Catherine did turn Russia into a global great power not only a European one but with quite a different reputation from what she initially had planned as an honest policy. Her dynasty lost power because of this and of a war with Austria and Germany, impossible without her foreign policy.[48]. Under her leadership, she completed what Peter III had started. She placed strictures on Catholics (ukaz of 23 February 1769), mainly Polish, and attempted to assert and extend state control over them in the wake of the partitions of Poland. She once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm: "I see nothing of interest in it. Derided both in her day and in modern times as a hypocritical warmonger with an unnatural sexual appetite, Catherine was a woman of contradictions whose brazen exploits have long overshadowed the accomplishments that won her the Great moniker in the first place. Catherine The Great death: She was the victim of many slurs (Image: SKY/HBO) Trending There were a number of salacious tales surrounding the monarch and her court, which was something that . She believed in the . Those in a position to smear her reputation were men. [9] It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other philosophes of the French Enlightenment. Awaking from her delirium, however, Sophie said, "I don't want any Lutheran; I want my Orthodox father [clergyman]". "[138] In the end, the empress was laid to rest with a gold crown on her head and clothed in a silver brocade dress. She had the government collect and publish vital statistics. The most famous of these rumors is that she died after having sex with her horse. Apply organic citrus and avocado . But whereas she downplayed this background in favor of presenting herself as a Russian patriot, he catered to his home country by abandoning conquests against Prussia and pursuing a military campaign in Denmark that was of little value to Russia. [91] This work emphasised the fostering of the creation of a 'new kind of people' raised in isolation from the damaging influence of a backward Russian environment. Catherine named ahin Giray, a Crimean Tatar leader, to head the Crimean state and maintain friendly relations with Russia. No evidence conclusively linking Catherine to her husbands death exists, but as many historians have pointed out, his demise benefitted her immensely. With Peter out of the picture, Catherine was able to consolidate power from a position of strength. The endowments were often much less than the original intended amount. [153], Empress Catherine's correspondence with Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Wrttemberg, (the father of Catherine's daughter-in-law Maria Feodorovna) written between 1768 and 1795, is preserved in the State Archive of Stuttgart (Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart) in Stuttgart, Germany.[154]. 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. He died at the age of 52 in 1791. When Sophie's situation looked desperate, her mother wanted her confessed by a Lutheran pastor. Peter was her second cousin. In 1780, she established a League of Armed Neutrality, designed to defend neutral shipping from being searched by the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War. As many of the democratic principles frightened her more moderate and experienced advisors, she refrained from immediately putting them into practice. A self-described glutton for art, the empress strategically purchased paintings in bulk, acquiring as much in 34 years as other royals took generations to amass. Privacy Statement Legends abound about Catherine the Greatthe good kind and the bad kind. Although German soldiers allegedly saw the cabinet during WWII, no visible proof of the furniture exists leading many historians to believe it's just another salacious fabrication. [38], By mid-June 1796, Zubov's troops overran without any resistance most of the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan, including three principal citiesBaku, Shemakha, and Ganja. [d] As a patron of the arts, she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, including the establishment of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe. Catherine became a great patron of Russian opera. Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 1729 - 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. In doing so, she ruffled the feathers of men around the world. One claimed that she died on her toilet seat, which broke under her. in by H. M. Scott, ed., Romanovs. [117] While claiming religious tolerance, she intended to recall the Old Believers into the official church. Spread fertilizer over the soil, all the way to the edges of the canopy. [CDATA[// >