her brain went

00:54:26.160 on like i'm skimming a little bit because there's lots of european wars in her reign and and as you

00:54:32.180 know when i start to read about military history i go directly to sleep so i don't know exactly

00:54:37.680 what happened we got i forget what it was it was a comment somewhere and somebody was just like

00:54:44.180 it was one of i think it was the napoleon episode and somebody was just like they skipped over so

00:54:48.980 much important stuff and i'm like yes because we don't care like all the wars yeah we on purpose

00:54:55.620 Yeah. But so as Empress Elizabeth outlawed capital punishment for like crimes against the government, she really did not enjoy killing people, which, again, so rare in Russian history that they don't enjoy killing people.

00:55:08.460 It's really nice. She started advocating for a universal system of education, including for the serfs in Russia, the enslaved people.

00:55:18.520 she did not try to outlaw serfdom that would have been cool but she was like at least everybody

00:55:23.940 should be able to read including women and enslaved people so like uh she sponsored the

00:55:29.440 first university in russia and she helped negotiate peace with sweden so she was like

00:55:35.540 not going around starting new wars all that often she did get sweden yes sweden in fact i just

00:55:43.700 you and i both have fondness for sweden and the history of sweden this isn't is this adjacent to

00:55:50.440 the ski ski revolution by any chance or this is this is hundreds of years later yeah but i i just

00:55:59.180 wanted to just shout out sweden the history is great it involves skis we love it all right so

00:56:06.360 i'm happy for peace with sweden she did um enter russia into the seven years war lana wood johnson

00:56:12.180 again is screaming at me to research the seven years war and i did not but i will say that i kind

00:56:18.020 of love elizabeth's petty reason for getting russia involved in the seven years war which is that she 0.73

00:56:24.440 thought frederick the great was a shithead and she didn't want him to have nice things which is like

00:56:29.300 why i would go to war so like yeah he was so afraid of her who is frederick the great he was 0.89

00:56:36.260 the leader i believe of prussia he was one of those german guys essentially yeah they're all

00:56:41.600 Frederick or George? Yes. There are listeners who are yelling at me for getting that wrong. And I'm

00:56:47.700 sorry, listeners, I don't know anything about Germany. Well, I did earlier say that we were

00:56:51.820 going to slander the United States, but I think we're also going to, when we don't know a thing,

00:56:56.160 we're not going to pretend like we know a thing. And what I don't know is the Germanic 0.56

00:56:59.600 principalities because there are, as I said, too many of them. So I'm getting back to the part of 1.00

00:57:03.800 the story that I care about, which is all of the extravagant dirtbaggy things that Elizabeth was

00:57:08.960 getting up to at her court while the seven years war was going yeah um and because i said this is 1.00

00:57:14.700 a girl i wanted to go to the club with the main reason i said that is because her court sounds

00:57:18.280 like it was so much fun like she reportedly owned 15 000 dresses which like when you think about how

00:57:26.980 much a single dress cost in the 1700s and you're like now she wanted 15 000 of them i'm thinking

00:57:33.960 more about how long you would have to live to wear one dress each day and i don't know but

00:57:37.920 that's impossible i think it's probably impossible multiple outfit changes per day i think is what 1.00

00:57:43.440 we're looking at oh for sure every time she walked through a door and did her little scooch then she 1.00

00:57:47.560 took the dress off and put on a new one she had them shipped into to her directly from paris so 1.00

00:57:52.420 that she could wear them before the french people did because she was petty and we love that for her 1.00

00:57:56.760 she threw parties all the time and apparently at every meal she made sure that they served 0.92

00:58:03.000 pineapples, which just like, how did you get those in 1700s St. Petersburg, Russia? But she found a

00:58:10.500 way. And I don't, it just is so extra that I think it's delightful. She did. I will say she

00:58:16.400 was jealous in a kind of Elizabeth the first way where she didn't want anyone to be more beautiful

00:58:20.700 than she was. And she would like have people at court whipped for wearing the same dress that she 1.00

00:58:26.640 was going to wear, which like, yikes, not great. But she also was like really generous to her

00:58:32.100 ladies-in-waiting when they weren't stealing her clothes she uh loved a wedding she loved to pay 1.00

00:58:39.000 for the weddings of everybody in her court and make them wedding gowns and give them dowries

00:58:43.300 this is so mary queen of scots coded in fact so much of this story makes me think of like what

00:58:49.000 if mary queen of scots had the support of anyone what would she have been like as a queen kind of

00:58:55.540 like this I think yeah yeah and meanwhile Alexei Razumovsky still right at her side our boy having

00:59:02.780 a great time not trying to get involved in politics again doesn't give a damn about the

00:59:07.580 seven years war his job much like baby Rizzio to throw a really nice party yes yes he's in charge

