Catherine II (,
Yekaterina II Velikaya), also known as
Catherine the Great, born . She was
Empress of Russia from until . Under her direct auspices the Russian Empire expanded, improved its administration, and continued to
modernize along Western European lines. Catherine's rule re-vitalized Russia, which grew ever stronger and became recognized as one of the
great powers of Europe. Her successes in complex foreign policy and her sometimes brutal reprisals in the wake of rebellion (most notably
Pugachev's Rebellion) complemented her hectic private life. She frequently occasioned scandal—given her propensity for lascivious relationships which often resulted in
gossip flourishing within more than one European court.
Catherine took power after a conspiracy deposed her husband,
Peter III (1728–1762), and her reign saw the high point in the influence of the
Russian nobility. Peter III, under pressure from the nobility, had already increased the authority of the great landed proprietors over their
muzhiks and
serfs. In spite of the duties imposed on the nobles by the first prominent "modernizer" of Russia, Tsar
Peter I (1672–1725), and despite Catherine's friendships with the
western European thinkers of the
Enlightenment (in particular
Denis Diderot,
Voltaire and
Montesquieu) Catherine found it impractical to improve the lot of her poorest subjects, who continued to suffer (for example)
military conscription. The distinctions between peasant rights on
votchina and
pomestie estates virtually disappeared in law as well as in practice during her reign.
In 1775 Catherine decreed a Statute for the Administration of the Provinces of the Russian Empire. The Statute sought to efficiently govern Russia by increasing population and dividing the country into provinces and districts. By the end of her reign, there were fifty provinces, nearly 500 districts, more then double the government officials, and they were spending six times as much as previously on local government. In 1785 Catherine conferred on the nobility the
Charter to the Nobility, increasing further the power of the landed oligarchs. 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. In the same year, Catherine issued the Charter of the Towns which distributed all people into six groups in order to control the power of nobles and create a middle estate. Each of these charters had major flaws and Catherine seemingly could not gain the reform she had long desired for her country, after her death this was made even more obvious through her son Paul.
Early life
Catherine's father
Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst belonged to the
ruling family of Anhalt, but entered the service of Prussia and held the rank of a
Prussian general in his capacity as Governor of the city of Stettin (
Szczecin,
Poland) in the name of the king of
Prussia. Born as
Sophia Augusta Frederica (German:
Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, nicknamed "Figchen") in Stettin, Catherine did have some (very remote) Russian ancestry, and two of her first cousins became Kings of
Sweden:
Gustav III and
Charles XIII. In accordance with the custom then prevailing in the ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a
French governess and from tutors.
The choice of Sophia as wife of her
second cousin, the prospective
tsar Peter of Holstein-Gottorp resulted from some amount of
diplomatic management in which
Count Lestocq, Peter´s aunt (the ruling Russian Empress
Elizabeth) and
Frederick II of Prussia took part. Lestocq and Frederick wanted to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia in order to weaken the influence of
Austria and to ruin the Russian chancellor
Bestuzhev, on whom
Tsarina Elizabeth relied, and who acted as a known partisan of Russo-Austrian co-operation.
The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother,
Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, a clever and ambitious woman. Historical accounts portray Catherine's mother as an emotionally cold and
physically abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Johanna's hunger for fame centered on her daughter's prospects of becoming empress of Russia, but she infuriated Empress Elizabeth, who eventually banned her from the country for spying for King
Frederick of Prussia. The empress knew the family well: she herself had intended to marry Princess Johanna's brother
Charles Augustus (Karl August von Holstein), who had died of
smallpox in 1727 before the wedding could take place. Nonetheless, Elizabeth took a strong liking to the daughter, who on arrival in Russia spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with the Empress Elizabeth, but with her husband and with the
Russian people. She applied herself to learning the
Russian language with such zeal that she rose at night and walked about her bedroom barefoot repeating her lessons (though she mastered the language, she retained an accent). This resulted in a severe attack of
pneumonia in March 1744. When she wrote her
memoirs she represented herself as having made up her mind when she came to Russia to do whatever seemed necessary, and to profess to believe whatever required of her, in order to become qualified to wear the crown. The consistency of her character throughout life makes it highly probable that even at the age of fifteen she possessed sufficient maturity to adopt this worldly-wise line of conduct.
