Biography of Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great
In the whole of Russian history, there havebeen a mere handful of men to earn the nickname “the great”. But there has only ever been one woman. Catherine the Great was an empress who defiedboth her circumstances and the opinions of those around her to shape an entire era. Born into a minor German family in the firsthalf of the 18th Century, she found herself thrust into the spotlight when she marriedPeter III of Russia aged only 16. But rather than being a pushover, Catherineused her new position to grab the imperial crown for herself. Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, Catherine’sreign spanned global conflicts and revolutions, uprisings and royal assassinations. But she never lost sight of her goal: to forgea modern Russia from the ideals of the Enlightenment. A philosopher empress to some, an amoral,sex-obsessed harlot to others, this is the life of one of Russia’s greatest rulers. An Unlikely RulerTo say Catherine the Great’s path to the throne was an unlikely one is a little bitlike saying Siberia gets a bit chilly in winter. At the moment she was born Sophie FriederikeAuguste on May 2, 1729, the likelihood of Catherine becoming ruler of Russia was upthere with me one day becoming emperor of Japan. By the way Tokyo, if the new guy doesn’twork out, do give me a call. Young Sophie - who we’re just gonna startcalling Catherine right now to avoid confusion - didn’t have a drop of Russian blood inher. Rather, her father was a minor German prince,while her mother Joanna was a slightly-less minor aristocrat who had ideas above her station. And those ideas emphatically did not involvehaving a daughter. From the moment Joanna discovered she’dpumped out not a useful male heir but a useless girl, she treated Catherine less like a humanand more like a receptacle for all her disappointments. Joanna called her daughter useless, ugly,told her she was worthless. It probably didn’t help that Joanna herselfwas a mere 17 when she became a mother, and that her arranged marriage to Catherine’smuch-older dad hadn’t exactly been a fairytale. It probably also didn’t help that Catherinewent out of her way to confirm Joanna’s fears. She was clumsy. Accident prone. There’s a story that she once managed todislocate her spine just by sneezing. Yet, even amid all these excursions into klutzterritory, it was clear there was something more to Catherine than Joanna gave her creditfor. When she was just four, she met the futureking Frederick the Great. Told to kiss his hem as a mark of respect,she instead demanded the royal bow down to her so she could reach. Frederick was so tickled by this that he neverforgot the confident young girl. Yet it would be another encounter that reallydefined Catherine’s childhood. A grandson of Peter the Great, Peter Ulrichwas a mere 11 when he and 10-year old Catherine met, and about as far from his famous grandfatheras can be imagined. While Peter the Great had ruled Russia, PeterUlrich was German through and through. While Peter the Great had been a dashing warrior-reformer,his grandson was sickly and neurotic. He was also deeply damaged. Left in the care of a sadistic tutor, PeterUlrich had spent his life being beaten, tortured, and humiliated by the adult meant to carefor him. He was made to stand at the dining table,a picture of a donkey hung around his neck. Made to endure savage whippings for the tiniestinfraction. As our video unfolds today, Peter Ulrich isgoing to take a role best essentially as the villain. As he does so, just remember that the abusehe suffered as a child is at least partly to blame. Despite their differences, Catherine and Peterhit it off during their first meeting, becoming not exactly friends, but maybe friendly acquaintances. Still, there’s no way Catherine could’veknown just what fate had in store for them. No way she could’ve know that this sickly,troubled lad was the future emperor she was destined to overthrow. The Empire of IceOn the frozen night of December 5, 1741, a group of guards marched into the bedchamberof Russia’s infant emperor Ivan VI and arrested him and his mother, Anna Leopoldovna. By the morning of December 6, both motherand child had been locked away and Moscow had a new ruler. The daughter of Peter the Great, Empress Elizabethwas the Imelda Macros of the 18th Century, a woman obsessed with clothes, spectacle,and living the good life on the state budget. She surrounded herself with pomp and fawningcourtiers, and forbade anyone but herself from wearing pink. But for our story today, the defining featureof Elizabeth was that she was childless. Not long after her coup against Ivan, Elizabethdecided to bag herself an heir by inviting Peter Ulrich to Moscow to be her son. Two years later, in 1743, a letter landedin the hands of Catherine’s mother, Joanna. From Empress Elizabeth, it invited Joannato come and see Moscow along with her darling daughter. Shortly after, another letter arrived, thisone from Frederick the Great, filled