As she learned Russian, she became increasingly interested in the literature of her adopted country. [115] She closed 569 of 954 monasteries, of which only 161 received government money. Her coffee was brought in, she drank it and sat down to write. Add some worm castings if you choose. [57] Although she did not want to communicate directly with the serfs, she did create some measures to improve their conditions as a class and reduce the size of the institution of serfdom. Possibly the offspring of Catherine and Stanislaus Poniatowski, Anna was born at the Winter Palace between 10 and 11 o'clock; Born at the Winter Palace, he was brought up at, Born many years after the death of Catherine's husband, brought up in the, Empress Catherine appears as a character in, The Empress is parodied in Offenbach's operetta, Lubitsch remade his 1924 silent film as the sound film, The British/Canadian/American TV miniseries, Her rise to power and reign are portrayed in the award-winning, The song "Catherine the Great" from the album, Catherine (portrayed by Meghan Tonjes) is featured in the web series, She appears as a leader of the Russian civilization in. She had the book burned and the author exiled to Siberia. The most famous of these rumors is that she died after having sex with her horse. Her male enemies created the legends that still reverberate around todays World Wide Web. Russia invaded Poland on 26 August 1764, threatening to fight, and imposing Poniatowski as king. Larry Frederick died: It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Larry Frederick on Thursday, March 2, 2023. [101], Catherine's apparent embrace of all things Russian (including Orthodoxy) may have prompted her personal indifference to religion. [59] Some serfs did apply for freedom and were successful. Whereas the premium cable series traced the trajectory of Catherines rule from 1764 to her death, The Great centers on her 1762 coup and the sequence of events leading up to it. After Peter took a mistress, Catherine became involved with other prominent court figures. [123]:119 Catherine bought the support of the bureaucracy. The frustration affected Catherine's health. At first, she attempted to revise clerical studies, proposing a reform of religious schools. They saw a woman who slept her way to the top, a woman who was not meant to rule but stole the throne from her husband. 2, part 2, Chapter 3, V]. She worked with Voltaire, Diderot, and d'Alembert all French encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings. Their son, Aleksey Grygoriovich Bobrinsky (17621813), had one daughter, Maria Alexeyeva Bobrinsky (Bobrinskaya) (17981835), who married in 1819 the 34-year-old Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Gagarin (London, England, 17841842) who took part in the Battle of Borodino (7 September 1812) against Napoleon, and later served as ambassador in Turin, the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Historical accounts portray Joanna as a cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of theTerms and Conditions. This raised her in the empress's esteem. However, the Legislative Commission of 1767 offered several seats to people professing the Islamic faith. The choice of Princess Sophie as wife of the future tsar was one result of the Lopukhina affair in which Count Jean Armand de Lestocq and King Frederick the Great of Prussia took an active part. Look at the mirror, however, and an entirely different ruler appears: Her reflection is this private, determined, ambitious Catherine, says Jaques. On 16 November 1796, Catherine woke up and followed her usual routine. Biography 27 (2004), 51734. [103], Catherine took many different approaches to Islam during her reign. [citation needed] Catherine chose to assimilate Islam into the state rather than eliminate it when public outcry became too disruptive. The most widely known story of Catherine the Great involves her death at age 67 in 1796. While the deeply entrenched system of Russian serfdomin which peasants were enslaved by and freely traded among feudal lordswas at odds with her philosophical values, Catherine recognized that her main base of support was the nobility, which derived its wealth from feudalism and was therefore unlikely to take kindly to these laborers emancipation. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum. Under her leadership, she completed what Peter III had started. [102], In 1762, to help mend the rift between the Orthodox church and a sect that called themselves the Old Believers, Catherine passed an act that allowed Old Believers to practise their faith openly without interference. I have said that she was quite small, and yet on the days when she made her public appearances, with her head held high, her eagle-like stare and a countenance accustomed to command, all this gave her such an air of majesty that to me she might have been Queen of the World; she wore the sashes of three orders, and her costume was both simple and regal; it consisted of a muslin tunic embroidered with gold fastened by a diamond belt, and the full sleeves were folded back in the Asiatic style. Given the frequency which this story was repeated together with Catherine's love of her adopted homeland and her love of horses, it is likely that these details were conflated into this rumor. There was every chance he was going to be assassinated. Although she mastered the language, she retained an accent. In this act, she gave the serfs a legitimate bureaucratic status they had lacked before. Amazingly, writes Montefiore, the regicidal, uxoricidal German usurper recovered her reputation not just as Russian tsar and successful imperialist but also as an enlightened despot, the darling of the philosophes.. Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they, under the new king Agha Mohammad Khan, had again invaded Georgia and established rule in 1795 and had expelled the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. In 1777, the empress described to Voltaire her legal innovations within a backward Russia as progressing "little by little". Perhaps the most readily recognizable anecdote related to Catherine centers on a horse. [92] The Establishment of the Moscow Foundling Home (Moscow Orphanage) was the first attempt at achieving that goal. He died at the age of 52 in 1791. [4] The more than 300 sovereign entities of the Holy Roman Empire, many of them quite small and powerless, made for a highly competitive political system as the various princely families fought for advantage over each other, often via political marriages. [68] Pugachev had made stories about himself acting as a real emperor should, helping the common people, listening to their problems, praying for them, and generally acting saintly, and this helped rally the peasants and serfs, with their very conservative values, to his cause. In these cases, it was necessary to replace this "fake" empress with the "true" empress, whoever she may be. Sophie had turned 16. Sedgwick makes her argument . Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres; along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe. So far, she's the woman who's ruled Russia the longest 34 years on the throne. Larry was not just a beloved family member, but also a husband, friend, mentor, peer, inventor, advisor, and audio enthusiast. Sette, Alessandro. Uniting Cossacks, peasants, escaped serfs and other discontented tribal groups and malcontents, Pugachev produced a storm of violence that swept across the steppes, writes Massie. Finally, it was the Annals by Tacitus that caused what she called a "revolution" in her teenage mind as Tacitus was the first intellectual she read who understood power politics as they are, not as they should be. [63] [46], Nicholas I, her grandson, evaluated the foreign policy of Catherine the Great as a dishonest one. Sophie's childhood was very uneventful. Instead she pioneered for Russia the role that Britain later played through most of the 19th and early 20th centuries as an international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war. They submitted recommendations for the establishment of a general system of education for all Russian orthodox subjects from the age of 5 to 18, excluding serfs. ; in a word, Anglomania is the master of my plantomania". [13], According to Alexander Hertzen, who edited a version of Catherine's memoirs, Catherine had her first sexual relationship with Sergei Saltykov while living at Oranienbaum as her marriage to Peter had not been consummated, as Catherine later claimed. Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from the King Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in carrying it out in the 1790s. While the nobility provided appreciable amounts of money for these institutions, they preferred to send their own children to private, prestigious institutions. [115] Their place in government was restricted severely during the years of Catherine's reign. Thanks to these ties, she soon found herself engaged to the heir to the Russian throne: Peter, nephew of the reigning empress, Elizabeth, and grandson of another renowned Romanov, Peter the Great. Featuring Elle Fanning as the empress and Nicholas Hoult as her mercurial husband, Peter III, The Great differs from the 2019 HBO miniseries Catherine the Great, which starred Helen Mirren as its title character. Articles and Photos. A poor student who felt a stronger allegiance to his home country of Prussia than Russia, the heir spent much of his time indulging in various vicesand unsuccessfully working to paint himself as an effective military commander. Along the way, she became a very passionate, knowledgeable proponent of painting, sculpture, books, architecture, opera, theater and literature. Russian local authorities helped his party, and the Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. [52], Catherine paid a great deal of attention to financial reform, and relied heavily on the advice of Prince A. 7 Reasons Catherine the Great Was So Great. The couples loveless marriage afforded Catherine ample opportunity to pursue her intellectual interests, from reading the work of Enlightenment thinkers to perfecting her grasp of Russian. Death and succession. in, Inna Gorbatov, "Voltaire and Russia in the Age of Enlightenment.". In addition to the advisory commission, Catherine established a Commission of National Schools under Pyotr Zavadovsky. Called the Nakaz, or Instruction, the 1767 document outlined the empress vision of a progressive Russian nation, even touching on the heady issue of abolishing serfdom. Catherine the Great Builds a New Russia Catherine the Great, who died on this day, dragged Russia into the modern era while leading a life filled with political drama, sexual intrigue - and murder. [69] With all this discontent in mind, Catherine did rule for 10 years before the anger of the serfs boiled over into a rebellion as extensive as Pugachev's. [135], Later, several rumours circulated regarding the cause and manner of her death. May 14, 2020. Assisted by highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev, and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov, she governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. As a result of this plot, Elizabeth likely wanted to leave both Catherine and her accomplice Peter without any rights to the Russian throne. in by H. M. Scott, ed., Romanovs. Catherine was eventually able to put down the uprising, but the carnage exacted on both sides was substantial. She disapproved of off-color jokes and nudity in art falling outside of mythological or allegorical themes. [131], Catherine's life and reign included many personal successes, but they