[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. [83][84], Catherine also received Elisabeth Vige Le Brun at her Tsarskoye Selo residence in St Petersburg, by whom she was painted shortly before her death. [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. The cause of death was confirmed by autopsy. As Robert K. Massie writes in Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, [F]rom the beginning of her husbands reign, her position was one of isolation and humiliation. Rumours of Catherine's private life had a small basis in the fact that she took many young lovers, even in old age. At first, she attempted to revise clerical studies, proposing a reform of religious schools. The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother, Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Catherine was eventually able to put down the uprising, but the carnage exacted on both sides was substantial. Whilst this one is also just an absurd rumour, it lies ever so slightly nearer the truth. Although Catherine did not descend from the Romanov dynasty, her ancestors included members of the Rurik dynasty, which preceded the Romanovs. In addition to the advisory commission, Catherine established a Commission of National Schools under Pyotr Zavadovsky. With Peter out of the picture, Catherine was able to consolidate power from a position of strength. They often became trusted advisors who she then promoted into positions of authority. Historians consider her efforts to be a success. | READ MORE. While she had collapsed in the bathroom, she had spent many hours in her bed, with her servants taking care of her. [104] Between 1762 and 1773, Muslims were prohibited from owning any Orthodox serfs. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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]. [71] She ordered the planting of the first "English garden" at Tsarskoye Selo in May 1770. In private, says Jaques, she balanced a constant craving for affection with a ruthless determination to paint Russia as a truly European country. Vaizemski's Office of State Revenue took centralised control and by 1781, the government possessed its first approximation of a state budget. After holding more than 200 sittings, the so-called Commission dissolved without getting beyond the realm of theory. They indeed helped modernise the sector that totally dominated the Russian economy. [77] In the first category, she read romances and comedies that were popular at the time, many of which were regarded as "inconsequential" by the critics both then and since. [74][75], Catherine enlisted Voltaire to her cause, and corresponded with him for 15 years, from her accession to his death in 1778. Catherine the Great (May 2, 1729-Nov. 17, 1796) was empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, the longest reign of any female Russian leader. In 1768, she formally became the protector of political rights of dissidents and peasants of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the Confederation of Bar (17681772), supported by France. Catherines contributions to Russias cultural landscape were far more successful than her failed socioeconomic reforms. Days earlier, she had found out about an uprising in the Volga region. There was every chance he was going to be assassinated. Her dynasty lost power because of this and of a war with Austria and Germany, impossible without her foreign policy.[48]. Catherine's main interests were in education and culture. [52], Catherine made public health a priority. When Sophie arrived in Russia in 1744, she spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with Empress Elizabeth but with her husband and with the Russian people as well. Dr. Brown argued, in a democratic country, education ought to be under the state's control and based on an education code. The rumours tell us more about the time in which Catherine lived than they do about the cause of her death. Only in this way apart from conscription to the army could a serf leave the farm for which he was responsible but this was used for selling serfs to people who could not own them legally because of absence of nobility abroad. That same morning, two of the Orlov brothers arrested Peter and forced him to sign a statement of abdication. She read widely and corresponded with many of the prominent thinkers of the era, including Voltaire and Diderot. K. D. Bugrov, "Nikita Panin and Catherine II: Conceptual aspect of political relations". 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. In the south the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Bar Confederation and Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. I think the title card reads an occasionally true story, McNamara tells the Sydney Morning Heralds Michael Idato. Three of her sons were kings of France . [64] However, they were already suspicious of Catherine upon her accession because she had annulled an act by Peter III that essentially freed the serfs belonging to the Orthodox Church. In the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), Russia agreed to protect Georgia against any new invasion and further political aspirations of their Persian suzerains. [73], She made a special effort to bring leading intellectuals and scientists to Russia, and she wrote her own comedies, works of fiction, and memoirs. McNamara tells the Sydney Morning Herald that this apocryphal anecdote helped inspire The Great., It seemed like her life had been reduced to a salacious headline about having sex with a horse, the writer says. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting; in a single day, she had four phlebotomies. Apart from providing that experience, the marriage was unsuccessfulit was not consummated for years due to Peter III's mental immaturity. "[6] Although Sophie was born a princess, her family had very little money. Historical accounts portray Joanna as a cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. The nobles were imposing a stricter rule than ever, reducing the land of each serf and restricting their freedoms further beginning around 1767. )This practice was not unusual by the court standards of the day . [98] One system that particularly stood out was produced by a mathematician, Franz Aepinus. 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. They introduced numerous innovations regarding wheat production and flour milling, tobacco culture, sheep raising, and small-scale manufacturing. On 5 August 1786, the Russian Statute of National Education was created. Several years into her reign, Catherine embarked on an ambitious legal endeavor inspired byand partially plagiarized fromthe writings of leading thinkers. [56] The understanding of law in Imperial Russia by all sections of society was often weak, confused, or nonexistent, particularly in the provinces where most serfs lived. Catherine I died two years after Peter I, on 17 May 1727 at age 43, in St. Petersburg, where she was buried at St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress. 