with subtle hints that the Prussian king couldhelp Joanna marry her daughter off. Suddenly, it looked like Catherine was goingto Russia. For Joanna, this was the fairytale she’dbeen waiting for her whole married life. She immediately set about spending the moneyFrederick had forwarded on fancy dresses and heaps of jewelry. Not for Catherine, but for herself. Joanna wanted to look her absolute best onthe day she dumped her useless daughter on some unsuspecting Russian prince. By winter, 1743, Joanna and Catherine wereon the road to St Petersburg. If you’re wondering how Catherine felt aboutbeing whisked away to marry some dude she barely knew, the answer is that it didn’tmatter. This was Europe in the 18th century. Arranged marriages were the norm in the upperclasses. And, aged only 14, Catherine had grown intoa very desirable bachelorette. She was witty. Confident. Disarming. Although she wasn’t a legendary beauty,she was already fighting off marriage proposals - not least from Joanna’s own brother. Awkward. Finally, after a very long, very cold journey,Catherine and Joanna arrived in Moscow. The imperial welcome they received was sobig, so lavish that it left no-one in doubt about Catherine’s future role in the empire. Now all she had to do was actually meet Peteragain after all these years. A Match Made in HellIf Catherine had grown up to be a charmer, Peter Ulrich had grown up to be the exactopposite; a miserable black hole that sucked all the joy out any room. The boy hated Russia. He hated Elizabeth, he hated Moscow, and hehated the fact he wasn’t in his beloved Prussia. At first, the arrival of the German Catherinewas a relief. Finally, someone who could understand hismisery! But while Peter’s idea of a good time waswriting fan letters to Frederick the Great and discussing how superior bratwurst wasto borscht, Catherine’s was very different. From the moment she arrived in Russia, theteenage girl had fallen in love. The Russia of the 1740s was a distant, mysteriousplace, almost entirely rural, with only a handful of cities. The religion was not the Lutheranism Catherinehad grown up with, but the exotic Orthodox rites of Eastern Christianity. For this girl from Germany, it was an alienland. A place of endless, fascinating contrasts. And, much to Peter’s annoyance, Catherinewas determined to fit in. She began studying Russian, began her conversionto Orthodoxism. By the time she debuted at court on her 15thbirthday, the upper classes were ready to love her. It helped that Catherine could be just ascharming in Moscow as at home. She always had a killer quip ready, or a well-thoughtout compliment to disarm strangers with. She even got a reputation for treating herservants as kindly as her upper crust friends, something of a big deal at the time. Before long, Elizabeth had bestowed the titleGrand Duchess upon her, along with the name Catherine (or Yekaterina in Russian). But while the empress seemed to have madea good choice in Catherine, she’d made a much worse one in her heir. As Catherine grew more popular at court, Petergrew crueler towards her. He told her he was going to beat her oncethey were married, as that was the only way to control a woman. Started getting drunk and verbally abusingher. But as bad as Peter was already, he was aboutto get so much worse. Not long before their wedding, Peter camedown with a case of smallpox, a disfiguring disease we’d really advise against Googling. It took him six weeks to recover. When he finally did, his face was so scarredthat Catherine couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Bitter, angry, and miserable, Peter retreatedfrom the world, locking himself in his rooms and refusing to do anything but dress hisservants in Prussian army uniforms and play soldiers. He only really emerged for the lavish weddingon August 21, 1745. But even then, his bitterness got the betterof him. Early in the evening, Catherine was sent byElizabeth to the marital bed to await Peter and get on with the job of producing heirs. Instead, Catherine lay there for hours inthe dark, waiting for her new husband. When Peter finally turned up, he was so drunkhe simply collapsed. Not a word. Not a kiss. Not even a joke. Just one unhappy teenager passed out on thefloor, and another unhappy teen likely wondering if this marriage had ruined her life. Well, if Catherine ever did wonder that, shewas wrong. As toxic as her marriage was, it would windup making her into a figure remembered by history. She just had to survive the next few yearsfirst. Intimacy and IntrigueBy late 1745, Elizabeth’s enthusiasm for Catherine had distinctly cooled. There still hadn’t been any royal heirs,so Elizabeth wrote Catherine a stern note reminding her she better get knocked up fast. But there was very little Catherine coulddo about it. By now, Peter was actively avoiding sex, preferringto play with his toy soldiers and live in a fantasy world. One evening Catherine came into their roomto find him putting a rat he’d caught on trial. When she asked him what he was