00:59:15.460 of music and theater at court because he was a singer and he's like I got this let's go this is

00:59:21.780 so perfect it's so perfect i know and what i love i love this detail is that at court they called him

00:59:29.400 the knight emperor which implies that they had a super secret sexy marriage and he was like

00:59:35.020 emperor but only by night because he couldn't publicly be her husband oh because they weren't

00:59:40.180 wait wait i just assumed that they were married but of course they're not because he's this like

00:59:44.400 peasant choir singer super secret sexy marriage i bet they were that they were and they probably

00:59:52.280 had secret kids together like it's very exciting also i love that they called him the night emperor

00:59:58.440 because that makes him sound like batman and i hope he had fun calling himself that like in the

01:00:02.900 mirror i'm just thinking if they had super secret kids which i bet they did this could be part of

01:00:08.700 the dresses she's just like i need a new dress that makes me look pregnant i need a dress that 0.98

01:00:12.360 Makes me look not pregnant at six months, at nine months.

01:00:16.880 Guess what we're doing, everybody?

01:00:18.300 Empire waistline.

01:00:18.920 Don't worry about it. 1.00

01:00:21.500 We're just having a moo-moo moment. 1.00

01:00:24.500 It's cool to worry. 0.99

01:00:25.440 Moo-moo moment, honestly, most of my life these days. 1.00

01:00:27.960 I'm in my 30s. 0.99

01:00:28.800 Every day is a moo-moo moment. 1.00

01:00:31.200 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:00:32.460 So whether or not she had illegitimate children with Razumovsky,

01:00:37.060 she couldn't name those children her heirs

01:00:39.680 because she knew better than anybody else

01:00:42.120 if you have a technically legitimate child this is not the country where that's going to go over

01:00:46.780 well and she didn't want to like introduce instability into this neat thing that she

01:00:50.880 had just this is interesting this is interesting so i i was just getting so caught up on the

01:00:54.920 partying and the wine fountains and the dresses but yeah so she's not married to him she's not

01:00:59.720 married well i mean secretly she's married him but um yeah so it's a bit of a elizabeth the

01:01:04.640 first of england vibe where it's just like i'm this successful monarch but like no one knows

01:01:10.540 who the heir is going to be because i have seemingly no husband or children i think it

01:01:15.560 was a pretty open secret that like this is obviously her husband but her in terms of like

01:01:21.160 succession that yeah that didn't help and so there was like okay who's coming next we just had

01:01:24.980 five czars in 10 years so like we're gonna name somebody yeah no so the inconsistency but that

01:01:30.720 also just made me think you know who elizabeth had was bobby duds yes except didn't push his

01:01:36.000 life down the stairs this is like elizabeth is stuck with him pushing his wife down the stairs 0.92

01:01:41.600 marrying her lookalike much younger niece just like shitty having seven sons all called robert 0.89

01:01:47.020 versus alexei is just like what a what a better choice she made yes so it's air hunting time 0.79

01:01:55.020 basically and i'm gonna give you one guess where elizabeth goes to find an heir where has everyone

01:02:01.800 been going all the way through this story to find the next person to the throne the german

01:02:06.280 principalities where she goes actually it's her sister anna's child oh anna the other anna not

01:02:17.180 the emperor but her mary bennett sister who didn't like to leave the house married that german guy

01:02:21.820 went to germany lived a quiet life had a kid oh i you know i forgot she even existed but at the

01:02:27.520 beginning of the story yes we talked about her and you were like we're gonna get back to it

01:02:30.260 Exactly what Anna wanted.

01:02:33.160 And now we're getting back to it.

01:02:34.560 Okay.

01:02:35.040 So she, okay.

01:02:35.840 So Anna, who is also the daughter of Peter the Great, had children.

01:02:39.460 So this is like the nieces and nephews of Elizabeth.

01:02:43.860 And there's the one kid, I lied to you.

01:02:46.000 I said there were two Peters.

01:02:47.120 There's actually three Peters because this child is named Peter. 1.00

01:02:50.320 He is extremely German and he is a terrible, terrible child. 1.00

01:02:55.640 He is a garbage person. 1.00

01:02:57.860 he probably was like he did like i psychopath is a hard word but he was not he didn't really have 1.00

01:03:05.060 empathy for other people feeling pain who is the person who we talked about in the mercury scott

01:03:11.380 series who was it like to just like kill frogs or something was that bothwell it was someone like

01:03:18.840 that that sounds like a thing bothwell would do there's something everyone's just like this guy 0.67

01:03:23.880 sucks he like likes to whatever you know take mice and like stomp on them or something so okay 0.99

01:03:29.940 so just like shitty from the get-go shitty as a child just a shitty person like he probably had 0.99

