Catherine II
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Catherine II Alekseevna
Portrait of Catherine II.
F. S. Rokotov, 1763
The Empress and Autocrat of All Russia
28 June (9 July) 1762-6 (17) November 1796 Coronation: 22 September (3 October) 1762 Predecessor: Peter III Successor: Paul I
Religion: Lutheranism → Orthodoxy Birth: April 21 (May 2), 1729[2]
Stettin Castle, Kingdom of Prussia [1] Death: November 6 (17), 1796[2] (67 years old)
Winter Palace[3], St. Petersburg, Russian Empire Place of burial: Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg Birth: Ascania Birth name: German.
Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt Zerbst Dornburg Father: Christian August Anhalt Zerbst Mother: Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein Gottorp Spouse: Peter III Children: Pavel I Petrovich
Anna Petrovna[4]
Alexey Grigoryevich Bobrinsky
Autograph: Monogram:
Awards:
Ekaterina II Alekseevna on Wikimedia Commons
Catherine II Alekseevna the Great (nee Sophia Augusta Frederica Anhalt Zerbst, German.
Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt Zerbst Dornburg, in Orthodoxy Ekaterina Alekseevna; April 21 [May 2] 1729, Stettin, Prussia — November 6 [17] 1796, Winter Palace, St. Petersburg) was the Empress of All Russia from 1762 to 1796.
The daughter of the Prince of Anhalt Zerbst, Catherine came to power during a palace coup that overthrew her unpopular husband Peter III from the throne.
The Catherine era was marked by the maximum enslavement of the peasants and the comprehensive expansion of the privileges of the nobility.
Under Catherine the Great, the borders of the Russian Empire were significantly extended to the west (sections of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth) and to the south (the annexation of Novorossiya).
The system of state administration under Catherine the Second was reformed for the first time since Peter the Great.
Culturally, Russia finally became one of the great European powers, which was greatly facilitated by the Empress herself, who was fond of literary activities, collected masterpieces of painting and corresponded with French enlighteners.
In general, the policy of Catherine and her reforms fit into the mainstream of enlightened absolutism of the XVIII century.
Content
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1 Origin 2 Childhood, education, upbringing 3 Marriage with the heir to the Russian throne 4 The Coup of June 28, 1762 5 The Reign of Catherine II: general information 6 Domestic policy 6.1 The Imperial Council and the transformation of the Senate 6.2 The Laid Commission 6.3 Provincial reform 6.4 Liquidation of the Zaporozhye Sich 6.5 Economic policy 6.6 Corruption.
Favoritism 6.7 Education, science, health care 6.8 National policy 6.9 Estate policy 6.10 Religious policy 6.11 Internal political problems 6.12 The Peasant War of 1773-1775 6.13 Freemasonry 6.14 The development of literature.
The Novikov case and the Radishchev case
7 Foreign policy of Russia in the reign of Catherine II 7.1 Expansion of the Borders of the Russian Empire 7.2 Sections of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth 7.3 Russian Turkish Wars.
The annexation of Crimea to Russia 7.4 Relations with Georgia and Persia 7.5 Relations with Sweden 7.6 Relations with other countries
8 Catherine II as a figure of the Enlightenment 8.1 Catherine and educational institutions 8.2 Catherine a writer and publisher 8.3 The development of culture and Art 8.4 Catherine II and propaganda
9 Features of personal life 10 Awards 11 Artistic images of Catherine 11.1 In cinema 11.2 In fiction 11.3 Monuments to Catherine II
12 Catherine on coins and banknotes 13 Memory 14 Notes 15 Literature 16 References
Origin
Sofia Frederika Augusta Anhalt Zerbst was born on April 21 (May 2), 1729 in the German city of Stettin the capital of Pomerania (now Szczecin, Poland).
Stettin Castle, where the future Empress was born
His father, Christian August Anhalt of Zerbst, came from the Zerbst Dorneburg line of the House of Anhalt and was in the service of the Prussian king, was a regimental commander, commandant, then governor of the city of Stettin, where the future empress was born, ran for the dukes of Courland, but unsuccessfully, he finished his service as a Prussian field marshal.
