Today I would like to give you a detailed account of Catherine II, who was called the Emperor (Великая) in Russia, as peter the Great was born.
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Catherine II Alexeievna (Russian: Екатерина Алексееевна, 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), also known as 17 November 1796 Catherine the Great (Екатерина II Великая), or catherine II in English, reigned for thirty-four years for the longest reign in the history of the Russian Empire (reigned 1762 to 1796). She was the empress dowager who ruled Russia.
Catherine was born in PomeraniaStedin, Prussia, under the name Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, deposed in a coup d'état and assassinated her husband Peter III, who became Empress of Russia. Under its rule Russia underwent a renaissance, reaching the pinnacle of its history and becoming one of the European powers.
Potemkin
Catherine often relied on the assistance of her favored nobles during her reign and reign, such as Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (Григо́рий Григо́рьеви⫋ Орло́в) and Gregory Alessandrovich Bojkin (Григо́рий Потёмкин). With the support of generals such as Suvorov, Rumyantsev, and Ushakov, the Russian Empire under Catherine expanded rapidly through military and diplomatic affairs. In the south, Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire and defeated the Crimean Khanate through the Russo-Turkish War, colonizing vast areas of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov (i.e., New Russia); in the west, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Ekaterina's former lover Stanisław August, was divided, and Russia gained the largest territory; in the east, Russia began colonizing Alaska, from which Russian North America was established.
Catherine reformed the administrative divisions, and many new towns were established under her orders. Following in the footsteps of peter the great she admired, she continued to modernize Russia according to the Western European model, but conscription and the economy were still based on serfdom, and the needs of the state and landlords became increasingly dependent on serfs, which led to many rebellions, such as the Pugachev Uprising of the peasants and Cossacks.
The reign of Catherine is known as the "Catherine Era" and is often considered the golden age of the Russian Empire and the Russian nobility. The Declaration of The Freedom of the Nobility, promulgated during the reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine as its continuation, liberated the nobility from compulsory military service and state service. Catherine promoted the construction of many classical aristocratic buildings and changed the face of Russia. She enthusiastically supported the enlightenment conception, which earned her the title of enlightened absolutist monarch. Catherine also supported the arts and promoted the development of the Russian Enlightenment. The Smolny Palace, founded during this period, was the first state-funded institution of higher education for women in Europe.
<h1>adolescence</h1>
Catherine II was born on 2 May 1729 in Pomeranian Studdin, Prussia, and was related to the Rurik dynasty in Russia. Her original name was Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt, belonged to the German royal family that ruled Anhalt, which was not a prominent principality at the time. Christian August was a general in the Prussian army who was in charge of Stedin (present-day Szczecin, Poland). Sofia had two cousins who were kings of Sweden: Gustav III and Karl XIII. [2] In the tradition of the German royal family, early education in Sofia came mainly from French tutors. Sofia's childhood was uneventful, and she once said to her companion Baron Grimm: "I don't see any fun in it." Although Sofia was a princess, her family was not rich, and it was her mother's rich and noble royal relatives who supported her.
<h1>Marriage to Peter</h1>
In 1742, Sofia's distant cousin, Prince Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein, grandson of Peter the Great of Russia, was chosen by his aunt, then Empress Elizabeth of Russia, to become Crown Prince of the Russian Empire. King Frederick II of Prussia and Count Lestock then plotted a marriage to overthrow Bestuzov, the agent of the Russian-Austrian alliance and the Empress's trusted chancellor, and thus strengthen Russian-Prussian cooperation. In the winter of 1742, the Duchess of Anhalt took Sofia to Berlin to meet Frederick II. Frederick was satisfied with the princess of Sofia and thought that she could become the wife of the Crown Prince of Russia, so he invited the best French painter to paint a portrait of the princess of Sofia, and then sent the portrait to St. Petersburg for the empress to see. The Duke of Anhalt's family waited for a full year. During the year, the Russian court in St. Petersburg studied various marriage schemes, and finally chose to fall on Princess Sofia Augustus of the Principality of Anhalt.