01:03:36.200 abusive tutors and stuff in his childhood that like didn't help any of this but i'm not interested 0.98

01:03:41.400 in apologizing for this kid because he really really sucked so anyway elizabeth is like this

01:03:47.620 still makes sense for me this is the air this is the air she's gonna i don't think she knew how 0.81

01:03:52.200 bad. He sucked. And by the time he, she got him to St. Petersburg, she's like, okay, I'll be dead. 1.00

01:03:57.240 It's fine. We'll go with this shitty child. And he grew up. She also had to find him someone to 1.00

01:04:04.640 marry. And so looking for a wife for her heir, she went to German principalities, German 0.73

01:04:10.440 principalities. And she brought back a very smart young lady by the name of Sophie of Anhalt

01:04:17.460 Zerbst, but this person converted to Orthodox Christianity, as was required for a wife of the

01:04:24.180 future Tsar. And when you do that, traditionally you change your name. And so she changed her name

01:04:29.740 to Catherine in honor of Elizabeth's mother, the First Lady Emperors of Russia. This person,

01:04:36.960 the new Catherine, also going to be a Lady Empress of Russia. That's Catherine the Great

01:04:41.300 peeking in the very side of this story. 0.92

01:04:44.260 So the shitty heir is the Nicholas Holt character from The Great. 0.91

01:04:48.280 Yes, technically. 0.97

01:04:49.560 Okay.

01:04:51.300 So Elizabeth has now set up her succession.

01:04:53.820 It's going to be Peter III and his wife, Catherine.

01:04:57.620 They're all set.

01:04:58.720 And now that she's done that,

01:05:00.120 she can go back to having a grand old time at court.

01:05:04.420 And the title of this section in my notes for the listeners 1.00

01:05:08.200 is Pants On, Tits Out. 1.00

01:05:09.980 so excited for this moment another costume moment elizabeth was very famous for throwing what she 1.00

01:05:17.580 referred to as metamorphosis balls and the gimmick of this balls these balls were you come dressed 1.00

01:05:24.880 as the opposite sex whatever gender rules gender is a construct fuck that you came the men would 0.99

01:05:30.860 come wearing dresses and women would come wearing pants everyone hated these no one had a good time 0.99

01:05:36.500 especially not the men they're like this is the worst i hate doing this she has them every month 0.97

01:05:42.560 fuck this but she did them anyway religiously and because it is a documented historical fact 1.00

01:05:48.860 that this bitch looked amazing in pants and she just really wanted to wear pants and she's like 1.00

01:05:53.480 everyone else can look terrible and have a nice a terrible time i'm gonna look great well because 1.00

01:05:58.940 she's like six feet tall i figure a lot of that's probably like legs yeah legs for days like yeah 1.00

01:06:04.560 Yeah. So like, she's just like, God damn it. I look good in pants. That'll be the theme of my party every day. Me in pants. Yeah. Pants party. Yes. Yes. Okay. 1.00

01:06:14.880 So I don't know if this happened at one of the pants parties, but I'm bringing it up because it's too thematically perfect not to bring up at this point in the story, which is that in 1756 or so, a very cool lady shows up at the court of Empress Elizabeth.

01:06:30.560 She goes by the name Leah de Beaumont. She is a French noblewoman and the new lady-in-waiting

01:06:36.780 to the Empress. Or is she, because listeners of this podcast might know this French noblewoman

01:06:45.260 better by the name of the Chevalier d'Anne, our favorite sword-fighting trans woman spying for 0.99

01:06:53.580 King Louis XV. She spent, like, months at Elizabeth's court allegedly spying for the 0.99

01:06:59.920 French king, but mostly just like showing up and having a wonderful time and being Elizabeth's

01:07:04.540 best friend. I love this. I love this. It's a reverse Cecilia of Sweden where somebody lands

01:07:11.220 on the shores to become the, to be a spy of the queen, but then you actually become friends

01:07:15.640 instead of stealing her jewels and becoming a pirate. But so the Chevalier d'Aon, I do remember

01:07:20.860 this from the episode, which, you know, if people want to listen to that next, where I had Maya Dean

01:07:25.020 was on talking about that and so we talked about that about how she went like the chevalier aka

01:07:31.120 leah de beaumont went to russia and there were these metamorphosis parties it was perhaps and i

01:07:35.260 think surely it was partially at these parties that chevalier d'on was just like you know what

01:07:40.900 i like wearing a dress this is great this is me but i think that's also where part of the chevalier

01:07:46.840 d'on thing where it's all like the gender identity it's just like well you were a spy

01:07:51.540 as a woman but like were you was the woman persona you being a spy or like are you a woman 0.97

01:07:58.000 and the chevalier is like who knows fuck you yeah so they became friends i love that i love that 0.98

01:08:07.700 by all accounts but the chevalier sent six months at elizabeth's court they got on really well they 0.98

01:08:12.920 were like besties i hope they sword fought one time at a ball uh no one tells me that happened

01:08:18.520 but I like to believe it happened.

