Catherine II, who was later honored as Catherine the Great, said: "If I can live to be two hundred years old, all of Europe will crawl under my feet!" ”
I believe that there are many people like me, who are deeply impressed by the domineering and arrogance of Emperor Ye.
In fact, people do not shout slogans, but make achievements in a down-to-earth manner.
Emperor Ye reigned for 34 years, during the reign of Emperor Ye, Russia's crazy external expansion, three partitions of Poland, two Russo-Turkish wars, so that the territory expanded by 670,000 square kilometers, becoming the first power in Europe.
However, many people do not know that such a woman who brought Russia to the top was at the beginning only the daughter of a small German portal family, and when she traveled thousands of miles to marry Russia, she only brought a suitcase containing a few clothes. When she first arrived in Russia, she did not understand the language, did not know the place of life, and was still unaccompanied and helpless.
Her journey has been extremely difficult and difficult. However, in the end, under her continuous efforts, persistence and patience, she finally achieved a hegemony.
<h1>01</h1>
Catherine II, whose original name was Sophia Auguste, had no ancestral roots, and her father was made duke for her military exploits, and when she was born in 1729, she was the daughter of a small German duchy.
Because her parents are not at home for many years and have not been subject to much discipline, she has a lively and cheerful personality and great courage.
It is worth saying that she was influenced by French Enlightenment ideas from a young age, and often wrote letters to Montesquieu until she became empress, and still had correspondence with Montesquieu.
Catherine's origins are not a little worse than the children of the prominent European nobility and royal families. Logically, the Russian royal family could not choose the princess for her.
Probably by fate, when she was 15 years old, with the help of King Frederick II of Germany, she was chosen by Empress Elizabeth as a princess. So she came to Russia.
She knew what this opportunity meant to her, and she was already very wise at a young age. One or two can be seen in the two things she did when she first came to Russia.
One was to convert to the Orthodox Church and change her name to Catherine Alexeyevna. The second is to study Russian assiduously.
Her painstaking efforts to integrate into Russian customs and culture won the favor of the Russian court. On the day of the baptism, she spoke fluent Russian, which made people even more impressed. In this way, she passed the examination of Empress Elizabeth.
<h1>02</h1>
At the age of 16, he married Crown Prince Peter and was made Grand Duchess.
But life after marriage is not satisfactory.
Peter had confessed to her that he didn't like her at all, and that marrying her was just an errand.
Her husband didn't love her, didn't touch her, and even began to hate her. So much so that after 5 years of marriage she was still a virgin.
This kind of thing is actually easier to understand. After all, because of the pressure of the empress, she was forced to marry someone she hated, and there were physical and psychological obstacles.
But for Catherine, who was married to a foreign country, this was cruel. Everyone thinks that a person in a foreign country, with no relatives and no friends around, could have relied on her husband, and her lover you and me, and disgusted with herself and snubbed herself. The taste is very uncomfortable.
That didn't bring her down, though.
While obeying the empress, she devoted all her energy to studying, immersing herself in hard reading, studying Voltaire, German history, history of philosophy, And Russian books, and began to study Montesquieu's difficult and difficult to understand "On the Spirit of the Law".
Compared with Crown Prince Peter, she is better. Peter had been in Russia for many years, still speaking Russian, and working exclusively against the empress and his wife.
Because she had been infertile for many years, Empress Elizabeth was greatly annoyed.
Catherine realized that if she did not have another child, her seat would be in danger.
After much effort, a son was finally born in 1754.
It should be said that the child was carried to the empress's palace as soon as it was born, which was a common practice in many courts. Sadly, a woman who had just given birth, lying on the delivery bed for more than three hours, woke up to find that there was no one around to take care of her, or a person who endured the pain and walked back to her bedroom.
This should be a critical hit for any woman.
In 1758, Catherine had another child.
By this time, catherine and Peter's relationship was getting worse and worse, and Peter was becoming less and less respectful of Catherine. After giving birth to the daughter, Peter also said publicly, "I don't know how Catherine got pregnant, I don't know who this daughter is." ”
The implication is that Catherine's private life is inappropriate.
