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. Aided by her lover Grigory Orlov and his powerful family, she staged a coup just six months after her husband took the throne. One of her lovers, Pyotr Zavadovsky, received 50,000 roubles, a pension of 5,000 roubles, and 4,000 peasants in Ukraine after she dismissed him in 1777. [78] For information about particular nations that interested her, she read Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville's Memoirs de Chine to learn about the vast and wealthy Chinese empire that bordered her empire; Franois Baron de Tott's Memoires de les Turcs et les Tartares for information about the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean khanate; the books of Frederick the Great praising himself to learn about Frederick just as much as to learn about Prussia; and the pamphlets of Benjamin Franklin denouncing the British Crown to understand the reasons behind the American Revolution. Catherine and Peter were ill-matched, and their marriage was notoriously unhappy. [71] She ordered the planting of the first "English garden" at Tsarskoye Selo in May 1770. In the painting, she presents her public persona, standing in front of a mirror while draped in an ornate gown and serene smile. The period of Catherine the Great's rule is also known as the Catherinian Era. On the night of 8 July (OS: 27 June 1762),[22] Catherine was given the news that one of her co-conspirators had been arrested by her estranged husband and that all they had been planning must take place at once. Catherine the Great, Russian Yekaterina Velikaya, also called Catherine II, Russian in full Yekaterina Alekseyevna, original name Sophie Friederike Auguste, Prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst, (born April 21 [May 2, New Style], 1729, Stettin, Prussia [now Szczecin, Poland]died November 6 [November 17], 1796, Tsarskoye Selo [now Pushkin], near St. Petersburg, Russia), German-born empress of Russia . [126] The last of her lovers, Platon Zubov, was 40 years her junior. Before her death she recognized Peter II, the grandson of Peter I and Eudoxia, as her successor. They refused to comply, and in 1764, she deported over 20,000 Old Believers to Siberia on the grounds of their faith. [70] In a letter to Voltaire in 1772, she wrote: "Right now I adore English gardens, curves, gentle slopes, ponds in the form of lakes, archipelagos on dry land, and I have a profound scorn for straight lines, symmetric avenues. Besides her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. In the same year, Catherine issued the Charter of the Towns, which distributed all people into six groups as a way to limit the power of nobles and create a middle estate. [90] However, no action was taken on any recommendations put forth by the commission due to the calling of the Legislative Commission. 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Peter was her second cousin. Orlov died in 1783. Advertising Notice 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". 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. [29], During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire by some 520,000 square kilometres (200,000sqmi), absorbing New Russia, Crimea, the North Caucasus, right-bank Ukraine, White Russia, Lithuania, and Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powersthe Ottoman Empire and the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth. [111] Orthodox Russians disliked the inclusion of Judaism, mainly for economic reasons. [106], Russia often treated Judaism as a separate entity, where Jews were maintained with a separate legal and bureaucratic system. Catherine the Great is a monarch mired in misconception.
Catherine I of Russia - Wikipedia Also, the townspeople tended to turn against the junior schools and their pedagogical[clarification needed] methods. Upon arriving in St. Petersburg in 1744, Sophie converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, adopted a Russian name and began learning to speak the language. Privacy Statement
The most famous of these rumors is that she died after having sex with her horse. In these cases, it was necessary to replace this "fake" empress with the "true" empress, whoever she may be. Catherine The Great's Infamous Death Vigilius Eriksen/Grand Peterhof Palace Equestrian portrait of Catherine the Great in uniform of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, one of the oldest Imperial Russian guard units, circa 1762. 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. He also placed great emphasis on the "proper and effectual education of the female sex"; two years prior, Catherine had commissioned Ivan Betskoy to draw up the General Programme for the Education of Young People of Both Sexes. Gustav Adolph felt pressured to accept that Alexandra would not convert to Lutheranism, and though he was delighted by the young lady, he refused to appear at the ball and left for Stockholm. Paul ascended to the throne and was known as Emperor Paul I. Catherine's will was discovered in . While the nobility provided appreciable amounts of money for these institutions, they preferred to send their own children to private, prestigious institutions. Catherine the Great actually expired alone and of natural causes. Days earlier, she had found out about an uprising in the Volga region. She fell into a coma and died the next day whilst lying in her bed. [101], Catherine's apparent embrace of all things Russian (including Orthodoxy) may have prompted her personal indifference to religion.
