What if John Antonovich became the Russian Tsar. Ivan VI - the little-known emperor of Russia

The future Emperor John VI was born on August 12, 1740 (new style). He was the son of Anna Leopoldovna, niece of the reigning Empress Anna Ioannovna and Duke Anton of Brunswick.
On October 17 of the same 1740, when the baby John was only two and a half months old, his great-aunt, Empress Anna Ioannovna proclaimed him heir to the Throne. Anna Ioannovna appointed her favorite, Duke of Courland, Ernst Johann Biron, as regent for the young Sovereign.
On October 18, 1740, Anna Ioannovna died.
And from that day began the period of "reign" of the two-month Emperor. In the first period of his short "reign", the favorite of the late Anna Ioannovna, Duke Biron, was regent. But Biron, like A.D. Menshikov, did not calculate and did not understand his true position. He did not realize that after the death of his patroness Anna Ioannovna, he was going not to omnipotence, but to fall. Many nobles hated Biron, but were afraid of Anna Ioannovna. The guards also hated him because he forced the guards around the neck of officers of German origin. After the death of Anna Ioannovna, this hatred became simply dangerous for Biron. No one else could hold her back.
And Field Marshal Ivan Khristoforovich Minikh took advantage of this universal hatred. Minich began his career under Peter the Great and despite the fact that he was also a German by birth, he was still more loved by the guards and the people than Biron. Minich enlisted the support of Baron Andrei Ivanovich Osterman. Osterman was a famous diplomat of the times Peter the Great, and after the death of the Converter, he became the most famous intriguer and architect of all palace coups first half of the 18th century. It was with the support of Osterman that Menshikov was able to put Catherine the First and then Peter the Second on the throne. The same Osterman was the architect of the overthrow of Menshikov. Then it was Osterman who "overthrew" the Dolgoruky family and brought Anna Ioannovna to power. And now again Osterman stood behind the scenes of another coup. With the support of Osterman, Munnich on November 8, 1740 (new style) surrounded Biron's palace with the help of the guards and arrested the regent. The next day, a manifesto was announced, according to which Emperor John VI, who was only three months old, "granted" the regency to his mother Anna Leopoldovna. Biron, by decree of the baby Emperor, was sent into exile.
Anna Leopoldovna was incapable of governing and transferred actual power to Minich, remaining regent only formally.
But Minich, being a military man, was not tempted in politics. And so he "blinked" new intrigue experienced intriguer Osterman. At the beginning of 1741, Osterman was able to dismiss Munnich and seize power himself.
But even Osterman, with his sophistication in intrigues, did not see that the coup was being prepared by that force, which, since the death of Peter the Great, and especially her wife Catherine I, had already been forgotten. This force was the supporters of the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth Petrovna. And in particular, Elizaveta Petrovna herself.
On December 6, 1741 (new style), Elizaveta Petrovna put on the uniform of her great father Peter the Great and, at the head of the guards regiments, took power in the country into her own hands.
The era of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna was a very bright era in the history of Russia. But not for Ivan Antonovich and his relatives ..
At first, Elizaveta Petrovna simply wanted to expel the Braunschweig family from Russia. In 1742 they left Petersburg and reached Riga. But suddenly Elizaveta Petrovna, on the advice of her chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev, decided to arrest the Braunschweig family, considering that they could be dangerous outside of Russia.
Young Ivan Antonovich and his parents were arrested and placed in the fortress of Dinamunde (Ust-Dvinsk) at the mouth of the Western Dvina.