Mother Johanna Elizabeth, from the Gottorp manor house, was a great aunt of the future Peter III.
The family tree of Johanna Elizabeth goes back to Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the first Duke of Schleswig Holstein and the founder of the Oldenburg dynasty.
His maternal uncle Adolf Friedrich was elected in 1743 as the heir to the Swedish throne, which he assumed in 1751 under the name Adolf Fredrik.
Another uncle, Karl Eytinsky, according to the plan of Catherine I, was supposed to become the husband of her daughter Elizabeth, but he died on the eve of the wedding celebrations.
Childhood, education, upbringing
Catherine after arriving in Russia, portrait by Louis Caravac
In the family of the Duke of Zerbst, Catherine received a home education.
She studied English, French and Italian, dance, music, the basics of history, geography, theology.
She grew up a frisky, inquisitive, playful girl, loved to flaunt her courage in front of the boys, with whom she easily played on the streets of Stettin.
The parents were dissatisfied with the" boyish " behavior of their daughter, but they were satisfied that Frederica took care of her younger sister Augusta.
.
Her mother called her as a child Fike or Fikchen (German: Figchen comes from the name Frederica, that is, "little Frederica")[source not specified 389 days].
In 1743, the Russian Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, choosing a bride for her heir, Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich (the future Russian Emperor Peter III), remembered that on her deathbed, her mother bequeathed her to become the wife of the Prince of Holstein, the brother of Johanna Elizabeth.
Perhaps it was this circumstance that tipped the scales in favor of Frederica[5]; earlier, Elizabeth had vigorously supported the election of her uncle to the Swedish throne[6] and exchanged portraits with her mother. .
In 1744, the Zerbst princess, together with her mother, was invited to Russia to marry Peter Fedorovich, who was her second cousin.
For the first time she saw her future husband in the Eytinsky castle in 1739.
Russian Russian language, history, Orthodoxy, and Russian traditions began to be studied immediately after arriving in Russia, as she sought to get acquainted with Russia as fully as possible, which she perceived as a new homeland.
Russian Russian teachers include the famous preacher Simon Todorsky (a teacher of Orthodoxy), the author of the first Russian grammar Vasily Adadurov (a teacher of the Russian language) and the choreographer Lange (a dance teacher).
Written exercises in calligraphy and French by Princess Sofia Anhalt of Zerbskaya[7]
In an effort to learn Russian as quickly as possible, the future empress studied at night, sitting at an open window in the frosty air.
Soon she fell ill with pneumonia, and her condition was so severe that her mother offered to bring a Lutheran pastor.
Sofia, however, refused and sent for Simon Todorsky.
This circumstance added to her popularity at the Russian court[8].
On June 28 (July 9), 1744, Sofia Frederika Augusta converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy and received the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna (the same name and patronymic as Elizabeth's mother Catherine I), and the next day she was betrothed to the future emperor.
On June 28 (July 9), 1744, Sofia Frederika Augusta converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy and received the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna (the same name and patronymic as Elizabeth's mother Catherine I), and the next day she was betrothed to the future emperor.
The appearance of Sofia and her mother in St. Petersburg was accompanied by a political intrigue in which her mother, Princess Zerbstskaya, was involved.
She was an admirer of King Frederick II of Prussia, and the latter decided to use her stay at the Russian imperial court to establish his influence on Russia's foreign policy.
To do this, it was planned, through intrigues and influence on the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, to remove the Chancellor Bestuzhev, who pursued an anti Prussian policy, and replace him with another nobleman who sympathized with Prussia.
However, Bestuzhev managed to intercept the letters of the Princess of Zerbst to Frederick II and present them to Elizabeth Petrovna.
After the latter learned about the "ugly role of a Prussian spy" played by Sofia's mother at her court, she immediately changed her attitude towards her and subjected her to disgrace[9].
