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Catherine II of Russia

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   Catherine II of Russia
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   Catherine II of Russia

   Catherine II of Russia, called the Great (Russian: Екатерина II
   Великая, Yekaterina II Velikaya; 2 May 1729– 17 November 1796 [ O.S. 6
   November]) — sometimes referred to as an epitome of the " enlightened
   despot" — reigned as Empress of Russia for some 34 years, from June 28,
   1762 until her death.

Early life

   A minor German princess with a very remote Russian ancestry, and a
   first cousin of Gustav III of Sweden and of Charles XIII of Sweden,
   Sophie Augusta Frederica (Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst),
   nicknamed "Figchen", was born in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) to
   Christian Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who held the rank of a
   Prussian general in his capacity as Governor of the city in the name of
   the king of Prussia. In accordance with the custom then prevailing in
   German nobility, she received her education chiefly from a French
   governess and from tutors.

   The choice of Sophie as wife of the prospective tsar — Peter of
   Holstein-Gottorp — resulted from some amount of diplomatic management
   in which Count Lestocq and Frederick II of Prussia took an active part.
   Lestocq and Frederick wanted to strengthen the friendship between
   Prussia and Russia to weaken the influence of Austria and to ruin the
   chancellor Bestuzhev, on whom Tsarina Elizabeth relied, and who acted
   as a known partisan of Russo–Austrian co-operation.

   The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely through the intervention of
   Figchen's mother, Johanna Elizabeth of Holstein, a clever and ambitious
   woman. Historical accounts portray Catherine's mother as emotionally
   cold and physically abusive, as well as a social climber who loved
   gossip and court intrigues. Johanna aspired to become famous through
   her daughter becoming a future Empress of Russia, but her pushy,
   arrogant behaviour infuriated the Empress Elizabeth, who eventually
   banned her from the country. But Elizabeth took a strong liking to the
   daughter, and the marriage finally took place in 1744. The Empress knew
   the family well because Princess Johanna's brother Karl had gone to
   Russia to marry Elizabeth years earlier, but had died of smallpox
   before the planned wedding took place.

   Princess Sophie spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with
   the Empress Elizabeth, but with her husband and with the Russian
   people. She applied herself to learning the Russian language with such
   zeal that she rose at night and walked about her bedroom barefoot
   repeating her lessons. This resulted in a severe attack of pneumonia in
   March 1744. When she wrote her memoirs she represented herself as
   having made up her mind when she came to Russia to do whatever had to
   be done, and to profess to believe whatever required of her, in order
   to become qualified to wear the crown. The consistency of her character
   throughout life makes it highly probable that even at the age of
   fifteen she possessed sufficient maturity to adopt this worldly-wise
   line of conduct.
   Equestrian portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna.
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   Equestrian portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna.

   Her father, a very devout Lutheran, strongly opposed his daughter's
   conversion. Despite his instructions, on 28 June 1744 the Russian
   Orthodox Church received her as a member with the name Catherine
   Alexeyevna (Yekaterina or Ekaterina). On the following day the formal
   betrothal took place, and Catherine married the Grand Duke Peter on 21
   August 1745 at Saint Petersburg. The newlyweds settled in the palace of
   Oranienbaum, which would remain the residence of the "young court" for
   16 years.

Coup d'état

   The marriage proved unsuccessful — due to the Grand Duke Peter's
   impotence and mental immaturity he may not have consummated it for
   twelve years. While Peter took a mistress (Elizabeth Vorontsova),
   Catherine carried on liaisons with Sergei Saltykov and Stanislaw
   Poniatowski. She became friends with Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova, the
   sister of her husband's mistress, who introduced Catherine to several
   powerful political groups that opposed her husband. Catherine read
   widely and kept up-to-date on current events in Russia and in the rest
   of Europe. She corresponded with many of the prominent minds of her
   era, including Voltaire and Diderot.

   After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on January 5, 1762 ( N.S.) or
   25 December 1761 ( O.S.), Peter succeeded to the throne as Peter III of
   Russia and moved into the new Winter Palace in St. Petersburg;
   Catherine thus became Empress Consort of Russia. However, his
   eccentricities and policies, including a great admiration for the
   Prussian king Frederick II, whose capital the Russian army had briefly
   occupied (1760) in the course of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763),
   alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated. Compounding
   matters, he insisted upon Russian intervention in a dispute between
   Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig. Peter's insistence
   on supporting his native Holstein in an unpopular war eroded much of
   the support he had in the nobility.