Princess Sophia's father, a very devout
Lutheran, strongly opposed his daughter's conversion to
Eastern Orthodoxy. Despite his instructions, on 28 June 1744 the
Russian Orthodox Church received Princess Sophia as a member with the "new" name Catherine (
Yekaterina or
Ekaterina) and the (artificial)
patronymic Алексеевна (Alekseyevna, daughter of Aleksey). On the following day the formal betrothal took place. The long-planned dynastic marriage finally occurred on 21 August 1745 at
Saint Petersburg. Sophia had reached the age of 16; her father did not travel to Russia for her wedding. The bridegroom, known then as
Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, had become Duke of
Holstein-Gottorp (located in the north-west of
Germany near the border with
Denmark) in 1739.
The newlyweds settled in the palace of
Oranienbaum, which would remain the residence of the "young court" for many years to come.
thumb|right|Portrait by George Christoph Grooth of the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna around the time of her wedding, 1745thumb|right| Tsar Peter III reigned only 6 months; he died on 17 July 1762Count Andrei Shuvalov, chamberlain to Catherine, knew the diarist
James Boswell well, and Boswell reports that Shuvalov shared private information regarding the monarch's intimate affairs. Some of these rumours included that Peter took a mistress (
Elizabeth Vorontsova), while Catherine carried on liaisons with
Sergei Saltykov,
Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–1783),
Stanisław August Poniatowski, Alexander Vassilchikov, and others. She became friends with Princess
Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova, the sister of her husband's mistress, who introduced her to several powerful
political groups which opposed her husband.
Catherine read extensively and kept up-to-date on current events in Russia and in the rest of Europe. She corresponded with many of the prominent minds of her era, including
Voltaire and
Denis Diderot.
The reign of Peter III and the coup d'état of July 1762
After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on , Peter, the Grand Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, succeeded to the throne as
Peter III of Russia, and his wife, Grand Duchess Catherine became
Empress Consort of Russia. The imperial couple moved into the new
Winter Palace in
Saint Petersburg.
The new tsar's eccentricities and policies, including a great admiration for the Prussian king,
Frederick II alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated. Besides, Peter intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of
Holstein and
Denmark over the province of
Schleswig (see
Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff).
Peter's insistence on supporting
Frederick II of Prussia, who had seen Berlin occupied by Russian troops in 1760 but now suggested partitioning the Polish territories with Russia, eroded much of his support among the nobility. (Russia and Prussia fought each other during the
Seven Years War (1756–1763) until Peter's accession.)
thumb|left|Equestrian portrait of the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna.In July 1762, barely six months after becoming the Tsar, Peter committed the political error of retiring with his Holstein-born courtiers and relatives to
Oranienbaum, leaving his wife in Saint Petersburg. On 13 July and 14 July the
Leib Guard revolted, deposed Peter, and proclaimed Catherine the ruler of Russia. The bloodless
coup succeeded;
Ekaterina Dashkova, a confidante of Catherine who became President of the
Russian Academy in 1783, the year of its foundation, seems to have stated that Peter seemed rather glad to have rid himself of the throne, and requested only a quiet estate and his mistress.
But three days after the coup, on 17 July 1762 – just six months after his accession to the throne – Peter III died at
Ropsha, at the hands of
Alexei Orlov (younger brother to
Gregory Orlov, then a court favorite and a participant in the
coup). Historians find no evidence for Catherine's complicity in the supposed assassination. (Note that at that time other potential rival claimants to the throne existed:
Ivan VI (1740–1764), in closed confinement at
Schlüsselburg, in
Lake Ladoga, from the age of 6 months; and
Princess Tarakanova (1753–1775).)