However, this did not affect the position of Sofia herself, who did not take part in this intrigue.
Marriage with the heir to the Russian throne
Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna with her husband Peter III Fedorovich
On August 21, 1745, at the age of sixteen, Catherine was married to Peter Fedorovich, who was 17 years old and who was her second cousin.
During the first years of their marriage, Peter was completely uninterested in his wife, and there was no marital relationship between them.
Ekaterina will write about this later:
I saw very clearly that the Grand Duke did not love me at all; two weeks after the wedding, he told me that he was in love with the maiden Carr, the empress's maid of honor.
He told Count Divier, his chamberlain, that there was no comparison between this girl and me.
Divier claimed the opposite, and he was angry with him; this scene took place almost in my presence, and I saw this quarrel.
To tell the truth, I told myself that I would certainly be very unhappy with this man if I succumbed to the feeling of love for him, for which they paid so poorly, and that there would be something to die of jealousy without any benefit for anyone.
So, I tried out of self love to force myself not to be jealous of a person who does not love me, but in order not to be jealous of him, there was no choice but not to love him.
If he wanted to be loved, it would not be difficult for me: I was naturally inclined and accustomed to fulfill my duties, but for this I would need to have a husband with common sense, and mine did not have this[10].
Pavel I Petrovich, son of Catherine (1777)
Ekaterina continues to engage in self education.
She reads books on history, philosophy, law, the works of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Tacitus, Bayle, a large number of other literature.
The main amusements for her were hunting, horse riding, dancing and masquerades.
The lack of marital relations with the Grand Duke contributed to the appearance of Catherine's lovers.
Meanwhile, the Empress Elizabeth expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of children of the spouses.
Finally, after two unsuccessful pregnancies, on September 20, 1754, Catherine gave birth to a son, Pavel.
The birth was difficult, the baby was immediately taken away from his mother by the will of the reigning Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, and Catherine was deprived of the opportunity to raise, allowing only occasionally to see Pavel.
So the Grand Duchess saw her son for the first time only 40 days after giving birth.
A number of sources claim that Pavel's true father was Catherine's lover S. V. Saltykov (there is no direct statement about this in the "Notes" of Catherine II, but they are often interpreted this way).
Others say that such rumors are groundless, and that Peter had an operation that eliminated a defect that made conception impossible.
The question of paternity aroused interest in society as well.
Alexey Grigoryevich Bobrinsky is the illegitimate son of the Empress.
After the birth of Pavel, relations with Peter and Elizabeth Petrovna finally deteriorated.
Peter called his wife "spare madame" and openly took mistresses, however, without preventing Catherine from doing this, who during this period, thanks to the efforts of the English ambassador Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, had a connection with Stanislaw Poniatowski — the future king of Poland.
On December 9, 1757, Catherine gave birth to her daughter Anna, which caused a strong dissatisfaction with Peter, who said at the news of a new pregnancy: "God knows why my wife got pregnant again!
I am not at all sure whether this child is from me and whether I should take it personally"[11].
During this period, the English ambassador Williams was a close friend and confidant of Catherine.
He repeatedly provided her with significant amounts in the form of loans or subsidies: only in 1750, 50,000 rubles were transferred to her, about which there are two of her receipts[12]; and in November 1756, 44,000 rubles were transferred to her.[13]
In return, he received various confidential information from her — orally and through letters that she wrote to him quite regularly, as if on behalf of a man (for the purposes of conspiracy)[14].
Russian Russian army In particular, at the end of 1756, after the beginning of the Seven Years ' War with Prussia (of which England was an ally), Williams, as follows from his own dispatches, received from Catherine important information about the state of the belligerent Russian army and about the plan of the Russian offensive, which was transmitted to London, as well as to Berlin to the Prussian King Frederick II[13][15].
After the departure of Williams, she received money from his successor Keith[16].