In 1744, the plot of the Lopukhins, relatives of the first wife of Peter the Great, Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina, was discovered. The Lopukhins wanted to return John Antonovich to the Throne as the legitimate Russian Sovereign and surround him with Russian, and not German advisers. The plot failed. Yelizaveta Petrovna, faithful to the obligation taken upon accession to the Throne not to put anyone to death, subjected the Lopukhins, as well as Anna, a relative of Chancellor A.P. Bestuzhev (wife of his brother Mikhail), to civil execution and exiled to Siberia. John and his family were transported from Riga to the city of Raneburg, Ryazan province. The Raneburg fortress was built by A.D. Menshikov in the time of Peter the Great and later was used more even as a prison for exiles than as a fortress. In particular, A.D. Menshikov himself was imprisoned in this fortress.
At the same time, the representative of the authorities accompanying the exiles, having misunderstood the order, almost brought them ... to Orenburg!
In 1746, the Braunschweig family was transferred even further to Kholmogory on the shore White Sea. On the way to Kholmogory, Anna Leopoldovna died. She could not bear the long forced journeys.
In Kholmogory, the young Ivan Antonovich was separated from his father, as well as brothers and sisters born already during the years of exile.
A new journey followed in 1756. The reason for it was new conspiracy to free the Emperor. A certain merchant by the name of Zubatov was seized by employees of the Secret Office of A.I. civil strife exposing John as the legitimate Sovereign.
As a result, John Antonovich was transferred from Kholmogor to the Shlisselburg fortress, where he was placed in a special cell and even deprived of his name. He was ordered to call the prisoner "Nameless".
At the same time, one of the closest associates Elizabeth Petrovna, and later than Catherine the Great, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin (Count N.I. Panin was also the tutor of the future Emperor Paul I) issued an instruction regarding John Antonovich. According to this instruction, John was to be kept in the strictest isolation, completely forbidding communication with outside world and even with other prisoners. And if some force appears that wants to free him, and there will be no way to defeat this force, the "Prisoner of the Nameless" (i.e. Emperor John Antonovich) to destroy .."
Thus began the prison life of this Suffering Sovereign ... He became our domestic version the famous "Iron Mask" .. ("Iron Mask" was called a secret prisoner in France since Louis XIV. This man had the audacity to be too much like the Sun King himself (and, according to some legends, to be his twin brother) and therefore, in order to avoid civil strife, Cardinal Mazarin ordered him to be imprisoned in a separate secret prison and put an iron mask on his face, forbidding until the end of days to remove it)..
On December 25, 1761, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna reposed.
She was succeeded by her nephew, her son older sister Anna Petrovna Peter III.
Peter III, who himself experienced many humiliations in his youth, having learned about the unfortunate Ivan Antonovich, decided to alleviate his fate.
He transferred the prisoner from Shlisselburg to the dacha of one of his young associates, Ivan Vasilyevich Gudovich. At the same time, the Sovereign had a grandiose project. He wanted to divorce his wife Ekaterina Alekseevna (the future Catherine the Great), whom he hated. Her son, Pavel Petrovich (the future Emperor Paul I), the sovereign also wanted to remove from inheritance under the pretext that this was not his son (this is possible and seems to be true, because Ekaterina Alekseevna had many favorites, and her relationship with her husband was very difficult ..). Peter III wanted to make his favorite Elizaveta Vorontsova, daughter of Chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov, the new Empress. And he wanted to make John VI the heir to the Throne!!
But fate decreed otherwise. On July 11, 1762 (new style), Ekaterina Alekseevna made a coup and overthrew her husband. Catherine publicly proclaimed that she would continue the course of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and was supported by all the people and became Empress Catherine II the Great.
Almost immediately after accession, Catherine the Great, among other things, faced two important problems. These problems were two Emperors who existed besides Catherine. These were her deposed husband Peter III and John VI.