Catherine the Great (Empress of Russia) - On This Day Longest ruling Russian empress, 17621796, "Catherine II" redirects here. Add some worm castings if you choose.
Peter and Catherine the Great Death: How Did They Die? Though the young Prussian princess had been imported to . 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. In terms of making Russia a great power, says Hartley, these efforts proved successful. She read widely and corresponded with many of the prominent thinkers of the era, including Voltaire and Diderot.
Catherine the Great - Britannica Presents 100 Women Trailblazers It was obvious to her that Peters hostility had evolved into a determination to end their marriage and remove her from public life., Far from resigning herself to this fate, Catherine bided her time and watched as Peter alienated key factions at court. In 1774, a disillusioned military officer named Yemelyan Pugachev capitalized on the unrest fomented by Russias ongoing fight with Turkey to lead hundreds of thousands into rebellion. [47] Catherine failed to reach any of the initial goals she had put forward. Catherineflanked by Orlov and her growing cadre of supportersarrived at the Winter Palace to make her official debut as Catherine II, sole ruler of Russia. Russia and Prussia had fought each other during the Seven Years' War (17561763), and Russian troops had occupied Berlin in 1761. It was instituted by the Fundamental Law of 7 November 1775. Although Catherine did not descend from the Romanov dynasty, her ancestors included members of the Rurik dynasty, which preceded the Romanovs. She came to power following the overthrow of her husband, Peter III. Catherine then left with the Ismailovsky Regiment to go to the Semenovsky Barracks, where the clergy was waiting to ordain her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne. Her foreign policy lacked a long-term strategy and from the very start was characterised by a series of mistakes. [42], The Qianlong Emperor of China was committed to an expansionist policy in Central Asia and saw the Russian Empire as a potential rival, making for difficult and unfriendly relations between Beijing and Saint Petersburg. She trained herself, biographer Virginia Rounding told Times Olivia B. Waxman last October, learning and beginning to form the idea that she could do better than her husband., In Catherines own words, Had it been my fate to have a husband whom I could love, I would never have changed towards him. Peter, however, proved to be not only a poor life partner, but a threat to his wifes wellbeing, particularly following his ascension to the Russian throne upon his aunt Elizabeths death in January 1762. Catherine named ahin Giray, a Crimean Tatar leader, to head the Crimean state and maintain friendly relations with Russia. At first, she attempted to revise clerical studies, proposing a reform of religious schools. She is often included in the ranks of the enlightened despots.
What Really Happened After Catherine The Great Died? - Grunge 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. [123]:119 Catherine bought the support of the bureaucracy. Although she could see the benefits of Britain's friendship, she was wary of Britain's increased power following its complete victory in the Seven Years' War, which threatened the European balance of power.
Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp - Wikipedia Though Russia never officially adopted the Nakaz, the widely distributed 526-article treatise still managed to cement the empress reputation as an enlightened European ruler. From there, they governed the duchy (which occupied less than a third of the current German state of Schleswig-Holstein, even including that part of Schleswig occupied by Denmark) to obtain experience to govern Russia. [133] The court physician diagnosed a stroke[133][134] and despite attempts to revive her, she fell into a coma. Obviously he never wanted to take part in the death of Catherine, because she was the perfect woman to him. In 1777, the empress described to Voltaire her legal innovations within a backward Russia as progressing "little by little". Paul I of Russia was the son and successor of Catherine the Great, who took the Romanov throne away from her feeble-minded husband, Tsar Peter III, and had him killed in 1762, an event which ever afterwards preyed on the mind of their son, then a boy of eight. Paper notes were issued upon payment of similar sums in copper money, which were also refunded upon the presentation of those notes. Catherine became the Empress of Russia and turned her love for reading and philosophy into practice. This work, divided into four parts, dealt with teaching methods, subject matter, teacher conduct, and school administration. Like Empress Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt.
Catherine the Great - Wikipedia 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. In many ways, the Orthodox Church fared no better than its foreign counterparts during the reign of Catherine. [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. This commission was charged with organising a national school network, as well as providing teacher training and textbooks. [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. Catherine became a great patron of Russian opera. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the empress, changed the face of the country. It also stipulated in detail the subjects to be taught at every age and the method of teaching. "The circumstances and cause of death, and the intentions and degree of responsibility of those . Dogs Rhetorical Exercise In Catharine Sedgwick's, Dogs, she uses the rhetorical appeal, logos, to help make it clear to the reader that animal cruelty is wrong, and to argue that goodness trumps genius. And there's also no question Catherine despised her husband in life and did not mourn his death. Catherines failure to abolish feudalism is often cited as justification for characterizing her as a hypocritical, albeit enlightened, despot. This second lost pregnancy was also attributed to Saltykov; Born at the Winter Palace, officially he was a son of Peter III but in her memoirs, Catherine implies very strongly that Saltykov was the biological father of the child. The Manifesto of 1763 begins with Catherine's title: We, Catherine the second, by the Grace of God, Empress and Autocrat of all the Russians at Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsarina of Kasan, Tsarina of Astrachan, Tsarina of Siberia, Lady of Pleskow and Grand Duchess of Smolensko, Duchess of Estonia and Livland, Carelial, Tver, Yugoria, Permia, Viatka and Bulgaria and others; Lady and Grand Duchess of Novgorod in the Netherland of Chernigov, Resan, Rostov, Yaroslav, Beloosrial, Udoria, Obdoria, Condinia, and Ruler of the entire North region and Lady of the Yurish, of the Cartalinian and Grusinian tsars and the Cabardinian land, of the Cherkessian and Gorsian princes and the lady of the manor and sovereign of many others. Peter also still played with toy soldiers. [134] An autopsy confirmed a stroke as the cause of death. "Catherine II and the Socio-Economic Origins of the Jewish Question in Russia", This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 14:56. On the following day, the formal betrothal of Catherine and Peter took place and the long-planned dynastic marriage finally occurred on 21 August 1745 in Saint Petersburg. At the same time, she recognized the damage the killing had inflicted on her legacy: My glory is spoilt, she reportedly said. The truth of the matter was Catherine couldnt trust the systematic bureaucracy in Russia nor the many noblemen installed by her husband before her.
Was Catherine the Great Killed by a Horse? | Snopes.com In addition to the advisory commission, Catherine established a Commission of National Schools under Pyotr Zavadovsky. 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). Catherine II[a] (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 17 November 1796),[b] most commonly known as Catherine the Great,[c] was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. In reality, those in power were beginning to fear the power that Russia was now wielding. [128], Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the British ambassador to Russia, offered Stanislaus Poniatowski a place in the embassy in return for gaining Catherine as an ally. She called Potemkin for help mostly military and he became devoted to her. [117] In later years, Catherine amended her thoughts.
'The Great' Season 2 Ending Explained: Who Gets Stabbed In - Collider Based on her writings, she found Peter detestable upon meeting him. Teplov, T. von Klingstedt, F.G. Dilthey, and the historian G. Muller. While a significant improvement, it was only a minuscule number, compared to the size of the Russian population. They submitted recommendations for the establishment of a general system of education for all Russian orthodox subjects from the age of 5 to 18, excluding serfs.
'The Great' Subject Peter The III's Cause Of Death Is Still - Bustle 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 raised her in the empress's esteem. By the winter of 1773, the Pugachev revolt had started to threaten. This reversal aroused the frustration and enmity of the powerful Zubovs and other officers who took part in the campaign: many of them would be among the conspirators who arranged Paul's murder five years later.[39]. But whereas she downplayed this background in favor of presenting herself as a Russian patriot, he catered to his home country by abandoning conquests against Prussia and pursuing a military campaign in Denmark that was of little value to Russia. The horse myth also allowed her enemies to tarnish her legacy and claims to greatness. 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. [93], Not long after the Moscow Foundling Home, at the instigation of her factotum, Ivan Betskoy, she wrote a manual for the education of young children, drawing from the ideas of John Locke, and founded the famous Smolny Institute in 1764, first of its kind in Russia. [103] Nevertheless, Catherine's Russia provided an asylum and a base for regrouping to the Jesuits following the suppression of the Jesuits in most of Europe in 1773. She was a patron of the . Briefwechsel mit der Kaiserin Katharina", "Alexander the Great vs Ivan the Terrible", "The Ambiguous Legal Status of Russian Jewry in the Reign of Catherine II", "Catherine II and the Serfs: A Reconsideration of Some Problems", Bibliography of Russian history (16131917), Some of the code of laws mentioned above, along with other information, Manifesto of the Empress Catherine II, inviting foreign immigration, Biography of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, Family tree of the ancestors of Catherine the Great, Diaries and Letters: Catherine II German Princess Who Came to Rule Russia, Charlotte Christine of Brunswick-Lneburg, Catherine Alexeievna (Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst), Natalia Alexeievna (Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt), Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Wrttemberg), Anna Feodorovna (Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld), Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia), Elena Pavlovna (Charlotte of Wrttemberg), Alexandra Iosifovna (Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg), Maria Pavlovna (Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin), Elizabeth Feodorovna (Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine), Alexandra Georgievna (Alexandra of Greece and Denmark), Elizaveta Mavrikievna (Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg), Anastasia Nikolaevna (Anastasia of Montenegro), Militza Nikolaevna of Montenegro (Milica of Montenegro), Maria Georgievna (Maria of Greece and Denmark), Viktoria Feodorovna (Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Catherine_the_Great&oldid=1142635143, 18th-century people from the Russian Empire, 18th-century women from the Russian Empire, Burials at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg, Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Lutheranism, Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Mistresses of Stanisaw August Poniatowski, People of the War of the Bavarian Succession, Recipients of the Order of St. George of the First Degree, Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland), Articles containing Russian-language text, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from May 2020, Articles lacking reliable references from November 2018, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Articles lacking in-text citations from July 2022, Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2008, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2009, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from August 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from April 2022, Articles needing additional references from December 2022, Articles with Russian-language sources (ru), Articles with self-published sources from November 2021, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the New International Encyclopedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, According to court gossip, this lost pregnancy was attributed to. [57] Catherine gave them this new right, but in exchange they could no longer appeal directly to her. She thus spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. 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. Other than these, the rights of a serf were very limited. Elite acceptance of a female ruler was more of an issue in Western Europe than in Russia. Catherine was born in Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, Holy Roman Empire, as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. She is one of historys greatest female rulers who modernised her adopted homeland, expanded its borders and transformed it into a global superpower. 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. "Despot" is not derogatory in this context. Only 400,000 roubles of church wealth were paid back. The official cause of death was advertised as hemorrhoidal colican absurd diagnosis that soon became a popular euphemism for assassination, according to Montefiore. [131], Catherine's life and reign included many personal successes, but they ended in two failures. 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. In addition to collecting art, Catherine commissioned an array of new cultural projects, including an imposing bronze monument to Peter the Great, Russias first state library, exact replicas of Raphaels Vatican City loggias and palatial neoclassical buildings constructed across St. Petersburg. It was unthinkable they could rule a nation, especially one successfully. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting; in a single day, she had four phlebotomies. A portrait of Catherine the Great by Fedor Rokotov, 1763. But Russia's Baltic Fleet checked the Royal Swedish navy in the tied Battle of Hogland (July 1788), and the Swedish army failed to advance. In addition, some governors listened to the complaints of serfs and punished nobles, but this was by no means universal. That same morning, two of the Orlov brothers arrested Peter and forced him to sign a statement of abdication. She appointed General Aleksandr Bibikov to put down the uprising, but she needed Potemkin's advice on military strategy. On 5 August 1786, the Russian Statute of National Education was created. 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. . 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 disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age. 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. These reforms in the Cadet Corps influenced the curricula of the Naval Cadet Corps and the Engineering and Artillery Schools. [113] This re-established the separate identity that Judaism maintained in Russia throughout the Jewish Haskalah. 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]. [69] With all this discontent in mind, Catherine did rule for 10 years before the anger of the serfs boiled over into a rebellion as extensive as Pugachev's.