ended in two failures. She appointed General Aleksandr Bibikov to put down the uprising, but she needed Potemkin's advice on military strategy. Besides her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. [82], During Catherine's reign, Russians imported and studied the classical and European influences that inspired the Russian Enlightenment. Th, The 8 weirdest British monarch deaths in history, Historys greatest love affair: Catherine the Great and Grigory Potemkin, Catherine the Great and the coup that made her Empress, Josephine Baker: The iconic performer turned WWII hero. The formidable Catherine had little time for her heir. In terms of making Russia a great power, says Hartley, these efforts proved successful. But when he arrived at his palace and found it abandoned, he realized what had occurred. She had the government collect and publish vital statistics. Prussia (through the agency of Prince Henry), Russia (under Catherine), and Austria (under Maria Theresa) began preparing the ground for the partitions of Poland. Other than these, the rights of a serf were very limited. They were pressured into Orthodoxy through monetary incentives. And though Catherine is characterized by modern viewers as very flighty and superficial, Hartley notes that she was a genuine bluestocking, waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. each morning, brewing her own pot of coffee to avoid troubling her servants, and sitting down to begin the days work. [153], Empress Catherine's correspondence with Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Wrttemberg, (the father of Catherine's daughter-in-law Maria Feodorovna) written between 1768 and 1795, is preserved in the State Archive of Stuttgart (Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart) in Stuttgart, Germany.[154]. 2. [79] For philosophy, she liked books promoting what has been called "enlightened despotism", which she embraced as her ideal of an autocratic but reformist government that operated according to the rule of law, not the whims of the ruler, hence her interest in Blackstone's legal commentaries. Teplov, T. von Klingstedt, F.G. Dilthey, and the historian G. Muller. Russian economic development was well below the standards in western Europe. According to her memoirs, Sophie was regarded as a tomboy, and trained herself to master a sword. To the general public, Catherine is perhaps best known for conducting a string of salacious love affairs. The plan was another attempt to force nomadic people to settle. In the plus column, the longest-reigning empress of Russia transformed her empire into one of Europe's great and . Petersburg." Her sexual independence led to many of the legends about her.[127]. The bloodless shift in power was so easily accomplished that Frederick the Great of Prussia later observed, [Peter] allowed himself to be dethroned like a child being sent to bed.. Many cities and towns were founded on Catherine's orders in the newly conquered lands, most notably Odessa, Yekaterinoslav (to-day known as Dnipro), Kherson, Nikolayev, and Sevastopol. Catherine began issuing codes to address some of the modernisation trends suggested in her Nakaz. They indeed helped modernise the sector that totally dominated the Russian economy. The rumours tell us more about the time in which Catherine lived than they do about the cause of her death. Catherine II[a] (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 17 November 1796),[b] most commonly known as Catherine the Great,[c] was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. This is the real history behind the period comedy. She addressed me immediately in a voice full of sweetness, if a little throaty: "I am delighted to welcome you here, Madame, your reputation runs before you. Her face was left uncovered, and her fair hand rested on the bed. She died of natural causes, of a stroke, when she was 67 years old. Whilst this one is also just an absurd rumour, it lies ever so slightly nearer the truth. Her eyes were soft and sensitive, her nose quite Greek, her colour high and her features expressive. Later, several rumours circulated regarding the cause and manner of her death. Her marriage to Peter III of Russia lasted from 1745 until his suspicious death in 1762, and she had at least three lovers during this time (Catherine herself hinted that her husband . Catherine tried to keep the Jews away from certain economic spheres, even under the guise of equality; in 1790, she banned Jewish citizens from Moscow's middle class.[112]. This commission was charged with organising a national school network, as well as providing teacher training and textbooks. Historians debate Catherine's technical status, whether as a regent or as a usurper, tolerable only during the minority of her son, Grand Duke Paul. The Corps then began to take children from a very young age and educate them until the age of 21, with a broadened curriculum that included the sciences, philosophy, ethics, history, and international law. [7] For the smaller German princely families, an advantageous marriage was one of the best means of advancing their interests, and the young Sophie was groomed throughout her childhood to be the wife of some powerful ruler in order to improve the position of the reigning house of Anhalt. Catherine promised more serfs of all religions, as well as amnesty for convicts, if Muslims chose to convert to Orthodoxy. A self-described glutton for art, the empress strategically purchased paintings in bulk, acquiring as much in 34 years as other royals took generations to amass. Grigory Orlov and his other three brothers found themselves rewarded with titles, money, swords, and other gifts, but Catherine did not marry Grigory, who proved inept at politics and useless when asked for advice. [38], By mid-June 1796, Zubov's troops overran without any resistance most