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Catherine the Great, Russian Yekaterina Velikaya, also called Catherine II, Russian in full Yekaterina Alekseyevna, original name Sophie Friederike Auguste, Prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst, (born April 21 [May 2, New Style], 1729, Stettin, Prussia [now Szczecin, Poland]died November 6 [November 17], 1796, Tsarskoye Selo [now Pushkin], near St. Petersburg, Russia), German-born empress of Russia . [73] In 1779, she hired the Scottish architect Charles Cameron to build the Chinese Village at Tsarskoye Selo (modern Pushkin, Saint Petersburg). The serfs probably followed someone who was pretending to be the true empress because of their feelings of disconnection to Catherine and her policies empowering the nobles, but this was not the first time they followed a pretender under Catherine's reign. [77] She especially liked the work of German comic writers such as Moritz August von Thmmel and Christoph Friedrich Nicolai. From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought a war against Sweden, a conflict instigated by Catherine's cousin, King Gustav III of Sweden, who expected to overrun the Russian armies still engaged in war against the Ottoman Turks, and hoped to strike Saint Petersburg directly. (Lord Byron's Don Juan, around the age of twenty-two, becomes her lover after the siege of Ismail (1790), in a fiction written only about twenty-five years after Catherine's death in 1796. [40], In 1764, Catherine placed Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, her former lover, on the Polish throne. [133] Sometime after 9:00 she was found on the floor with her face purplish, her pulse weak, her breathing shallow and laboured. Catherine led a successful bloodless coup and put herself on the throne in his stead. Womens History Month facts: When is Women's History Month? They introduced numerous innovations regarding wheat production and flour milling, tobacco culture, sheep raising, and small-scale manufacturing. [9], Sophie first met her future husband, who would become Peter III of Russia, at the age of 10. 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. [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]. As journalist Susan Jaques, author of The Empress of Art, explains, the couple couldnt have been more different in terms of their intellect [and] interests.. A portrait of Catherine the Great by Fedor Rokotov, 1763. No. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. Teplov, T. von Klingstedt, F.G. Dilthey, and the historian G. Muller. Catherine's main interests were in education and culture. She tells Heathcliff "You have killed me - and thriven on it, I think."(Bronte 1847, 167). In 1783, storms drove a Japanese sea captain, Daikokuya Kday, ashore in the Aleutian Islands, at that time Russian territory. [114] Endowments from the government replaced income from privately held lands. According to History, sexual deviancy has often been tagged to women either in power or who are seeking to change society, among them Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn,and Catherine the Great, among others.Catherine took the throne following the death of Peter and in lieu of their son, Paul, who was only 8 at the time. Ruler of Russia from 1762 to 1796, Catherine championed Enlightenment ideals, expanded her empires borders, spearheaded judicial and administrative reforms, dabbled in vaccination, curated a vast art collection that formed the foundation of one of the worlds greatest museums, exchanged correspondence with such philosophers as Voltaire and Dennis Diderot, penned operas and childrens fairy tales, founded the countrys first state-funded school for women, drafted her own legal code, and promoted a national system of education. News of Catherine's plan spread, and Frederick II (others say the Ottoman sultan) warned her that if she tried to conquer Poland by marrying Poniatowski, all of Europe would oppose her. That is what the legend said. 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.. 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 this act, she gave the serfs a legitimate bureaucratic status they had lacked before. Bored with her husband, Catherine became an avid reader of books, mostly in French. And if you can't find enough dirt to your satisfaction, make stuff up. [103], Catherine took many different approaches to Islam during her reign. In this month, the empress of Russia died and her successor Paul, who detested that the Zubovs had other plans for the army, ordered the troops to retreat to Russia. At the time of Catherine's reign, the landowning noble class owned the serfs, who were bound to the land they tilled. King Augustus III of Poland died in 1763, so Poland needed to elect a new ruler. The cause of death is unclear, though the official autopsy report indicates that he died of hemorrhoids and an apoplectic stroke. "Catherine II and the Socio-Economic Origins of the Jewish Question in Russia", This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 14:56. She came from a very poor family and did not have a pleasant childhood. Rumour and degrading slander became the weapon by which they would take jabs at her legacy. Converted Jews could gain permission to enter the merchant class and farm as free peasants under Russian rule. Terms of Use 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.. Gustav Adolph felt pressured to accept that Alexandra would not convert to Lutheranism, and though he was delighted by the young lady, he refused to appear at the ball and left for Stockholm. in, Inna Gorbatov, "Voltaire and Russia in the Age of Enlightenment.". In addition to the textbooks translated by the commission, teachers were provided with the "Guide to Teachers". However, usually, if the serfs did not like the policies of the empress, they saw the nobles as corrupt and evil, preventing the people of Russia from communicating with the well-intentioned empress and misinterpreting her decrees. In the second partition, in 1793, Russia received the most land, from west of Minsk almost to Kiev and down the river Dnieper, leaving some spaces of steppe down south in front of Ochakov, on the Black Sea. 