Catherine the great biography 20111

Some claimed Catherine failed to supply enough money to support her educational program. Throughout Russia, the inspectors encountered a patchy response. While the nobility provided appreciable amounts of money for these institutions, they preferred to send their own children to private, prestigious institutions. Also, the townspeople tended to turn against the junior schools and their pedagogical [ clarification needed ] methods.

Yet by the end of Catherine's reign, an estimated 62, pupils were being educated in some state institutions. While a significant improvement, it was only a minuscule number, compared to the size of the Russian population. Catherine's apparent embrace of all things Russian including Orthodoxy may have prompted her personal indifference to religion.

She nationalised all of the church lands to help pay for her wars, largely emptied the monasteries, and forced most of the remaining clergymen to survive as farmers or from fees for baptisms and other services. Very few members of the nobility entered the church, which became even less important than it had been. She did not allow dissenters to build chapels, and she suppressed religious dissent after the onset of the French Revolution.

However, in accord with her anti-Ottoman policy, Catherine promoted the protection and fostering of Christians under Turkish rule. She placed strictures on Catholics ukaz of 23 February , mainly Polish, and attempted to assert and extend state control over them in the wake of the partitions of Poland. In its stead, Catherine appointed a Catholic bishop later raising the position to archbishop of Mohylev to administer all Catholic churches in her territory.

Catherine took many different approaches to Islam during her reign. She avoided force and tried persuasion and money to integrate Muslim areas into her empire. They were pressured into Orthodoxy through monetary incentives. Catherine promised more serfs of all religions, as well as amnesty for convicts, if Muslims chose to convert to Orthodoxy. However, the Legislative Commission of offered several seats to people professing the Islamic faith.

This commission promised to protect their religious rights, but did not do so. Many Orthodox peasants felt threatened by the sudden change, and burned mosques as a sign of their displeasure. Catherine chose to assimilate Islam into the state rather than eliminate it when public outcry became too disruptive. After the "Toleration of All Faiths" Edict of , Muslims were permitted to build mosques and practise all of their traditions, the most obvious of these being the pilgrimage to Mecca , which previously had been denied.

Catherine created the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly to help regulate Muslim-populated regions as well as regulate the instruction and ideals of mullahs. The positions on the Assembly were appointed and paid for by Catherine and her government as a way of regulating religious affairs. In , Catherine approved the subsidising of new mosques and new town settlements for Muslims.

This was another attempt to organise and passively control the outer fringes of her country. By building new settlements with mosques placed in them, Catherine attempted to ground many of the nomadic people who wandered through southern Russia. In , she assimilated the Islamic schools into the Russian public school system under government regulation.

The plan was another attempt to force nomadic people to settle. This allowed the Russian government to control more people, especially those who previously had not fallen under the jurisdiction of Russian law. Russia often treated Judaism as a separate entity, where Jews were maintained with a separate legal and bureaucratic system. Although the government knew that Judaism existed, Catherine and her advisers had no real definition of what a Jew is because the term meant many things during her reign.

When Catherine agreed to the First Partition of Poland , the large new Jewish element was treated as a separate people, defined by their religion. Catherine separated the Jews from Orthodox society, restricting them to the Pale of Settlement. She levied additional taxes on the followers of Judaism; if a family converted to the Orthodox faith, that additional tax was lifted.

Converted Jews could gain permission to enter the merchant class and farm as free peasants under Russian rule. 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 Catherine tried to keep the Jews away from certain economic spheres, even under the guise of equality; in , she banned Jewish citizens from Moscow's middle class.

In , Catherine declared Jews to be officially foreigners, with foreigners' rights. Catherine's decree also denied Jews the rights of an Orthodox or naturalised citizen of Russia. Taxes doubled again for those of Jewish descent in , and Catherine officially declared that Jews bore no relation to Russians. In many ways, the Orthodox Church fared no better than its foreign counterparts during the reign of Catherine.

Under her leadership, she completed what Peter III had started. The church's lands were expropriated, and the budget of both monasteries and bishoprics were controlled by the Collegium of Accounting. The endowments were often much less than the original intended amount. Only , roubles of church wealth were paid back. In , to help mend the rift between the Orthodox church and a sect that called themselves the Old Believers , Catherine passed an act that allowed Old Believers to practice their faith openly without interference.

They refused to comply, and in , she deported over 20, Old Believers to Siberia on the grounds of their faith. Old Believers were allowed to hold elected municipal positions after the Urban Charter of , and she promised religious freedom to those who wished to settle in Russia. Religious education was reviewed strictly. At first, she attempted to revise clerical studies, proposing a reform of religious schools.