doing, he declaredthe rat guilty and sliced off its head. In the wake of this incident it’s perhapsnot surprising that Catherine started an affair. Today, Catherine’s affairs are legendary. But we’ll come to all that. For now, just know she started sleeping witha guy called Sergei Saltykov, possibly in an attempt to get pregnant, and possibly withPeter’s knowledge. Yet, try as she might, Catherine just couldn’tbecome the baby-producing machine Elizabeth wanted her to be. Oh, she got pregnant all right. Multiple times. But she always miscarried. Before anyone knew what was happening, nineyears had passed, and Catherine was still not a mother. That finally changed on October 1, 1754. That day, baby Paul was born at the end ofa labor best described as “arduous.” The moment the baby was out, Elizabeth camein and snatched it away to raise herself. Catherine, for her part, was left lying alonein her own blood for hours, too weak to move. With her heir-producing duties now over, Catherineentered a new, depressing stage in her life at the Russian court. Now the baby was here, everyone just startedignoring her. They held a party to celebrate Paul’s birthwhile Catherine was still convalescing. All she got was a drunk Peter sticking hishead in the door and muttering something like “err, well done,” before going back tothe party. Had Catherine been another woman, it’s possibleher story would’ve ended here, finally beaten down by her awful new family. But this is Catherine we’re talking about. A woman who has “the Great” in her name. Rather than give up, she spent her convalescencereading Voltaire and plotting her return to court. On Peter’s birthday, she finally managedit. Kitted out in the finest regalia, Catherinecrashed the party, inviting herself in unannounced and restyling herself “mother of the heir”. With breathtaking confidence, she casuallysnubbed those who’d ignored her after her labor. Dropped deliciously poisonous witticisms aboutanyone who tried to stand up to her. From that point on, Catherine would neverlet herself get isolated again. She cozied up to the British ambassador, acceptingbribes in return for information, bribes she used to buy herself a network of informants. As the 1750s swept by, Catherine began butteringup people in positions of power. Leaders of army units, aristocrats, anyonewho might one day be useful. By the end of the decade, she’d even takentwo important lovers: Stanisław Poniatowski, the future king of Poland, and Grigory Orlov,the man who’d make her empress. But, powerful as she now was, Catherine wasstill vulnerable. When she gave birth to her second child, Anna,Peter came and watched the whole thing, drunk out his skull, declaring that he could doanything to her. It must’ve been a chilling thing to hear. It also steeled Catherine’s resolve. If she ever wanted peace, she was going tohave to get rid of her husband once and for all. The Battle for PowerIn 1756, a war broke out that engulfed half the world. Known as the Seven Years’ War it involvedmost of the European powers, including pitting Russia against PrussiaBut bad as the Seven Years’ War was, it was nothing compared to the battle brewingin the Russian court. By 1762, Peter had begun a public affair withElizaveta Vorontsova, a coarse woman of coarser manners. On top of that, he was parading around wearingPrussian uniforms and telling everyone they shouldn’t be fighting Frederick the Great. He was even promising Catherine that, as soonas he became emperor, he would have her shaved bald and thrown in a convent. It was a threat that was about to become veryreal. On January 5, 1762, Empress Elizabeth breathedher last. In the wake of her death, Peter was elevatedto the throne as Peter III. One of his first acts was to spend Elizabeth’sfuneral procession openly celebrating her death. His second act was to make his popular, unwantedwife suffer. In the months that followed, Peter III beganinflicting humiliation after humiliation on Catherine. He forced her to personally award medals tohis mistress Elizaveta, dragged her out in public and tried to make her confess thattheir son Paul was illegitimate. But it wasn’t just Catherine Peter was gettinghis vengeance on. For so long, he’d hated Russia. And now he was in charge, he was going todismantle the whole damn country. Church property was stripped and given toLutheran ministeries. Army units were forced to drink toasts toFrederick the Great. Everything became pro-Prussian, anti-Russian,and very anti-Catherine. For Catherine, those months must’ve beena nightmare. Luckily, she was about to wake up. That summer, July 8, Catherine’s lover GrigoryOrlov abruptly came to her and basically said “let’s throw this asshole over. Right now.” And so they did. The coup was organized by Orlov with the helpof his brothers and a guy called Grigory Potemkin, who we’re gonna come back to soon. It was simple and bloodless. Dressed in a male uniform, Catherine rodeout to meet army units loyal to her. As they joined, more declared their loyalty,until it was clear no-one in Moscow stood against her. Finally, on July 9, 1762, Catherine was declaredEmpress Catherine II. And that was that. Well, almost. Just outside Moscow, Peter was drilling someof his troops when word came in of the coup. But it wasn’t just news that was travelingin Peter’s direction. Catherine was riding out at the head of anarmy. So Peter did the only thing he could: he abdicatedand threw himself on his wife’s mercy. Apparently, he hoped to be sent into exilein Prussia. But Catherine was all like “nah,” andhad him placed under house arrest. 8 days later, Peter was dead. The historical record isn’t clear on whatkilled poor, damaged Peter Ulrich. Officially, it was a nasty bout of hemorrhoids. Unofficially, it’s thought he was strangledon the orders of Orlov. Whatever the truth, the result was the same. On September 22, 1762, Catherine was crownedempress of Russia in a lavish ceremony at the Kremlin. The anonymous girl from Germany had finallydone it. She’d survived the intrigues of the Russiancourt, survived her marriage to a madman, and smashed through the glass ceiling as effectivelyas a tomahawk missile. Now came the hard part. An Instruction for ChangeIn 1767, Catherine sent her legislative committee a simple Instruction. Known as the Instruction of Catherine theGreat, it set out her vision for the future. Under her watch, Russia would conform to theideals of the Enlightenment. Things like innocent until proven guilty wouldbecome law. The common good would be emphasized. The country’s 8 million serfs would be consideredpeople. To our ears, this can sound a little “well,duh.” But in 18th Century Russia it was a bombshell. Even other European powers were aghast. France actually banned copies of the Instructionto avoid a revolution. Yeah, good luck with that. But while Catherine’s ideas were revolutionary,her implementation of them was not. Rather than act like good little Enlightenmentthinkers, her committee fell to squabbling. Then war broke out and the whole idea wascompletely forgotten. The Russo-Turkish War decimated Catherine’sdomestic agenda between 1768 and 1774, but at least it shored up her power, helped bythe capture of Crimea. Still, by the time the dust had settled, Catherinewas 12 years into her rule and had accomplished only a fraction of what she wanted to do. So she dropped any pretence of governing bycommittee. From now on, she was going to force her reformsthrough by personal decree. And what reforms they were. Catherine opened the first schools for orphans,the first hospitals for the destitute. She encouraged girls into education, at atime when most households valued women somewhere below horses and about equal with good footwear. City governments were reformed to better servethe people. The police were transformed from an instrumentfor repression into one that at least nominally helped ordinary folk. Then there were the great cities Catherinebuilt, like the port of Odessa, where skilled immigrants were invited in to transform theeconomy. She even undertook the first detailed mappingof Russia. There’s a great story that Catherine wasin a meeting where a far-flung town was discussed. When Catherine asked where it was, all heradvisors shrugged. So she sent someone out to buy a map. When they came back, she discovered that noteven the map makers had bothered to map most of Russia. You better believe that changed pretty sharpish. But while Catherine’s reforms brought Russiainto line with its European neighbors, they weren’t all successful. Remember how her Instruction called for thecountry’s 8 million serfs to be considered people? Those serfs were basically slaves, tied tothe land and owned by local landlords. When Catherine realized her core support camefrom those same landlords, she did an about face and actually increased serfdom. This touches on the other issue of who benefitedfrom Catherine’s reforms. We mentioned earlier that 18th Century Russiawas about 95% rural. Yet the vast majority of Catherine’s reformswere in urban areas. As transformative as her domestic agenda was,millions of Russians didn’t even realize it was happening. Still, her reforms got her noticed abroad,where people like Voltaire championed her as a great philosopher empress. But Catherine’s reputation would soon becomeinternational news again for a very different reason. It’s time to talk about sex. Love & DeathSo far in this video, we’ve met three of Catherine’s lovers: the guy who possiblyfathered Paul; the guy who became King of Poland; and Orlov, the guy who probably strangledPeter III. Now it’s time to meet the most-famous ofthem all. Grigory Potemkin had been a background characterin Catherine’s life for decades. He’d helped Orlov organize the coup thatoverthrew Peter III. In the Russo-Turkish War, he’d been theone who secured Crimea. And now he was back in the imperial court,determined to charm his way into power. To say Catherine and Potemkin were suitedto one another is to miss just how perfectly they matched. Potemkin was ambitious, fearless. Not exactly