PRINCE (1739-1791), Russian statesman, was born at Chizheva near Smolensk. He was educated at the Moscow University, and in 1755 entered the "Reiter" of the Horse Guards. His participa tion in the coup d'etat of July 8, 1762, attracted the attention of the new empress, Catherine II., who made him a Kammerjunker and gave him a small estate. He distinguished himself in the Turkish War of 1769, and in 1771 he became Catherine's prime favourite. Catherine bestowed on him the highest honours, among others the post of commander-in-chief and governor general of "New Russia" (Ukraine). In 1775 he was superseded in the empress's graces by Zavadovsky; but the relations between Catherine and her former lover continued to be most friendly, and his influence with her was never seriously disturbed by any of her subsequent favourites.
Potemkin's correspondence with the empress was uninterrupted. He was deeply interested in the question of the southern bound aries of Russia and consequently in the fate of the Turkish Em pire. In 1776 he sketched the plan for the conquest of the Crimea which was subsequently realized; and he was busy with the so called "Greek project," which aimed at restoring the Byzantine Empire under one of Catherine's grandsons. In many of the Balkan states he had well-informed agents. After he became field marshal, in 1784, he introduced many reforms into the army, and built a fleet in the Black Sea, which, though constructed of very bad materials, did excellent service in Catherine's second Turkish War (1787-92). His colonizing system was exposed to very severe criticism, yet it is impossible not to admire the results of his stupendous activity. The arsenal of Kherson, begun in 1778, the harbour of Sevastopol and the new fleet of fifteen liners and twenty-five smaller vessels, were monuments of his genius. But there was exaggeration in all he attempted. He spared neither men, money nor himself in attempting to carry out his gigantic scheme for the colonization of the south Russian steppes ; but he never calculated the cost, and more than three-quarters of the de sign had to be abandoned when but half finished.
Catherine's famous expedition to the south in 1787 was a tri umph for Potemkin ; for he concealed all the weak points of his administration. On this occasion he received the title of prince of Tauris. The same year the second Turkish War began, and the founder of New Russia acted as commander-in-chief.
But the army was ill-equipped and unprepared; and Potemkin, in an hysterical fit of depression, would have resigned but for the steady encouragement of the empress. Only after Suvarov had valiantly defended Kinburn did he take heart again, and besiege and capture Ochakov and Bender. In 1790 he conducted the military operations on the Dniester and held his court at Jassy with more than Asiatic pomp. In 1791 he returned to St. Peters burg where, along with his friend Bezborodko (q.v.), he made vain efforts to overthrow the new favourite, Zubov. The empress grew impatient and compelled him (1791) to return to Jassy to conduct the peace negotiations as chief Russian plenipotentiary. On Oct. 5, while on his way to Nikolayev, he died in the open steppe, 4o m. from Jassy.
Potemkin was indubitably the most extraordinary of all the Catherinian favourites. He was an able administrator, licentious, extravagant, but loyal, generous and magnanimous. Nearly all the anecdotes related of him by Helbig, in the biography contributed by him to the journal Minerva (1797-180o), and freely utilized by later biographers, are absolutely worthless.
See V. A. Bilbasov, Geschichte Katharinas II. (Berlin, 1891-1893) ; C. de Lariviere, Catherine la Grande d'apres sa correspondence (Paris, 1895) ; Anonymous, La Cour de Catherine II. Ses collabora teurs (St. Petersburg, 1899) ; A. V. Lopukhin, Sketch of the Congress of Jassy, 1791 (Rus.; St. Petersburg, 1893) ; The Papers of Prince Potemkin, 1744-1793 (Rus. ; St. Petersburg, 1893-1895). (R. N. B.)