Peter provided her with a western-style court and in 1714 introduced the Order of St. Catherine for distinguished women and made her the first recipient, in recognition of her courage at the Battle of Pruth in 1711. In May 1724, in a lavish ceremony in the Moscow Kremlin, he crowned her as his consort. In November, however, relations were soured by the arrest and execution of Catherine’s chamberlain Willem Mons on charges of corruption, who was also reputed to be her lover. Despite issuing a new Law on Succession (1722), Peter died in 1725 without naming a successor. It suited many leading men to assume that Catherine would have been his choice. Her supporters argued that not only would she rule in Peter’s spirit, but she had actually been “created” by him. She was the all-loving Mother, caring for orphaned Russia. Such rhetoric won the support of the guards.
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Catherine’s was a remarkable success story. Not only did she manage, with Peter’s help, to invent a new identity as empress-consort, but her short reign also illustrates how the autocracy could continue to operate successfully under an undistinguished female ruler. Her gender proved to be an advantage, for the last thing the men close to the throne wanted was another Peter. The new six-man Supreme Privy Council under Menshikov dismantled some of Peter’s unsuccessful experiments in provincial government, downsized the army and navy, and reduced the poll tax. In 1726 an alliance with Austria formed the cornerstone of Russian diplomacy for decades to come. Peter’s plans for an Academy of Sciences were implemented, and western culture remained central for the elite.
Catherine bore Peter probably ten children in all, but only two survived into adulthood, Anna (1708-1729) and Elizabeth (1709-1762). Catherine would have preferred to nominate one of them as her successor, but Menshikov persuaded her to name Peter’s grandson, who succeeded her as Peter II in May 1727. See also: MENSHIKOV, ALEXANDER DANILOVICH; PETER I; PETER II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, John. (2000). “Catherine I, Her Court and Courtiers.” In Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives, ed. Lindsey Hughes. Basingstoke, UK: Pal-grave. Hughes, Lindsey. (1998). Russia in the Age of Peter the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
(1729-1796) Yekaterina Alexeyevna or “Catherine the Great,” Empress of Russia from 1762-1796.
Recognized worldwide as a historical figure, Catherine the Great earned legendary status for three centuries. Her political ambition prompted the overthrow and subsequent murder of her husband, Emperor Peter III (1728- 1762). Whatever her actual complicity, his death branded her an accessory after the fact. Thus she labored to build legitimacy as autocratrix (independent ruler) of the expansive Russian Empire. When her reign proved long, extravagant praise of her character and impact overshadowed accusation. An outsider adept at charming Russian society, she projects a powerful presence in history. Most associate her with all significant events and trends in Russia’s expanding world role. Though she always rejected the appellation “the Great,” it endured.
Catherine fostered positive concepts of her life by composing multiple autobiographical portrayals over five decades. None of the different drafts treated her reign directly, but all implicitly justified her fitness to rule. Various versions have been translated and often reissued to reach audiences worldwide. Ironically, the first published version was issued in 1859 by Russian radicals in London to embarrass the Romanov dynasty. Trilingual in German, French, and Russian, Catherine spelled badly but read, wrote, spoke, and dictated easily and voluminously. Keen intelligence, prodigious memory, broad knowledge, and wit enlivened her conversational skill.
