The empress played a direct role in many of these initiatives. [36][37], It was widely expected that a 13,000-strong Russian corps would be led by the seasoned general, Ivan Gudovich, but the empress followed the advice of her lover, Prince Zubov, and entrusted the command to his youthful brother, Count Valerian Zubov. 12. pp. She thus spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. This work, divided into four parts, dealt with teaching methods, subject matter, teacher conduct, and school administration. In the end, it seems the misogynists somewhat got their wish since the rumour still doggedly persists to this day. She died of natural causes, of a stroke, when she was 67 years old. [100] Two years after the implementation of Catherine's program, a member of the National Commission inspected the institutions established. She did not allow dissenters to build chapels, and she suppressed religious dissent after the onset of the French Revolution. Thirty-four years after assuming the throne, Catherine passed away on November 6, 1796. Sette, Alessandro. No. This raised her in the empress's esteem. The cause of death was confirmed by autopsy. 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. But the actual story of the monarch's death is far simpler: On November 16, 1796, the 67-year-old empress . Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history. Catherine The Great death: She was the victim of many slurs (Image: SKY/HBO) Trending There were a number of salacious tales surrounding the monarch and her court, which was something that . The frustration affected Catherine's health. All Rights Reserved. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Uniting Cossacks, peasants, escaped serfs and other discontented tribal groups and malcontents, Pugachev produced a storm of violence that swept across the steppes, writes Massie. [19] In the first version of her memoirs, edited and published by Alexander Hertzen, Catherine strongly implied that the real father of her son Paul was not Peter, but rather Saltykov.[20]. One evening, while attempting to have sexual intercourse with the stallion, the harness holding the horse broke, sending the beast crashing down on top of her. The truth of the matter was Catherine couldnt trust the systematic bureaucracy in Russia nor the many noblemen installed by her husband before her. In 1757, Poniatowski served in the British Army during the Seven Years' War, thus severing close relationships with Catherine. Book. In the south the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Bar Confederation and Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. He received a palace in Saint Petersburg when Catherine became empress. Sedgwick makes her argument . Russia got territories east of the line connecting, more or less, RigaPolotskMogilev. 2. Several years into her reign, Catherine embarked on an ambitious legal endeavor inspired byand partially plagiarized fromthe writings of leading thinkers. The following year, the 16-year-old wed her betrothed, officially becoming Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseyevna. Born in 1729, and known as Catherine the Great because she served as Russia's longest-reigning female ruler, she was empress from 1762 until her death in 1796. A self-described glutton for art, the empress strategically purchased paintings in bulk, acquiring as much in 34 years as other royals took generations to amass. Alexander Radishchev published his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1790, shortly after the start of the French Revolution. Catherine separated the Jews from Orthodox society, restricting them to the Pale of Settlement. Her male enemies created the legends that still reverberate around todays World Wide Web. [109][110], In an attempt to assimilate the Jews into Russia's economy, Catherine included them under the rights and laws of the Charter of the Towns of 1782. She also established a commission composed of T.N. Articles and Photos. She made use of the social theory ideas of German cameralism and French physiocracy, as well as Russian precedents and experiments such as foundling homes. Womens History Month facts: When is Women's History Month? He warned of uprisings in Russia because of the deplorable social conditions of the serfs. [114] Endowments from the government replaced income from privately held lands. The newlyweds settled in the palace of Oranienbaum, which remained the residence of the "young court" for many years. They refused to comply, and in 1764, she deported over 20,000 Old Believers to Siberia on the grounds of their faith. [107] Judaism was a small, if not non-existent, religion in Russia until 1772. Following the war and the defeat of Pugachev, Catherine laid the obligation to establish schools at the guberniya a provincial subdivision of the Russian empire ruled by a governor on the Boards of Social Welfare set up with the participation of elected representatives from the three free estates.[97]. "The circumstances and cause of death, and the intentions and degree of responsibility of those . As she learned Russian, she became increasingly interested in the literature of her adopted country. Sergei Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and relations with Saltykov were platonic. [47] Catherine failed to reach any of the initial goals she had put forward. She came from a very poor family and did not have a pleasant childhood. He was strongly in favour of the adoption of the Austrian three-tier model of trivial, real, and normal schools at the village, town, and provincial capital levels. Your Privacy Rights Catherine the Great (May 2, 1729-Nov. 17, 1796) was empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, the longest reign of any female Russian leader. By 1782, Catherine arranged another advisory commission to review the information she had gathered on the educational systems of many different countries. Paul ascended to the throne and was known as Emperor Paul I. Catherine's will was discovered in . [133] The court physician diagnosed a stroke[133][134] and despite attempts to revive her, she fell into a coma. A great dreamer, he was avid for territories to conquer and provinces to populate; an experienced diplomat with a knowledge of Russia that Catherine had not yet acquired and as audacious as Catherine was methodical, Potemkin was treated as an equal by the empress up to the time of his death in 1791. Apply organic citrus and avocado . Two wings were devoted to her collections of "curiosities". A new Hulu series titled The Great takes its cue from the little-known beginnings of Catherines reign. 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. Catherine and Peter were ill-matched, and their marriage was notoriously unhappy. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour and Catherine had him replaced with Ivan Osterman (in office 17811797). 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. Though Hartley acknowledges that serfdom is a scar on Russia, she emphasizes the practical obstacles the empress faced in enacting such a far-reaching reform, adding, Where [Catherine] could do things, she did do things., Serfdom endured long beyond Catherines reign, only ending in 1861 with Alexander IIs Emancipation Manifesto. The rumours tell us more about the time in which Catherine lived than they do about the cause of her death. She . Peter also intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig (see Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff). Tuberculosis, diagnosed as an abscess of the lungs, caused her early demise. Petersburg." Peter . Although she never met him face to face, she mourned him bitterly when he died. Catherine's eldest sonand heirmay have been illegitimate. [82], During Catherine's reign, Russians imported and studied the classical and European influences that inspired the Russian Enlightenment. The empress was a great lover of art and books, and ordered the construction of the Hermitage in 1770 to house her expanding collection of paintings, sculpture, and books. But while the empress did have her fair share of lovers12 to be exactshe was not the sexual deviant of popular lore. Her coffee was brought in, she drank it and sat down to write. Although she mastered the language, she retained an accent. Throughout Russia, the inspectors encountered a patchy response. Catherine did turn Russia into a global great power not only a European one but with quite a different reputation from what she initially had planned as an honest policy. This was another attempt to organise and passively control the outer fringes of her country. As many of the democratic principles frightened her more moderate and experienced advisors, she refrained from immediately putting them into practice. It was unthinkable they could rule a nation, especially one successfully. She was especially impressed with his argument that people do not act for their professed idealistic reasons, and instead she learned to look for the "hidden and interested motives". If all went as planned, according to Massie, the proposed legal code would raise the levels of government administration, of justice, and of tolerance within her empire. But these changes failed to materialize, and Catherines suggestions remained just that. [73] In 1779, she hired the Scottish architect Charles Cameron to build the Chinese Village at Tsarskoye Selo (modern Pushkin, Saint Petersburg). 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. Catherine also issued the Code of Commercial Navigation and Salt Trade Code of 1781, the Police Ordinance of 1782, and the Statute of National Education of 1786. Terms of Use The official cause of death was a stroke but was possibly an assassination. [33][34], The Russian victories procured access to the Black Sea and allowed Catherine's government to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa, Nikolayev, Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine"), and Kherson. At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for the throne included Ivan VI (17401764), who had been confined at Schlsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and who was thought to be insane. [117] While claiming religious tolerance, she intended to recall the Old Believers into the official church. She soon became popular with several powerful political groups that opposed her husband. By 1786, Catherine excluded all religion and clerical studies programs from lay education. [52], Catherine paid a great deal of attention to financial reform, and relied heavily on the advice of Prince A. Another theory argues that he died through injuries sustained from . in by H. M. Scott, ed., Romanovs. She is one of historys greatest female rulers who modernised her adopted homeland, expanded its borders and transformed it into a global superpower. The formidable Catherine had little time for her heir. Look at the mirror, however, and an entirely different ruler appears: Her reflection is this private, determined, ambitious Catherine, says Jaques. She expanded Russia's borders to the Black Sea and into central Europe during her reign. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum. The answer is misogyny. That is what the legend said. Even before the rule of Catherine, serfs had very limited rights, but they were not exactly slaves. [77] In the first category, she read romances and comedies that were popular at the time, many of which were regarded as "inconsequential" by the critics both then and since. I am very fond of the arts, especially painting. 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. So why then has the legacy of Russia's longest-ruling woman been stained with these rumours for over two centuries? In addition to the textbooks translated by the commission, teachers were provided with the "Guide to Teachers". Catherine did indeed like horses, so much so that a portrait was painted of her on horseback. 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. They introduced numerous innovations regarding wheat production and flour milling, tobacco culture, sheep raising, and small-scale manufacturing. Share this: Like this: Loading. The death of Catherine shocks him, and as the intentions of Heathcliff never mean to hurt that much her to cause her dead. Catherine gave away 66,000 serfs from 1762 to 1772, 202,000 from 1773 to 1793, and 100,000 in one day: 18 August 1795. Catherines failure to abolish feudalism is often cited as justification for characterizing her as a hypocritical, albeit enlightened, despot. 