Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Paul I: Russia's Mad Emperor and the Malta Obsession
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've done a lot of episodes on Catherine the Great — her reforms, her wars, her Greek Project. But we haven't really talked about her son, Paul I, who succeeded her in 1796. And Paul is one of those figures who just... baffles people. He was deeply eccentric, maybe even mentally unstable, and his reign was only five years before he was murdered in a palace coup. Luna: I remember you mentioning the 'cursed emperor' before. What made him so strange? Lucas: Part of it was his upbringing. Catherine basically stole the throne from his father, Peter III — who was also assassinated — and Paul grew up believing his mother had murdered his father. She kept him at arm's length, even considered disinheriting him. So Paul was raised in a kind of gilded paranoia at Gatchina, his estate outside St. Petersburg, where he drilled a private army in Prussian uniforms and dreamed of chivalry. Lucas: When he finally became tsar at age 42, he immediately tried to undo everything Catherine had done. He reversed her foreign policies, banned French fashion because of the Revolution, and imposed a military-style curfew on St. Petersburg. But the really bizarre part — the thing that became an obsession — was his love affair with the Knights Hospitaller, the medieval crusading order based on Malta. Luna: Wait — the same Knights Hospitaller from the Crusades? Lucas: Exactly. By the late 18th century, the order had been based on Malta for over 250 years, but in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte captured the island on his way to Egypt. The knights were expelled, and their Grand Master fled. So here comes Paul, who sees himself as a defender of Christendom, and he offers the exiled knights refuge in Russia. In fact, he convinced them to elect him as the new Grand Master of the Order. Lucas: Think about that for a second. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church — or at least the secular ruler of a largely Orthodox empire — becomes the leader of a Catholic military order. It was a scandal to the Pope, to the other European powers, and to many Russians. But Paul didn't care. He built a Priory of the Order in Gatchina, he wore the Maltese cross constantly, and he started styling himself 'Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem' in official documents. Luna: That's incredibly strange. Was there any political logic behind it? Lucas: Partly, yes. Paul saw the Order as a potential naval base in the Mediterranean — a way to challenge British and French influence. He even signed a treaty with the Knights that put Malta under Russian protection. But the romantic, chivalric side was just as real. Paul genuinely believed he was reviving a medieval crusader order. He issued new statutes, uniforms, and demanded that Russian nobles join the Order as a sign of loyalty. Those who refused were exiled or demoted. Lucas: And here's where it gets really tangled. Because in 1800, the British captured Malta from the French, but they refused to hand it over to Paul as Grand Master. Paul was furious. He broke off diplomatic relations with Britain, seized British ships in Russian ports, and even formed a League of Armed Neutrality with Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia — basically an anti-British alliance. He was on the verge of war with England when he was assassinated. Luna: So the Malta obsession almost led to war with the world's biggest navy? Lucas: Exactly. But the Malta fixation wasn't the only reason Paul was killed. He had alienated the nobility with his erratic purges, his micromanagement of everything from military uniforms to hairstyles, and his threat to invade India in alliance with Napoleon. The conspirators — led by Count Pahlen, the governor of St. Petersburg, and several guards officers — decided he had to go. Lucas: The murder itself is one of the most famous in Russian history. On the night of March 11, 1801, a group of drunken officers stormed the Mikhailovsky Castle — Paul's newly built fortress, which he had designed himself with moats and secret passages because he was terrified of assassination. They found him hiding behind a screen, and they beat and strangled him with a scarf. His son Alexander, who had been told the coup would only force Paul to abdicate, was reportedly devastated. Luna: It's like something out of Shakespeare. And all because of a castle and a crusader fantasy. Lucas: Yeah. But the story doesn't end there. After Paul's death, Alexander I immediately made peace with Britain and abandoned the Malta obsession. The Knights Hospitaller eventually relocated to Rome, where they still exist today as a humanitarian order. But Paul's legacy is this weird, tragic footnote: a tsar who tried to live in the Middle Ages, and who paid for it with his life. Luna: That is a wild story. And it reminds me — we've been able to cover these kinds of deep, weird topics because Fexingo History is ad-free and listener-supported. If you want to help keep us independent, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just if you value the kind of deep dives we do. Lucas: Yeah, it really does make a difference. Every little bit helps us keep researching these strange corners of history. So if you're able, thanks for considering it. Now, back to Paul: one more detail that shows how unhinged things got. Paul once ordered that all St. Petersburg residents must wear their hair in a specific style — no curls, only braids. And he banned round hats because they were associated with the French Revolution. People were arrested for wearing the wrong hat. Luna: So he was literally policing fashion? That's micromanagement on another level. Lucas: Exactly. And it's why, when he died, the city basically celebrated. The nobility threw parties. There's a famous story that when the news reached the Russian army, soldiers wept — not out of grief, but because Paul had forced them to wear uncomfortable Prussian-style uniforms with powdered wigs and tight collars, and they knew those would go away. Alexander I immediately abolished the most hated reforms. Lucas: But the Mikhailovsky Castle itself remained as a monument to Paul's paranoia. He only lived in it for 40 days before he was murdered there. After his death, the imperial family abandoned it, and it was used as a Jesuit college, then a military engineering school. Today it's part of the Russian Museum. You can still see the spiral staircase where the conspirators crept up. Luna: And what happened to the Maltese cross? Did the Order survive? Lucas: It did, but in a diminished form. After Paul's death, the Russian branch of the Order was abolished, though a few of the exiled knights continued to call themselves the 'Russian Grand Priory' until the revolution. The main Order, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, still exists based in Rome, with diplomatic relations with over 100 countries. And Paul's obsession actually left a strange legacy: Russian nobility who had been inducted into the Order retained the right to wear the Maltese cross as a decoration, and it appears in some family coats of arms to this day. Lucas: So in a way, Paul's ridiculous fantasy left a permanent mark on Russian heraldry. Not bad for a tsar who was only in power for five years. Luna: I love those little details that survive. Thanks for shedding light on Paul — he's usually just a footnote.