01:08:20.700 It must have happened.

01:08:21.400 And this is what I want the movie to be of, you know?

01:08:24.880 Yes, I do.

01:08:25.620 I want that.

01:08:26.760 Yeah.

01:08:27.040 Also, just a little petty note on this

01:08:29.180 is that the king that the Chevalier was serving

01:08:32.480 was the same French king

01:08:34.380 who had turned down her hand in marriage

01:08:36.580 earlier in this story. 0.99

01:08:38.040 And I hope he fucking regretted it. 0.99

01:08:41.960 Yeah. 0.99

01:08:42.720 Yeah.

01:08:43.320 Look at who he could have had.

01:08:44.300 Who could have had this, Louis? 1.00

01:08:45.560 Fuck you. 1.00

01:08:46.880 Yeah. 1.00

01:08:47.120 so unfortunately the this second part of my notes is just called death so we are rapidly

01:08:53.700 approaching the end of her story you know what every story ends this way but she lived a good

01:08:59.120 long time really she ruled into her 50s and she spent the last several years of her life in not

01:09:05.320 great health she had fainting fits and dizzy spells and i don't know exactly what disease

01:09:11.260 that might have been associated with but when in 1761 she had a stroke and she knew like this is

01:09:19.280 we're we're on our way out so she became empress when she was you said she's like in her 30s i

01:09:25.720 think so she effectively was empress for like 20 years yeah she had a good 20 year reign 0.77

01:09:29.780 a good long time yeah which compared to everyone else in the story that made it for like two three

01:09:35.100 five years is like pretty good. Yeah. So on Christmas Day, 1761, she was 52 years old and

01:09:41.940 on her deathbed, she called three people to be with her while she passed away after doing her

01:09:46.500 final prayers with her priest. Number one, Peter III, the dickhead German. Number two, soon to be 1.00

01:09:53.000 Catherine the Great, his wife. So her heirs, that's nice. And number three, super secrets

01:09:57.800 husband Alexei Razumovsky holding her hand as she passed away. Alexei. She was buried in the

01:10:05.380 Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, where all of the czars and czarinas have been buried

01:10:10.700 ever since her dad built the city. I assume she rolls around in her grave every time anyone

01:10:16.180 watches the TV show The Great, but I cannot confirm that. More on that later. What is her

01:10:23.940 legacy, or do you know? I have a couple notes on her legacy. She's regarded in Russian history by

01:10:30.640 Russians as one of the more popular imperial rulers. She's known for standing up for Russian

01:10:36.820 interests in the Seven Years' War, which, again, I don't know anything about, but it sounds

01:10:41.100 important, and also beloved for her decision to never sign a single death sentence. She built up

01:10:48.020 a really strong cultural legacy in Russia. She ordered the construction of the Winter Palace

01:10:52.780 that's there today.

01:10:54.500 So that is that.

01:10:55.580 The Winter Palace from Anastasia,

01:10:57.260 the animated movie.

01:10:57.760 The one that Dimitri lives in

01:10:59.280 with his travel papers.

01:11:00.700 Yeah.

01:11:01.640 And it's also thanks to her

01:11:03.260 that Catherine the Great

01:11:04.960 came along and became

01:11:06.360 empress of Russia

01:11:07.960 and all of the dramatic imperial things 0.58

01:11:10.580 that happened during her reign

01:11:11.640 that she kind of picked Catherine 0.97

01:11:13.120 out of nowhere.

01:11:14.360 So she is somewhat responsible

01:11:15.560 for that as well.

01:11:16.620 She's not talked about,

01:11:18.480 I think, as much as she should be

01:11:20.100 in history.

01:11:20.880 but i would say medium well-known and medium significant i wonder if it's like because she

01:11:27.720 did a good job you know people like talking about a messy monarch and she just kind of like took

01:11:34.900 control and everyone's like great and then she was in control and everyone's like we love her

01:11:38.980 and then she died and it's like well that happened like there's not mess i'm i will say i am sure

01:11:44.240 there was mess because empire generally is messy i want i want to be clear that i'm not like

01:11:51.160 supporting the russian empire in this story modern russia or past russia like i always feel the need

01:11:58.080 to caveat that by saying like here's a story of a cool person in a deeply problematic empire

01:12:04.240 we are we are not pro colonizing the balkans on this podcast but as far as russian emperors and

01:12:13.540 empresses go it's kind of a badass well and also i think like in her situation she did the best