Peter III lived in exile in Ropsha and soon sad news came from there. The former Sovereign allegedly "died of apoplexy." Actually, the "stroke" was somewhat different. The favorites of Catherine the Great, the guards officers, the Orlov brothers, who were guarding the Sovereign, argued with him, and one of the brothers Fedor Alekseevich struck the Emperor with his fist in the temple. The blow was so strong that the Emperor died on the spot .. The sovereign was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Catherine was not at the funeral. Later, Catherine's son Pavel Petrovich, who became Emperor Paul I, transferred the remains of his father to the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
So one of the problems of Catherine the Great was solved.
There remains another problem. It was Sovereign John VI. Catherine transferred John from Gudovich's dacha to one of the estates in the Kexholm area. There, at the behest of Empress John, doctors examined him. According to their conclusion, John Antonovich lost his mind, or, more simply, suffered, saying modern language schizophrenia, living in some kind of his own, fictional world.
Catherine incognito met with John VI and issued her opinion. According to her conclusion, John was healthy and feigned madness. And this, according to the Empress, was a danger both for her and, possibly, for her heirs. For John was 11 years younger than Catherine and theoretically could have survived her, for physical health he was very strong.
At first, Catherine decided to invite John to take the veil as a monk. And it seems that John VI agreed. But suddenly Catherine decided to change her mind and send John back to Shlisselburg. In addition, she confirmed Panin's instructions given back in the time of Elizabeth Petrovna. Those. John VI again became a "nameless prisoner", and the new guards of John, officers Vlasyev and Chekin, received an order in the event of a possible attempt to free John, not to give him alive into the hands of the liberators.
At the end of 1763, lieutenant Vasily Yakovlevich Mirovich entered the Shlisselburg garrison. He became obsessed with the idea of ​​freeing John and returning him to the Throne. Mirovich's motive was very prosaic. He just wanted to improve his financial affairs .. He believed that if Lieutenant Grigory Orlov, having lost at cards, could arrange a coup and bring Catherine the Great to power and naturally powerfully improve his financial affairs, then why the same cannot succeed Lieutenant Vasily Mirovich with John Antonovich?
He involved several officers and part of the soldiers of the Shlisselburg garrison in a conspiracy and on July 6, 1764 attacked the fortress in order to free John VI. Vlasyev and Chekin, with the remaining part of the garrison loyal to Catherine, held out against the rebels very long time. When the rebels rolled out the cannon and it became clear that they could not be restrained, Vlasyev and Chekin entered the cell of John VI in order to fulfill Panin's "instruction" .. Vlasyev and Chekin and their soldiers fired several shots at the Sovereign, and then finished him off, still alive with bayonets. Thus perished this Sovereign-Martyr, who was only 24 years old.
After the murder of John, Vlasyev and Chekin surrendered to Mirovich, but Mirovich, seeing the collapse of his undertaking, himself surrendered to the authorities.
John VI was buried in the Shlisselburg prison cemetery and later his grave was lost. He is now the only one of all Monarchs whose burial place is not known.
Mirovich was executed on September 15, 1764 as a state criminal. According to one version, Catherine the Great herself provoked Mirovich to rebellion in order to get rid of Ivan Antonovich.
The father of the Sovereign Martyr Anton of Brunswick died in exile in Kholmogory in 1774.
Brothers and sisters of the unfortunate John VI, by the permission of Catherine the Great and the intercession of their aunt sister Anton of Brunswick Danish Queen Maria Juliana went to Denmark. There until 1807, i.e. to death last representative of this unfortunate family they were paid a special pension from the Russian Imperial Court.
Emperor John VI Antonovich, named the Sovereign in infancy, lived the life of a martyr and a victim of the political intrigues of his time .. And at the end of his short 23 summer life who passed through prisons and exiles, he received a martyr's crown.

