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manifesto of February 18, 1762, he freed the
nobility from the compulsory state service insti-
tuted by his grandfather Peter the Great. He also
abolished the Secret Chancellery and Elizabeth's
advisory cabinet to simplify the structure of gov-
ernment. His proposal to secularize church lands
was in line with discussions during Elizabeth's
reign, and was finally implemented by his wife,
ruling as
CATHERINE II
. Peter's foreign policy, ruled
by his own strong pro-Prussian feelings, proved
more problematic. At a crucial juncture in the
Seven Years' War, he signed a peace treaty with
Prussia in April 1762, returning all the provinces
Russia had conquered, and saving Frederick the
Great from certain defeat. He then negotiated an
alliance with Prussia, signed in June 1762. While
controversial, this pro-Prussian tilt was not
entirely unpopular among Russian policymakers,
but his plans for war against Denmark to recon-
quer Schleswig, essentially using Russian money
and troops to pursue the interests of the Duchy of
Holstein-Gottorp, alienated the all-powerful
Imperial Guards. On June 28, 1762, Peter was
overthrown in a palace revolt organized by the
Orlov brothers and other Guards officers, work-
ing in alliance with Catherine. Placed under
house arrest at his Ropsha country estate, he was
murdered on July 6, 1762. The evidence suggests
that Catherine had not been informed of the plot-
ters' intention to dispose of her husband. In the
tradition of Russian monarchical impostors, the
circumstances of his death allowed future rebels
like Emelian Pugachev to claim they were actu-
ally Peter III, who had escaped from prison.
home. In his spare time, he played chess, and his
local reputation grew after winning a couple of
tournaments. The year after his parents' death
he had only recently moved to Yerevan, Arme-
nia, when he placed first in the Armenian cham-
pionship at age 17. In 1948, Petrosian repeated
as Armenian champion. The following year he
moved to Moscow, where he continued to
astound the world of chess with his skills. In
1951 he won the Moscow city chess champi-
onship and placed second in the Soviet national
championship. By 1952 he was an international
grandmaster, and after strong finishes in inter-
national tournaments in Sweden and Switzer-
land, he was considered among the best young
players in the world. Through the 1950s and
1960s Petrosian continued to be in the elite of
the Soviet chess world, winning numerous
Moscow city championships and Soviet national
championships. Not until 1962, however, did he
win the right to challenge his countryman and
world champion Mikhail
BOTVINNIK
for the
world title, after winning the candidates' tour-
nament in Curaçao. After two months of play
Petrosian emerged as the world champion, a title
he held until 1969, when he was defeated by
another Soviet player, Boris
SPASSKY
. During the
first three years of his tenure as world champion,
he was chief editor of the monthly chess maga-
zine
Shakhmatnaya Moskva
(Moscow chess). He
was known in the chess world as “Iron Tigran”
for his tenacious, if uninspiring, play and his
ability to outlast opponents. In 1968 he received
a master's degree in logic from Yerevan Univer-
sity, writing a dissertation entitled “Chess Logic.”
Petrosian continued to play in Soviet and inter-
national tournaments after losing the world title
to Spassky, winning many of them or finishing
in the top positions. He died of cancer in
Moscow in August 1984.
Petrosian, Tigran Vartanovich
(1929-1984)
chess player
A chess player of Armenian descent, Tigran Pet-
rosian reigned as world champion from 1963 to
1969. Petrosian was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and
his parents taught him chess when he was eight
years old. Both parents died in 1945, when Pet-
rosian was 16, after which he briefly took his
father's old job as a caretaker in a war veteran's
Pirogov, Nikolai Ivanovich
(1810-1881)
physician
One of the pioneers of contemporary surgery and
anatomical research, and the first to use plaster
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