01:12:19.440 anyone could have done given the cards she was dealt she could have done more she could have

01:12:24.620 liberated the serfs she could have like allowed poland to stop being partitioned like that would

01:12:30.500 have been nice she could have let ukraine be an independent country there are lots of things she

01:12:34.420 could have done but were any of those particularly likely in her cultural time and place no would

01:12:41.240 people have still supported her if she had made these sort of she probably also had no interest 1.00

01:12:46.480 in doing those things i will say like she wanted to throw parties she wanted wine fountains like 1.00

01:12:51.760 she wanted to wear a giant dress covered in breastplate armor and hang out with her hot

01:12:59.080 secret husband like that was the plan mostly are we ready to move on to the scoring aspect of this

01:13:05.400 we are okay so i'm gonna do the formality but i think we both know where this is headed

01:13:10.880 yes we do so so one of the awards that we have is the lady jane seymour memorial award for

01:13:17.800 outstanding supporting performance that is for people who just like for instance in the mary

01:13:22.300 scott story mary seaton got this award you know for just like always being with her doing the

01:13:26.120 switcheroos helping her escape doing her wigs and i started this award because it's so rare that

01:13:31.960 anyone in any of these stories has anyone who helps them ever yeah there's like less than 10

01:13:37.120 or maybe about 10 people who've ever gotten this in like 100 plus episodes.

01:13:40.600 That's so sad.

01:13:42.600 That's why it's special when someone is actually good to somebody.

01:13:46.540 And then the next tier recently invented is the Jeweled Tortoise Award for Legendary

01:13:51.320 Friend or Supportive Behavior.

01:13:53.780 And so that's like named after Davy Rizzio, who was this for Mary Queen of Scots.

01:13:57.780 We have some other people.

01:13:59.140 You know, I'll just run down who's on this list.

01:14:01.140 CM, who is the best friend of Hortense Mancini, is on this list.

01:14:04.780 Dezio Azzolino who is Christina of Sweden's like dirtbag cardinal Rome friend who like paid off

01:14:11.540 the debts. Ludwig II is on here for Cece. My boy. I love him. And Dodger Empress Cian for Empress 0.51

01:14:18.940 I forget how you say it. Cici. Cici from China. Anyway so this is like the legendary and I feel 0.99

01:14:24.700 like I Alexei fits on this list. It's just like I want him to be on that list if you do. I am

01:14:30.400 I'm aware I'm biased, but I think he is legendary Joel Torto's behavior.

01:14:35.320 I think it is because the fact that he never, he was just legitimately there for her.

01:14:40.320 Even after she died, they were like, would you like lands in the title?

01:14:44.000 And he's like, no, I just want Elizabeth back.

01:14:46.660 I love her.

01:14:47.760 He was like the legitimate, but also the way that he threw the parties, you know, like

01:14:52.300 they're just like a good partnership.

01:14:53.660 What's his name?

01:14:54.380 Alexei.

01:14:55.440 Razumovsky.

01:14:56.080 I will spell it for you later.

01:14:57.600 Okay.

01:14:58.360 I'm spelling it insanely on my document.

01:15:00.400 Um, but let me see.

01:15:02.980 He's the first romantic partner on this list.

01:15:06.140 Everyone else was like a friend, friend. 0.72

01:15:08.360 Should we retroactively put the Buffalo Herder on this list?

01:15:11.680 I only don't because I don't know enough about him.

01:15:14.720 And that's not on him.

01:15:15.920 That's just on the literature available about like medieval Kashmir.

01:15:21.680 Yeah, we don't know enough to know for sure, but I get good vibes from him.

01:15:25.500 Oh, he did as well.

01:15:26.260 And he took, he became like her like military guy. 0.92

01:15:29.200 he and he was good at it the buffalo tunga the buffalo herder you know what tits up brigade 0.81

01:15:34.860 let me know do you think tunga the buffalo herder deserves this promotion let me know

01:15:38.660 set up a poll in your instagram stories yeah maybe i will okay so then we get into the scoring of it

01:15:45.060 all and so the first category is scandaliciousness now before you like i'm gonna go with the numbers

01:15:51.600 you suggest because you know the story better than i do but to me the scandal would be like

01:15:56.320 a coup, doing a coup is like very scandalous. And I wouldn't deduct points for it being a

01:16:03.840 bloodless coup, but just doing a coup, taking over is pretty scandalous. I don't know. Being

01:16:08.860 the sort of illegitimate daughter is sort of scandalous. Having this lover who's like- 1.00

01:16:14.360 A super secret, sexy marriage. 0.98

01:16:16.380 And potentially secret children, throwing the pants party, making everybody cross-dress.

