Catherine the Great 1

On 29th November 2012 I bought a large biography of Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie, 574 pages exclusive of notes and index. I probably made a start at the time, but then stopped and I think I restarted earlier this year, more than two years later. Reading gradually gathered pace, interest being reflected in various posts, particularly that at reference 1, and finally finishing a week or so ago.

An extraordinary figure who must have had extraordinary charisma, overcoming a dreadful young womanhood to go on to be one of the longest reigning of all the tzars of Russia, notching up more than thirty five years, rather longer than Stalin himself managed.

This biography gives a lot of space to her love life, which would probably have attracted far less interest had she been a man, getting through a dozen or so lovers in her life, major and minor. Carrying on, in fact, in much the same way as her contemporary, Louis XV.

Sadly, the upbringing of her son and heir Paul, was a bit of a mess. This was not, in the first instance her own fault, the infant Paul having been confiscated by the then Empress Elizabeth. But Catherine, when she came to throne herself, was unable to mend matters and her relations with her son were awkward. Not helped by Paul being a fairly hopeless specimen, sharing a passion for playing soldiers with his official father, the murdered Peter III. I suppose that Paul had to fixate on his official father, although widely believed to be the son of Catherine's first lover, as otherwise he would have little blood claim to the Russian throne, still important despite Peter the Great's rule that a tzar could nominate his successor. She also more or less confiscated Paul's son Alexander, in much the same way as Paul had been confiscated, thus perpetuating the error.

The whole messy business is an excellent illustration of a major weakness of hereditary autocracy. At least in the other sort of autocracy, the successor has to fight his way to the top, rather than just being born there; the fighting might be a bit messy but you might end up with someone who knows his (or her) business. I associate to a story about the Zulu kings who made a practice of killing off all their male relatives in a bid to keep the fighting down, at least during their own lifetime.

That said, she did have a serious go at being a good thing. She worked hard to bring her country into the mainstream of Europe, both from the political and cultural points of view. She also seemed to have access to huge amounts of money. I suppose that Russia might have been, relatively speaking, a poor and backward country, but it was very big and if she was able to grab a big enough share of the cake she would, indeed, be very rich. I associate to our own arrangements here in Britain, where our rich are very into getting bigger and bigger shares of the cake; perhaps they ought to have some regard to how it all ended in both France and Russia.

I share four other odd episodes.

We have here famous statue of Peter the Great, the work of a Frenchman previously known for his work on porcelain at the Sèvres factory and which sat on a huge lump of rock which had to be dragged then floated from Finland.

We have the French revolution towards the end of her reign, a business which must have made her very twitchy, and prompts Massie to a short excursion on medical aspects of the workings of the guillotine.

We have the smallpox scare, with smallpox being one of the scourges of the time, affecting all classes, and resulting in the recruitment of a middle aged Scottish doctor to come and inoculate the Russian royals, this at a time before such inoculation was widespread. One of Catherine's good deeds.

And last we have the young lovers of the second half of her reign, with a conspicuous feature being the smooth way in which she arranged the changing of the guard (as it were) with old lovers generally being quietly pensioned off to live in the country. Not a cruel or vindictive person, despite her absolute power, this despite absolute power being held by many to corrupt absolutely. Perhaps this also was part of why she was great.

In sum and eventually, a good read. But it is a personal biography and you do not learn all that much about Russia or its government during her reign. Although I do now know a lot more than I did about the push south to the warm water and the extent of Russian ambitions, never realised, to get hold of Constantinople. With Catherine going so far as to have Alexander's brother named for the place - but who actually wound up dying of cholera in Poland.

With thanks to wikipdia for the illustration.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/transfers-of-power.html.