In 1759, a few months old daughter died prematurely, catherine's relationship with Crown Prince Peter turned open hostility.
<h1>03</h1>
If Catherine, who had just entered the palace, was an ignorant girl, now her experience, she already knew that if she wanted to control her own destiny, she had to take action.
Catherine also knew her way out, and there were three.
The first is to continue the relationship between husband and wife.
The second is divorce, which may be sent to the monastery.
The third is to take the initiative to attack and control their own destiny.
She thought about it again and again, although she could not figure it out for the time being, but she was already accumulating strength and secretly attracting many supporters.
A woman without real power, the most convenient way to win people's hearts is to use her lover. She had a total of 23 lovers in her life, the youngest of whom was 38 years younger than her. Therefore, some people in later generations said that she was a "unique slut" who ascended to the throne by her lover.
In fact, in my own opinion, everyone is really unfair to women, the same is the king, the male harem can have three thousand beautiful women, and the female lover will be scolded.
In any case, Catherine had the support of some ministers. On top of that, she had a lover, Gregory Orlov, an officer of the Guards. Orlov had five brothers, all of whom were soldiers, and the two brothers were also prominent officers in the Guards. Later they helped Catherine achieve a coup d'état and put Catherine on the throne.
On December 25, 1761, Empress Elizabeth died and Peter succeeded to the throne as Peter III.
After succeeding to the throne, Peter's first thing was to get rid of Queen Catherine. At a state banquet with foreign guests, he also publicly insulted Catherine, and the relationship between the husband and wife became in a state of flux.
One day Peter III deliberately set a fire to catherine. As a result, Catherine was unharmed and gave birth to a son to Orlov.
Peter's move made Catherine aware of the danger, so she and her lover accelerated the pace of action. Finally, in 1762, less than half a year after Peter's coronation, a coup d'état, with the support of Guards officers, imprisoned Peter III, killed him and ascended to the throne.
It should be said that although Peter III was a stupid and incompetent person, after all, she was the heir to the orthodoxy, and she was a foreign woman who wanted to ascend to the throne without so easy as it seemed, which required extraordinary courage and wisdom.
Catherine's approach was undoubtedly a plot against the usurpation of the throne, and in order to gain a foothold, the first thing she did after she ascended the throne was to make a fuss on the moral and political level, calling her actions "the people's choice."
She was 33 years old.
<h1>04</h1>
After Empress Catherine ascended to the throne, she wrote in her diary: "The treasury is empty, and the army has been unpaid for three months." Commerce and trade are becoming more and more withered, and there are many phenomena of hoarding and monopoly. The national administration was lax, the various departments of the military aircraft also owed money, and the maritime administration was tired and almost collapsed. The judiciary is reduced to the rule of law, and the law is only done by the strong. ”
Simply put, it is the emptiness of the national treasury, the withering of commerce and trade, the laxity of the national government, and the pervasive crisis.
To this end, Catherine II carried out a series of measures.
She strengthened the centralization of power, established a highly centralized autocratic system, maintained the privileges of the nobility, strengthened the dictatorship of the nobility, consolidated the serfdom system, and stabilized the foundation of her political power.
She has taken a number of measures to encourage the development of industry and commerce. Practice enlightened despotism and proclaim equality before the law. Established various schools and advocated literary creation.
This series of measures restored the administrative order of Russia, strengthened state power, promoted the development of commerce and trade, increased the revenue of the state treasury, and enabled Russia's national strength to develop rapidly and enter its heyday.
Catherine the Great also made a new point: if Russia wants to gain the respect of its own people and its neighbors, it must become a formidable power.
As a result, it began to expand outwards on a large scale.
During her 34-year reign, Russia's territory expanded by 670,000 square kilometers. By the end of the 18th century, Russia had become a European power.
In particular, it is her most famous and powerful lover, Potemkin.
In the coup d'état, Catherine noticed the cavalry officer Potemkin, after which Catherine recalled him from the front to the palace, and Potemkin became Catherine's right and left hand, the number two person in Russia. Almost all of Russia's militaristic powers were written by Catherine and Potemkin. It is said that he had secretly married Catherine in the church.