Ivan VI Antonovich (1740-1764). Years on the throne - 1740-1741. In some sources, he is referred to as John III, keeping score from the Russian ruler Ivan the Terrible; later they began to call him John VI, counting from Ivan I Kalita.

He was the son of Anna Ioannovna's niece - Russian empress, that is, the son of Anna Leopoldovna and Prince Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Breven-Luneburg. After the death of Anna Ioannovna, little Ivan, who was only 2 months old, was proclaimed the Russian emperor. Duke Biron was first appointed regent, and then the mother of the baby. Only two weeks before the coup, Ivan VI Antonovich was on the throne. The guards, commanded by Field Marshal Munnich, arrested Biron, depriving him of power.

The new emperor was born at the end of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, and the empress really wanted the throne to remain with the descendants of her father, Ivan V. She was worried about the fact that the descendants of Peter I could take the throne. Having written a will, she established that John Antonovich would inherit the throne, and if he dies, then other children of Anna Leopoldovna should take the throne according to seniority.

Anna Leopoldovna was completely unable to govern the country, and Minich seized power. But he did not rule for long, until Osterman dismissed him. But he did not hold power for long. A year later, Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter I, with the help of the Preobrazhensky regiment, arrested not only Osterman, but also the little emperor, his family and all those close to him, ordering them to be imprisoned. Little Ivan was completely isolated from his parents. All moving and excommunication from her son undermined the health of Anna Leopoldovna, she died in 1746.

Elizabeth was so afraid of a new coup that she ordered Ivan to be sent from Kholmogory to the Shlisselburg fortress, where he was destined for a fate: to be isolated in solitary confinement. Since 1756, the little emperor was in complete isolation. He couldn't see anyone, not even the prison guards. But he nevertheless learned about his royal origin, later learned to write and read and dreamed of entering a monastery. Life in solitary confinement left its mark on his psyche, and in 1759 he showed signs of insanity. In 1762, Catherine II saw Ivan VI and confirmed this fact. The jailers, on the other hand, believed that the prisoner was feigning.

During the imprisonment of Ivan, they tried to free and again elevate to the throne. In 1764, when the Russian throne was occupied by the young Catherine II, second lieutenant V. Ya. Mirovich tried to free Ivan.

But Elizabeth, who did not want to let go of power, ordered that Captain Vlasyev and Lieutenant Chekin, imprisoned by her guards, be placed at the cell, and as soon as there was a rumor about a new conspiracy, the guards stabbed Ivan. He was only 24 years old. Where Ivan VI was buried is still unknown.

Ivan VI Antonovich (Ioann Antonovich)
Years of life: 12 (23) August 1740-5 (16) July 1764
Years of government: 1740-1741

Russian emperor from the Welf dynasty from October 1740 to November 1741, great-grandson of Ivan V.

Son of Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick and Anna Leopoldovna.

AT official sources Ivan is referred to as John III, that is, the account is kept from the first Russian Tsar; in late historiography, a tendency was established to call him Ivan (John) VI, counting him from.

Reign of Ivan VI

After the death of the Empress, 2-month-old Ivan Antonovich (son of Anna Leopoldovna, Anna Ioannovna's niece), was proclaimed emperor. Anna Ioannovna wanted to leave the throne to the descendants of her father Ivan V and was very worried that he would not pass to the descendants of Peter I. Therefore, in her will, she indicated that Ivan Antonovich was the heir, and in the event of his death, the other children of her niece Anna Leopoldovna in order of precedence in the event of their birth
Under Ivan, Duke E.I. was appointed regent. Biron, and after the overthrow of the latter by the guards after 2 weeks of Ivan's reign, Anna Leopoldovna was declared the new regent. Unable to govern the country, Anna gradually transferred her power to Munnich, and soon she was replaced by Osterman, who dismissed the field marshal.

The overthrow of Ivan VI

A year later, another revolution took place. Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, arrested Osterman together with the Preobrazhenians, Emperor Ivan VI, his parents and all their environment.

November 25, 1741 was overthrown. First, Ivan VI Antonovich, together with his parents, was sent into exile, then transferred to solitary confinement. The place of detention of the former emperor constantly changed and was kept in a terrible secret.

On December 31, 1741, the decree of Empress Elizabeth was announced on the surrender by the population of all coins with the name of John Antonovich for remelting. Later they published a decree on the destruction of all portraits depicting Ivan Antonovich and on replacing business documents with the emperor's name on new ones.