Born on April 21, 1729, in Stettin, Prussia, of Germanic parentage, the first daughter of Prince Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst (1690-1747) and Princess Johanna Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp (1712-1760), Sophia Augusta Fredericka combined precocious physical, social, and intellectual traits with great energy and inquisitiveness. A home education through governesses and tutors enabled her by age ten to read voraciously and to converse incessantly with relatives and acquaintances at home and at other German courts that her assertive mother visited. At the court of Holstein-Gottorp in 1739 she met a second cousin, Prince Karl Peter Ul-rich, the orphaned grandson of Peter the Great who was brought to Russia in 1742 by his childless aunt, Empress Elizabeth; renamed Peter Fedorovich; and proclaimed heir apparent. Backed by Frederick the Great of Prussia, Sophia followed Peter to Russia in 1744, where she was converted to Orthodoxy and renamed Catherine. Their marriage in 1745 granted her access to the Russian throne. She was to supply a male heir-a daunting task in view of Peter’s unstable personality, weak health, probable sterility, and impotence. When five years brought no pregnancy, Catherine was advised to beget an heir with a married Russian courtier, Sergei Saltykov (1726-1785). After two miscarriages she gave birth to Paul Petrovich on October 1, 1754. Presumably fathered by Saltykov, the baby was raised by Empress Elizabeth. Thenceforth Catherine enjoyed greater freedom to engage in court politics and romantic intrigue. In 1757 she bore a daughter by Polish aristocrat Stanislaus
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Empress Catherine II in Russian costume. THE ART
Poniatowski that only lived sixteen months. During her husband’s short-lived reign in 1762 she gave birth to another son, Alexei Bobrinskoy, by Russian aristocrat Grigory Orlov.
Catherine quickly absorbed Russian culture. She mastered the language, customs, and history of the empire. An instinctive politician, she cultivated friendships among the court elite and select foreigners such as Sir Charles Hanbury Williams (who lent her money and political advice). Her certainty that factional alignments would change abruptly upon Elizabeth’s death (as foretold by the exile of Chancellor Alexei Bestuzhev-Ryumin in 1758, the banishment abroad of Stanislaus Ponia-towski, and her husband’s hostility) fueled her motivation to form new alliances. When Elizabeth died suddenly on January 5, 1762, Catherine was pregnant by Orlov. Their partisans were unprepared to contest the throne with the new emperor, Peter III, who undermined his own authority, alienating the Guards regiments, the Orthodox Church, and Russian patriots, through inept policies such as his withdrawal from war against Prussia and declaration of war on Denmark. Peter rarely saw Catherine or Paul, whose succession rights as wife and son were jeopardized as Peter delayed his coronation and flaunted his mistress, Yelizaveta Vorontsova, older sister of Catherine’s young married friend, Princess Yekaterina Dashkova.
Peter III was deposed on July 9, 1762, when Catherine “fled” from suburban Peterhof to St. Petersburg to be proclaimed empress by the Guards and the Senate. While under house arrest at Rop-sha, he was later strangled to death by noblemen conspiring to ensure Catherine’s sovereign power. This “revolution” was justified as a defense of Russian civil and ecclesiastical institutions, prevention of war, and redemption of national honor. Catherine never admitted complicity in the death of Peter III which was officially blamed on “hemorrhoidal colic” a cover-up ridiculed abroad by British writer Horace Walpole. Walpole scorned “this Fury of the North,” predicting Paul’s assassination, and referring to Catherine as “Simiramis, murderess-queen of ancient times”-charges that incited other scurrilous attacks.
Catherine quickly consolidated the new regime by rewarding partisans, recalling Bestuzhev-Ryumin and other friends from exile, and ordering coronation preparations in Moscow, where she was crowned on October 3, 1762 amid ceremonies that lasted months. Determined to rule by herself, Catherine declined to name a chancellor, refused to marry Grigory Orlov, and ignored Paul’s rights as he was underage. Her style of governance was cautiously consultative, pragmatic, and “hands-on,” with a Germanic sense of duty and strong aversion to wasting time. Aware of the fragility of her allegedly absolute authority, she avoided acting like a despot. She perused the whole spectrum of state policies, reviewed policies of immigration and reorganization of church estates, established a new central administration of public health, and set up a new commission to rebuild St. Petersburg and Moscow. Count Nikita Panin, a former diplomat and Paul’s “governor,” assumed the supervision of foreign affairs, and in 1764 Prince Alexander Vya-zemsky became procurator-general of the Senate, with broad jurisdiction over domestic affairs, particularly finances and the secret political police.
Catherine’s reign may be variously subdivided, depending on the sphere of activity considered. One simplistic scheme breaks it into halves: reform before 1775, and reaction afterward. But this overlooks continuities spanning the entire era and igCATHERINE II nores the varying periodizations for foreign affairs, education, and culture. Another approach conceives of her reign as a series of crises. A ruler of wide interests, she dealt simultaneously