   In July 1762 Catherine's husband committed the grave error of retiring
   with his Holstein-born courtiers and relatives to Oranienbaum, leaving
   his wife at Saint Petersburg. In the course of July 13 and July 14, the
   revolt of the Leib Guard removed Peter from the throne and proclaimed
   Catherine as reigning empress. The bloodless coup succeeded; Ekaterina
   Dashkova, a confidante of Catherine, remarked that Peter seemed rather
   glad to have rid himself of the throne, and requested only a quiet
   estate and a ready supply of tobacco and burgundy in which to rest his
   sorrows.

   Six months after his ascension to the throne and three days after his
   deposition, on July 17, 1762, Peter III died at Ropsha at the hands of
   Alexei Orlov (younger brother to Gregory Orlov, then court favorite and
   a participant in the coup) in a supposedly accidental killing, the
   result of Alexei's over-indulgence in vodka. During the Soviet period,
   historians assumed that Catherine had ordered the murder, as she also
   disposed of other potential claimants to the throne ( Ivan VI and
   Princess Tarakanova) at about the same time. But today it is agreed by
   almost all historians that Catherine was probably not involved in the
   killing.

   Catherine, although not descended from any previous Russian emperor,
   succeeded her husband and became reigning empress, following an earlier
   precedent when Catherine I succeeded Peter I in 1725. Her ascension
   manifesto justified her succession by citing the "unanimous election"
   of the nation. However a great part of nobility regarded her reign as a
   usurpation, tolerable only during the minority of her son Grand Duke
   Paul. In the 1770s and 1780s a group of nobles connected with Paul (
   Nikita Panin and others) admitted the possibility of a new coup that
   would depose Catherine and transfer the crown to Paul, whose power they
   envisaged restricting in a kind of constitutional monarchy. These plans
   however never came to effect, and Catherine reigned until her death.

Foreign affairs

   The coronation coach of Catherine the Great as exhibited in the
   Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
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   The coronation coach of Catherine the Great as exhibited in the
   Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

   During her reign Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire
   southward and westward to absorb New Russia, Crimea, Right-Bank
   Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Courland at the expense of two powers
   — the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. All told,
   she added some 200,000 miles² (518,000 km²) to Russian territory, and
   she further shaped the Russian destiny to a greater extent than almost
   anyone before or since, with the possible exceptions of Lenin, Stalin,
   and Peter the Great.

   Catherine's foreign minister, Nikita Panin, exercised considerable
   influence from the beginning of her reign. Though a shrewd statesman,
   Panin dedicated much effort and millions of rubles to setting up a
   "Northern Accord" between Russia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden, to
   counter the power of the Bourbon– Habsburg League. When it became
   apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour and
   Catherine dismissed him in 1781.

Russo–Turkish Wars

   Catherine made Russia the dominant power in south-eastern Europe after
   her first Russo–Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire ( 1768– 1774),
   which saw some of the greatest defeats in Turkish history, including
   the Battle of Chesma (1770) and the Battle of Kagul (1770). The Russian
   victories allowed Catherine's government to obtain access to the Black
   Sea and to incorporate the vast steppes of present-day southern
   Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa,
   Nikolayev, Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine"; the
   future Dnepropetrovsk), and Kherson.

   Catherine annexed Crimea in 1783, a mere nine years after it had gained
   independence from the Ottoman Empire as a result of her first war
   against the Turks. The Ottomans started a second Russo-Turkish War
   (1787–1792) during Catherine's reign. This war proved catastrophic for
   them and ended with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimized the
   Russian claim to Crimea.
   Catherine II of Russia
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   Catherine II of Russia

Relations with Western Europe

   In the European political theatre, Catherine remained ever conscious of
   her legacy and longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. She
   pioneered for Russia the role that England would later play with aplomb
   throughout most of the nineteenth and early twentieth century — that of
   international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war.
   Accordingly, she acted as mediator in the War of the Bavarian
   Succession ( 1778– 1779) between Prussia and Austria. In 1780 she set
   up a group designed to defend neutral shipping against Great Britain
   during the American Revolution, and she refused to intervene in that
   revolution on the side of the British when asked.