In 1742, the whole family was secretly transferred to the suburbs of Riga - Dunamünde, then in 1744 to Oranienburg, and then, away from the border, to the north of the country - to Kholmogory, where little Ivan Antonovich was completely isolated from his parents.

In 1746, Ivan was left without a mother, she died from long northern campaigns.

Since 1756, Ivan Antonovich was in the Shlisselburg fortress in solitary confinement. In the fortress, Ivan (officially referred to as a "famous prisoner") was in complete isolation from people. But the documents testify that the prisoner-emperor knew about his royal origin, knew the letter and dreamed of a monastic life. Since 1759, Ivan Antonovich began to observe signs of inadequate behavior.

While Ivan was imprisoned, many attempts were made to free the deposed emperor and again enthrone him.

In 1764, Ivan, at the age of 24, was killed by guards when officer V.Ya. Mirovich, together with part of the garrison, free him and proclaim him emperor instead of Catherine II.

Mirovich was arrested and executed in St. Petersburg as a state criminal.

The "famous prisoner", the former emperor Ivan Antonovich, is buried, as is believed, in the Shlisselburg fortress; but in fact he is the only one of the Russian emperors whose burial place is on today's time exactly unknown.

Ivan did not marry, he had no children.

In Russia there is a very sad period of history - we are talking about a period of time called "". This era "gave" many tragic destinies.

Particularly tragic, against the backdrop of the unfinished lives of historical characters, are the fates of the children of the emperors - Peter II, and Ivan VI Antonovich. It is the latter that will be discussed.

The empress had no children, she had to think about the heir to the Russian throne. Anna chose for a long time, her choice fell on the unborn child of her niece.

In August 1740, Anna Leopoldovna and her husband Anton Ulrich had their first child, named John. Soon he was destined to become the Russian emperor.

In mid-autumn, Empress Anna Ioannovna dies and Ioann Antonovich becomes her heir. The baby came to the throne on October 28, 1740, and Biron was proclaimed regent under him.

Biron was already pretty tired of everyone, with his anti-Russian orders, and his regency, with his parents still alive, looked strange. Soon Biron was arrested, and Anna Leopoldovna was proclaimed regent for Ivan Antonovich.

Anna Leopoldovna was unfit to govern the country, and at the end of 1741 another palace coup took place.

Relying on the guards, the daughter became the new Russian empress, from - Elizaveta Petrovna. Fortunately, the coup took place without bloodshed.

Elizaveta Petrovna immediately ordered all coins with the image of Ivan Antonovich to be withdrawn from the money supply, as well as to get rid of all the portraits of Anna Leopoldovna.

Paperwork began, government documents were corrected, on which the name of Emperor John Antonovich was present. John's family was sent into exile.

The route of the "journey" of John Antonovich looked like this: Riga - Dunamünde - Oranienburg - Kholmogory. she sincerely feared that John Antonovich, who had the right to the throne, would plot an affair against her.

In 1756, the former emperor was transferred to the Shlisselburg fortress, where he was in solitary confinement. His life in the fortress is shrouded in mystery. Someone says that during his entire stay in captivity, he did not see people. And someone claims that John was educated, knew that he was an emperor, and dreamed of ... ending his life in a monastery.

They tried to release him several times, but to no avail. The last attempt, made by Vasily Yakovlevich Mirovich, turned into the death of Ivan Antonovich. Mirovich, who kept guard in the fortress, managed to persuade part of the garrison to participate in the release of the emperor. But, Mirovich did not know that the guards of Ivan Antonovich had an order, in which case, to kill the prisoner. And so it was done, no one violated the instructions.

It is worth noting that during his lifetime, John was referred to as Ivan III, i.e. the account was kept from . In modern sources, John Antonovich is referred to as Ivan VI, in which case historians count from.

John VI Antonovich lived for almost 24 years. His life is tragic and sad. What was he guilty of? - only that he was chosen as the heir to the Russian throne.

