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Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from the King Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in carrying it out in the 1790s. Catherine the Great. She launched the Moscow Foundling Home and lying-in hospital, 1764, and Paul's Hospital, 1763. If we are to believe another popular myth that surrounds her death, it wasnt the horse that killed her but a collapsing toilet seat. In his 1647 book Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise (Description of the Muscovite and Persian journey), German scholar Adam Olearius[136] Olearius's claims about a supposed Russian tendency towards bestiality with horses was often repeated in anti-Russian literature throughout the 17th and 18th centuries to illustrate the alleged barbarous "Asian" nature of Russia. The objective was to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria, and to overthrow the chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a known partisan of the Austrian alliance on whom Russian Empress Elizabeth relied. In addition, some governors listened to the complaints of serfs and punished nobles, but this was by no means universal. Because Russia under her rule grew strong enough to threaten the other great powers, and because she was in fact a harsh and unscrupulous ruler, she figured in the Western imagination as the incarnation of the immense . In addition to the textbooks translated by the commission, teachers were provided with the "Guide to Teachers". "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. She believed in the . He warned of uprisings in Russia because of the deplorable social conditions of the serfs. Over this tunic she wore a red velvet dolman with very short sleeves. He died at the age of 52 in 1791. Russia's State Council in 1770 announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. [9] It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other philosophes of the French Enlightenment. The Ottomans restarted hostilities in the Russo-Turkish War of 17871792. Kamenskii A. Catherine and her new husband had a rocky marriage from the start. 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. By November, they were stationed at the confluence of the Araks and Kura Rivers, poised to attack mainland Iran. Catherine did indeed like horses, so much so that a portrait was painted of her on horseback. In the first partition, 1772, the three powers split 52,000km2 (20,000sqmi) among them. [8] The young Sophie received the standard education for an 18th-century German princess, with a concentration upon learning the etiquette expected of a lady, French, and Lutheran theology. ", [Kazimir Valishevsky. 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. In these cases, it was necessary to replace this "fake" empress with the "true" empress, whoever she may be. When Catherine agreed to the First Partition of Poland, the large new Jewish element was treated as a separate people, defined by their religion. Peter was her second cousin. 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. Several bank branches were afterwards established in other towns, called government towns. She started out married to Emperor Peter III, as Time tells us, who was less than competent. Catherine's son Paul had started gaining support; both of these trends threatened her power. [78] Catherine expressed some frustration with the economists she read for what she regarded as their impractical theories, writing in the margin of one of Necker's books that if it was possible to solve all of the state's economic problems in one day, she would have done so a long time ago. In the west the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherine's former lover King Stanisaw August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, with the Russian Empire gaining the largest share. in by H. M. Scott, ed., Romanovs. She did not allow dissenters to build chapels, and she suppressed religious dissent after the onset of the French Revolution. 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. Under Catherine's rule, despite her enlightened ideals, the serfs were generally unhappy and discontented. Money was needed for wars and necessitated the junking the old financial institutions. 679 Words; 3 Pages; Open Document. 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. She . That same morning, two of the Orlov brothers arrested Peter and forced him to sign a statement of abdication. 2019. Its surprising that someone whos waging war with the Ottoman Empire and partitioning Poland and annexing the Crimea has time to make sketches for one of her palaces, but she was very hands on, says Jaques. The official cause of death was a stroke but was possibly an assassination. 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. Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 - 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. Catherines success as a ruler was also a driving factor behind the rumours. For Latin Empress, see, Partitions of PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. Although German soldiers allegedly saw the cabinet during WWII, no visible proof of the furniture exists leading many historians to believe it's just another salacious fabrication. The fifth film. Catherine tried to keep the Jews away from certain economic spheres, even under the guise of equality; in 1790, she banned Jewish citizens from Moscow's middle class.[112]. These reforms in the Cadet Corps influenced the curricula of the Naval Cadet Corps and the Engineering and Artillery Schools. Catherines failure to abolish feudalism is often cited as justification for characterizing her as a hypocritical, albeit enlightened, despot. Non-Russian opinion of Catherine is less favourable. 