Peter III of Russia Peter III of Russia Peter III ( – ) (, "Pyotr III Fyodorovich") was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was born in Kiel as Karl Peter Ulrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, the only child of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (the son of Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, sister of Charles XII), and Anna Petrovna (the elder surviving daughter of Peter the Great). The German Peter could hardly speak Russian and pursued a strongly pro-Prussian policy, which made him an unpopular leader. He was deposed and possibly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his German wife,
Anna of Russia husband, but her enemies said she conducted a love affair with Ernst Johann von Biron, a prominent courtier, for many years. In 1730, Tsar Peter II (grandson of Anna's uncle Peter the Great) died childless at a young age. His death rendered extinct the male line of the Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for over a century, since 1613. There were five possible candidates for the throne: the three surviving daughters of Ivan V, namely Catherine (b.1691), Anna herself (b.1693) and Praskovya (b.1694), and the two surviving daughters of Peter the Great, namely Anna (b.1708) and Elizabeth (b.1709). Ivan