Catherine, although not descended from any previous Russian emperor, succeeded her husband as
Empress Regnant. She followed the precedent established when
Catherine I (born in the
lower classes in the Swedish East Baltic territories) succeeded her husband
Peter I in 1725.
Legitimists debate Catherine's technical status: seeing her as a Regent or as a
usurper, tolerable only during the minority of her son,
Grand Duke Paul. In the 1770s a group of nobles connected with Paul (
Nikita Panin and others) contemplated the possibility
of a new coup to depose Catherine and transfer the crown to Paul, whose power they envisaged restricting in a kind of
constitutional monarchy. However, nothing came of this, and Catherine reigned until her death.
Foreign affairs
During her reign Catherine extended the borders of the
Russian Empire southward and westward to absorb
New Russia,
Crimea,
Right-Bank Ukraine,
Belarus,
Lithuania, and
Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powers the
Ottoman Empire and the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. All told, she added some 200,000 miles² (518,000 km²) to Russian territory.
Catherine's
foreign minister,
Nikita Panin (in office 1763–1781), exercised considerable influence from the beginning of her reign. A shrewd statesman, Panin dedicated much effort and millions of
rubles to setting up a "Northern Accord" between Russia,
Prussia,
Poland, and
Sweden, to counter the power of the
Bourbon–
Habsburg League. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favor and Catherine had him replaced with
Ivan Osterman (in office 1783–1797).
Russo-Turkish Wars
While
Peter the Great had succeeded only in gaining a toehold in the south on the edge of the
Black Sea in the
Azov campaigns, Catherine completed the conquest of the south that Peter had begun. Catherine made Russia the dominant power in
south-eastern Europe after her
first Russo-Turkish War against the
Ottoman Empire (1768–1774), which saw some of the heaviest defeats in
Turkish history, including the
Battle of Chesma (5 July – 7 July 1770) and the
Battle of Kagul (21 July 1770).
The Russian victories allowed Catherine's government to obtain access to the
Black Sea and to incorporate the vast
steppes of present-day southern
Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of
Odessa,
Nikolayev, Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine"; the future
Dnepropetrovsk), and
Kherson.
left|thumb|A 1791 British caricature of an attempted mediation between Catherine (on the right, supported by Austria and France) and Turkey.Catherine
annexed the
Crimea as late as 1783, a mere nine years after the
Crimean Khanate had gained independence, guaranteed by Russia, from the Ottoman Empire as a result of her first war against the Turks. The palace of the Crimean khans passed into the hands of the Russians. The
Treaty of Kutschuk Kainardzhi, signed 10 July 1774, gave to the Russians the "new" territories at
Azov,
Kerch,
Yenikale,
Kinburn and the small strip of
Black Sea coast between the rivers
Dnieper and
Bug.
The Ottomans re-started hostilities in the
second Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792). This war proved catastrophic for the Ottomans and ended with the
Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimized the Russian claim to the Crimea.
Relations with Western Europe
Ever conscious of her legacy, Catherine longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. She pioneered for Russia the role that Britain would later play throughout most of the nineteenth and early twentieth century that of international
mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war. Accordingly, she acted as mediator in the
War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) between
Prussia and
Austria. In 1780 she set up a
League of Armed Neutrality designed to defend neutral shipping from the
British Royal Navy during the
American Revolution.
From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought in the
Russo-Swedish War against Sweden, instigated by Catherine's cousin, King
Gustav III of Sweden. Expecting to simply overtake the Russian armies still engaged in war against
the Ottoman Turks and hoping to strike Saint Petersburg directly, the Swedes ultimately faced mounting human and territorial losses when opposed by Russia's
Baltic Fleet. After
Denmark declared war on Sweden in 1788 (the
Theater War), things looked bleak for the Swedes. After the
Battle of Svensksund in 1790, the parties signed the
Treaty of Värälä (14 August 1790) returning all conquered territories to their respective owners, and peace ensued for 20 years, aided by the assassination of Gustav III in 1792.
