Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. 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. Catherine promised more serfs of all religions, as well as amnesty for convicts, if Muslims chose to convert to Orthodoxy. Catherine was born in Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, Holy Roman Empire, as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. the official cause of death was given as haemorrhoids and Catherine never . Peter ceased Russian operations against Prussia, and Frederick suggested the partition of Polish territories with Russia. On the night of 8 July (OS: 27 June 1762),[22] Catherine was given the news that one of her co-conspirators had been arrested by her estranged husband and that all they had been planning must take place at once. [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". The endowments were often much less than the original intended amount. Peace ensued for 20 years in spite of the assassination of Gustav III in 1792. [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. Larry was not just a beloved family member, but also a husband, friend, mentor, peer, inventor, advisor, and audio enthusiast. An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. Segments of public opinion turned against Catherine when she took a stand against the . She did not allow dissenters to build chapels, and she suppressed religious dissent after the onset of the French Revolution. At the time, a source said: 'In theory, anyone can apply but all prospective tenants will be subject to security and background checks.' St James's Palace was built by Henry VIII in the 16th century. She called Potemkin for help mostly military and he became devoted to her. [41], Being afraid of the May Constitution of Poland (1791) that might lead to a resurgence in the power of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth and the growing democratic movements inside the Commonwealth might become a threat to the European monarchies, Catherine decided to refrain from her planned intervention into France and to intervene in Poland instead. Non-Russian opinion of Catherine is less favourable. The newlyweds settled in the palace of Oranienbaum, which remained the residence of the "young court" for many years. In the end, it seems the misogynists somewhat got their wish since the rumour still doggedly persists to this day. As Simon Sebag Montefiore notes in The Romanovs: 16181918, Peter, then on holiday in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, was oblivious to his wifes actions. 16987. Russian local authorities helped his party, and the Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. ; in a word, Anglomania is the master of my plantomania". Assessment and legacy [ edit] 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. Russia was to stop any involvement in internal affairs of Sweden. Cookie Policy 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). Malecka, Anna. Her many military campaigns, on the other hand, represent a less palatable aspect of her legacy. The statute sought to efficiently govern Russia by increasing population and dividing the country into provinces and districts. He received a palace in Saint Petersburg when Catherine became empress. 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. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour and Catherine had him replaced with Ivan Osterman (in office 17811797). In the south the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Bar Confederation and Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. 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. She was especially impressed with his argument that people do not act for their professed idealistic reasons, and instead she learned to look for the "hidden and interested motives". The male-dominated world in which Catherine lived and ruled made her an exception to the norm. [108] Jewish members of society were required to pay double the tax of their Orthodox neighbours. [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. [citation needed] Catherine chose to assimilate Islam into the state rather than eliminate it when public outcry became too disruptive. 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. She expanded Russia's borders to the Black Sea and into central Europe during her reign. Perhaps the most readily recognizable anecdote related to Catherine centers on a horse. They often became trusted advisors who she then promoted into positions of authority. This is why some serfs were able to do things such as to accumulate wealth. [113] This re-established the separate identity that Judaism maintained in Russia throughout the Jewish Haskalah. Perhaps the most readily recognizable anecdote related to Catherine centers on a horse. Historians have argued that the horse myth represents how her enemies wished to paint her rule and her ascension to the throne as unnatural. While the deeply entrenched system of Russian serfdomin which peasants were enslaved by and freely traded among feudal lordswas at odds with her philosophical values, Catherine recognized that her main base of support was the nobility, which derived its wealth from feudalism and was therefore unlikely to take kindly to these laborers emancipation. She nationalised all of the church lands to help pay for her wars, largely emptied the monasteries, and forced most of the remaining clergymen to survive as farmers or from fees for baptisms and other services. [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. The most famous of these rumors is that she died after having sex with her horse. Besides her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. 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 started out married to Emperor Peter III, as Time tells us, who was less than competent. Inspired by Byzantine design, the crown was constructed of two half spheres, one gold and one silver, representing the eastern and western Roman empires, divided by a foliate garland and fastened with a low hoop. She tells Heathcliff "You have killed me - and thriven on it, I think."(Bronte 1847, 167). Upon Potemkins death in 1791, Catherine reportedly spent days overwhelmed by tears and despair., In her later years, Catherine became involved with a number of significantly younger loversa fact her critics were quick to latch onto despite the countless male monarchs who did the same without attracting their subjects ire. Several years into her reign, Catherine embarked on an ambitious legal endeavor inspired byand partially plagiarized fromthe writings of leading thinkers. Thirty-four years after assuming the throne, Catherine passed away on November 6, 1796. Catherine held western European philosophies and culture close to her heart, and she wanted to surround herself with like-minded people within Russia. 