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. Over this tunic she wore a red velvet dolman with very short sleeves. She is one of historys greatest female rulers who modernised her adopted homeland, expanded its borders and transformed it into a global superpower. 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. She provided support to a Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation. I am no connoisseur, but I am a great art lover. 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. On 16 November 1796, Catherine woke up and followed her usual routine. [123]:119 Catherine bought the support of the bureaucracy. Legend has it Catherine was intimately involved with one of her prized stallions, with who she often spent a great deal of unsupervised time with. In 1775, the empress decreed a Statute for the Administration of the Provinces of the Russian Empire. Society stated that her role should just have been to provide Peter III with a male heir, instead she overthrew her clueless husband and claimed the throne for herself. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. She came to power following the overthrow of her husband, Peter III. Her face was left uncovered, and her fair hand rested on the bed. [31], Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. It was charged with admitting destitute and extramarital children to educate them in any way the state deemed fit. 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.. Grigory Potemkin was involved in the palace coup of 1762. In reality, Catherine the Great died of a stroke and she was discovered collapsed on the floor in her washroom. In 1757, Poniatowski served in the British Army during the Seven Years' War, thus severing close relationships with Catherine. [124], After her affair with her lover and adviser Grigory Potemkin ended in 1776, he allegedly selected a candidate-lover for her who had the physical beauty and mental faculties to hold her interest (such as Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov and Nicholas Alexander Suk). However, if the empress' policies were too extreme or too disliked, she was not considered the true empress. 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. Catherine was worried that Potemkin's poor health would delay his important work in colonising and developing the south as he had planned. [106], Russia often treated Judaism as a separate entity, where Jews were maintained with a separate legal and bureaucratic system. Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. Later uprisings in Poland led to the third partition in 1795. The death of Catherine shocks him, and as the intentions of Heathcliff never mean to hurt that much her to cause her dead. Ruth P. Dawson, "Perilous News and Hasty Biography: Representations of Catherine II Immediately after her Seizure of the Throne." 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. [77] She especially liked the work of German comic writers such as Moritz August von Thmmel and Christoph Friedrich Nicolai. However, the Moscow Foundling Home was unsuccessful, mainly due to extremely high mortality rates, which prevented many of the children from living long enough to develop into the enlightened subjects the state desired. 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. On the morning of 5 November 1796 . A description of the empress's funeral is written in Madame Vige Le Brun's memoirs. The Ottomans restarted hostilities in the Russo-Turkish War of 17871792. After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the PolishRussian War of 1792 and in the Kociuszko Uprising (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795). Catherine the Great died in 1796 at the age of 67 and was buried at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. Catherine died quietly in her bed on Nov. 17, 1796, at the age of 67 after suffering a stroke. By 1782, Catherine arranged another advisory commission to review the information she had gathered on the educational systems of many different countries. Russia inflicted some of the heaviest defeats ever suffered by the Ottoman Empire, including the Battle of Chesma (57 July 1770) and the Battle of Kagul (21 July 1770). But in a purely humanitarian light, Catherines expansionist drive came at a great cost to the conquered nations and the czarinas own country alike. However, because her second cousin Peter III converted to Orthodox Christianity, her mother's brother became the heir to the Swedish throne[4] and two of her first cousins, Gustav III and Charles XIII, later became Kings of Sweden. And there's also no question Catherine despised her husband in life and did not mourn his death. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the empress, changed the face of the country. Her father did not travel to Russia for the wedding. Born in 1729, and known as Catherine the Great because she served as Russia's longest-reigning female ruler, she was empress from 1762 until her death in 1796. 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. That is what the legend said. Catherine the Great was worried that her son, Paul, was not emotionally fit to rule so she planned to replace him with his son, Alexander, as her heir. At the same time, she recognized the damage the killing had inflicted on her legacy: My glory is spoilt, she reportedly said. She expanded Russia's borders to the Black Sea and into central Europe during her reign. [12] She disparaged her husband for his devotion to reading on the one hand "Lutheran prayer-books, the other the history of and trial of some highway robbers who had been hanged or broken on the wheel". He was strongly in favour of the adoption of the Austrian three-tier model of trivial, real, and normal schools at the village, town, and provincial capital levels. 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.. In reality, those in power were beginning to fear the power that Russia was now wielding. 