01:16:21.680 so yeah i don't know because on a scale of scandalousness like doing a coup

01:16:25.620 is great like that's that's high points right there but i feel like i don't know i don't know 0.98

01:16:31.780 like on a scale of like lola montez like she's not just a mess whatever no right so the scandal

01:16:37.920 is not it wouldn't be a 10 certainly i think it we're in i think you get five automatically for 0.89

01:16:43.900 a coup that's kind of my own mental rating and then i'm giving her a couple extra for super 1.00

01:16:49.300 secret sexy marriages but i'm taking a couple away because her reign kind of went well and if 1.00

01:16:55.820 she had been a scandalous mess we would have seen that in like the mess of her time you know 1.00

01:17:01.740 well and even like she had a super secret sexy marriage but it was just one she didn't have like 0.98

01:17:07.460 a string of lovers that would have been more scandalous she was like this guy kind of in the

01:17:12.640 in the best way kind of boring scandal wise because she just like knew what she was doing

01:17:19.060 and was not a mess so i'm thinking like a seven i'm good with a seven i think seven's good because

01:17:24.540 a coup is like a quite a significant scandal thing yeah um the next one though is scheminess

01:17:31.400 and i see high scores for this i see high scores for schemes if only because a successful bloodless

01:17:39.420 coup has to take some planning and long-term planning as well like i think she was on the 1.00

01:17:45.620 seen for so long like she and people liked her and that would partially just because she's cool 1.00

01:17:49.740 but also because she's like scheming like she knows who to get on her side who she needs to 1.00

01:17:54.020 have the support of to make this coup happen and when she was planning for her own succession 0.93

01:17:58.700 she's like what's the way that i can do this that will make everybody happy that can be the most

01:18:02.640 legitimate person closely related to me not going to that other weird branch of the family tree like

01:18:07.700 my sister's kid this kid will do i don't have a legitimate child technically so how can i solidify

01:18:13.900 this that seems like a smart strategic move even if it ended kind of badly how was she to know he 0.98

01:18:18.200 was a shit yeah so scheminess in this context just means like she's just smart she knows her 0.98

01:18:22.720 shit she has good plans and again that's not so that's not like exciting necessarily because she 0.99

01:18:27.920 just like is so smart but that's that is that represents high scheminess i'm thinking an eight 0.95

01:18:33.080 i think an eight is certainly fair the next one this will be tricky is significance my gut is

01:18:40.200 to score her mid to low here I think she was very significant for the 20 years that she ruled I don't

01:18:48.040 know that her rule necessarily like changed the shape of the empire the way that her fathers did

01:18:54.340 or that Catherine did there's a reason that the great is not on the end of her name because she

01:18:59.020 did a pretty good okay job but I also feel like 20 years where you were not being ruled by a crazy

01:19:06.040 megalomaniac is like a nice thing that we should all aspire to yeah because those 20 years could

01:19:11.320 have been utter chaos if it was just baby czar after baby czar and just like you know like that

01:19:17.520 created so i would presume it created some level of stability that then katherine the great would

01:19:24.800 sort of step into right i'm thinking like a five i think that's where i was thinking as well like

01:19:31.500 a five and then this is interesting as well so the sexism bonus which is just like how much does

01:19:36.020 sexism hold her back and when she became empress i would say not at all yeah and honestly but the 1.00

01:19:41.160 fact that it it took her that long that long because she was illegitimate not because she

01:19:45.820 was a woman they put another woman on the throne instead of her yeah so i don't know that it got

01:19:51.780 in her way that much at all really yeah i mean i mean there was the thing she got in trouble for

01:19:57.200 having having the affair with a soldier but that was because she didn't tell the empress about it 0.96

01:20:02.360 because she was like again that was like a rank thing not so much of a gender thing i think yeah

01:20:08.240 probably no one gets a zero and i'm sure there are like things that have happened to her that 1.00

01:20:14.800 would have been different if she she might have been more powerful and more influential if she 0.66

01:20:19.220 had been a man because other people would have taken her more seriously possibly but yeah i don't 0.99

01:20:24.800 think hers is really a story of sexism so much as it is a story of like fuck you i'm gonna do what i 0.94

01:20:30.080 want yeah i do want to clarify because somebody sent me a message a bit ago again there's like 0.97

01:20:35.500 new listeners and they're catching up and stuff and so i used for a long time i used to say like

01:20:39.380 everybody gets at least a five for sexism but as the show goes on it's just like not everyone does

01:20:44.580 because not i think like lola montez zero sexism was not really an issue for her that was low i

01:20:51.060 was looking through my scores um empress cc i think sexism wasn't really her issue either like 0.99

01:20:55.240 Charlotte. Queen Charlotte of England. Zero. Yeah. Well, exactly. So I do want to say like,