This reform never progressed beyond the planning stages. By , Catherine excluded all religion and clerical studies programs from lay education. She transformed the clergy from a group that wielded great power over the Russian government and its people to a segregated community forced to depend on the state for compensation. Catherine, throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest and then pensioning them off with gifts of serfs and large estates.

Catherine gave away 66, serfs from to , , from to , and , in one day: 18 August In , Catherine decreed that after seven years in one rank, civil servants automatically would be promoted regardless of office or merit. After her affair with her lover and adviser Grigory Potemkin ended in , he allegedly selected a candidate-lover for her who had the physical beauty and mental faculties to hold her interest such as Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov and Nicholas Alexander Suk.

One of her lovers, Pyotr Zavadovsky, received 50, roubles, a pension of 5, roubles, and 4, peasants in Ukraine after she dismissed him in Her sexual independence led to many of the legends about her.

Catherine the great biography 20111

The acceptance of a woman ruler was more of an issue among elites in Western Europe than in Russia. Her Majesty has a masculine force of mind, obstinacy in adhering to a plan, and intrepidity in the execution of it; but she wants the more manly virtues of deliberation, forbearance in prosperity and accuracy of judgment, while she possesses in a high degree the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex—love of flattery, and its inseparable companion, vanity; an inattention to unpleasant but salutary advice; and a propensity to voluptuousness which leads to excesses that would debase a female character in any sphere of life.

Poniatowski, through his mother's side, came from the Czartoryski family , prominent members of the pro-Russian faction in Poland; Poniatowski and Catherine were eighth cousins, twice removed, by their mutual ancestor King Christian I of Denmark , by virtue of Poniatowski's maternal descent from the Scottish House of Stuart. Catherine, 26 years old and already married to the then-Grand Duke Peter for some 10 years, met the year-old Poniatowski in , well before encountering the Orlov brothers.

Catherine supported Poniatowski as a candidate to become the next king. She sent the Russian army into Poland to avoid possible disputes. Russia invaded Poland on 26 August , threatening to fight, and imposing Poniatowski as king. Poniatowski accepted the throne, and thereby put himself under Catherine's control. News of Catherine's plan spread, and Frederick II others say the Ottoman sultan warned her that if she tried to conquer Poland by marrying Poniatowski, all of Europe would oppose her.

She had no intention of marrying him, having already given birth to Orlov's child and to the Grand Duke Paul by then. Prussia through the agency of Prince Henry , Russia under Catherine , and Austria under Maria Theresa began preparing the ground for the partitions of Poland. In the first partition, , the three powers split 52, km 2 20, sq mi among them.

Russia got territories east of the line connecting, more or less, Riga — Polotsk — Mogilev. In the second partition, in , Russia received the most land, from west of Minsk almost to Kiev and down the river Dnieper, leaving some spaces of steppe down south in front of Ochakov , on the Black Sea. Later uprisings in Poland led to the third partition in Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation [ ] until its post-World War I reconstitution.

Grigory Orlov, the grandson of a rebel in the Streltsy uprising against Peter the Great, distinguished himself in the Battle of Zorndorf 25 August , receiving three wounds. He represented an opposite to Peter's pro-Prussian sentiment, with which Catherine disagreed. By , he and Catherine had become lovers; no one told Catherine's husband, Peter.

Orlov and his other three brothers found themselves rewarded with titles, money, swords, and other gifts, but Catherine did not marry Grigory, who proved inept at politics and useless when asked for advice. He received a palace in Saint Petersburg when Catherine became empress. Orlov died in Their son, Aleksey Grygoriovich Bobrinsky — , had one daughter, Maria Alexeyeva Bobrinsky Bobrinskaya — , who married in the year-old Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Gagarin London, England, — who took part in the Battle of Borodino 7 September against Napoleon , and later served as ambassador in Turin, the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Grigory Potemkin was involved in the palace coup of In , Catherine's close friends informed her of Orlov's affairs with other women, and she dismissed him. By the winter of , the Pugachev revolt had started to threaten. Catherine's son Paul had started gaining support; both of these trends threatened her power. She called Potemkin for help—mostly military—and he became devoted to her.

In , Catherine wrote to Potemkin. Days earlier, she had found out about an uprising in the Volga region. She appointed General Aleksandr Bibikov to put down the uprising, but she needed Potemkin's advice on military strategy. Potemkin quickly gained positions and awards. Russian poets wrote about his virtues, the court praised him, foreign ambassadors fought for his favour, and his family moved into the palace.

He later became the de facto absolute ruler of New Russia, governing its colonisation. Potemkin had the task of briefing him and travelling with him to Saint Petersburg. Potemkin also convinced Catherine to expand the universities in Russia to increase the number of scientists. Catherine was worried that Potemkin's poor health would delay his important work in colonising and developing the south as he had planned.

