CATHARINA IL., ALEXIEWNA, born in 1729, was the daughter of the Prince of Anhalt Zerbst, governor of Stettin in Prusaino Rome mule. Her name was Sophia Augusta von Anhalt. She married in 1745 her cousin Charles Frederic, duke of Holstein Oottorp, whom his aunt the empress Elizabeth of Russia had chosen for her suc cessor, having made him Grind Duke of Russia. In adopting the Greek oommunion he took the name of Peter, afterwards Peter III., and his consort that of Catharine Aleximene. It was an ill-assorted and unhappy match. Catharine was handsome, fond of pleasure, and at the same time clever, ambitious, bold, and unprincipled. Her husband, although not destitute of good qualities, was greatly Inferior to her in abilities, and was irrreoluto and imprudent. In consequence of many disagreements with his wife, as soon as he came to the throne by the death of the empress Elizabeth, he talked of repudiating Catharine, who was then living in retirement at Peterhop, a country residence near St. Petersburg. She on her part. determined to antici pate him by a bolder movement. A confederacy was formed in which several noblemen, officers, and ladies! joined ; the regiments of the garrison were gained by bribes and promises; the emperor was arrested, and Catharine was proclaimed sole empress of all the Missies, Peter having been induced to sign an act of abdication in July 1762. Six days after, the principal conspirators, fearing it reaction in the army which might prove fatal to them, went to Itopseha, where Peter was kept in arreet, and while drinking with him, fell suddenly upon him and strangled bins. It does not appear that Catharine actually ordered the murder; but after it was done she showed no sorrow, and she continued her favour to the murderers. In a proclamation which she issued it was said that the emperor had died of the colic. Cathe rine was solemnly crowned at Moscow in 1762. Wo shall not enter on the profligacy of her subsequent private life, and the scandalous chronicles of her court : those matters have been treated with the utmost minuteness by most of her biographers, and especially by Caatera. Wo shall here speak not of the womau but of the sovereign, and record the principal acts of her long reign, which was a most important one for Russia and for Europe. In 1763, on the death of the weak and indolent Augustus III., king of Poland, that country being in a state of exhaustion apd confusion, Catherine, by bribing pert of the electors and terrifying the rest, procured the election of one of her favourites, Ponlatowski, who was chosen king under the name of Stanielaus Augustus. Having accomplished this, she began to interfere in the Internal concerns of that kingdom, whose wretched constitution, with its elective crown, turbulent nobility, serf popula tion, and intolerant clergy, afforded her ample opportunities. In fact, some of the parties in Poland courted her support, m they had been in the habit of courting that of her predecessors mid of the other neighbouring states for ages before.
The Dissidents of Poland, which was the name given to those who did not follow the Roman Catholic religion, including both Protestants and followers of the Greek Church, were placed upon an equal footing with the Catholics by the Pacta Couventa of 1573, confirmed by the treaty of peace of Oliva in 1660. Since this last epoch however, the Catholic., being the majority among the high nobility, bad gradually excluded the Dissidents from the Diet, and annoyed them in other ways. Early in the 18th century the Dissidents applied to Peter the Great, who remonstrated in their behalf, and obtained by his influence more equitable treatment for them. After Peter's death the Polish Dissidents were again deprived of their political and civil rights; they were excluded from all public offices, were forbidden to build any new church, and many of them were exiled or otherwise perse cuted. In 1764, Russia, Prussia, England, and Denmark, as guarantees of the peace of Oliva, remonstrated with the Diet, but to no purpose. In the session of 1766 the Dissidents were finally subjected to the jurisdiction of the Catholic bishops. In the following year they formed an association, which was called the Confederacy of Thorn, for their common protection, and they were joined by a party of Catholics, who were called Malcontents, upon political grounds, and who now advocated the claims of the Dissidents. The Dissidents were also strongly supported by Russia, the population of which being chiefly of the Greek Church felt a lively interest in the fate of their oo-religionists, who were very numerous, especially in the east pro vinces of Poland. In 1768 Russian troops entered Poland and sur
rounded Warsaw. Several members of the Diet, and the Bishop of Cracow among them, who were most violent against the Dissidents, were arrested by the Russians and sent into Siberia, where they remained five years. The Diet, being now intimidated, granted the full claims of the Dissidents; but several Catholic noblemen, espe cially on the south provinces bordering on Turkey, raised the standard of revolt on mixed religious and political grounds, and a civil war ensued, in which the king's troops were defeated. The king and senate at Warsaw petitioned the Russian minister not to withdraw the Russian troops on this emergency, a request which was readily complied with. The insurgents on their part -applied to the Turks for assistance; and a war between Turkey and Russia (1769) was the consequence. During four years Poland was ravaged by civil and religious war, and a dreadful pestilence in 1770 completed the miseries of that country. The result of all this was the first partition of Poland, concerted between Catharine, Frederic of Prussia, and Joseph II. of Austria, which was effected in 1772, and was sanctioned by a subservient Polish Diet. More than one-third of that kingdom was divided among the three powers. Russia had for its share the governments of Polotsk and Mohilow, which include a great part of Lithuania and Livonia. Meantime the war with the Turks had proved highly successful to the Russian arms both by sea and land. Romanzow defeated the Turks on the Pruth, and the Russian fleet in the Mediternineen defeated and buret the Turkish fleet at Techesm5 in 1770. By the peace of Kainarji, July 1774, Azof and Taganrog were ceded to Russia, and the Crimea was declared independent of Turkey. Not many years after, the Russians took the Crimea for themselves (1785), and made it a province of their empire. In January 1787, Catharine set off from St. Petersburg with great pomp to visit her new acquisitions. Her journey was like a triumphal pro cession. She was joined on the road by the emperor Joseph IL, who accompanied her into the Crimea, where they concerted measures for a joint war against Turkey. At Chersoo, on the Dnieper, she inspected the docks constructed by her orders, and saw a ship of the line and a frigate launched. Soon after, the Turks and tho Swedes, at the lostigation of France and England, declared war against Russia. The object of this war was to check the progress of Russia, but the result was quite the contrary. The Turks were defeated everywhere : they lost Ockzakow ; Suwarrow took from them Ismail by storm in 1790, with a dreadful massacre of the garrison ; and another Russian army entered Georgia. By the peace of Yaesi, In 1792, the frontiers of Russia were extended to the Dniester. The war between Russia and Sweden had been already concluded by the peace of Warela in 1790. Meantime the Poles, taking advantage of the war, had shaken off the influence of Russia, and abrogated the articles of the Diet of 1775, which had been dictated by Catharine. In 1791 they formed a new constitution, making the crown hereditary, giving greater privi leges to the royal towns, and favouring in some degree the emanci pation of the peasants or serfs. But this constitution was far from being acceptable to all the nobles ; many protested against it, and so did Catharine of Russia, as guarantee of the former constitution. Prussia joined Catharine : and the result was a second partition of Poland in 1793, by which Itussia took the whole of Lithuania, Vol hynia, and Podolia ; and the King of Prussia obtained Poeen, ()nelson, and the towns of Danzig and Thorn. to 1794 an insurrection broke out at Warsaw, the Russian garrison was almost entirely destroyed, and the gallant Kosciusko placed himself at the head of the Poles, who fought with the courage of despair. After being successful at first, he was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner. Suwarrow stormed Praga, the suburb of Warsaw, with a dreadful slaughter of the inhabitants. Warsaw surrendered, the king abdicated, and the third and last partition of Poland took place in 1795. Austria had Gallia; Prussia took Warsaw, and Russia the rest. Poland thus became extinct as a state. Catharine finally annexed Courland also to the Russian empire.