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. 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. Personal life narratives. [103] Nevertheless, Catherine's Russia provided an asylum and a base for regrouping to the Jesuits following the suppression of the Jesuits in most of Europe in 1773. 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 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. She acquired his collection of books from his heirs, and placed them in the National Library of Russia. [99], Despite these efforts, later historians of the 19th century were generally critical. Three of her sons were kings of France . The couples loveless marriage afforded Catherine ample opportunity to pursue her intellectual interests, from reading the work of Enlightenment thinkers to perfecting her grasp of Russian. The fifth film. She did this because she did not want to be bothered by the peasantry, but did not want to give them reason to revolt. At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for the throne included Ivan VI (17401764), who had been confined at Schlsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and who was thought to be insane. [86] She believed a 'new kind of person' could be created by inculcating Russian children with European education. A further 2.8million belonged to the Russian state.[55]. She recruited the scientists Leonhard Euler and Peter Simon Pallas from Berlin and Anders Johan Lexell from Sweden to the Russian capital. While the state did not technically allow them to own possessions, some serfs were able to accumulate enough wealth to pay for their freedom. When Catherine agreed to the First Partition of Poland, the large new Jewish element was treated as a separate people, defined by their religion. The monarch was succeeded by her son,. Like Empress Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. In 1780, Emperor Joseph II, the son of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, toyed with the idea of determining whether or not to enter an alliance with Russia, and asked to meet Catherine. Legends abound about Catherine the Greatthe good kind and the bad kind. Catherine the Great Builds a New Russia Catherine the Great, who died on this day, dragged Russia into the modern era while leading a life filled with political drama, sexual intrigue - and murder. 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. [49], Catherine imposed a comprehensive system of state regulation of merchants' activities. In reality, Catherine the Great died of a stroke and she was discovered collapsed on the floor in her washroom. 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. Other than these, the rights of a serf were very limited. [133] The court physician diagnosed a stroke[133][134] and despite attempts to revive her, she fell into a coma. Your Privacy Rights Catherine de' Medici, also called Catherine de Mdicis, Italian Caterina de' Medici, (born April 13, 1519, Florence [Italy]died January 5, 1589, Blois, France), queen consort of Henry II of France (reigned 1547-59) and subsequently regent of France (1560-74), who was one of the most influential personalities of the Catholic-Huguenot wars. Catherines success as a ruler was also a driving factor behind the rumours. Nobles in each district elected a Marshal of the Nobility, who spoke on their behalf to the monarch on issues of concern to them, mainly economic ones. 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. Ollie Upton/Hulu. [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. Sophie's childhood was very uneventful. Catherine was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 22 September 1762. She had her husband arrested, and forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. 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. For Latin Empress, see, Partitions of PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. The period of Catherine the Great's rule is also known as the Catherinian Era. Catherine II[a] (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 17 November 1796),[b] most commonly known as Catherine the Great,[c] was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. The cabinet was said to have enormous penises for legs, whilst other erotic imagery adorned its sides. [68] Pugachev had made stories about himself acting as a real emperor should, helping the common people, listening to their problems, praying for them, and generally acting saintly, and this helped rally the peasants and serfs, with their very conservative values, to his cause. While she had collapsed in the bathroom, she had spent many hours in her bed, with her servants taking care of her. Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed coup. Shuvalov under Elizabeth and under Peter III. [9], Sophie first met her future husband, who would become Peter III of Russia, at the age of 10. "The circumstances and cause of death, and the intentions and degree of responsibility of those involved can never be known," wrote Robert K. Massie in his seminal biography, Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. Potemkin quickly gained positions and awards. Old Believers were allowed to hold elected municipal positions after the Urban Charter of 1785, and she promised religious freedom to those who wished to settle in Russia. At first, she attempted to revise clerical studies, proposing a reform of religious schools. Catherine decided to have herself inoculated against smallpox by Thomas Dimsdale, a British doctor. The empress prepared the "Instructions for the Guidance of the Assembly", pillaging (as she frankly admitted) the philosophers of Western Europe, especially Montesquieu and Cesare Beccaria.[80][81]. And if you can't find enough dirt to your satisfaction, make stuff up. [107] Judaism was a small, if not non-existent, religion in Russia until 1772. 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. 2, part 2, Chapter 3, V]. [74][75], Catherine enlisted Voltaire to her cause, and corresponded with him for 15 years, from her accession to his death in 1778.

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