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. The emperor's eccentricities and policies, including a great admiration for the Prussian king Frederick II, alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated. Closer to home, her success, coupled with how she came to power, led to jealously and fear among her male objectors in the Russian court. Jaques cites a Vigilius Ericksen portrait of the empress as emblematic of Catherines many contradictions. [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. While a significant improvement, it was only a minuscule number, compared to the size of the Russian population. Yelizaveta Alekseyevna Tarakanova (17531775) was another potential rival. 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. It was also well documented that Catherine was sexually independent and took many male lovers during her reign, some of them a great deal younger than her. Peter, however, supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among the nobility. All Rights Reserved. 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. [117] In later years, Catherine amended her thoughts. Tuberculosis, diagnosed as an abscess of the lungs, caused her early demise. [70] In a letter to Voltaire in 1772, she wrote: "Right now I adore English gardens, curves, gentle slopes, ponds in the form of lakes, archipelagos on dry land, and I have a profound scorn for straight lines, symmetric avenues. 2, part 2, Chapter 3, V]. 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. I have never been so happy. Such all-consuming passion proved unsustainablebut while the pairs romantic partnership faded after just two years, they remained on such good terms that Potemkin continued to wield enormous political influence, acting as tsar in all but name, one observer noted. The empress was a great lover of art and books, and ordered the construction of the Hermitage in 1770 to house her expanding collection of paintings, sculpture, and books. Assignation roubles circulated on equal footing with the silver rouble; a market exchange rate for these two currencies was ongoing. This commission promised to protect their religious rights, but did not do so. 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. Throughout the season, war has been brewing between the two empires, and so far things. Her death led people to create a lot of rumors. The global trade of Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. When the frail Grand Duchess died on 8 March 1759, she was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery with Catherine and Elizabeth present. In the first partition, 1772, the three powers split 52,000km2 (20,000sqmi) among them. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation[130] until its post-WWI reconstitution. Historian Franois Cruzet writes that Russia under Catherine: had neither a free peasantry, nor a significant middle class, nor legal norms hospitable to private enterprise. 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. A. Viazemski. 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.. She believed in the . Awaking from her delirium, however, Sophie said, "I don't want any Lutheran; I want my Orthodox father [clergyman]". In the east Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America. Potemkin quickly gained positions and awards. [99] The statute established a two-tier network of high schools and primary schools in guberniya capitals that were free of charge, open to all of the free classes (not serfs), and co-educational. Catherine was stretched on a ceremonial bed surrounded by the coats of arms of all the towns in Russia. The statute sought to efficiently govern Russia by increasing population and dividing the country into provinces and districts. Despite his objections, on 28 June 1744, the Russian Orthodox Church received Princess Sophie as a member with the new name Catherine (Yekaterina or Ekaterina) and the (artificial) patronymic (Alekseyevna, daughter of Aleksey), so that she was in all respects the namesake of Catherine I, the mother of Elizabeth and the grandmother of Peter III. [134] An autopsy confirmed a stroke as the cause of death. Catherine was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 22 September 1762. 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. [133] Sometime after 9:00 she was found on the floor with her face purplish, her pulse weak, her breathing shallow and laboured. 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. This was another attempt to organise and passively control the outer fringes of her country. 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. Privacy Statement She had the government collect and publish vital statistics. Russia's State Council in 1770 announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. Further compounding these unpopular decisions were his attempted repudiation of his wife in favor of his mistress and his seizure of church lands under the guise of secularization. He received a palace in Saint Petersburg when Catherine became empress. She also promoted westernization and modernization for her country, though it was within the context of maintaining . She died of natural causes, of a stroke, when she was 67 years old. However, military conscription and the economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. Several bank branches were afterwards established in other towns, called government towns. 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. The cause of death is unclear, though the official autopsy report indicates that he died of hemorrhoids and an apoplectic stroke. And yet it was important to me that there were tent poles of things that were true, [like] her being a kid who didn't speak the language, marrying the wrong man and responding to that by deciding to change the country.. Catherine's eldest sonand heirmay have been illegitimate. [51], In 1768, the Assignation Bank was given the task of issuing the first government paper money. Grigory Orlov, the grandson of a rebel in the Streltsy Uprising (1698) against Peter the Great, distinguished himself in the Battle of Zorndorf (25 August 1758), receiving three wounds. In addition to collecting art, Catherine commissioned an array of new cultural projects, including an imposing bronze monument to Peter the Great, Russias first state library, exact replicas of Raphaels Vatican City loggias and palatial neoclassical buildings constructed across St. Petersburg. United by a shared appreciation of learning and larger-than-life theatrics, they were human furnaces who demanded an endless supply of praise, love and attention in private, and glory and power in public, according to Montefiore. Because the Moscow Foundling Home was not established as a state-funded institution, it represented an opportunity to experiment with new educational theories. Her enemies, however, saw things differently.

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