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. ; in a word, Anglomania is the master of my plantomania". Her eyes were soft and sensitive, her nose quite Greek, her colour high and her features expressive. By the winter of 1773, the Pugachev revolt had started to threaten. She had no intention of marrying him, having already given birth to Orlov's child and to the Grand Duke Paul by then. Catherine was worried that Potemkin's poor health would delay his important work in colonising and developing the south as he had planned. He represented an opposite to Peter's pro-Prussian sentiment, with which Catherine disagreed. Letters exchanged by the couple testify to the ardent nature of their relationship: In one missive, Catherine declared, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, you are so handsome, clever, jovial and funny; when I am with you I attach no importance to the world. [92] The Establishment of the Moscow Foundling Home (Moscow Orphanage) was the first attempt at achieving that goal. Eight days later, the dethroned tsar was dead, killed under still-uncertain circumstances alternatively characterized as murder, the inadvertent result of a drunken brawl and a total accident. Two wings were devoted to her collections of "curiosities". They refused to comply, and in 1764, she deported over 20,000 Old Believers to Siberia on the grounds of their faith. 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. These differences led both parties to seek intimacy elsewhere, a fact that raised questions, both at the time and in the centuries since, about the paternity of their son, the future Paul I. Catherine herself suggested in her memoirs that Paul was the child of her first lover, Sergei Saltykov. The rebellion ultimately failed and in fact backfired as Catherine was pushed away from the idea of serf liberation following the violent uprising. The following year, the 16-year-old wed her betrothed, officially becoming Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseyevna. Cause of Death: Stroke. I hate fountains that torture water in order to make it take a course contrary to its nature: Statues are relegated to galleries, vestibules etc. She levied additional taxes on the followers of Judaism; if a family converted to the Orthodox faith, that additional tax was lifted. (Former Empress of Russia (1725 - 1727)) Catherine I of Russia was the Empress of Russia from 1724 until her death. [60] The only thing a noble could not do to his serfs was to kill them. [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. 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. Vaizemski's Office of State Revenue took centralised control and by 1781, the government possessed its first approximation of a state budget. Yet by the end of Catherine's reign, an estimated 62,000 pupils were being educated in some 549 state institutions. The monarch was succeeded by her son,. Perhaps the most readily recognizable anecdote related to Catherine centers on a horse. At the time of Catherine's reign, the landowning noble class owned the serfs, who were bound to the land they tilled. [134] An autopsy confirmed a stroke as the cause of death. 1772-04-06 Catherine the Great Empress of Russia, ends tax on men with beards, enacted by Tsar . Catherine, 26 years old and already married to the then-Grand Duke Peter for some 10 years, met the 22-year-old Poniatowski in 1755, therefore well before encountering the Orlov brothers. [67] Their discontent led to widespread outbreaks of violence and rioting during Pugachev's Rebellion of 1774. Those in a position to smear her reputation were men. Sophie recalled in her memoirs that as soon as she arrived in Russia, she fell ill with a pleuritis that almost killed her. The truss holding her equine paramour broke, crushing Catherine to death beneath the poor beast. Catherine perceived that the Qianlong Emperor was an unpleasant and arrogant neighbour, once saying: "I shall not die until I have ejected the Turks from Europe, suppressed the pride of China and established trade with India". Spread fertilizer over the soil, all the way to the edges of the canopy. The global trade of Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. Catherine and Peter were ill-matched, and their marriage was notoriously unhappy. And so she used her lovers as a means to cement her power. 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. 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. At first, the institute only admitted young girls of the noble elite, but eventually it began to admit girls of the petit-bourgeoisie as well. The life of a serf belonged to the state. 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. Th, The 8 weirdest British monarch deaths in history, Historys greatest love affair: Catherine the Great and Grigory Potemkin, Catherine the Great and the coup that made her Empress, Josephine Baker: The iconic performer turned WWII hero. The treaty also removed restrictions on Russian naval or commercial traffic in the Azov Sea, granted to Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and made the Crimea a protectorate of Russia. She was given the last rites and died the following evening around 9:45. In private, says Jaques, she balanced a constant craving for affection with a ruthless determination to paint Russia as a truly European country. Due to various rumours of Catherine's promiscuity, Peter was led to believe he was not the child's biological father and is known to have proclaimed, "Go to the devil!" [95], From 1768 to 1774, no progress was made in setting up a national school system. In doing so, she ruffled the feathers of men around the world. [107] Judaism was a small, if not non-existent, religion in Russia until 1772. 2. She placed strictures on 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. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age. 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. 