Elizabeth of Russia

The second daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth watched the throne ricochet through a parade of relatives after her father's death in 1725: her mother Catherine I, her nephew Peter II, her cousin Anna, then an infant great-nephew. In 1741, with the military behind her, she seized power and named her own nephew heir. Her reign became Russia's Enlightenment moment - she backed Lomonosov's founding of the University of Moscow, commissioned the Imperial Academy of Arts, and poured fortunes into Bartolomeo Rastrelli's Baroque monuments, including the Winter Palace and Smolny Cathedral. She steered Russia through the War of Austrian Succession by allying with Austria and France, then led the Seven Years' War against Prussia, where her troops took Berlin and had Frederick the Great nearly ready to surrender. She died in January 1762, ending the last purely Romanov rule - her nephew's line would carry a different house name forward.