In January 1744, a messenger from St. Petersburg brought a letter from Empress Elizabeth inviting Joanna, Duchess of Anhalt, and Princess Sofia, to Russia, along with a check for tens of thousands of rubles as expenses for the Duchess mother and daughter on the road. Although the letter did not state the purpose of the invitation, the Duke of Anhalt's family knew what it meant——— Empress Elizabeth had chosen Sofia as crown princess.
On February 9, 1744, Princess Sofia arrived in Moscow. Empress Elizabeth warmly received the Mother and Daughter of the Duchess of Anhalt. However, the entire diplomatic effort was almost defeated by Sofia's mother, Joanna Elizabeth Holstein-Gottorp. She is recorded to be a thin-hearted, "dirty" woman who was keen on gossip and court intrigue, obsessed with the vanity that her daughter would become the Empress of Russia, and eventually angered Empress Elizabeth. The Empress eventually expelled him as a spy. In fact, the Empress knew the Sofia family very well, and she (Empress Elizabeth, Elizabeth Petrovna Елизаве́та I Петро́вна) was originally intended to marry Joanna's brother Carl August von Holstein in 1727, but just before the wedding, the groom died of smallpox.
Despite Joanna's misdeeds, the Empress was very fond of Sofia. As soon as Sofia came to Russia, he spared no effort to please the Empress and her favored subjects, as well as the Russian people. She asked Empress Elizabeth to find the best teacher for her, hard study and Orthodox etiquette. Princess Sofia studied Russian diligently, even in the dead of night, when the attendants around her were asleep, while Sofia was still holding a book and reading hard, walking barefoot in the bedroom to stay awake (although she had mastered Russian, she still had some German accents), and contracted pneumonia. She later wrote in her memoirs that as soon as she came to Russia, she was eager to realize that she had to be one to wear the crown.
Sofia's father, a devout Lutheran, was extremely opposed to his daughter's conversion to Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church baptized Sofia on 28 June 1744, conferring her the new ecclesiastical name of Catherine (Екатерина) and her fatherly name Alexeyevna (Алексеееввна; meaning "daughter of Alexei"). On 29 June, Crown Prince Peter became engaged to Catherine. Catherine wrote in her memoirs that as soon as she came to Russia, she contracted severe pleurisy, almost fatal. She attributes her survival to regular bloodletting therapy, even as many as four times a day. When Catherine was seriously ill, her mother Joanna wanted to ask the Lutheran priest to perform the sacraments on her behalf. But Catherine said, "I don't want a Lutheran priest to find an Orthodox monk for me." Word soon spread, and the Russian court's affection for Catherine doubled.
The two eventually married in St. Petersburg on 21 August 1745. Peter had already been made Grand Duke of Holstein, and Catherine became Grand Duchess.
Life after marriage did not improve much for Catherine. Peter didn't love her at all, and the two didn't even have sex together for five years after their marriage. Count Andrey Shuvalov, Ekaterina's court attendant, became acquainted with the diarist James Bouswell, who later recalled that Shuvalov had told him many secrets of the Russian royal family. Some of these rumors claim that Peter had a mistress named Elizabeth Volenzova, and that Catherine subsequently had an affair with Sergei Saltikov, Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov, Alexander Vassichaikov, Grigory Potemkin, and Stanisław August. Catherine became friends with Elizabeth Volenzova's sister, Catherine Volenzova-Dashkova, who introduced her to many powerful political groups opposed to Peter. The Russian court was increasingly intolerant of Peter's temper. He would gather the male servants for military training in the early morning, and then lead them into Catherine's room to sing and dance until late at night. In 1759, Catherine became pregnant with her second child, Anna, but the child died four months later. Due to the rumors of Catherine's debauchery at the time, Peter did not believe that he was the biological father of the child, and when Catherine refuted her accusations, Peter cursed his wife to "go to hell"!
