The reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1761) does not belong to those periods of Russian history that have been studied in detail by specialists. However, it was in those years that Russia firmly established itself as one of the world's leading powers. Significant progress was made in industry and trade, and Russian culture was further developed. Names of M. V. Lomonosov, A. P. Sumarokov, B.-F. Rastrelli and F. G. Volkova are also connected with that time. In the two or three decades that have elapsed since the death of Peter I, generations have changed, and the sons and grandsons of those who won the battles of Poltava and Gangut have come to power. Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov also belonged to this new generation. He was born in 1727 in Moscow in a poor noble family and received the usual home education at that time. Thanks to the patronage of his cousins Peter and Alexander Shuvalov, who held important positions in the government of Elizabeth Petrovna, he came to court in the late 40s and attracted attention for his intelligence and reading. In the autumn of 1749, I. I. Shuvalov became a favorite of Elizabeth Petrovna. Favoritism is a trait so characteristic of the life of the absolutist monarchies of Western Europe and Russia in the eighteenth century that it would hardly be worth dwelling in detail on the life history of one of the many temporary workers of that time. However, the documents left after I. I. Shuvalov and other materials allow us to see in him a figure of Russian culture in the middle of the XVIII century, one of the consistent exponents of the views of the nobility. The works of pre-revolutionary authors 1 contain little material about Shuvalov's views, and the facts that are presented in them are interpreted one-sidedly: he appears to the reader as a person devoid of shortcomings and completely disconnected from the social environment to which he belonged. In Soviet literature 2 there is no touch of "hagiography", it gives more objective assessments ... Читать далее