The partitions of Poland
thumb|Catherine II of RussiaIn 1764 Catherine placed
Stanisław Poniatowski, her former lover, on the
Polish throne. Although the idea of
partitioning Poland came from the Prussian king
Frederick the Great, Catherine took a leading role in carrying this out in the 1790s. In 1768 she formally became protectress of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, an event which provoked an
anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the
Confederation of Bar (1768–1772). After smashing the uprising she established in the
Rzeczpospolita a
system of government fully controlled by the Russian Empire through a
Permanent Council under the supervision of her
ambassadors and envoys.
After the
French Revolution of 1789, Catherine rejected many of the principles of the
Enlightenment which she had once viewed favorably. Afraid that the
May Constitution of Poland (1791) might lead to a resurgence in the power of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and that the growing
democratic movements inside the Commonwealth might become a threat to the European monarchies, Catherine decided to intervene in Poland. She provided support to a Polish anti-reform group known as the
Targowica Confederation. After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish
War in Defense of the Constitution (1792) and in the
Kościuszko Uprising (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795).
Relations with Japan
In the
Far East, Russians became active in fur-trapping in
Kamchatka and in the
Kuril Islands. This spurred Russian interest in opening trade with Japan to the south for supplies and food. In 1783 storms drove a Japanese sea-captain,
Daikokuya Kōdayū, ashore in the
Aleutian Islands, at that time Russian territory. Russian
local authorities helped his party, and the
Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. On 28 June 1791, Catherine granted Kōdayū an audience at
Tsarskoye Selo. Subsequently, in 1792, the Russian government dispatched a trade-mission led by
Adam Laxman to Japan. The
Tokugawa government received the mission, but negotiations failed.
Arts and culture
thumb|left|Marble statue of Catherine II in the guise of [[Minerva (1789–1790), by
Fedot Shubin.]]
Catherine's patronage furthered the evolution of the arts in Russia more than that of any Russian sovereign before or after her.
Catherine had a reputation as a patron of the arts, literature and education. The
Hermitage Museum, which occupies the whole of the
Winter Palace, began as Catherine's personal collection. At the instigation of her
factotum,
Ivan Betskoi, she wrote a manual for the education of young children, drawing from the ideas of
John Locke, and founded (1764) the famous
Smolny Institute, admitting young girls of the nobility.
She wrote comedies, fiction and memoirs, while cultivating
Voltaire,
Diderot and
d'Alembert all French
encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings. The leading economists of her day, such as
Arthur Young and
Jacques Necker, became foreign members of the
Free Economic Society, established on her suggestion in Saint Petersburg in 1765. She lured the scientists
Leonhard Euler and
Peter Simon Pallas from
Berlin to the Russian capital.
Catherine enlisted Voltaire to her cause, and corresponded with him for 15 years, from her accession to his death in 1778. He lauded her accomplishments, calling her "The Star of the North" and the "
Semiramis of Russia" (in reference to the legendary Queen of
Babylon, a subject on which he published a tragedy in 1768). Though she never met him face-to-face, she mourned him bitterly when he died, acquired his collection of books from his heirs, and placed them in the
National Library of Russia.
thumb|Portrait of Catherine in an advanced age, with the Chesme Column in the background.Within a few months of her accession in 1762, having heard that the French government threatened to stop the publication of the famous French
Encyclopédie on account of its irreligious spirit, Catherine proposed to Diderot that he should complete his great work in Russia under her protection.
Four years later, 1766, she endeavoured to embody in a legislative form the principles of Enlightenment which she had imbibed from the study of the French philosophers. 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 Commission had to consider the needs of the Russian Empire and the means of satisfying them. The Empress herself prepared the
"Instructions for the Guidance of the Assembly", pillaging (as she frankly admitted) the philosophers of Western Europe, especially
Montesquieu and
Cesare Beccaria.
As many of the democratic principles frightened her more moderate and experienced advisers, she refrained from immediately putting them into execution. After holding more than 200 sittings the so-called Commission dissolved without getting beyond the realm of theory.
In spite of this, some later codes (such as the Statute of Local Administration 1775, the Code of Commercial Navigation and the Salt Trade Code of 1781, the Police Ordnance of 1782, the
Charter to the Nobility and the Charter of the Towns of 1785, the Statute of National education of 1786) addressed some of the modernization trends implicit in Catherine's initial 1766 Nakaz. In 1777 the Empress described to Voltaire her legal innovations within an apathetic Russia as progressing "little by little".
During Catherine's reign, Russians imported and studied the classical and European influences which inspired the
Russian Enlightenment.
Gavrila Derzhavin,
Denis Fonvizin and
Ippolit Bogdanovich laid the groundwork for the great writers of the nineteenth century, especially for
Alexander Pushkin. Catherine became a great patron of
Russian opera (see
Catherine II and opera for details).
When
Alexander Radishchev published his
Journey from Saint Petersburg to Moscow in 1790 (one year after the start of the
French Revolution) and warned of uprisings because of the deplorable social conditions of the peasants held as
serfs, Catherine
exiled him to
Siberia. (The same sort of censorship also happened at that time in many other European countries as a reaction to the civil violence in France.)
Religious affairs
Catherine's apparent whole-hearted adoption of things Russian (including
Orthodoxy) may have prompted her personal indifference to religion.
She did not allow dissenters to build chapels, and she suppressed religious dissent after the onset of the French Revolution.
Politically, Catherine exploited Christianity in her anti-Ottoman policy, promoting the protection and fostering of Christians under Turkish rule.
She placed strictures on Roman Catholics (ukaz of 23 February 1769), mainly Polish, and attempted to assert and extend state control over them in the wake of the partitions of Poland.
Nevertheless, Catherine's Russia provided an asylum and a base for re-grouping to the Society of Jesus following the suppression of the Jesuits in most of Europe in 1773.Personal life
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 large estates and gifts of serfs. After her affair with her lover and capable adviser Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin ended in 1776, he would allegedly select a candidate-lover for her who had both the physical beauty as well as the mental faculties to hold Catherine's interest (such as Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov). Some of these men loved her in return, and she always showed generosity towards her lovers, even after the end of an affair. One of her lovers, Zavadovsky, received 50,000 rubles, a pension of 5,000 rubles, and 4,000 peasants in the Ukraine after she dismissed him. The last of her lovers, Prince Zubov, 40 years her junior, proved the most capricious and extravagant of them all.
In her memoirs, Catherine indicated that her first lover, Sergei Saltykov, had fathered Paul, but Paul physically resembled her husband, Peter.
Catherine kept near Tula, away from her court, her illegitimate son by Grigori Orlov, Alexis Bobrinskoy (later created Count Bobrinskoy by Paul).Poniatowski
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the British ambassador to Russia, offered Stanisław Poniatowski a place in the embassy in return for gaining Catherine as an ally. Poniatowski, through his mother's side, came from the Czartoryski family, prominent members of the pro-Russian faction in Poland. Catherine, 26 years old and already married to the then Grand Duke Peter for some 10 years, met the dashing 22-year-old Poniatowski in 1755, therefore well before encountering the Orlov brothers. Two years later, in 1757, Poniatowski served in the British forces during the Seven Years' War, thus severing close relationships with Catherine. She bore his child, Anna Petrovna, born in December 1757 (not to be confounded with Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia, the daughter of Peter I's second marriage).
King August III of Poland died in 1763, and therefore Poland needed to elect a new ruler. Catherine supported Poniatowski as a candidate to become the next king. Some people venture that Catherine told her ambassador to Poland, Count Kayserling, that she wanted Poniatowski to rule, but she would settle for Adam Czartoryski, Poniatowski's uncle.
Catherine sent the Russian army into Poland to avoid possible disputes right away. Russia invaded Poland on 26 August 1764, threatening to fight and forcing Poniatowski to become king. Poniatowski accepted the throne, and thereby put himself under Catherine's control. 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 strongly.