01:21:01.480 I used to say everyone gets at least a five. No longer true. So I don't know. I don't think

01:21:06.520 system was really an issue for her. I want to say a three. Okay. A three feels fair to me. So

01:21:12.780 this, I'm just adding this up to make sure I have this right. Lanna Wood Johnson rolling her eyes 1.00

01:21:17.580 from afar as I add this up on my fingers. I want, I'm going to guess. I'm aware I could count in my

01:21:22.340 head but i will say to the listeners that every time i guest star on an episode like this the

01:21:27.680 person i'm scoring always gets a 27 so i'll be delighted if empress elizabeth gets a 27

01:21:32.180 here's what it is it's a 23 okay but you know who else has a 23 lola montez all right

01:21:39.360 you know who had you know you just said you think when you're on here it's a 27 it's not

01:21:45.420 it's a 23 is it a 23 god damn it because christopher marlowe 22.5 lola montez 23 catalina

01:21:54.460 de araso 23.5 okay i take it back i'm a 23 girly it's good to know 23 is where you are so usually

01:22:02.780 it's because really high scandal low significance this one was more sort of like medium well this

01:22:08.700 one was high scheminess but mid scandal it's right here in the alice and epstein grotto i don't know 1.00

01:22:14.380 what to call it i love that this is where all of my bitches live 1.00

01:22:17.900 exactly they're neighbors with each other just having a really good time partying 1.00

01:22:24.400 imagine being at that party with all of all of my 23s incredible 20 23 and me

01:22:31.260 so that is where she lives that's one of it um and if people want to see the whole

01:22:37.260 scale of who scored where um it's on my website which is vulgarhistory.com and this is where i'm

01:22:43.740 going to say? Well, first of all, calls to action. First of all, Alison, tell everybody about your

01:22:49.000 book again. It's been so long since we talked about it. I know. If you remember from almost

01:22:53.300 an hour and a half ago, I released a book this week in the US and Canada. It's called Let the

01:22:57.760 Dead Bury the Dead. It is alternate history, 19th century Russia. If you are into Russian women 0.57

01:23:04.040 kind of making shitty choices and fucking shit up, much like Empress Elizabeth, that happens to 1.00

01:23:08.660 a great extent. I have a question. Alternate history, Russia, because you use a different 1.00

01:23:12.700 branch of the family. Is it a branch we talked about? It is not. Okay. So you invented a whole

01:23:18.040 different brand? I did. I put them, I splintered off because I was like, I don't want to go into

01:23:22.740 them. I did not want to go into the German principalities is the real answer.

01:23:27.900 Okay. Okay. But it's set during the same time period as when Elizabeth was around?

01:23:33.480 No, it is set in 1812, which is exactly after Napoleon has just failed to conquer Russia. So

01:23:41.760 if you would like a little bit of Napoleon slander

01:23:44.080 sprinkled into the book, there is that as well.

01:23:46.600 Oh, that's true.

01:23:47.140 Trigger warning whenever Alison is anywhere. 0.64

01:23:49.120 Trigger warning Napoleon. 1.00

01:23:51.920 Napoleon slander will occur.

01:23:53.860 Okay, so your book, Let the Dead Bury the Dead.

01:23:55.300 People can buy it in Canada and the US,

01:23:57.700 other places, stay tuned.

01:23:59.700 Or get creative.

01:24:01.720 Or get creative or message Alison.

01:24:04.400 When you get your hands on your copy,

01:24:06.060 whether it's from the library

01:24:06.960 or you purchase a copy or whatever,

01:24:09.020 there's the Vulgar History Book Club Experience.

01:24:11.760 is starting up today so if you go to vulgarhistory.com book club all the information will be

01:24:17.580 there about how we're going to be doing this book club which is basically just tits out brigade

01:24:21.380 talking about this book kind of you'll see it'll all be there vulgarhistory.com book club and then

01:24:27.220 we're having our live show which is coming up this saturday if you're listening to this when this

01:24:30.980 episode is new saturday october 21st 2023 at 5 30 p.m central time so again google that with your

01:24:40.500 own city where you live and see what time that is for you but it will be available after the fact

01:24:44.260 as well to watch and video and to find that you just go to vault to youtube and look up vulgar

01:24:48.180 history and it'll be there under the live events and allison this is our fifth call to action so

01:24:55.720 here's the thing we mentioned the great the tv show several times in this episode and i'm

01:24:59.460 introducing a new thing which is vulgar history the after show which is where when i have a guest

01:25:04.140 on or i'm talking about something and to delve into it in the episode would completely derail

01:25:08.660 things. We're going to do that in the after show. So everybody who's on Patreon, who's at the

01:25:13.880 Patreon $5 or more level can now go there and there'll be, Alison is going to talk about the

01:25:19.080 great in depth. Every time I said, I can't get into that here, I'm going to get into it there.

