The Princess Tarakanova: A Dark Chapter of Russian History

She called herself Princess of Vladimir, Madame Trémouille, the daughter of Empress Elizabeth herself. But the woman history would remember as Princess Tarakanova was never certain of her own birth, and Catherine the Great was determined she would never inherit a throne. In this gripping historical novel, Danilevskii reconstructs the true story of a woman who dared to claim imperial blood, tracing her seduction and betrayal at the hands of Count Alexei Orlov, Catherine's most trusted agent. Orlov charmed his way into her confidence, lured her aboard a Russian ship in an Italian harbor, and delivered her to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she died of tuberculosis in December 1775, aged just twenty-four. Yet rumors persisted: some claimed the empress had forced her to become a nun named Dosifea, who lived until 1810. Interwoven with the princess's tragedy is the tale of Lieutenant Pavel Konsov, a naval officer swept into her orbit by storm, captivity, and the currents of political intrigue. The novel asks what becomes of those who are neither fully legitimate nor entirely false, those who exist in the dangerous space between a throne and a prison cell.