Catherine then spent most of her time in her bedroom to escape Peter's rude domestic violence. Catherine was bored during these days and could only read as a pastime. At first she began to read novels aimlessly, then inadvertently read Voltaire's works, and since then she has become interested in political philosophy books. Catherine found a thick ten-volume history of Germany, insisted that she had to read one volume every eight days, and read through four volumes of the history of philosophy, as well as a large number of books in Russian. After a while, Catherine had a depth of knowledge that allowed her to read Montesquieu's difficult book "Dharma".
Catherine wrote in her memoirs with optimism and determination:
"I often tell myself that happiness or grief depends on my heart. If you encounter misfortune, then summon up the courage to transcend. Even if the eyes are bleak, people can be happy and brave. ”
<h1>Peter III with a coup d'état of July 1762</h1>
On 5 January 1762 (25 December 1761 in the Old Calendar), Empress Elizabeth died and Crown Prince Peter III succeeded him, and the couple moved from Oranienbaum to the Winter Palace.
Peter greatly admired King Frederick II of Prussia. At that time, Russia and Prussia were enemies in the Seven Years' War, and peter succeeded to the throne, not only ordering the cessation of hostility against Prussia, but also returning large areas of occupied territory, including Berlin, to Frederick II. In addition, Peter was involved in the Schleswig dispute between the Principality of Holstein and Denmark. Its favoritism toward Germany and its eccentric temper drew great resentment among the nobles and the army, who soon united around Catherine and formed a political group.
In July 1762, six months after ascending the throne, Peter and his courtiers and relatives from Holstein went on vacation to Oranienbaum, leaving Catherine in St. Petersburg. On the evening of 8 July (27 June in the old calendar), Catherine learned that Peter had arrested one of her accomplices and that the previous plan must be carried out immediately. Catherine left the palace and went to the Guards regiment to give a speech calling on the soldiers to protect themselves. Catherine then traveled with the Guards to the Semonovsky Barracks, where she received the blessing of the monks and became the monarch of all Russia. Catherine then arrested Peter and forced him to sign an abdication edict. Eight days after the coup, on 17 July, Peter III died at The Roptcha at the hands of Alexei Grigorievich Orlov (brother of Gregory Orlov and subsequently a favorite of the Empress's court). Historians have not found an association with catherine herself to the murder.
Peter III
After the fall of Peter III, there were other potential contenders for the throne in Russia: Ivan VI (1740-1764), who had been interned in ShlischeryBurg on Lake Ladoga since his sixth month of age; and Elisavita Alexeyevna Tarakanova. Ivan VI eventually died in 1764 in an unsuccessful rescue coup. Because Catherine, like Empress Elizabeth, had ordered that if anyone tried to rescue Ivan VI, he would be executed. Ivan had lost his mind because of years of imprisonment, and even as a puppet, he was not up to the task.
In fact, Catherine inherited her husband's throne, as she did not have any Romanov bloodline. She followed catherine I's precedent of succeeding her husband Peter the Great. Some historians also believe that Catherine was only the regent of her son Paul, or that she usurped the throne of her son. The nobles, led by Nikita Panin, plotted a coup d'état to depose Catherine, install Paul, and establish a constitutional monarchy. This was unsuccessful, and Catherine remained in power until her death in 1796.
<h1>Ruling</h1>
Coroned in 1762
On June 28, 1762, Catherine, with the help of her lover Gregory Orlov, gathered an army supporting her in St. Petersburg proclaiming herself Tsar Catherine II of Russia and appointing her eldest son Paul as her heir. On September 22, Catherine was officially crowned in Moscow. Catherine's coronation was the first time the Romanov dynasty used the Russian Imperial crown. Inspired by the Crown of the Byzantine Empire, this treasure, designed by swiss court jeweller Lakhmi Boj, consists of two hemispheres of gold and silver, symbolizing the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. On the laurel crown in the middle of the Imperial Crown that separates the eastern and western hemispheres are laurel and oak leaves composed of 75 diamonds and 4936 Indian diamonds. The laurel crown also features a diamond cross and a ruby weighing 398.62 carats.