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. In 1786, she assimilated the Islamic schools into the Russian public school system under government regulation. She refused the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp which had ports on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and refrained from having a Russian army in Germany. But across Europe, Catherine was generally blamed nonetheless. While a significant improvement, it was only a minuscule number, compared to the size of the Russian population. And there's also no question Catherine despised her husband in life and did not mourn his death. [92] The Establishment of the Moscow Foundling Home (Moscow Orphanage) was the first attempt at achieving that goal. [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. [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". Russia's State Council in 1770 announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. Prussia (through the agency of Prince Henry), Russia (under Catherine), and Austria (under Maria Theresa) began preparing the ground for the partitions of Poland. Writing in The Romanovs, Montefiore characterizes Catherine as an obsessional serial monogamist who adored sharing card games in her cozy apartments and discussing her literary and artistic interests with her beloved. Many sordid tales of her sexuality can, in fact, be attributed to detractors who hoped to weaken her hold on power. The Treaty of Kk Kaynarca, signed 10 July 1774, gave the Russians territories at Azov, Kerch, Yenikale, Kinburn, and the small strip of Black Sea coast between the rivers Dnieper and Bug. A description of the empress's funeral is written in Madame Vige Le Brun's memoirs. A portrait of Catherine the Great by Fedor Rokotov, 1763. After this, Catherine carried on sexual liaisons over the years with many men, including Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (17341783), Alexander Vasilchikov, Grigory Potemkin, Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov, and others. Catherine I died two years after Peter I, on 17 May 1727 at age 43, in St. Petersburg, where she was buried at St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress. Russian economic development was well below the standards in western Europe. The global trade of Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. Catherine's death is well documented. Whilst this one is also just an absurd rumour, it lies ever so slightly nearer the truth. 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. CATHERINE THE GREAT was Russia's longest ruling female leader after she succeeded her husband in the 18th century. [121][122] The percentage of state money spent on the court increased from 10% in 1767 to 11% in 1781 to 14% in 1795. However, if the empress' policies were too extreme or too disliked, she was not considered the true empress. 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. By the end of her reign, 50 provinces and nearly 500 districts were created, government officials numbering more than double this were appointed, and spending on local government increased sixfold. When Sophie's situation looked desperate, her mother wanted her confessed by a Lutheran pastor. In the plus column, the longest-reigning empress of Russia transformed her empire into one of Europe's great and . | READ MORE. Did you know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women, causing 1 in 3 deaths every year? Daniel Dumaresq and Dr John Brown. In the second partition, in 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. [9] It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other philosophes of the French Enlightenment. Still, there was a start of industry, mainly textiles around Moscow and ironworks in the Ural Mountains, with a labour force mainly of serfs, bound to the works. In this month, the empress of Russia died and her successor Paul, who detested that the Zubovs had other plans for the army, ordered the troops to retreat to Russia. While the deeply entrenched system of Russian serfdomin which peasants were enslaved by and freely traded among feudal lordswas at odds with her philosophical values, Catherine recognized that her main base of support was the nobility, which derived its wealth from feudalism and was therefore unlikely to take kindly to these laborers emancipation. When Sophie arrived in Russia in 1744, she spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with Empress Elizabeth but with her husband and with the Russian people as well. To become serfs, people conceded their freedoms to a landowner in exchange for their protection and support in times of hardship. [31], Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Taxes doubled again for those of Jewish descent in 1794, and Catherine officially declared that Jews bore no relation to Russians. Assignation roubles circulated on equal footing with the silver rouble; a market exchange rate for these two currencies was ongoing. 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. She had the government collect and publish vital statistics. One urban legend even claimed that Catherine had an erotic cabinet created for one of her palaces. Her many military campaigns, on the other hand, represent a less palatable aspect of her legacy. She acted as mediator in the War of the Bavarian Succession (17781779) between the German states of Prussia and Austria. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. Children of serfs were born into serfdom and worked the same land their parents had. Catherine became a great patron of Russian opera. In 1783, storms drove a Japanese sea captain, Daikokuya Kday, ashore in the Aleutian Islands, at that time Russian territory. Segments of public opinion turned against Catherine when she took a stand against the . The imperial couple moved into the new Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Yelizaveta Alekseyevna Tarakanova (17531775) was another potential rival. She provided support to a Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation. [43] In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta, which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. [52], Catherine made public health a priority. This was one of the chief reasons behind rebellions, including Pugachev's Rebellion of Cossacks, nomads, peoples of the Volga, and peasants. [71] She ordered the planting of the first "English garden" at Tsarskoye Selo in May 1770. For Latin Empress, see, Partitions of PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. [98] One system that particularly stood out was produced by a mathematician, Franz Aepinus. Converted Jews could gain permission to enter the merchant class and farm as free peasants under Russian rule. [28] From 1762, the Great Imperial Crown was the coronation crown of all Romanov emperors until the monarchy's abolition in 1917. Advertising Notice Catherine the Great actually expired alone and of natural causes. Catherine promised more serfs of all religions, as well as amnesty for convicts, if Muslims chose to convert to Orthodoxy. For all her achievements, Catherine is often remembered for the multitude of salacious and slanderous rumours attached to her name, none more famous than the one surrounding her death. 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". In July 1765, Dumaresq wrote to Dr. John Brown about the commission's problems and received a long reply containing very general and sweeping suggestions for education and social reforms in Russia. [113] This re-established the separate identity that Judaism maintained in Russia throughout the Jewish Haskalah. The pair met on the day of Catherines 1762 coup but only became lovers in 1774.
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