She had no intention of marrying him, having already given birth to Orlov´s child and to the Grand Duke Paul by then; and she told Poniatowski to marry someone else, in order to remove all suspicion. Poniatowski refused: he never married.
Prussia (through the agency of Prince Henry), Russia (under Catherine), and Austria (under Maria Theresa) began preparing the ground for the Partitions of Poland. In the first partition, 1772, the three powers split between them. Russia got territories east of the line connecting, more or less, Riga–Polotsk–Mogilev.
In the second partition, 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.
After this, uprisings in Poland led to the third partition, 1795, one year before the death of Catherine.Orlov
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. He represented an opposite to Peter's pro-Prussian sentiment, with which Catherine disagreed. By 1759, he and Catherine had become lovers although no one in the know told Catherine's husband, the Grand Duke Peter.
Catherine saw Orlov as very useful, and he became instrumental in the July 1761 coup d’état against her husband, but she preferred to remain the Dowager Empress of Russia, rather than marrying anyone.
thumb|Catherine the Great's natural son by Count [[Orlov|Grigory Orlov -Aleksey Grigorievich Bobrinsky, ( 11 April 1762 – 20 June 1813 in his estate of Bogoroditsk, near Tula). Born just 3 months before the deposition and assassination by the Orlov brothers of her husband Peter III]]
Grigory Orlov and his other three brothers found themselves rewarded with titles as Counts, money, swords and other gifts. But Catherine did not marry Grigory, who proved inept at politics and useless when asked for advice. He received a palace in St. Petersburg when Catherine became Empress.
Orlov died in 1783. His and Catherine's son, Aleksey Grygoriovich Bobrinsky, (1762–1813) had one daughter, Maria Alexeeva Bobrinsky (Bobrinskaya), (1798–1835) who married aged 21 in 1819 the 34-year-old Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Gagarin (London, England, 12 July 1784 – 25 July 1842, assassinated by a furious servant he employed) who took part in the Battle of Borodino ( 7 September 1812) against the Napoleonic forces, and later served as Ambassador in Turin, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy.Potemkin
Grigory Potemkin had had involvement in the coup d'état of 1762. In 1772, Catherine's close friends informed her of Orlov's affairs with other women, and she dismissed him. By the winter of 1773 the Pugachev revolt had started to grow threatening. Catherine's son Paul had also started gaining support; both of these trends threatened her power. She called Potemkin for help mostly military and he became devoted to her.
In 1772, Catherine wrote to Potemkin. Days earlier, she had found out about an uprising in the Volga region. She appointed General Aleksandr Bibikov to put down the uprising, but she needed Potemkin's advice on military strategy.
Potemkin quickly gained positions and awards. Russian poets wrote about his virtues, the court praised him, foreign ambassadors fought for his favor, and his family moved into the palace. He later became governor of New Russia.
In 1780 the son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, toyed with the idea of determining whether or not to enter an alliance with Russia, and asked to meet Catherine. Potemkin had the task of briefing him and traveling with him to Saint Petersburg.
Potemkin also convinced Catherine to expand the universities in Russia to increase the number of scientists.
Potemkin fell very ill in August 1783. Catherine worried that he would not finish his work developing the south as he had planned. Potemkin died at the age of fifty-two in 1791.Death
Catherine suffered a stroke on and died in her bed at 9:20 the following evening without having regained consciousness. Despite an urban myth connecting her death with an sexual incident involving a horse, there is no basis to this story.
Catherine was buried at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.Romanov dynastic issues
Pretenders and potential pretenders to the throne
right|thumb|[[Nicholas I of Russia|Tsar Nicholas I, grandson of Catherine II , born 6 July 1796. On 3 December 1825 Nicholas succeeded his brother Tsar Alexander I, also a son of Tsar Paul I and of Princess Charlotte of Prussia. Nicholas I died on 2 March 1855.]]