Ivan VI (John Antonovich)(August 23, 1740, St. Petersburg - July 16, 1764, Shlisselburg) - Russian emperor from the Brunswick branch of the Romanov dynasty. Ruled from October 1740 to November 1741. Great-grandson of Ivan V.

Formally, he reigned for the first year of his life under the regency first of Biron, and then of his own mother Anna Leopoldovna. The baby emperor was overthrown by Elizaveta Petrovna, spent almost his entire life in solitary confinement, and already in the reign of Catherine II was killed by guards at the age of 23 while trying to release him.

In official lifetime sources it is mentioned as John III, that is, the account is kept from the first Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible; in later historiography, a tradition was established to call him Ivan (John) VI, counting from Ivan I Kalita.

Reign

John Antonovich was born on August 12, his namesake fell on August 29 - the day of the beheading of John the Baptist.

After the death of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the son of Anna Leopoldovna (Anna Ioannovna's niece) and Prince Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Bevern-Luneburg, two-month-old Ivan Antonovich was proclaimed emperor under the regency of the Duke of Courland Biron.

He was born at the very end of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, so the question of who to appoint as regent tormented the empress, who was dying, for a long time. Anna Ioannovna wanted to leave the throne to the descendants of her father Ivan V and was very worried that he would not pass in the future to the descendants of Peter I. Therefore, in her will, she stipulated that Ivan Antonovich was the heir, and in the event of his death, Anna Leopoldovna's other children in order of precedence if they are born.

Two weeks after the baby's accession, a coup took place in the country, as a result of which the guards, led by Field Marshal Munnich, arrested Biron and removed him from power. Anna Leopoldovna, the emperor's mother, was declared the new regent. Unable to govern the country and living in illusions, Anna gradually transferred all her power to Munnich, and after that Osterman took possession of it, who dismissed the field marshal. But a year later there was a new coup. The daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth, with the Preobrazhenians arrested Osterman, the emperor, his parents and all their entourage.

Insulation

At first, Elizabeth intended to expel the "Brunswick family" from Russia (as was officially stated in the manifesto justifying her rights to the throne), but changed her mind, fearing that she would be dangerous abroad, and ordered the former regent and her husband to be imprisoned.

In 1742, secretly from everyone, the whole family was transferred to the suburbs of Riga - Dunamünde. After the discovery of the so-called "Lopukhina's conspiracy" in 1744, the entire family was moved to Oranienburg, and then away from the border, to the north of the country - to Kholmogory, where little Ivan was completely isolated from his parents. He was in the same bishop's house as his parents, behind a blank wall, which none of them knew about. The room-cell of the ex-emperor, who now, at the direction of Elizabeth Petrovna, began to be called Grigory, was arranged in such a way that no one except Miller and his servant could go to him. They kept Ivan strictly in prison. The long northern ordeals greatly affected Anna Leopoldovna's health: in 1746 she died.

name ban

The personality of the former sovereign and his short reign were soon subjected to a law condemning the name: on December 31, 1741, the empress's decree was announced on the surrender by the population of all coins with the name of John Antonovich for subsequent remelting. After some time, coins were no longer accepted at face value, and since 1745, the possession of coins became illegal. Persons who were found to have coins of Ivan Antonovich or who tried to pay with them were subjected to torture and exile as state criminals. At present, coins of this reign are extremely rare.

An order was given to destroy portraits depicting Ivan Antonovich, as well as to replace business papers, passports, church books and other documents with the name of the emperor (“cases with a famous title”) with new ones. Some of these documents were burned, and some were kept sealed in the archives. Propaganda materials were also confiscated, for example, published sermons mentioning the name of John, Lomonosov's ode in his honor, and so on. This process continued throughout the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna and was stopped only after the accession to the throne of Catherine II. Even more than a century and a half later, during the commemorative events of 1913-1914, the baby emperor was allowed to pass on the Romanov obelisk in the Alexander Garden and on the Faberge egg “The Tercentenary of the House of Romanov”.