01:25:25.240 Yeah, exactly. So everybody, so I have a Patreon. So if you go to patreon.com slash

01:25:29.240 Anne Foster writer, so there you get early ad free access to all the episodes there. We also

01:25:33.140 have bonus episodes for everybody at the $5 or more bonus episodes like this, the after show,

01:25:38.080 allison talks about the great anyway so that's there and then also on the patreon there's a new

01:25:42.680 thing we have chats those just got invented so there's like an episode discussion chat for people

01:25:47.540 who are on the patreon anyway we have a discord there lots of stuff going on and then also

01:25:54.460 make sure i remind everybody of all the things allison your newsletter

01:25:58.860 we got too many calls to action in this episode pick whichever one speak to you

01:26:04.520 I have a newsletter. It's called Dirtbags Through the Ages. And every two weeks, I feature a person who did dramatic and or shitty things in history. There was a Empress Elizabeth issue that just came out yesterday, because I had already done all the research for this show. But most of the time, there's not a direct overlap. You can find that if you just Google Dirtbags Through the Ages. I am on Substack. And that's the easiest way to find it.

01:26:28.980 Yeah. And then me slash this podcast, we have our website, which is vulgarhistory.com. There's a form there where you can contact me if you want to like yell at me for slandering the United States, although you were warned. Or if you want to say nice things to me, you can do that there also. And you can also email me vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com or also on Instagram at vulgarhistorypod. Honestly, there's too many social media things.

01:26:54.580 But if you're on a social media thing, if you look up vulgar history, chances are I'm there.

01:26:59.040 And Instagram is where most of the action is happening.

01:27:02.700 Oh, we also have merch available.

01:27:04.800 Unlike John Knox.

01:27:05.840 Oh, my gosh.

01:27:06.880 Merchandise, he did not make.

01:27:08.360 Merchandise, have I made?

01:27:10.040 And I think since the last recorded, we have a new design in the store designed by the...

01:27:14.700 Honestly, I don't...

01:27:16.540 If someone is the artist, then they're not my muse.

01:27:19.160 Am I the muse?

01:27:20.440 Jan Yupater, who is my frequent collaborator for merch designs. 0.55

01:27:24.580 made a john knox shirt just in time for halloween that's like the ghost of john knox saying whores

01:27:31.400 it's incredible it's amazing so you can get whores on um t-shirts mugs stickers etc and that 0.95

01:27:39.980 was very much the tits out brigade really demanded that it was not a request it was it was just like 0.93

01:27:47.460 this has to happen i was like this does has to happen and jan even though they were busy with

01:27:51.280 other stuff was just like they're really into halloween stuff so they're like i will make time

01:27:54.680 for this and so and they did an amazing job it's amazing it's a little ghost with a beard on and

01:28:00.300 the little hat that he's always wearing he's pointing like he's always pointing and then we

01:28:03.800 also recently um siobhan gallagher who i also collaborate with on merch sometimes she just did

01:28:08.080 a cute new one this is spiteful hag which is sort of another thing that people like to have on their

01:28:14.100 merch anyway so the merch store vulgarhistory.com store is the one that's best for u.s people and 0.99

01:28:19.540 if you're somewhere else in another country, we have a Redbubble store as well, which is just

01:28:23.320 bulgarhistory.redbubble.com. And I think that all of my announcements are going to be, I'm going to

01:28:28.740 be back. You're not going to be back next week. You're busy promoting your book, but you're going

01:28:32.020 to be all over the place. Yes, I will. And if I happen to be coming to a place near you, you can

01:28:36.880 find out on my website, which is alisonedstein.com. But yeah, in terms of the people listening right

01:28:43.240 now, like hope a lot of you will all be there on Saturday for our Instagram live talking about the

01:28:48.460 mary queen of scott's movie and all of the denim outfits the hairstyles all there's so many fanny

01:28:55.680 packs in this film i didn't remember them the prosthetic noses we can't get into it now this

01:29:01.360 is we gotta save this for saturday yeah so that's the tease for saturday anyway but you know if you

01:29:06.400 want to hear allison talk about the great then just pop over to patreon because we're going to

01:29:10.120 record that right now okay everybody thank thank you allison for joining me everybody pants on you 0.75

01:29:15.400 You know, like, just be like Elizabeth, just like pants on, tits out, holding a giant cross, 0.96

01:29:20.420 kicking down doors. 0.99

01:29:21.760 That's the vibe.

01:29:24.680 Volker History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina Lumagi.

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Vulgar History - October 18, 2023

The Six Foot Tall Russian Empress Who Loved To Crossdress

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