Catherine II
Despite the cost of the Imperial Crown, Lakhmi Boj completed the masterpiece in just two months, and the final product weighed only 2.3 kilograms. From Catherine II to the last Tsar, Nicholas II, all Russian emperors wore imperial crowns at the crown. The Imperial Crown is now in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury.
Russo-Turkish War
Catherine inherited Peter the Great and conquered the Black Coast to the south. The Fifth Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 dealt a crushing blow to the Ottoman Empire, making Russia the dominant force in southeastern Europe. Victory in the war led Russia to annex southern Ukraine and gain access to the Black Sea. Russia established a series of new cities on the new site, including Odessa, Nikolayev, Ekaterinoslav (meaning "glory of Catherine", now Dnipro) and Kherson. The Peace of Kuchukkainaji, signed on 10 July 1774, gave Russia access to the fortresses of Azov, Kerch, Yenikar, the Kimborne Peninsula, and the Black Sea coast between the Dnieper and Bug rivers. The treaty also allowed Russian fleets and merchant fleets to navigate freely in the Sea of Azov, allowed Russia to protect Orthodox believers in Turkey, and ordered the Ottoman Empire to relinquish suzerainty over the Crimean Khanate.
Nine years later, in 1783, Catherine formally annexed Crimea. In 1787, Russia held a victory parade in Crimea, which spurred the outbreak of the Sixth Russo-Turkish War. Turkey was defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Iasi, which recognized Russian sovereignty over Crimea and ceded the Yedishan region.
Russo-Persian War
In 1783, Russia signed the Treaty of Grugivsk with Georgia, which declared that georgians would be protected from Persian invasion. In 1795, the new Persian king, Agha Mohammed Khan, invaded Georgia and expelled the newly built Russian fortresses in the Caucasus. The following year, Catherine went to war against Persia. The ultimate goal of the Russian government was to overthrow the anti-Russian Aga Mohammed Khan and propel him to flee to the throne of his younger brother Mortaza Goli Khan in Russia.
The original plan was for the veteran general Goodwich to lead a 13,000-strong army into battle, but the empress heeded the advice of her lover, Prince Zhu baofu, and instead sent the prince's young brother Valerian Jubaof as commander. Russian troops set out at Kizliar in April 1796 and soon swept through the Fortress of Derbent on 10 May. By mid-June, Zhu Baofu's army had met almost no resistance, and had conquered almost the entire Border of Azerbaijan, with the three famous cities of Baku, Shamaky, and Chamja all in their pockets. By November, the Russians had reached the confluence of the Arras and Kura rivers and were preparing to attack the Persian mainland.
But just this month, the Empress died. His successor, Paul I, hated Zhu Baofu and had other plans for his army, so he ordered the Russians to withdraw to the country. This order made the Zhu Baofu family and some of the high-ranking officials involved in the expedition very frustrated. Many of them were involved in the plot to assassinate Paul five years later.
Partition of Poland
In 1764, Catherine arranged for her former lover Stanisław August Poniatowski to ascend to the Polish throne. Although the proposal for the partition of Poland came from King Frederick II of Prussia, it was Empress Catherine who actually dominated the partition in the 1890s. In 1768, the Empress officially became the protector of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, provoking the anti-Russian struggle of the Bal Union (1768-72). After the revolt was suppressed, the internal affairs of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed. In order to control the Federation, the Empress established a special republican system (Rzeczpospolita) to ensure that the Permanent Privy Council was fully under the control of the Russian Empire through Russian envoys in Poland.
After the French Revolution of 1789, Catherine abandoned many of the Enlightenment ideas she had previously embraced. Catherine, fearing that the May Third Constitution (1791) would revive Poland-Lithuania and threatened the monarchies of Europe by the democratic movement within the Commonwealth, decided to intervene militarily. The Empress supported anti-constitutional groups such as the Tagovica Union in Poland and directly sent Russian troops to invade Poland. Russia won successive victories in the Russo-Polish War of 1792 and the Kosciuszko Uprising in 1794, and finally in 1795 completely divided the remaining territories of Poland with Prussia and Austria.
