Anna Mons

All you want to know about Anna Mons

Anna Mons House in the German Quarter, by Alexandre Benois.

Anna Mons (Russian: Анна Монс; 1672 - 1714) was a Dutch noblewoman who almost succeeded in marrying Tsar Peter the Great.

In 1691, during one of his visits to the German Quarter, young Peter I of Russia became enamoured of Anna Mons, a Dutch merchant's daughter. As his relations with the tsarina Eudoxia Lopukhina gradually worsened, Anna Mons took the place of his permanent and semi-official mistress. The liaison produced two sons: Peter and Paul.

After finally divorcing Lopukhina, Peter announced his plans to marry Anna and commissioned a palace for her. In 1704, however, she was arrested in her rooms, while 30 of her acquaintances were tried for various trespasses and abuses. The reasons for Anna's persecution have been disputed ever since.

Many scholars believe that Mons concealed from the tsar her liaison with the Prussian ambassador Keyserling, whom she would finally marry in 1711. She died three years later of consumption. Peter I went on to marry Catherine Skavronskaya who, much to his rage, at some point became intimate with Anna's handsome brother, Willem Mons.

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Mistresses and Minions of Russian Emperors and Empresses

1700-1762

Anna Mons · Willem Mons · Catherine Dolgorukova · Ernst Johann von Biron · Aleksey Razumovsky · Ivan Shuvalov · Elizaveta Vorontsova

1762-1796

Grigory Orlov (1762-72) · Alexander Vasilchikov (1772-74) · Grigory Potemkin (1774-76) · Pyotr Zavadovsky (1776-77) · Semyon Zorich (1777-78) · Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov (1778-80) · Alexander Lanskoy (1780-84) · Alexander Yermolov (1784-85) · Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov (1785-89) · Platon Zubov (1789-96)

1796-1917