Anna of Russia Anna of Russia Anna Ioannovna (; – ), also spelled Anna Ivanovna and sometimes anglicized as Anne, was regent of the duchy of Courland from 1711 until 1730 and then ruled as Empress of Russia from 1730 to 1740. Anna was born in Moscow as the daughter of Tsar Ivan V by his wife Praskovia Saltykova. Ivan V was co-ruler of Russia along with his younger half-brother Peter the Great, but he was mentally disabled and incapable of administering the country, and Peter effectively ruled alone. Ivan V died in February 1696, when Anna was only three years old, and
Tsarevna Catherine Ivanovna of Russia Russia in 1722 with her surviving daughter. The couple never divorced, but they never saw each other again. On the death of Peter II in 1730, the Supreme Privy Council considered Catherine as a candidate for the tsardom as the eldest daughter of Ivan V, but the fear that her spouse would gain influence in Russia and her own independent and capricious nature led to her widowed younger sister Anna, Duchess of Courland, being chosen instead, because she was considered more docile. Catherine was involved in the events of 7 March 1730, when a group of nobles (between 150 and