Shlisselburg

After Elizabeth was presented with the testimony of the captured conspirator I. V. Zubarev, the empress's fear of a possible new coup led to Ivan's new journey. In 1756 he was transferred from Kholmogory to solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg Fortress. In the fortress, Ivan (officially called the "famous prisoner") was in complete isolation, he was not allowed to see anyone, even serf servants. There is a historical myth that Ivan's isolation was so dense that he never saw a single human face for the entire time of imprisonment, however, modern historians argue that this is not confirmed by documents. On the contrary, the documents testify that the prisoner knew about his royal origin, was taught to read and write and dreamed of life in a monastery.

Since 1759, Ivan began to observe signs of inadequate behavior. Empress Catherine II, who saw Ivan VI in 1762, asserted this with complete confidence; but the jailers thought it was only a pathetic simulation.

Murder

While Ivan was imprisoned, many attempts were made to free the deposed emperor and restore him to the throne. The last attempt turned out to be death for the young prisoner. In 1764, when Catherine II was already reigning, Lieutenant V. Ya. Mirovich, who was on guard duty in the Shlisselburg fortress, won part of the garrison to his side in order to free Ivan.

However, Ivan's guards, Captain Vlasyev and Lieutenant Chekin, were given a secret instruction to kill the prisoner if they tried to release him (even after presenting the Empress's decree about it), so in response to Mirovich's demand for surrender, they stabbed Ivan and only then surrendered.

Mirovich was arrested and beheaded in St. Petersburg as a state criminal. There is an unconfirmed version, according to which Catherine provoked him to get rid of the former emperor.

The fate of the remains

The burial place of Ivan VI is not exactly known. As is commonly believed, the "famous prisoner" was buried in the Shlisselburg fortress.

In September 2010, a number of archaeologists announced the identification of the remains found in the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin (Kholmogory) as imperial. However, the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences expressed doubts about the authenticity of the remains of John VI. Moreover, it was noted that search activities under the leadership of businessman Anatoly Karanin, who is not an archaeologist, were carried out unofficially, without scientific methodology and permissions for archaeological excavations("Open Sheet"). However, the request to the prosecutor's office, initiated as a result of excavations by the St. Petersburg deputy and archaeologist Alexei Kovalev, remained inconclusive, since the prosecutor's office did not find any criminal acts in this case. "Arkhangelsk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church measures have been taken to prevent the destruction of a previously unknown burial site in connection with the upcoming demolition of the water tower,” the prosecutor’s office said in a response to the request.

Memory

In fiction

In Voltaire's famous novel Candide, or Optimism (1759) main character during the Venetian carnival he meets a man in a mask, who is recommended to him as follows: “My name is Ivan, I was the emperor of all Russia; even in the cradle I was deprived of the throne, and my father and my mother were imprisoned; I was brought up in prison, but sometimes I am allowed to travel under the supervision of the guards.

In cinema

In the first series of the television series "Catherine" there is an episode in which Empress Elizabeth, in order to rein in the heir to the throne of the Grand Duke Peter III, who, raising her voice to the empress, exclaimed about her desire, having ascended the throne, to ban the “wrong” Russian traditions and establish the “correct ones”, took him to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she showed the boy who lived there in complete isolation and oblivion, calling the boy John Antonovich . At the same time, the real John Antonovich was not kept in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Later in this series, John Antonovich was shown in Shlisselburg, where Catherine the Second visited him before his death. This point is also untrue: the film shows that John was killed at about the same time as Peter III, that is, in 1762, but in fact John Antonovich was killed in 1764. There is another inaccuracy in the film regarding John Antonovich: Elizabeth says that he ruled for 2 weeks, in reality, John ruled from October 1740 to November 1741.

Possible canonization

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin noted that Emperor John VI is an example of a spiritual feat, Hieromonk Nikon (Belavenets) believes that it is necessary to study in detail the biography of the murdered emperor and, possibly, begin the process of his canonization.