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# Decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna of 14 December 1742 on the withdrawal from circulation of coins bearing the image of the deposed Ivan Antonovich: part of the systematic obliteration of the memory of the overthrown infant emperor, whom Elizabeth remov
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/ukaz-imperatritsy-elizavety-petrovny-ob-iziatii-iz-obrashcheniia-monet-s-izobrazheniem-nizlozhennogo-ioanna-antonovicha-ot-14-dekabria-1742-chast-planomernogo-unichtozheniia-pamiati-o-s/
- Published: 2026-03-19T19:05:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:26:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Monarchies, Society, People

> Whereas by the most gracious decree of Her Imperial Majesty, published among the people on 31 December of the past year 1741, it was ordered that coins bearing the portrait of Prince Ivan, in whosoever's hands they may be, be brought for exchange to the mints until the 1st day of January of the coming year 1743, and in the governorates, provinces and towns to the governorate, provincial and voivodeship chanceries, for which the bearers are to be paid in new coin, kopeck for kopeck, without any deduction, in silver coin and in copper five-kopeck pieces; and if after that annual term the said coins with the prince's portrait should remain with anyone, they are not to circulate among the people nor to be accepted in payments, but are to be delivered to the mints, for which payment shall be made by the smelting, at nineteen kopecks of pure metal per zolotnik

Ivan Antonovich was proclaimed emperor at the age of two months in 1740, under the regency first of Biron and then of his mother, Anna Leopoldovna. After Elizabeth's coup he was placed under guard, first as a child, then as a youth, and in the end was killed in the Shlisselburg Fortress in 1764, supposedly during an attempt to free him.

The decree on the withdrawal of the coins is one of the instruments of damnatio memoriae, the condemnation of memory, which destroys portraits, coins and documents bearing the name of the condemned.

Note that after 1 January 1743 the coins were to be confiscated by compulsion, with payment at the value of the metal alone: 19 kopecks per zolotnik.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Peter I, while Ivan VI was the great-grandson of Ivan V, the brother and co-ruler of Peter I. Elizabeth and Ivan VI belonged to different branches of the Romanovs, and there was no direct kinship between them. That was precisely the political sense of the coup. Anna Ioannovna, the previous ruler of Russia, who had reigned for ten years, signed shortly before her death a testament by which the throne passed to Ivan Antonovich and to all the descendants of Ivan V, bypassing the line of Peter I. The trouble was that Ivan Antonovich, the son of the Empress Anna's niece, Anna Leopoldovna, was an infant of two months.

Ivan VI reigned for 404 days, from 17 October 1740 to 25 November 1741\. After the overthrow of the infant emperor, not only were the coins struck with his portrait withdrawn, but so too were any images of him in print and any documents bearing his name; the registers recording his baptism and reign were rewritten, and he was forbidden to be mentioned in official papers, where he was called merely "the known person" or "the nameless prisoner".

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_20109@19-03-2026_22-05-02.jpg)