Few could have predicted that Princess Fredericke Charlotte, the future Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, was destined to become one of the architects of the emancipation of serfs in the Russian Empire. Her moral framework, her intellect and her political skills made a substantial contribution not only to the ending of serfdom, but no less importantly to the conditions on which it was ended. For a woman, moreover, a foreigner, to have exercised such an inf luence on the most fraught and sensitive reform between the time of Peter the Great and the 1905 Revolution was a momentous achievement. Excluded by her sex from political activity, bound by the conventions of royal protocol and confronted by powerful and determined opponents, Elena Pavlovna negotiated these obstacles with consummate skill to persuade the Emperor Alexander II to persevere with the emancipation and to accept one based largely on the principles favoured by her and her circle.

A combination of chance, design and circumstance placed Elena in a pivotal position in the emancipation process. A dysfunctional family, a love of learning and an unhappy marriage to a senior member of the Romanov dynasty were the chance factors that partly shaped Fredericke Charlotte’s life. The circumstances that gave her that possibility were the catastrophic defeat of Russia in the Crimean War and the decision by the new Emperor Alexander II to begin the process of emancipating the serfs. The design came from Elena's momentous decision to intervene in that process, telling her friend and protege Prince Dmitrii Obolenskii ‘that she had firmly resolved to try to obtain influence’. These were the paths that led Elena to do what was in her power to ensure that the emancipation took place and in the form that she and her friends wanted.