Relations with Japan
In the Far East, the Russians began to actively hunt the furs of Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island, thus stimulating the Russians to trade with Japan in the south for supplies. In 1783, The Japanese captain Mitsutao Ohkuroya encountered a storm during his voyage and landed in the Aleutian Islands, which were then part of Russian territory. The Russian authorities bailed it out and decided to use this as an opportunity to appoint Mitsutao Ohkuroya as the trade representative between the two countries. On June 28, 1791, Catherine received Mitsutao Oh kuroya at Tsar's Village, and finally sent a trading mission led by Adam Lexmann to Japan the following year. The mission was received by the Edo shogunate, but the negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful.
<h1>The final years</h1>
Catherine has experienced countless successes and glories in her life, but as she near the end, fate begins to show a cruel other side. In September 1796, King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden visited her in St. Petersburg. Hoping to marry her granddaughter Alexandra to the King of Sweden, the Empress held a grand ball at the court on 11 September, intending to announce the engagement. But Gustav Adolf, knowing that Alexandra would not convert to Lutheran, refused to get engaged, did not attend the ball, and returned to Stockholm. Catherine was furious about this, and her health was affected. She had intended her beloved grandson Alexander I to succeed him directly over to her son Paul I. But the dance seriously damaged her health, and she died of a stroke two months later, ultimately failing to achieve her plan.
On November 16, 1796 (November 5 in the Russian calendar), Catherine got up early, drank breakfast, drank coffee, and worked on the case. Her maid, Maria Perrocuskina, asked the Empress about the quality of her sleep, to which Catherine replied that she herself had not slept so soundly in a long time. At about nine o'clock in the morning, Catherine went to the locker room and suffered a sudden stroke when she went to the toilet. Sensing the Empress's disappearance, the attendant, Zaka Zotov, rushed into the room and found Catherine lying on the ground, bruised, with a weak pulse and slow breathing. [10] The servants sent Catherine back to her room. Forty-five minutes later, royal physician John Rogerson arrived, diagnosed with a sudden stroke. [30] Despite all the attempts, the Empress fell into a shock that she could not wake up. After the sacrament of his death, Catherine II died at about 9:45 p.m. in the village of Tsar in Pushkin, St. Petersburg, Russia, at the age of sixty-seven, ending thirty-four years of rule. [30] The autopsy the following day proved that the cause of death was indeed stroke.
In 1792, Catherine ordered her secretary, Alexander Vasilivich Kolapovitsky, to record a will detailing the empress's own funeral arrangements: "The garment shall be a white dress, with a golden crown on the head and the inscription of the name of the church." The longest period of mourning is six months, the shorter the better. [30] When she was finally buried, she wore a gold crown and a silver brocade dress. On November 25, a gold-embroidered coffin was placed in a hall designed by Antonio Rinaldi for viewing. The memoirs of Elizabeth Vijay Le Brun record the details of the funeral: "The empress's body rested in the palatial room for six weeks, and the long lights went on day and night. The Empress is surrounded by the coats of arms of all the towns of Russia. She wore a veil and blonde hair. The lady who came to hang kissed her hands — or at least tried to do so. Empress Catherine was finally buried in Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
<h1>Heir</h1>
Catherine had two sons. The eldest son, Paul Petrovich, was born in 1754 and later became Tsar Paul I. There are rumors that he was the illegitimate son of Catherine and the courtier Grigory Grigorievich Orlov, but the rumors do not stand because Paul Petrovich, regardless of appearance and personality, is simply a copy of his father Peter III Fyodorovich, and Peter III is not rumored to be infertile, and once had an illegitimate child with a lover. Because Paul was too much like Peter III Fyodorovich, Catherine II hated him. Tsar Elizabeth did not mind the claim that Paul was illegitimate, saying that "if he is indeed an illegitimate child, it is not the first in our family".
The second son, Alexei, was born to Grigory Grigorievich Orlov.
The Royal Seal of the Empress