CATHERINE II. (1729-1796), empress of Russia, known as CATHERINE THE GREAT, was the daughter of Christian Augus tus, prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and his wife, Johanna Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. She was born at Stettin on May 2, 1729. Her baptismal name was Sophia Augusta Frederica. In 1744 she was taken to Russia, to be affianced to the grand-duke Peter (after wards Peter III.), the nephew of the empress Elizabeth, and her recognized heir. Frederick the Great favoured the alliance, his object being to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria and to ruin the chan cellor Bestuzhev, who was a known partisan of the Austrian alli ance. The diplomatic intrigue failed, but Elizabeth took a strong liking to Sophia, and the marriage was finally decided on. On June 28, 1744, she was received into the Orthodox Church at Moscow, and was renamed Catherine Alexeyevna. On the 29th she was formally betrothed, and was married on Aug. 21, 1745 at St. Petersburg. Her married life was wretched. Peter was sub normal in physique and in mind, and his wife despised him. She was a clever and ambitious girl, and was determined that nothing should stand in the way of her ambitions. She accepted the con ditions of her marriage because it was the means to power. Dur ing the 17 years of her life as grand-duchess she matured her mind and avoided a breach with Elizabeth. For ten years the marriage was barren, and the only reason for supposing that the future tsar Paul, who was born on Oct. 2, 1754, was the son of Peter, is the strong similarity of their characters. Cath erine had many lovers. The scandalous chronicle of her life was the commonplace of all Europe. Her most trusted agents while she was still grand-duchess, and her chief ministers when she be came empress, were also her lovers.
The Empress Elizabeth died on Jan. 5, 1762. The grand-duke succeeded without opposition as Peter III. He committed every possible folly, grovelled before Frederick the Great, insulted the Church, and threatened to divorce Catherine. She refrained from open opposition and acted with the political prudence which she had shown as grand-duchess. In July Peter foolishly retired with his Holsteiners to Oranienbaum, leaving his wife at St. Petersburg. On the 13th and 14th of that month, a "pronunciamiento" of the regiments of the guard removed him from the throne and made Catherine empress. She issued a manifesto in which she claimed to stand for the defence of Orthodoxy, and the glory of Russia. The guards were manipulated by the four Orlov brothers. The eldest, Gregory, was her recognized chief lover, and he was asso ciated with his brother Alexis in the office of favourite. But the hatred felt for Peter III. was spontaneous, and Catherine had no need to do more than let it be known that she was prepared to profit by her husband's downfall. Peter was sent to a country house at Ropcha, where he died on July 17 in the course of a scuffle during dinner. His custodian, Alexis Orlov, said he could not remember what happened. Catherine in a second manifesto said she had accepted the throne for the good of the country and remarked that autocracy was a danger if the ruler lacked the requisite qualities.
Catherine the Great ruled Russia for 34 years. Although born a German princess she identified herself completely with the Russian people. She was in the truest sense the successor of Peter the Great. Her private life was the object of unceasing curiosity and interest among her contemporaries, and a mass of literature has grown up around the subject of her lovers and her relations with them. Catherine was never dominated by her lovers who were the instruments of her policy; it was she who governed Russia, not her favourites. Her main interests were intellectual and political, and her love affairs subsidiary. She was the disciple and friend of the Encyclopaedists, especially of Voltaire, the read ing of whose works had first awakened her mind. She corre sponded with him, with D'Alembert, and, more voluminously, with F. M. Grimm, who spent nearly a year at her court in Grimm reports that her conversation was even more brilliant than her letters. Catherine also corresponded at intervals with Fred erick the Great and with Joseph II. Her letters are graceful and witty, and they show real political and diplomatic insight. She was determined to make Russian society as cultivated as the soci ety of Paris and Berlin. At court she insisted on a high standard of decorum and of manners, she encouraged the nobles to travel, and fostered the love of French culture. She herself employed Grimm and others to collect works of art and antiquities for her, and practised sculpture and painting herself. She had a passion for reading, made a digest of Blackstone's Commentaries and found Buffon's Histoire naturelle light reading. Her enthusiasm for Russian history led her to begin to write a history of Russia from the earliest times, and she completed a play, having for its hero the legendary Oleg, which she said was an imitation of Shakespeare. Her comedies, proverbs, and tales are very numer ous. To find time for all her activities she rose at five, made her own fire, and would sometimes work 15 hours a day. She seemed to have worked in bouts, taking long spells of work with intervals of relaxation. The new culture which she sought to impose on her court was not entirely superficial. She herself was kind and rea sonable to her servants. She was not revengeful, and when she usurped the throne showed no hostility to her husband's advisers; nevertheless she had a fund of hardness, and showed little kind ness to her son Paul.
