page_title: Alexei Razumovsky
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Alexei Razumovsky / Later years
context_page_description: Count Alexei Grigorievich Razumovsky was a Ukrainian-born Russian Registered Cossack who rose to become the lover, and it was suggested he was the morganatic spouse of the Russian Empress Elizaveta Petrovna.
context_section_description: Before her death, the empress made her successor Peter III promise not to offend her favourites. In 1762, Razumovsky submitted his resignation and moved from the Winter Palace to Anichkov Palace, which had been presented to him by Elizabeth. After Catherine II's accession to the throne, Razumovsky refused the title of highness that was offered to him. At the empress's request, he destroyed all documents about his marriage with Elizabeth. He died on 6 July (NS 17 July) 1771 in St. Petersburg and was buried in the Annunciation Church of the Alexandro-Nevskaya Lavra.
  The question of Razumovsky and Elizabeth Petrovna's children remains unresolved and subject to many legends. The best known pretenders were two princesses Tarakanova, one of whom (Augusta Tarakanova) became a nun under the name Dosifeya.  She died in 1810 and was buried in the Romanov family crypt; another (Elizabeth Tarakanova) was arrested in Livorno, Tuscany by Aleksei Grigoryevich Orlov and returned to Russia in February 1775. She was then imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she died from tuberculosis. The legend of her being drowned during the floods of 1777 served as the plot for a painting by artist Konstantin Flavitsky (1864, Tretyakov Gallery).
caption: Princess Tarakanova, in the Petropavlovsk Fortress at the Time of the Flood (1864, Tretyakov Gallery).
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