- Ivan VI of Russia (born 1740), as a former Tsar (reigned as an infant, 1740–1741) represented a potential focus of dissident support for successive rulers of Russia, who held him in prison. When she became Empress in 1762 Catherine tightened the conditions of his incarceration. His jailers in the prison of Shlisselburg killed Ivan, as per standing instructions, in the course of an attempt to free him in 1764.
- Yemelyan Pugachev (1740/1742–1775) identified himself in 1773 as Tsar Peter III of Russia (Catherine's late husband). His armed rebellion, aiming to seize power and to banish the Empress to a monastery, became a serious menace until crushed in 1774. The authorities had Pugachev executed in Moscow in January 1775.
Succession to the throne
It seems highly probable that Catherine intended to exclude Paul from the succession, and to leave the crown to her eldest grandson Alexander (whom she greatly favored, and who subsequently became the emperor Alexander I in 1801). Her harshness to Paul stemmed probably as much from political distrust as from what she saw of his character. Whatever Catherine's other activities, she emphatically functioned as a sovereign and as a politician, guided in the last resort by reasons of state. Keeping Paul in a state of semi-captivity in Gatchina and Pavlovsk, she resolved not to allow her son to dispute or to share in her authority during her lifetime.Ancestors
Ancestors of Catherine II of Russia
In popular culture
thumb|1910 100-ruble banknote
- Catherine commissioned "The Bronze Horseman" statue which stands in Saint Petersburg on the banks of the Neva River; she had the large boulder upon which it stands transported from several leagues away. Catherine had it inscribed with the Latin phrase "Petro Primo Catharina Secunda MDCCLXXXII", meaning "Catherine the Second to Peter the First, 1782", in order to lend herself legitimacy by connecting herself with the "Founder of Modern Russia". This statue later inspired Pushkin's famous poem The Bronze Horseman (1833).
- Numerous dramatizations based on the life of Catherine II have appeared:
- One of Serbia's most famed New Wave bands, Ekatarina Velika (which translates as "Catherine the Great") (1982–1994) took its name from Catherine II of Russia.
- Folk-rock songwriter Freddy Blohm's "Catherine, You're Great!" relates Catherine's most infamous urban myth from an equine point-of-view.
- In the 2002 television series Clone High the clone of JFK supposedly has sex with Catherine's clone, complaining when someone disturbs his activities that he's "trying to nail Catherine the Great" – but quickly corrects himself, adding "Or should I say, Catherine the So-SO." Catherine's clone appears several times in the series, depicted as having an hourglass figure, blonde curly hair and speaking with a California Valley Girl accent. She usually wears pedal pushers and a midriff top.
- German chancellor Angela Merkel has a picture of Catherine II in her office, and characterises her as a "strong woman".
- The Russian slang word for money "babki" (literally: "old women") refers to the image of Catherine II printed on pre-Revolution 100-ruble banknotes.
- In the anime Le Chevalier D'Eon, a young Catherine the Great appears under her Russian name of Ekaterina. As in real life, she takes over Russia from Peter (Pyotr). She despises him and has no problems overthrowing him. Jessica Boone voices the character in the English adaptation, and Sachiko Takaguchi in the Japanese version.
Gallery
File:Catherine II on horse.jpg|Equestrian portrait of Catherine II in the attire of a male officer.
File:Empress Catherine The Great circa 1770 (D.G. Levitsky).JPG|Portrait by Dmitry Levitsky of Catherine II, circa 1770
File:Cath2russia.jpg|Portrait by Albert Albertrandi of Catherine II, circa 1770
File:Empress Catherine The Great 1787 (Mikhail Shibanov).JPG|Portrait by Mikhail Shibanov of Catherine II in traveling-costume, 1787.
File:Levitzky Portrait Catherine II 1782.jpg|Portrait of Catherine II by Dmitry Levitsky, by 1782.See also
List of prominent Catherinians
Pre-eminent figures in Catherinian Russia include:
- John Paul Jones – the American sea-captain and admiral served under Catherine in naval actions against the Turks in the Black Sea in 1788.
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