He died at the age of 52 in Catherine's life and reign included many personal successes, but they ended in two failures. Her Swedish cousin once removed , King Gustav IV Adolf , visited her in September , the empress's intention being that her granddaughter Alexandra should become queen of Sweden by marriage. A ball was given at the imperial court on 11 September when the engagement was supposed to be announced.

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. The frustration affected Catherine's health. She recovered well enough to begin to plan a ceremony which would establish her favourite grandson Alexander as her heir, superseding her difficult son Paul, but she died before the announcement could be made, just over two months after the engagement ball.

On 16 November [ O. She was given the last rites and died the following evening around Later, several rumours circulated regarding the cause and manner of her death. The most famous of these rumors is that she died after committing bestiality with her horse. This rumor was widely circulated by satirical British and French publications at the time of her death.

In his book Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise Description of the Muscovite and Persian journey , German scholar Adam Olearius [ ] alleged a supposed Russian tendency towards bestiality with horses. This was repeated in anti-Russian literature throughout the 17th and 18th centuries to illustrate the claimed barbarous Asian nature of Russia.

Catherine's undated will, discovered in early among her papers by her secretary Alexander Vasilievich Khrapovitsky, gave specific instructions should she die: "Lay out my corpse dressed in white, with a golden crown on my head, and on it inscribe my Christian name. Mourning dress is to be worn for six months, and no longer: the shorter the better.

On 25 November, the coffin, richly decorated in gold fabric, was placed atop an elevated platform at the Grand Gallery's chamber of mourning, designed and decorated by Antonio Rinaldi. The empress's body lay in state for six weeks in a large and magnificently decorated room in the castle, which was kept lit day and night. Catherine was stretched on a ceremonial bed surrounded by the coats of arms of all the towns in Russia.

Her face was left uncovered, and her fair hand rested on the bed. All the ladies, some of whom took turn to watch by the body, would go and kiss this hand, or at least appear to. Another of her titles was "Mother of the Fatherland". Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version.

In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. Empress of Russia from to For other uses, see Catherine the Great disambiguation. For other uses, see Catherine II disambiguation. Catherine in the s. Peter III of Russia. Ascania by birth Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov by marriage. Russian Orthodox — prev. Lutheran — Early life [ edit ].

Marriage and reign of Peter III [ edit ]. Reign — [ edit ]. Coronation [ edit ]. Foreign affairs [ edit ]. Russo-Turkish Wars [ edit ]. Russo-Persian War [ edit ]. See also: Persian expedition of Relations with Western Europe [ edit ]. See also: Russia and the American Revolution. Partitions of Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth [ edit ]. Main article: Partitions of Poland.

Relations with China [ edit ]. Relations with Japan [ edit ]. The evaluation of foreign policy [ edit ]. Economics and finance [ edit ]. Public health [ edit ]. Serfs [ edit ]. See also: Serfdom in Russia. Rights and conditions [ edit ]. Attitudes towards Catherine [ edit ]. Arts and culture [ edit ]. Main article: Russian Enlightenment. Education [ edit ].

Religious affairs [ edit ]. Islam [ edit ]. See also: Islam in Russia. Judaism [ edit ]. See also: History of the Jews in Russia. Russian Orthodoxy [ edit ]. See also: Christianity in Russia. Personal life [ edit ]. Poniatowski [ edit ]. Orlov [ edit ]. Potemkin [ edit ]. Final months and death [ edit ]. Issue [ edit ]. Title [ edit ].

Archives [ edit ]. In popular culture [ edit ]. Meanwhile, Russians settled in the east. Russian industry also grew at this time and foreign trade expanded rapidly. Catherine the Great died on 17 November By the time she died, the Russian Empire was very powerful. Previous post. Next post. Catherine the Great During the 18th century, the territory and population of the Russian Empire greatly increased.

Previous post The Persian Empire. Russia at the time was ruled by Peter's mother, the empress Elizabeth. The marriage was an unhappy one and on her arrival in Russia, Catherine suffered from a form of pleurisy, which causes sharp pains in the chest. She had to have her blood let by a doctor four times in one day, which she claimed saved her life.

Read more about Kings and Queens. Catherine was intelligent and ambitious. During her husband's lifetime, she had at least three lovers and, if her hints are to be believed, none of her children were his. Her husband had a mistress called Elizabeth Vorontsova. When Catherine fell pregnant with her second child, a girl called Anna who died aged four months, Peter did not believe it was his baby, causing an argument which led Catherine to spend a lot of time in her private boudoir.

Foolishly betraying his actions, Peter prepared to be rid of his wife. Catherine, however, had the support of the public and the army, and was proclaimed empress on 9 July Peter III abdicated and was assassinated eight days later. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Catherine died in St Petersburg on 17 November and was succeeded by her son Paul. World War One Centenary.