of the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan, including three principal citiesBaku, Shemakha, and Ganja. In 1762 called on the army to upgrade its medical services. This commission promised to protect their religious rights, but did not do so. It was unthinkable they could rule a nation, especially one successfully. All of this meant that the target on Catherines back was even greater. At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for the throne included Ivan VI (17401764), who had been confined at Schlsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and who was thought to be insane. We will remember him forever. The commission had to consider the needs of the Russian Empire and the means of satisfying them. The answer is misogyny. [8] The young Sophie received the standard education for an 18th-century German princess, with a concentration upon learning the etiquette expected of a lady, French, and Lutheran theology. While the state did not technically allow them to own possessions, some serfs were able to accumulate enough wealth to pay for their freedom. The empress prepared the "Instructions for the Guidance of the Assembly", pillaging (as she frankly admitted) the philosophers of Western Europe, especially Montesquieu and Cesare Beccaria.[80][81]. She was also very fat, but her face was still beautiful, and she wore her white hair up, framing it perfectly. Peter supposedly was assassinated, but it is unknown how he died. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation[130] until its post-WWI reconstitution. All Rights Reserved. Whilst this one is also just an absurd rumour, it lies ever so slightly nearer the truth. In 1774, a disillusioned military officer named Yemelyan Pugachev capitalized on the unrest fomented by Russias ongoing fight with Turkey to lead hundreds of thousands into rebellion. They refused to comply, and in 1764, she deported over 20,000 Old Believers to Siberia on the grounds of their faith. Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 - 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She made use of the social theory ideas of German cameralism and French physiocracy, as well as Russian precedents and experiments such as foundling homes. This meant developing individuals both intellectually and morally, providing them knowledge and skills, and fostering a sense of civic responsibility. This reversal aroused the frustration and enmity of the powerful Zubovs and other officers who took part in the campaign: many of them would be among the conspirators who arranged Paul's murder five years later.[39]. Firstly I was very surprised at her small stature; I had imagined her to be very tall, as great as her fame. It was instituted by the Fundamental Law of 7 November 1775. Peter, however, supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among the nobility. [128], Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the British ambassador to Russia, offered Stanislaus Poniatowski a place in the embassy in return for gaining Catherine as an ally. Catherine, for her part, claimed in her memoirs that all his actions bordered on insanity. By claiming the throne, she wrote, she had saved Russia from the disaster that all this Princes moral and physical faculties promised.. If a noble did not live up to his side of the deal, the serfs could file complaints against him by following the proper channels of law. Its surprising that someone whos waging war with the Ottoman Empire and partitioning Poland and annexing the Crimea has time to make sketches for one of her palaces, but she was very hands on, says Jaques. Legends abound about Catherine the Greatthe good kind and the bad kind. If we are to believe another popular myth that surrounds her death, it wasnt the horse that killed her but a collapsing toilet seat. In 1780, she established a League of Armed Neutrality, designed to defend neutral shipping from being searched by the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War. B. Catherine the Great's Foreign Policy Reconsidered. Friday, Feb. 1 is the American Liked by Catherine Porter [100] Two years after the implementation of Catherine's program, a member of the National Commission inspected the institutions established. She also established a commission composed of T.N. A great dreamer, he was avid for territories to conquer and provinces to populate; an experienced diplomat with a knowledge of Russia that Catherine had not yet acquired and as audacious as Catherine was methodical, Potemkin was treated as an equal by the empress up to the time of his death in 1791. Catherine was born in Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, Holy Roman Empire, as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. In the south the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Bar Confederation and Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. The palace of the Crimean Khanate passed into the hands of the Russians. The church's lands were expropriated, and the budget of both monasteries and bishoprics were controlled by the Collegium of Accounting. [116] While other religions (such as Islam) received invitations to the Legislative Commission, the Orthodox clergy did not receive a single seat. The pair met on the day of Catherines 1762 coup but only became lovers in 1774. So why then has the legacy of Russia's longest-ruling woman been stained with these rumours for over two centuries? I hate fountains that torture water in order to make it take a course contrary to its nature: Statues are relegated to galleries, vestibules etc. Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography, USA. Sergei Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and relations with Saltykov were platonic. In 1775, the empress decreed a Statute for the Administration of the Provinces of the Russian Empire.