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.. Sophie had turned 16. Although she never met him face to face, she mourned him bitterly when he died. Historical accounts portray Joanna as a cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Given the frequency which this story was repeated together with Catherine's love of her adopted homeland and her love of horses, it is likely that these details were conflated into this rumor. Today, the author adds, Wed call her a micromanager.. She was the second wife of Peter the Great. [76], Catherine read three sorts of books, namely those for pleasure, those for information, and those to provide her with a philosophy. [115] Their place in government was restricted severely during the years of Catherine's reign. Catherine was eventually able to put down the uprising, but the carnage exacted on both sides was substantial. Catherine supported Poniatowski as a candidate to become the next king. Ruth P. Dawson, "Perilous News and Hasty Biography: Representations of Catherine II Immediately after her Seizure of the Throne." Her foreign policy lacked a long-term strategy and from the very start was characterised by a series of mistakes. [45] In a 1790 letter to Baron de Grimm written in French, she called the Qianlong Emperor "mon voisin chinois aux petits yeux" ("my Chinese neighbour with small eyes"). Catherine decided to have herself inoculated against smallpox by Thomas Dimsdale, a British doctor. A landowner could punish his serfs at his discretion, and under Catherine the Great gained the ability to sentence his serfs to hard labour in Siberia, a punishment normally reserved for convicted criminals. In addition, they received land to till, but were taxed a certain percentage of their crops to give to their landowners. This war was another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimised the Russian claim to the Crimea and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. In Dashkov's opinion, Dashkov introduced Catherine to several powerful political groups that opposed her husband; however, Catherine had been involved in military schemes against Elizabeth with the likely goal of subsequently getting rid of Peter III since at least 1749. In their eyes, Catherine was the very definition of unnatural and so stories of outlandish sexual behaviour became a way of insinuating how her position in the world was not natural to her gender. [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". Finally, it was the Annals by Tacitus that caused what she called a "revolution" in her teenage mind as Tacitus was the first intellectual she read who understood power politics as they are, not as they should be. In the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), Russia agreed to protect Georgia against any new invasion and further political aspirations of their Persian suzerains. Many Orthodox peasants felt threatened by the sudden change, and burned mosques as a sign of their displeasure. Central to the institute's philosophy of pedagogy was strict enforcement of discipline. However, Catherine died from a stroke on 17 November 1796 before she could make the change. Privacy Statement With the support of Great Britain, Russia colonised the territories of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. | READ MORE. In 1772, Catherine's close friends informed her of Orlov's affairs with other women, and she dismissed him. Catherine's main interests were in education and culture. She later wrote that she stayed at one end of the castle, and Peter at the other.[10]. The cause of death was confirmed by autopsy. 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. Russia invaded Poland on 26 August 1764, threatening to fight, and imposing Poniatowski as king. She died of natural causes, of a stroke, when she was 67 years old. Only 400,000 roubles of church wealth were paid back. Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt. [94] The girls who attended the Smolny Institute, Smolyanki, were often accused of being ignorant of anything that went on in the world outside the walls of the Smolny buildings, within which they acquired a proficiency in French, music, and dancing, along with a complete awe of the monarch. 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.. [27] Her coronation marks the creation of one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty, the Imperial Crown of Russia, designed by Swiss-French court diamond jeweller Jrmie Pauzi. She sent the Russian army into Poland to avoid possible disputes. Jaques says that Catherine initially started collecting art as a political calculation aimed at legitimizing her status as a Westernized monarch. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation[130] until its post-WWI reconstitution. But across Europe, Catherine was generally blamed nonetheless. Because the Moscow Foundling Home was not established as a state-funded institution, it represented an opportunity to experiment with new educational theories. [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). Her reign was called Russia . Whilst she used sex as a tool to broaden and cement her political power, she was far from the nymphomaniac that she was made out to be. [58] Some serfs were able to use their new status to their advantage. Catherine then sought to have inoculations throughout her empire and stated: "My objective was, through my example, to save from death the multitude of my subjects who, not knowing the value of this technique, and frightened of it, were left in danger". Yekaterina Alexeevna or Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great (Russian: II , Yekaterina II Velikaya; 2 May 1729 - 17 November 1796), was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 9 July 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. She fell into a coma and died the next day whilst lying in her bed. 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. The answer is misogyny. [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. . They often became trusted advisors who she then promoted into positions of authority. It also stipulated in detail the subjects to be taught at every age and the method of teaching. 