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 bridegroom, known as Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, had become Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (located in the north-west of present-day[update] Germany near the border with Denmark) in 1739. The following year, the 16-year-old wed her betrothed, officially becoming Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseyevna. No evidence conclusively linking Catherine to her husbands death exists, but as many historians have pointed out, his demise benefitted her immensely. 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. On 16 November 1796, Catherine woke up and followed her usual routine. Although German soldiers allegedly saw the cabinet during WWII, no visible proof of the furniture exists leading many historians to believe it's just another salacious fabrication. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting; in a single day, she had four phlebotomies. Potemkin also convinced Catherine to expand the universities in Russia to increase the number of scientists. At the same time, she recognized the damage the killing had inflicted on her legacy: My glory is spoilt, she reportedly said. The male-dominated world in which Catherine lived and ruled made her an exception to the norm. Personal life narratives. Throughout Russia, the inspectors encountered a patchy response. By the winter of 1773, the Pugachev revolt had started to threaten. If you feel unhappy, raise yourself above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities.[21]. The next day, she left the palace and departed for the Ismailovsky Regiment, where she delivered a speech asking the soldiers to protect her from her husband. Historians consider her efforts to be a success. [43], In the Far East, Russians became active in fur trapping in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. At first, she attempted to revise clerical studies, proposing a reform of religious schools. She believed in the . [115] She closed 569 of 954 monasteries, of which only 161 received government money. Perhaps the most readily recognizable anecdote related to Catherine centers on a horse. Another theory argues that he died through injuries sustained from . Firstly I was very surprised at her small stature; I had imagined her to be very tall, as great as her fame. Elizabeth therefore allowed Catherine to have sexual lovers only after a new legal heir, Catherine and Peter's son, survived and appeared to be strong.[16]. Although the government knew that Judaism existed, Catherine and her advisers had no real definition of what a Jew is because the term meant many things during her reign. She sent the Russian army into Poland to avoid possible disputes. 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. It's unclear if the murder was ordered by Catherine the Great, or carried out without her consent. The Commonwealth had become the Russian protectorate since the reign of Peter I, but he did not intervene into the problem of political freedoms of dissidents advocating for their religious freedoms only. Catherine's son Paul had started gaining support; both of these trends threatened her power. Writing in The Romanovs, Montefiore characterizes Catherine as an obsessional serial monogamist who adored sharing card games in her cozy apartments and discussing her literary and artistic interests with her beloved. Many sordid tales of her sexuality can, in fact, be attributed to detractors who hoped to weaken her hold on power. Her mother was Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. One urban legend even claimed that Catherine had an erotic cabinet created for one of her palaces. Writing for History Extra, Hartley describes Catherines Russia as an undoubtedly aggressive nation that clashed with the Ottomans, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania and the Crimea in pursuit of additional territory for an already vast empire. in by H. M. Scott, ed., Romanovs. This was another attempt to organise and passively control the outer fringes of her country. 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. Born without a drop of Russian blood inside her veins, the German-born Sophie Friederike Auguste died as Catherine the Great of Russia, whose successful 34-year reign became known as the Golden Age of Russia. [17] She became friends with Princess Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova, the sister of her husband's official mistress. By 1759, he and Catherine had become lovers; no one told Catherine's husband, the Grand Duke Peter. [96] However, Catherine continued to investigate the pedagogical principles and practice of other countries and made many other educational reforms, including an overhaul of the Cadet Corps in 1766. [115], 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 gifts of serfs and large estates. Her rise to power was supported by her mother Joanna's wealthy relatives, who were both nobles and royal relations. The peasants were discontented because of many other factors as well, including crop failure, and epidemics, especially a major epidemic in 1771. Tuberculosis, diagnosed as an abscess of the lungs, caused her early demise. Children of serfs were born into serfdom and worked the same land their parents had. Catherine the Great was Russia's longest-serving female leader. 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. //-->