   From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought the Russo-Swedish War against Sweden,
   instigated by Catherine's cousin, the King Gustav III of Sweden.
   Expecting to simply overtake the Russian armies still engaged in war
   against the Ottoman Turks and hoping to strike Saint Petersburg
   directly, the Swedes ultimately faced mounting human and territorial
   losses when opposed by Russia's Baltic Fleet. After Denmark declared
   war on Sweden in 1789, things looked bleak for the Swedes. After the
   Battle of Svensksund in 1790, the parties signed the Treaty of Värälä (
   August 14, 1790) returning all conquered territories to their
   respective nations, and peace ensued for twenty years.

Partitions of Poland

   In 1763 Catherine placed Stanisław Poniatowski, her former lover, on
   the Polish throne. Although the idea came from the Prussian king,
   Catherine took a leading role in the partitions of Poland in the 1790s,
   afraid that the May Constitution of Poland (1791) might lead to a
   resurgence in the power of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and that
   the growing democratic movements inside the commonwealth might become a
   threat to the European monarchies.

   After the French Revolution of 1789, Catherine rejected many of the
   principles of the Enlightenment which she once viewed favorably. In
   order to stop the reforms of the May Constitution and to prevent the
   modernization of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, she provided
   support to a Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica
   Confederation. After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish War
   in Defense of the Constitution (1792) and in the Kosciuszko Uprising
   (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of
   the Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795).

Arts and culture

   Catherine did subscribe to the Enlightenment and considered herself a
   "philosopher on the throne". She showed great awareness of her image
   abroad, and ever desired that Europe should perceive her as a civilized
   and enlightened monarch, despite the fact that in Russia she often
   played the part of the tyrant. Even as she proclaimed her love for the
   ideals of liberty and freedom, she did more to tie the Russian serf to
   his land and to his lord than any sovereign since Boris Godunov.

   Catherine had a reputation as a patron of the arts, literature and
   education. The Hermitage Museum, which now occupies the whole of the
   Winter Palace, began as Catherine's personal collection. At the
   instigation of her factotum, Ivan Betskoi, she wrote a manual for the
   education of young children, drawing from the ideas of John Locke, and
   founded the famous Smolny Institute for noble young ladies. This school
   would become one of the best of its kind in Europe, and even went so
   far as to admit young girls born to wealthy merchants alongside the
   daughters of the nobility. She wrote comedies, fiction and memoirs,
   while cultivating Voltaire, Diderot and D'Alembert — all French
   encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings. The
   leading economists of her day, such as Arthur Young and Jacques Necker,
   became foreign members of the Free Economic Society, established on her
   suggestion in Saint Petersburg. She lured the scientists Leonhard Euler
   and Peter Simon Pallas from Berlin to the Russian capital.

   As much subtle as forceful, Catherine enlisted to her cause one of the
   great minds of the age, Voltaire, with whom she corresponded for
   fifteen years, from her accession to his death in 1778. He lauded her
   with epithets, calling her "The Star of the North" and the " Semiramis
   of Russia" (in reference to the legendary Queen of Babylon). Though she
   never met him face-to-face, she mourned him bitterly when he died,
   acquired his collection of books from his heirs, and placed them in the
   Imperial Public Library.

   Within a few months of her accession, having heard that the French
   government threatened to stop the publication of the famous French
   Encyclopédie on account of its irreligious spirit, she proposed to
   Diderot that he should complete his great work in Russia under her
   protection. Four years later she endeavoured to embody in a legislative
   form the principles of Enlightenment which she had imbibed from the
   study of the French philosophers. She called together at Moscow a Grand
   Commission — almost a consultative parliament — composed of 652 members
   of all classes (officials, nobles, burghers and peasants) and of
   various nationalities. The Commission had to consider the needs of the
   Russian Empire and the means of satisfying them. The Empress herself
   prepared the Instructions for the Guidance of the Assembly, pillaging
   (as she frankly admitted) the philosophers of the West, especially
   Montesquieu and Cesare Beccaria. As many of the democratic principles
   frightened her more moderate and experienced advisers, she wisely
   refrained from immediately putting them into execution. After holding
   more than 200 sittings the so-called Commission dissolved without
   getting beyond the realm of theory.
   Portrait of Catherine in an advanced age, with the Chesme Column in the
   background.
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   Portrait of Catherine in an advanced age, with the Chesme Column in the
   background.

