Catherine the Great is a monarch mired in misconception. By the winter of 1773, the Pugachev revolt had started to threaten. Historians have argued that the horse myth represents how her enemies wished to paint her rule and her ascension to the throne as unnatural. Privacy Statement The pair met on the day of Catherines 1762 coup but only became lovers in 1774. When Catherine agreed to the First Partition of Poland, the large new Jewish element was treated as a separate people, defined by their religion. [43] In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta, which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. 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. She thus spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. In his 1647 book Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise (Description of the Muscovite and Persian journey), German scholar Adam Olearius[136] Olearius's claims about a supposed Russian tendency towards bestiality with horses was often repeated in anti-Russian literature throughout the 17th and 18th centuries to illustrate the alleged barbarous "Asian" nature of Russia. [74][75], Catherine enlisted Voltaire to her cause, and corresponded with him for 15 years, from her accession to his death in 1778. Much like how his previous film, The Favourite, reimagined the life of Britains Queen Anne as a bawdy period comedy, The Great revels in the absurd, veering from the historical record to gleefully present a royal drama tailor-made for modern audiences. After her death, her enemies spread gossip about her that has endured for . On the following day, the formal betrothal of Catherine and Peter took place and the long-planned dynastic marriage finally occurred on 21 August 1745 in Saint Petersburg. when Catherine angrily dismissed his accusation. [32], Peter the Great had succeeded in gaining a toehold in the south, on the edge of the Black Sea, in the Azov campaigns. 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. Poniatowski accepted the throne, and thereby put himself under Catherine's control. Peace ensued for 20 years in spite of the assassination of Gustav III in 1792. [77] She especially liked the work of German comic writers such as Moritz August von Thmmel and Christoph Friedrich Nicolai. The Manifesto of 1763 begins with Catherine's title: We, Catherine the second, by the Grace of God, Empress and Autocrat of all the Russians at Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsarina of Kasan, Tsarina of Astrachan, Tsarina of Siberia, Lady of Pleskow and Grand Duchess of Smolensko, Duchess of Estonia and Livland, Carelial, Tver, Yugoria, Permia, Viatka and Bulgaria and others; Lady and Grand Duchess of Novgorod in the Netherland of Chernigov, Resan, Rostov, Yaroslav, Beloosrial, Udoria, Obdoria, Condinia, and Ruler of the entire North region and Lady of the Yurish, of the Cartalinian and Grusinian tsars and the Cabardinian land, of the Cherkessian and Gorsian princes and the lady of the manor and sovereign of many others. The bonnet which held her white hair was not decorated with ribbons, but with the most beautiful diamonds. Derided both in her day and in modern times as a hypocritical warmonger with an unnatural sexual appetite, Catherine was a woman of contradictions whose brazen exploits have long overshadowed the accomplishments that won her the Great moniker in the first place. [62] This happened more often during Catherine's reign because of the new schools she established. One evening, while attempting to have sexual intercourse with the stallion, the harness holding the horse broke, sending the beast crashing down on top of her. [33][34], The Russian victories procured access to the Black Sea and allowed Catherine's government to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa, Nikolayev, Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine"), and Kherson. [109][110], In an attempt to assimilate the Jews into Russia's economy, Catherine included them under the rights and laws of the Charter of the Towns of 1782. In private, says Jaques, she balanced a constant craving for affection with a ruthless determination to paint Russia as a truly European country. Cookie Policy Throughout Russia, the inspectors encountered a patchy response. This war was another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimised the Russian claim to the Crimea and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. She had her husband arrested, and forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. In these cases, it was necessary to replace this "fake" empress with the "true" empress, whoever she may be. 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 in 1765. The positions on the Assembly were appointed and paid for by Catherine and her government as a way of regulating religious affairs. Many Orthodox peasants felt threatened by the sudden change, and burned mosques as a sign of their displeasure. By 1759, he and Catherine had become lovers; no one told Catherine's husband, the Grand Duke Peter. In 1777, the empress described to Voltaire her legal innovations within a backward Russia as progressing "little by little". ; 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. [50] She had more success when she strongly encouraged the migration of the Volga Germans, farmers from Germany who settled mostly in the Volga River Valley region. From there, they governed the duchy (which occupied less than a third of the current German state of Schleswig-Holstein, even including that part of Schleswig occupied by Denmark) to obtain experience to govern Russia. [49], Catherine imposed a comprehensive system of state regulation of merchants' activities. She placed strictures on Catholics (ukaz of 23 February 1769), mainly Polish, and attempted to assert and extend state control over them in the wake of the partitions of Poland. | READ MORE. The rebellion ultimately failed and in fact backfired as Catherine was pushed away from the idea of serf liberation following the violent uprising. 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. In addition to the advisory commission, Catherine established a Commission of National Schools under Pyotr Zavadovsky. [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 am very fond of the arts, especially painting. By cleverly surrounding herself with those allied to her cause she strengthened her hold on the throne. I am no connoisseur, but I am a great art lover. In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea, which helped provoke the next Russo-Turkish War.[35]. Catherine became a great patron of Russian opera. In 1757, Poniatowski served in the British Army during the Seven Years' War, thus severing close relationships with Catherine. Add some worm castings if you choose. She consulted British education pioneers, particularly the Rev. Although she could see the benefits of Britain's friendship, she was wary of Britain's increased power following its complete victory in the Seven Years' War, which threatened the European balance of power. The double doors opened and the Empress appeared. Decent Essays. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. Her coffee was brought in, she drank it and sat down to write. The Tokugawa shogunate received the mission, but negotiations failed. By building new settlements with mosques placed in them, Catherine attempted to ground many of the nomadic people who wandered through southern Russia. [121][122] The percentage of state money spent on the court increased from 10% in 1767 to 11% in 1781 to 14% in 1795. His mother was the daughter of Russia's Peter the Great, and his father the nephew of Sweden's Charles XII. [94] The girls who attended the Smolny Institute, Smolyanki, were often accused of being ignorant of anything that went on in the world outside the walls of the Smolny buildings, within which they acquired a proficiency in French, music, and dancing, along with a complete awe of the monarch. Catherine had been targeted for being unmarried.[137]. On a personal level, Pugachevs success challenged many of Catherines Enlightenment beliefs, leaving her with memories that haunted her for the rest of her life, according to Massie. Does Catherine Sedgwick's Use Of The Rhetorical Appeals In Dog. Catherine was eventually able to put down the uprising, but the carnage exacted on both sides was substantial. [126] The last of her lovers, Platon Zubov, was 40 years her junior. Biography 27 (2004), 51734. 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. Catherine the Great. Larry Frederick died: It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Larry Frederick on Thursday, March 2, 2023. [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. [123]:119 Catherine bought the support of the bureaucracy. The crown contains 75 pearls and 4,936 Indian diamonds forming laurel and oak leaves, the symbols of power and strength, and is surmounted by a 398.62-carat ruby spinel that previously belonged to the Empress Elizabeth, and a diamond cross. 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. All of this meant that the target on Catherines back was even greater. Perhaps most impressively, the empressborn a virtually penniless Prussian princesswielded power for three decades despite the fact that she had no claim to the crown whatsoever. By November, they were stationed at the confluence of the Araks and Kura Rivers, poised to attack mainland Iran. She refused the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp which had ports on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and refrained from having a Russian army in Germany. For example, she took action to limit the number of new serfs; she eliminated many ways for people to become serfs, culminating in the manifesto of 17 March 1775, which prohibited a serf who had once been freed from becoming a serf again.[61]. [72], Catherine shared in the general European craze for all things Chinese, and made a point of collecting Chinese art and buying porcelain in the popular Chinoiserie style. Peter also intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig (see Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff). Personal life narratives. Sophie recalled in her memoirs that as soon as she arrived in Russia, she fell ill with a pleuritis that almost killed her. The endowments were often much less than the original intended amount. Today, the author adds, Wed call her a micromanager.. The objective was to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria, and to overthrow the chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a known partisan of the Austrian alliance on whom Russian Empress Elizabeth relied. The rumours tell us more about the time in which Catherine lived than they do about the cause of her death. 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. ", Madame Vige Le Brun also describes the empress at a gala:[85]. Letters exchanged by the couple testify to the ardent nature of their relationship: In one missive, Catherine declared, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, you are so handsome, clever, jovial and funny; when I am with you I attach no importance to the world. When she wrote her memoirs, she said she made the decision then to do whatever was necessary and to profess to believe whatever was required of her to become qualified to wear the crown. Far away from the capital, they were confused as to the circumstances of her accession to the throne.[66]. If all went as planned, according to Massie, the proposed legal code would raise the levels of government administration, of justice, and of tolerance within her empire. But these changes failed to materialize, and Catherines suggestions remained just that. Sergei Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and relations with Saltykov were platonic. [60] The only thing a noble could not do to his serfs was to kill them. . One of her lovers, Pyotr Zavadovsky, received 50,000 roubles, a pension of 5,000 roubles, and 4,000 peasants in Ukraine after she dismissed him in 1777. She was given the last rites and died the following evening around 9:45. Teplov, T. von Klingstedt, F.G. Dilthey, and the historian G. Muller. The emergence of these assignation roubles was necessary due to large government spending on military needs, which led to a shortage of silver in the treasury (transactions, especially in foreign trade, were conducted almost exclusively in silver and gold coins). [59] Some serfs did apply for freedom and were successful. She recovered well enough to begin to plan a ceremony which would establish her favourite grandson Alexander as her heir, superseding her difficult son Paul, but she died before the announcement could be made, just over two months after the engagement ball. Catherine and Peter were ill-matched, and their marriage was notoriously unhappy. They refused to comply, and in 1764, she deported over 20,000 Old Believers to Siberia on the grounds of their faith. Water the fertilizer well, then replace the mulch. [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. [102], However, in accord with her anti-Ottoman policy, Catherine promoted the protection and fostering of Christians under Turkish rule. How can history remember her for anything else if she died whilst trying to have sexual intercourse with a horse? We will remember him forever. No. [9], Sophie first met her future husband, who would become Peter III of Russia, at the age of 10. [133] The court physician diagnosed a stroke[133][134] and despite attempts to revive her, she fell into a coma. Catherines contributions to Russias cultural landscape were far more successful than her failed socioeconomic reforms. The future Peter III was born Karl Peter Ulrich in 1728, in Kiel, Germany. Also, the townspeople tended to turn against the junior schools and their pedagogical[clarification needed] methods. This rumor was widely circulated by satirical British and French publications at the time of her death. While the measure appeared to be progressive on paper, the reality of the situation remained stark for most peasants, and in 1881, revolutionaries assassinated the increasingly reactionary czara clear example of what Hartley deems autocracy tempered by assassination, or the idea that a ruler had almost unlimited powers but was always vulnerable to being dethroned if he or she alienated the elites., After Pugachevs uprising, Catherine shifted focus to what Massie describes as more readily achievable aims: namely, the expansion of her empire and the enrichment of its culture..