Since Catherine was a disciple of the Encyclopaedists it was natural that she should start out with the definite intention of carrying out domestic reform in Russia, though by methods of the benevolent despotism fashionable in Europe in the period before the French Revolution shook the fabric of society. In fact she, a foreigner and usurper, had to depend for support on the nobility, whose privileges she vastly increased by relieving them of the duty of military service and giving them new powers over their serfs. She also increased their numbers by grants of Crown lands. Serfdom was not mitigated, but vastly increased under her rule. The terrible condition of the peasants led to one revolt after another in favour of one of the numerous pretenders, which culminated in the widespread rising on the Volga, the jacquerie led by Pugachev (1773-75). French culture among the landowners did not lead to any improvement in the handling of the peasants. This state of affairs was in startling contrast with the humanitarian tone of the Instructions which Catherine drew up for the grand commission which she summoned in Dec. 1766 to Moscow to advise on internal reform. The Instructions, based principally on the works of Montesquieu and Beccaria, were so radical that their circulation in France was forbidden. Very little came of the 18 months' work of the grand commission, except in the development of the organization of local government. With the outbreak of the French Revolution Catherine, like other Euro pean sovereigns, fell back on methods of repression. Radishchev, who wrote in his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (1790) a truthful account of the condition of the peasants, was banished to Siberia, though the sentiments expressed were only those of Catherine's own Instructions of 1766. Catherine had some able assistants in her domestic administration, notably Sivers.
The foreign policy of her reign aimed at the expansion of Russia, and from that point of view was brilliantly successful. Catherine knew the limits to which she could safely go in the "russification" of frontier districts, and showed a certain liberality to the populations which she incorporated. She conducted her own foreign policy, and the galaxy of excellent soldiers and diplo mats which she gathered round her carried out her instructions implicitly. She had the gift of discovering ability, and kept in the closest touch with all her servants. Among her generals were Alexander Galitsin, Rumyantsev, Peter Panin, Suvorov, and Po temkin. Suvorov was one of the greatest of Russian generals, but he never enjoyed quite the confidence she gave to Potemkin, whose military abilities were mediocre, but who was first her lover and then her close friend and correspondent. Her chief advisers and assistants in foreign business were Nikita Panin, Besborodko, Repnin, Dmitri Galitsin and Vorontsoff. The story of the two shameless partitions of Poland and of the wars with Turkey which gave Russia the Crimea and free access to the Black sea . for the products of the Ukraine is told under RUssIA: History. It is sufficient to say here that the extension of Russian territory during her reign to the Niemen and the Dniester on the west, and to the Black sea on the south must be placed primarily to the account of Catherine's diplomacy and direction, well served as she was by her generals and her ministers.
She died on Nov. 1o, 1796, of apoplexy.
The original sources for the history of her policy and her character are to be found in the publications of the Imperial Russian Historical Society, vols. i.—cix. (St. Petersburg), begun in 1867; her private and official correspondence will be found in vols. i., ii., iv., v., vi., vii., viii., ix., x., xiv., xv., xvii., xx., xxiii., xxxii., xxxiii., xxxvi., xliii., xlvii. xlviii., lxvii., lxviii., lxxxvii., xcvii., xcviii., cvii., cxv., cxviii. The Memoires de l'imperatrice Catherine II., ecrits par elle meme (London 1859), with pref. by Alex. Herzen, bring her life up to the end of 1759, but were not begun until 1780. They must be used with caution, especially as regards her husband Peter III. See also A. Bruckner, "Katharina die Zweite," in Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzel darstellungen (Berlin 1883) ; 0. Hoetzsch, "Catherine II.," in Camb. Mod. Hist. vol. vi., where a bibliography will be found. A complete bibliography was prepared by B. von Bilbassoff, Katharina 11., Kais erin von Russland in Urteile der Weltlitera,tur (Berlin, 1897). See also Princesse Lucien Murat, La vie amoureuse de la grande Catherine (1927) ; Memoires, trs. by Katherine Anthony (1927) ; Correspondence with Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, ed. and trans. by the Earl of Ilchester and Mrs. Langford-Brooke (1928).