Elizabeth Petrovna was born on December 29, 1709, at Kolomenskoye near Moscow, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I. Her parents were not formally married at the time of her birth, but Peter later legitimized Elizabeth and her sister Anna. She grew up amid the dramatic westernizing reforms of her father’s reign and the construction of Saint Petersburg as Russia’s new imperial capital.

Elizabeth received instruction in French, dancing, music, religion, and court manners. She was lively, attractive, and socially adept, but she was not given a thorough education in government. European marriage negotiations repeatedly failed, leaving her unmarried. After Peter the Great’s death, Russia passed through a series of unstable reigns, and Elizabeth’s position alternated between privilege and danger as rival court factions gained influence.

In 1741 Elizabeth seized the throne in a nearly bloodless palace coup supported by guardsmen of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. She presented herself as the legitimate daughter of Peter the Great and removed the regency governing for the infant Ivan VI. As empress, she relied on trusted ministers while maintaining strong personal influence over court appointments and foreign policy. Her reign encouraged architecture, education, and the arts, including the founding of Moscow University.

Elizabeth opposed Prussian expansion and distrusted Frederick II. Russian diplomacy increasingly aligned with Austria, whose loss of Silesia had destabilized central Europe. The empress supported military reforms and maintained a large army capable of campaigning beyond Russia’s borders. By the mid-1750s she had committed Russia to the coalition forming against Prussia. Her personal determination would sustain Russian participation even when campaigns were costly and court factions disagreed over the proper direction of foreign policy.