‘Here lies Catherine II, born in Stettin 21 April 1729. She
moved to Russia in 1744 in order to marry Peter III. At the age of
fourteen she set herself a triple task: to be loved by her husband,
Elizabeth and the nation.
She omitted nothing which could achieve this. Eighteen years of
boredom and loneliness forced her to read many books. Coming to the
Russian throne she sought for good and tried and tried to bring her
subjects happiness, freedom and property…’
From Catherine the Great's
Memoirs
Young bride
The greatest ruler of the Romanov dynasty began life as a minor
German princess, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, who was invited to St
Petersburg with the intention of becoming the bride of
the Russian Empress Elizabeth’s nephew and heir, Peter, Duke of
Holstein.
Above: The redoubtable Empress Elizabeth
of Russia, by Georg Caspar Joseph von Prenner, 1754. Image © The
State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Determined to win favour with Peter, the Empress and the Russian
people, the fourteen-year-old princess immediately applied herself
to learning the language of her new homeland, and was received into
the Russian Orthodox Church with a new name, Catherine
Alekseyevna.
The couple married on 21 August 1745, but the union was doomed
to failure. Just ten days after meeting her husband-to-be
Catherine, noted that:
‘he did not care much for the nation that he was destined to
rule … and was very childish.’
They never formed a satisfactory relationship and both
eventually took other partners.
Above: Grand Duchess Catherine, painted by
an unknown artist, mid 18th century. Image © The State Hermitage
Museum, St Petersburg.
Nine years after they married, Catherine finally gave birth to a
son and heir, Grand Duke Paul. Immediately after his birth, Paul
was claimed by the Empress Elizabeth and seldom saw his mother.
Above: Catherine's son, Emperor Paul I,
painted by Jean-Henri Benner in 1821. Image © The State Hermitage
Museum, St Petersburg.
Empress in waiting
In December 1761, Empress Elizabeth died. The new Emperor and
Empress, Peter III and Catherine II, reigned for only six months.
They were seldom together and it soon became apparent to the nation
that the new emperor’s loyalties lay elsewhere. A coup was
inevitable.
Catherine feared that Peter would divorce or dispose of her in
order to marry his mistress, Elizabeth Vorontsova. Her position was
made more perilous by the fact that she was pregnant with her lover
Grigory Orlov’s child and had to keep her condition secret.
Once the baby was born in April 1762, Catherine was in a better
position to act. But her plan to overthrow Peter was thrown into
disarray when one of the plotters was seized on 27 June. Grigory
Orlov’s brother, Alexei, travelled out to Catherine’s villa near
Peterhof and brought her back to St Petersburg in his carriage.
Then, in tumultuous, frenzied scenes, the Guard Regiments,
senators, priests and officials acclaimed Catherine as Empress.
It was obviously essential to capture Peter before he could
summon other regiments. Catherine therefore assembled the Guards
before the Winter Palace, dressed herself in Guardsman’s uniform,
and set out on her stallion, ‘Brilliant’, towards Peterhof,
accompanied by a large army. On 29 June 1762, Grigory Orlov forced
Peter to sign an unconditional abdication at Oranienbaum, near
Peterhof.
Above: Catherine II on her horse
Brilliant, by Vigilius Eriksen, after 1762, showing Catherine as
she was on the day of the coup d'état. Image © The State
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Peter was sent to his nearby estate at Ropsha, where he was
killed on 3 July. Catherine was dismayed at Peter’s death and
realised that it was imperative that, as a usurper and the apparent
murderer of a monarch and a husband, she should be crowned as soon
as possible in Moscow, the old capital where the coronations of
Tsars had traditionally taken place. And so, on Sunday, 22
September 1762, the former Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst was
crowned ‘Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias’ in the Assumption
Cathedral, in the heart of the Kremlin.
Enlightened Empress
Catherine knew that she had to gain the trust of the Russian
people in order to drive forward change. She surrounded herself
with like-minded Russians. Many had aided her during the coup and,
like the Empress, admired the leading French philosophers.
She invited the French philosopher Denis Diderot to come to
Russia to continue printing the final volumes of the famous
Encyclopaedia there. The following year, she began to
correspond with Voltaire, who supported Catherie's initiatives for
Russia, describing her as ‘the brightest star in the North’.
Above: Marble bust of Catherine the Great
by Marie-Anne Collot, 1769. Image © The State Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg.
Mother Russia
But while Catherine wanted to learn from the French
philosophers, she was also keen to ally herself with Russia’s long
and rich history and to foster aspects of Russian culture. She went
on pilgrimages to sacred sites and wore dresses based on
traditional Russian costume. In the 1780s, she prepared a Russian
primer to teach young people to read and wrote the Tale of
Tsarevitch Khlor, said to be the first children’s story
written in Russian.
Over the course of her reign, Catherine introduced many reforms,
transformed St Petersburg, built magnificent palaces, and amassed
enormous collections of paintings, books and other items. She
surrounded herself with expert architects and craftspeople, many of
whom hailed from Scotland.
Anyone visiting the Imperial palaces during her reign was under
no illusion that Russia was a powerful European country and St
Petersburg its cultured, sophisticated capital.
Warrior queen
Catherine also dramatically increased the size, prestige and
security of Russia by gaining greater control of Poland and
conquering the lands around the north of the Black Sea, which were
held by the Ottoman Turks.
In 1771 she wrote to Voltaire:
‘If this war continues my garden at Tsarskoye Selo will soon
resemble a game of skittles, because I put up a monument there
after each of our glorious battles.’
From 1774, Catherine was ably assisted by her latest lover,
Grigory Potemkin, a one-eyed, mercurial, bear of a man who had
distinguished himself in the war. Together, they formed one of the
most dynamic partnerships the world has ever seen. Potemkin became
Governor General of the ‘New Russia’ in the south. Later, he won
over the people of the Crimea, adding the region to Russia’s
expanding territories.
Above: Prince Grigory Potemkin, by Johann
Baptist Lampi the Elder, c. 1790. Image © The State Hermitage
Museum, St Petersburg.
Empress of All the Russias
When Catherine died suddenly from a stroke in 1796, at the age
of sixty-seven, she had ruled for thirty-four years, making her one
of Russia’s longest reigning rulers, and one of its most
successful. With Catherine at its helm, Russia had become one of
the biggest countries in the world, a military superpower and
cultural leader, home to one of the world’s greatest art
collections. Discover her story, her collections and her legacy in
our unmissable exhibition.
Above: Portait of Paul I's daughters
holding a portrait of their grandmother, Catherine the Great, by
Vigée-Le Brun, 1796. Image © The State Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg.