Alexander - Catherine the great: life and legend

CATHERINE THE GREAT

Life and Legend

John T. Alexander

Oxford University Press

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Copyright 1989 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

First published in 1989 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,

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First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1989

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alexander, John T.

Catherine the Great: life and legend/John T. Alexander.

p. cm.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

ISBN: 978-0-19-506162-8

1. Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796.2. Soviet Union

Kings and rulersBiography. 3. Soviet UnionHistoryCatherine II,

1762-1796. I. Title.

DK170.A58 1989

9470630924dcl9

[B] 8810122

Credits for illustrations following page 178 (in order)

Sochineniia Imperatritsy Ekateriny II, vol. 12, ed. A. N. Pypin (Spb., 1907)/Giacomo Casanova, History of My Life, vol. 10, tr. Willard Trask (N.Y., 1970) /Iz proshlogo: istoricheskie materialy leibgvardii Semenovskago polka (Spb., 1911)/Sochineniia Imperatritsy Ekateriny II, vol. 12, ed. A. N. Pypin (Spb., 1907) /Starye gody (July-September 1911)/Iz proshlogo: istoricheskie materialy leib-gvardii Semenovskago polka (Spb., 1911)/The Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia/Starye gody February 1911)/Heinz Mller-Dietz and Eduard D. Gribanov, Medizin und Arzte auf russischen Medaillen (Berlin, 1984), reproduced with the permission of Professor-Dr. Mttller-Dietz/L. la. Skorokhodov, Materialy po istorii meditsinskoi mikrobiologii v dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii (M., 1948)/Photograph by John T. Alexander, 1971/Graphics Department, State Historical Museum in Moscow /Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vols. 9 and 10 (M., 1933)/A. K. Lebedev, Russkaia istoricheskaia zhivopis do oktiabria 1917 goda (M., 1962)/Starve gody (June 1913)/Starye gody (July-September 1911)/K. V. Mikhailova and G. V. Smirnov, Portreinaia miniariura iz sobraniia gosudarstvennogo Russkogo muzeia, vol. 1 (L., 1974) /Starye gody (July-September 1910)/I. N. Bozherianov, Nevskii prospekt, vol. 2 (Spb., 1902) /Kamerfuferskii zhurnal, 1787 (Spb., 1886)/ Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum/The Satirical Etchings of James Gillray, ed. Draper Hill (N.Y., 1976), reproduced with the permission of Dover Publications, Inc./ Peter Cowie, ed., World Filmography, 1968 (London, 1968), reproduced with the permission of Tantivy Press, Ltd./Copyright by Universal Pictures, a division of Universal City Studios, Inc. Courtesy of MCA Publicity Rights, a division of MCA, Inc./Jon Tuska, The Films of Mae West (Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1973), reproduced with the permission of Lyle Stuart, Inc./Reproduced from photographs supplied by Steve Allen.

Printed in the United States of America

To Maria, the other empress in my life,
with love and heartfelt gratitude

The woman who became known as Catherine the Great led a life so full of varied activities in such exotic settings, amid so many dramatic events and memorable personalities, that it took on all the trappings of legend. Throughout her lengthy, turbulent career (17291796) she confronted multiple crisespersonal and political, physical and psychological. She seemed to surmount them all so successfully that her long reign (from 1762 to 1796) ranks among the most celebrated in Russian, European, and world history. Almost two centuries after her death, she still enjoys immense recognition as celebrity, superstar, and sex symbolreputations that show no sign of flagging. Both the culturally literate and the ordinary public know her name and sense her fame or notoriety.

The many books about Catherine the Great may be divided into two main types: broad popular treatments that are long on gossip and drama but short on facts and context, and specialized scholarly studies that are often inaccessible to general readers. This book aspires to bridge the chasm between the two. It aims to utilize both specialized literature and popular accounts, together with a broad cross section of published and unpublished sources, for the purpose of presenting a balanced biography accessible to the average educated reader. In contrast to most popular biographies, which follow Catherines autobiographical writings in their disproportionate focus on her life before she seized the throne, my attention will concentrate on her long reign: the personality, actions, policies, and events that made her career memorable for millions of people over many generations. Relatively less space will be apportioned to Catherines early life, not because it was unimportant for her later years, but because that period is better known through her own so-called memoirs and, more particularly, because her primary claim to fame rests on her multiple roles as sovereign ruler of the emergent political colossus of Europe and Asiathe multinational Russian Empire.

Some of the attractions of Catherines life are the controversies that she stirred in contemporaries and posterity alike. Nobody reacts neutrally to her. You are infatuated and intrigued by her charm immediately, or dismayed and disgusted by her supposed hypocrisy, vanity, conceit, brazen ambition, manipulation, and exploitation of others. Her career raises fundamental issues between the sexes. Is it any surprise that women writers have generally treated her more sympathetically than their male counterparts? Or that the scandalous, pornographic tales about her private life are overwhelmingly the product of male imaginations? Indeed, the images of Catherine that have spanned three centuries testify to the strong emotions her life aroused at the time and long afterwards. On the one hand, the title and surtitle added to her Russian nameEmpress Catherine the Greatconjure up notions of imperial splendor, military glory, political genius, territorial advance, and intellectual brilliance. Challenging such praise, on the other hand, are the attacks of an army of critics and moralists who brand her an adultress, usurper, murderess, tyrant, conqueror, oppressor, hypocrite, egotist, bad mother, nymphomaniac, and worse. One favorite label, applied by friend and foe, is the Semiramis of the Northafter the mythical Queen of Babylonia who used charm and religion to usurp the throne and rule over her contentious subjects. Another comparison was with Messalina, the lustful third wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius who was executed by her enemies in A.D. 48.

This biography will look into the basis of such adulation and condemnation. It evinces neither prudish disdain for the charges of sexual license, nor prurient preoccupation with their significance. The main effort will be to present Catherine as ruler of the largest territorial political unit in modern history. That she was a fascinating woman with wide interests will also be explored. And her own endeavors to influence posteritys opinion of her reign will be explicated, for she was always concerned about her image.