   Catherine's patronage furthered the evolution of the arts in Russia
   more than that of any Russian sovereign before or after her. Under her
   reign, Russians imported and studied the classical and European
   influences which inspired the "Age of Imitation". Gavrila Derzhavin,
   Denis Fonvizin and Ippolit Bogdanovich laid the groundwork for the
   great writers of the nineteenth century, especially for Pushkin.
   Catherine became a great patron of Russian opera (see Catherine II and
   opera for details). However, her reign also featured omnipresent
   censorship and state control of publications. When Radishchev published
   his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1790, warning of uprisings
   because of the deplorable social conditions of the peasants held as
   serfs, Catherine exiled him to Siberia.

Personal life

   Catherine, throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating
   them to high positions for as long as they held her interest, and then
   pensioning them off with large estates and gifts of serfs. After her
   affair with Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, he selected a candidate who
   had both the physical beauty as well as the mental faculties to hold
   Catherine's interest (e.g., Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov). Some of these
   men loved her in return: she had a reputation as a beauty by the
   standards of the day, and always showed generosity towards her lovers,
   even after the end of an affair. The last of her lovers, Prince Zubov,
   40 years her junior, proved the most capricious and extravagant of them
   all.

   Catherine behaved harshly to her son Paul. In her memoirs, Catherine
   indicated that her first lover, Sergei Saltykov, had fathered Paul; but
   Paul physically resembled her husband, Peter. (Her illegitimate son by
   Grigori Orlov, Alexis Bobrinskoy {later created Count Bobrinskoy by
   Paul}, she sequestered from the court.) It seems highly probable that
   she intended to exclude Paul from the succession, and to leave the
   crown to her eldest grandson Alexander, afterwards the emperor
   Alexander I. Her harshness to Paul stemmed probably as much from
   political distrust as from what she saw of his character. Whatever
   Catherine's other activities, she emphatically functioned as a
   sovereign and as a politician, guided in the last resort by interests
   of state. Keeping Paul in a state of semi-captivity in Gatchina and
   Pavlovsk, she resolved not to allow her son to dispute or to share in
   her authority.
   Mikhail Mikeshin's monument to Catherine in Saint Petersburg.
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   Mikhail Mikeshin's monument to Catherine in Saint Petersburg.

   Catherine suffered a stroke while taking a bath on November 5, 1796,
   and subsequently died at 10:15 the following evening without having
   regained consciousness. She was buried at the Peter and Paul Cathedral
   in Saint Petersburg. Palace intrigue generated several myths about the
   circumstances of her death that put her in rather unfavorable light.
   Because of their sexual nature, they survived the test of time and
   remain widely known even today.

Trivia

     * The Russian slang word for money babki (old women), refers to the
       picture of Catherine II printed on pre-Revolution 100-ruble bills .
     * German chancellor Angela Merkel has a picture of Catherine II in
       her office, and characterises her as a "strong woman".
     * One of Serbia's most famed rock/New Wave bands " Ekatarina Velika"
       (Catherine the Great) (1982–1994) took its name from Catherine II
       of Russia.
     * Catherine commissioned the famous " Bronze Horseman" statue, which
       stands in Saint Petersburg on the banks of the Neva, and had the
       boulder upon which it stands imported from several leagues away.
       She had it inscribed with the Latin phrase "Petro Primo Catharina
       Secunda MDCCLXXXII", meaning "Catherine the Second to Peter the
       First, 1782", in order to lend herself legitimacy by connecting
       herself with the "Founder of Modern Russia". This statue later
       inspired Pushkin's famous poem.

List of great Catherinians

   Ivan Betskoy | Alexander Bezborodko | Yakov Bulgakov | Gavrila
   Derzhavin | Dmitry Levitsky | Aleksey Orlov | Nikita Panin | Grigory
   Potemkin | Nicholas Repnin | Peter Rumyantsev | Mikhailo Shcherbatov |
   Alexander Suvorov | Fyodor Ushakov | Catherine Vorontsova

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