16987. All Rights Reserved. Other aspects of the empress personality were similarly at odds: Extravagant in most worldly endeavors, she had little interest in food and often hosted banquets that left guests wanting for more. She provided support to a Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation. She thus spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on 5 January 1762 (OS: 25 December 1761), Peter succeeded to the throne as Emperor Peter III, and Catherine became empress consort. Malecka, Anna. Potemkin had the task of briefing him and travelling with him to Saint Petersburg. Catherine's death is well documented. Hulus The Great offers an irreverent, ahistorical take on the Russian empress life. By 1786, Catherine excluded all religion and clerical studies programs from lay education. Other than these, the rights of a serf were very limited. [114] Endowments from the government replaced income from privately held lands. On a personal level, Pugachevs success challenged many of Catherines Enlightenment beliefs, leaving her with memories that haunted her for the rest of her life, according to Massie. [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 serfs probably followed someone who was pretending to be the true empress because of their feelings of disconnection to Catherine and her policies empowering the nobles, but this was not the first time they followed a pretender under Catherine's reign. They were pressured into Orthodoxy through monetary incentives. Catherine wanted to become an empress herself and did not want another heir to the throne; however, Empress Elizabeth blackmailed Peter and Catherine to produce this heir. She lost the large territories of the Russian protectorate of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and left its territories to Prussia and Austria. )This practice was not unusual by the court standards of the day . Death and succession. [52], Catherine made public health a priority. Four years later, in 1766, she endeavoured to embody in legislation the principles of Enlightenment she learned from studying the French philosophers. She worked with Voltaire, Diderot, and d'Alembert all French encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum. Daniel Dumaresq and Dr John Brown. [100] Two years after the implementation of Catherine's program, a member of the National Commission inspected the institutions established. [43] In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta, which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. 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. I think Catherine realized that her own position and her own life [were] probably under threat, and so she acted., These tensions culminated in a July 9, 1762, coup. [116] While other religions (such as Islam) received invitations to the Legislative Commission, the Orthodox clergy did not receive a single seat. Catherines contributions to Russias cultural landscape were far more successful than her failed socioeconomic reforms. But the actual story of the monarchs death is far simpler: On November 16, 1796, the 67-year-old empress suffered a stroke and fell into a coma. Like his wife, Peter was actually Prussian. Catherine's decree also denied Jews the rights of an Orthodox or naturalised citizen of Russia. Like Empress Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. Derided both in her day and in modern times as a hypocritical warmonger with an unnatural sexual appetite, Catherine was a woman of contradictions whose brazen exploits have long overshadowed the accomplishments that won her the Great moniker in the first place. Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed coup. [133] The court physician diagnosed a stroke[133][134] and despite attempts to revive her, she fell into a coma. [88] Through him, she collected information from Russia and other countries about educational institutions. This commission was charged with organising a national school network, as well as providing teacher training and textbooks. Her many military campaigns, on the other hand, represent a less palatable aspect of her legacy. 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. Cookie Settings, Photo illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via Hulu and Getty Images, Photo by Fine Art Images / Heritage Images / Getty Images, Ad Meskens via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0, Godot13 via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0. Very few members of the nobility entered the church, which became even less important than it had been. . Throughout the season, war has been brewing between the two empires, and so far things. Catherine led a successful bloodless coup and put herself on the throne in his stead. Look at the mirror, however, and an entirely different ruler appears: Her reflection is this private, determined, ambitious Catherine, says Jaques. Catherine longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. 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. It opened in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 1769. [102], In 1762, to help mend the rift between the Orthodox church and a sect that called themselves the Old Believers, Catherine passed an act that allowed Old Believers to practise their faith openly without interference. It was fighting and winning wars, modernising and revitalising. She was also very fat, but her face was still beautiful, and she wore her white hair up, framing it perfectly. Catherine I of Russia. She tells Heathcliff "You have killed me - and thriven on it, I think."(Bronte 1847, 167). Catherine the Great is a monarch mired in misconception. 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. [118][119], Religious education was reviewed strictly. "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 . [11] Despite Joanna's interference, Empress Elizabeth took a strong liking to Sophie, and Sophie and Peter eventually married in 1745. At the same time, she recognized the damage the killing had inflicted on her legacy: My glory is spoilt, she reportedly said. She succeeded her husband as empress regnant, following the precedent established when Catherine I succeeded her husband Peter the Great in 1725. On 16 November 1796, Catherine woke up and followed her usual routine. [73] Catherine had at first attempted to hire a Chinese architect to build the Chinese Village, and on finding that was impossible, settled on Cameron, who likewise specialised in the chinoiserie style. In terms of making Russia a great power, says Hartley, these efforts proved successful. According to her memoirs, Sophie was regarded as a tomboy, and trained herself to master a sword.