handsome, but attractive in a“this guy does not give two flying flips” sort of way. His ambition also complemented Catherine’s. While Catherine was happy to lose herselfin details, Potemkin was a big picture thinker, able to spur her dreams to greater heights. Catherine summoned him to court in 1774. Before the year was out, they were lovers. There’s even some evidence to suggest theymarried in a secret ceremony, inside a tiny, backwater church with only two witnesses. It’s certainly true she named him PrincePotemkin, and elevated him to a status nearly equal to co-ruler. But while their burning ambition is what broughtCatherine and Potemkin together, it was also what killed their love. By 1780, both were fully aware that theirlove of power was corrupting their romantic relationship. So they made a deal. From now on, Potemkin would remain as Catherine’spolitical advisor. But in the bedroom, he would be replaced - notwith another ambitious, powerful man, but with a string of anonymous studs. And so we come to the one thing about Catherinethe Great that everyone remembers: her sexual escapades. The fact this is monstrously unfair goes withoutsaying. Catherine’s contemporary, Louis XV, hadso many mistresses he could give Prince a run for his money. Selim III had an actual harem. But, of course, it’s the highly-sexed womanwho goes down in history as using a horse to satisfy herself, as story as fake now asit was then. Stay classy, 18th Century propagandists. Still, there’s no denying that Catherine’sreputation abroad really did take a beating in the back end of her reign, and not justbecause of ill-founded sex rumors. In 1789, that revolution France had been tryingto avoid finally broke out, based on a lot of those same Enlightenment ideals Catherineprofessed to love. But now that those ideals were questioningthe divine right of monarchs, Catherine was suddenly all like “What Enlightenment? Voltaire? Never heard of him.” When Poland began agitating for a French-styleliberal constitution in 1792, she forced the Second Partition on the kingdom, dividingmost of it up between herself, Austria, and Prussia. When Tadeusz Kościuszko led a rebellion againstthe partition two years later, Catherine cracked down as hard as any tyrant. In Warsaw, some 20,000 Poles were executedin a single day - more people than died during the entire Reign of Terror. By the time Catherine instigated the ThirdPartition of Poland in 1795, wiping the nation off the map, her Enlightenment credentialshad been reduced to a hollow punchline. But by then it barely mattered. Grigory Potemkin had died in 1791, leavingCatherine isolated and lonely. In his place, the empress had begun to devoteall her attention to her grandson Alexander, even hinting that she would pass her son Paulover for succession. Naturally, this created a deep rift in theimperial family, and left Paul eager to get one over on his mother. On November 5, 1796, Catherine was found onthe floor of her bathroom, almost carried off by a stroke. The very next day she died, her grandson Alexanderstill too young to take over from her. In his place, Paul I ascended to the throne. And he quickly set about trashing his mother’slegacy. The first thing he did was have all her papersburned, just in case she’d written him out her will. Then he had poor Peter Ulrich dug back upand given the state funeral Catherine had denied him. Finally, he ordered his mother buried alongsidehis father. After spending the early part of their livesentwined in a toxic marriage, Catherine would now spend eternity alongside her hated husband,too. At the moment of her death, Catherine must’vewondered how history would remember her. Sure, she’d expanded Russian territory,adding around 520,000 square kilometers. Sure, she’d brought in liberal reforms andmodernized urban Russia. But, at the same time, she’d failed in hergoal to abolish serfdom, just as she’d failed to institute reforms that improved life forthe 95% of the population who lived outside the cities. So why, then, do we remember her as Catherinethe Great? Well, from our modern perspective, it’seasy to see why. Just listen to her life story: a provincialgirl who overcame a parental neglect, a forced marriage and an abusive husband to becomeone of the most powerful women in Europe. But even in the 18th Century, it was clearthat Catherine was someone special. With her liberal reforms, she opened the doorfor a Russia that existed to help its citizens, not brutalize them. While that door would be slammed shut againby successive regimes, knowledge of what lay behind it never really went away. All those utopian revolutionaries. All those moments of thaw in the 20th Century. Those shuddering moves towards openness inthe 1980s. All were distant descendants of Catherine’sattempts to mould her country in a kinder image. She may not have always succeeded in her goals,but Catherine deserves to be remembered by her title. She really was the greatest empress in Russianhistory.
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