CATHARINE II., Empress of Russia, was born in 1729, her father being Christian Augustus, Prince of Anhalt Zerbst. In 1745 she was married to Peter, nephew and successor of the Rus sian Empress Elizabeth. In danger of being supplanted by his mistress, the Countess Woronzoff, Catharine, with the assistance of her lover, Gregory Orloff, and others, won over the guards and was proclaimed monarch (July, 1762). Peter attempted no resistance, abdicated almost immediately, and was strangled in prison a few days later, apparently without Catharine's knowledge. By bribes and threats she readily secured her position, and at once entered upon the administration with great and far seeing activity. On the death of Au gustus III. of Poland she caused her old lover, Poniatowski, to be placed on the throne with a view to the extension of her influence in Poland, by which she profited in the partition of that country in the successive dismemberments of 1772, 1793, and 1795. By the war with the Turks, which occupied a consider able part of her reign, she conquered the Crimea and opened the Black Sea to the Russian navy. Her dream, however, of
driving the Turks from Europe and re storing the Byzantine Empire was not to be fulfilled. Her relations with Po land and with other European powers induced her to make peace with Tur key in 1792 and accept Dniester as the boundary line between the two countries. She succeeded, at least partially, in im proving the administration of justice, ameliorated the condition of the serfs, constructed canals, founded the Russian Academy, and in a variety of ways con tributed to the enlightenment and pros perity of the country. Her enthusiasm for reform, however, was summarily checked by the events of the French rev olution; and the dissipation and extrava gance of her court were such that there was even a danger of its exhausting the empire. Of her many lovers Potemkin was longest in favor, retaining his influ ence from 1775 till his death in 1791, directing Russian politics throughout that period in all essential matters. She died in 1796.