Catherine the Great (1729-1796)
By Nan Colton
Sponsored by The Wolf siblings in honor and memory of their parents,
Louis and Vivian Wolf
Essay
Catherine II is the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. She is one of a handful of rulers that have been popularly styled "the Great" and her impact remains relevant to today’s world.
Her story is one of incredible tension: In 1744, 15-year-old Sophie Friederike Auguste, a Prussian princess, was invited to Russia by Czarina Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great) to marry her nephew who was to rule when she died. After 17 years of an unhappy marriage to Grand Duke Peter and motherhood upon command, Sophie (now renamed by Elizabeth as Catherine) led a military coup. Peter III abdicated and was assassinated eight days later. Catherine proclaimed herself empress and autocrat in the Kazan Cathedral.
Catherine’s most pressing practical problem, however, upon seizing power was to replenish the state treasury, which was empty when Elizabeth died; this she did in 1762 by secularizing the property of the clergy, who owned one-third of the land and serfs in Russia. During her reign, she led her country into full participation in the political and cultural life of Europe, carrying on the work begun by Peter the Great. With her ministers she reorganized the administration and law of the Russian Empire and extended Russian territory. She dominated her empire as easily as she did her court.
For more than thirty years the Czarina played many roles: politician, diplomat, builder commander-in-chief, educator, art collector, dramatist, lover, mother, writer of stories and letters. Although she maintained extravagant surroundings, she herself lived simply and proved to be a conscientious ruler.
Catherine was a gifted person, devoted to art, literature, science, and politics. She gained the reputation as a friend of the “Enlightenment.” Her contemporaries included Voltaire and Diderot who called her the “Star of the North” but she preferred to be called “Mother Tsarina.”
Catherine was full of contradictions: she modernized administration but was unable to curb corruption in her court; she believed in equal education but forcibly put down a peasant revolt and tightened the landowners control over the serfs. She failed to gain the love of her first born, Paul, but she gained many new lands annexing part of Poland and the Crimea. She built schools and hospitals, encouraged smallpox vaccination, promoted the education of women, and extended religious tolerance but she forbade Jewish immigrants. Catherine was an enthusiastic art collector and her collection is the foundation the famous Hermitage museum. She secured a water gate to Europe via the Black sea, tripled exports, and created a series of uniformly administered provinces from Poland to the Pacific. Many admired her yet many despised her as a ‘despot.’
Upon her death, her first-born son Paul, succeed her to the throne. Czar Paul soon proved to be just as erratic and unpopular as Catherine had feared. Five years into his reign, he was assassinated, and his 23-year-old son assumed power as Alexander I. Thus began the reign of the Romanovs.
Recommended Reading
Alexander, John T. Catherine the Great: Life and Legend. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Dixon, Simon. Catherine the Great. New York: Ecco, 2009.
Massie, Robert K. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. New York: Random House, 2011.
Resources for Children
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Catherine-the-Great.html#ixzz1V1F7O6Kv
http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/the-romanov-dynasty/catherine-ii-the-great/?gclid=COb2q-2jz6oCFcQO2godVA-L0w
Nan Colton
Nan Colton is a produced playwright, director, storyteller, actress and performing teaching artist having performed and lectured professionally on a wide variety of stages throughout South Africa, Great Britain and the United States.
Nan's entrepreneurial spirit led to her creation of Solo Productions in 1995, and she has committed her talents to create and present theatrical solo performances and workshops that are interactive, educative, historically accurate and entertaining in museums, art galleries, schools, universities and at conferences mainly in Florida.
For the past 19 years, Nan has served as the Performing-Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, having researched, produced. written and presented over 39 vastly different original scripts (historically accurate or humorously fictitious) characters written to explain the art and the exhibitions.
Another side of her work: Nan is currently contracted as a cultural and educational programming coordinator for the Quak Center for Lifelong Learning, Westminster Suncoast retirement community, St. Petersburg. Her focus is the reality that learning need never stop.
Bullet Points
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Catherine the Great (1729-1796) ruled as Empress of Russia from 1762 until her death. She is one of a handful of rulers who have been popularly styled “the Great.”
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She became one of the most influential of the 18th - century rulers, dominating her empire as easily as she did her court. During her reign of more than thirty years she was politician, diplomat, builder, commander-in-chief, educator, art collector, dramatist, lover, mother, and a writer of stories and letters.
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Many admired her and many despised her as a “despot.” Catherine herself wrote: “I shall leave to posterity to judge impartially all that I have done.”
Quotes
Catherine:
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I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly.
As quoted in The Historians' History of the World (1904) by Henry Smith Williams, p. 423
Variant: I praise loudly. I blame softly.
As quoted in The Affairs of Women: A Modern Miscellany (2006) by Colin Bingham, p. 367
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A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.
As quoted in Daughters of Eve (1930) by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 192
(to Diderot)
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You forget the difference between our two positions: you work only on paper, which ... is smooth, supple, and offers no resistance to either your imagination or your pen; whereas I, a poor Empress, work on human skin, which is much more irritable and ticklish.
Other translation/variant:
You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings.
(to Diderot)
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The Laws ought to be so framed, as to secure the Safety of every Citizen as much as possible.
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I shall leave to posterity to judge impartially all that I have done.
Timeline
• Birth: April 21, 1729
• Marriage: to Grand Duke Peter III Heir to the Russian Throne - August 21, 1745
• Paul, Catherine's son, is born - September 20, 1754
• Seven Years War 1756 - 1763
• Anna Petrovna, Catherine's daughter is born - 1757
• Empress Elizabeth dies - December 25,1761
• Grand Duke Peter, her husband, becomes Emperor of Russia - 1762
• Alexei Grigoryvich, Catherine's son is born - April 10, 1762
• Peter III dies - July 6, 1762
• Catherine is proclaimed Empress of Russia - September 22, 1762
• Catherine's "Nakaz" or "Great Instruction" is published - 1767
• Russia at War with the Ottoman Empire - 1768 – 1774
• Plague kills thousands in Moscow - 1771
• Pugachev Revolt - 1773 - 1774
• Russia gains access to the Black Sea - 1774
• Catherine signs alliance with Austria- 1781
• Russia annexes Crimea - 1783
• The Charter to the Nobility and the Charter to the Towns reforms are established - 1785
• Russia at war with the Ottoman Empire - 1787 - 1791
• Russia at war with Sweden - 1788 - 1790
• Catherine the Great dies - November 6, 1796