Historians explain Catherine's frequent appeal to the British for money by her extravagance, because of which her expenses far exceeded the amounts that were released from the treasury for her maintenance[12].
In one of her letters to Williams, she promised, as a sign of gratitude, "to lead Russia to a friendly alliance with England, to give her everywhere the assistance and preference necessary for the good of all Europe and especially Russia, before their common enemy, France, whose greatness is a disgrace to Russia.
I will learn to practice these feelings, I will base my glory on them and I will prove to the king, your sovereign, the strength of these feelings of mine"[17].
Already since 1756, and especially during the illness of Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine hatched a plan to remove the future emperor (her husband) from the throne by conspiracy, about which she repeatedly wrote to Williams[14].
For this purpose, Catherine, according to the historian V. O. Klyuchevsky, "begged for a loan of 10 thousand pounds sterling from the English king for gifts and bribes, having pledged her word of honor to act in the common Anglo Russian interests, began to think about involving the guards in the case of Elizabeth's death, entered into a secret agreement about this with Hetman K. Razumovsky, the commander of one of the Guards regiments."
Chancellor Bestuzhev was also privy to this plan of a palace coup, who promised Catherine assistance[18].
At the beginning of 1758, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna suspected the commander in chief of the Russian army, Apraksin, with whom Catherine was on friendly terms, as well as the Chancellor Bestuzhev himself, of treason.
Both were arrested, subjected to investigation and punishment; however, Bestuzhev managed to destroy all his correspondence with Ekaterina before his arrest, which saved her from persecution and disgrace[19].
At the same time, Williams was recalled to England.
Thus, her former favorites were removed, but a circle of new ones began to form: Grigory Orlov and Dashkova.
The death of Elizabeth Petrovna (December 25, 1761) and the accession to the throne of Peter Fedorovich under the name of Peter III further alienated the spouses.
Peter III began to live openly with his mistress Elizabeth Vorontsova, settling his wife at the other end of the Winter Palace.
When Ekaterina became pregnant by Orlov, it could no longer be explained by an accidental conception from her husband, since the communication of the spouses had completely stopped by that time.
Ekaterina hid her pregnancy, and when it was time to give birth, her devoted valet Vasily Grigoryevich Shkurin set fire to his house.
A lover of such spectacles, Peter and the court left the palace to look at the fire; at this time, Catherine safely gave birth.
This is how Alexey Bobrinsky was born, to whom his brother Pavel I later awarded the count's title.
The coup of June 28, 1762
Main article: The Palace Coup of 1762
Grigory Orlov, one of the leaders of the coup.
Portrait by Fyodor Rokotov, 1762-1763
Upon assuming the throne, Peter III carried out a number of actions that caused a negative attitude towards him by the officer corps.
Thus, he concluded a treaty with Prussia that was unfavorable for Russia, while Russia won a number of victories over it during the Seven Years ' War, and returned the lands captured by the Russians to it.
At the same time, he intended to act in alliance with Prussia against Denmark (Russia's ally), in order to regain Schleswig, which she had taken from Holstein, and he himself intended to march at the head of the guard.
Peter announced the sequestration of the property of the Russian Church, the abolition of monastic land ownership and shared with others plans for the reform of church rites.
Supporters of the coup also accused Peter III of ignorance, imbecility, dislike of Russia, and complete inability to rule.
Against his background, 33 year old Ekaterina looked favorably an intelligent, well read, pious and benevolent wife who is being persecuted by her husband.
After the relationship with her husband finally deteriorated and the discontent with the emperor on the part of the guards increased, Catherine decided to participate in the coup.
Her colleagues, the main of whom were the Orlov brothers, sergeant Potemkin and adjutant Fyodor Khitrovo, engaged in agitation in the guards units and persuaded them to their side.
The immediate reason for the beginning of the coup was the rumors about the arrest of Catherine and the disclosure and arrest of one of the participants in the conspiracy — por uchika Passeka.
Apparently, there was also some foreign participation here.
As Henri Troyes and Kazimir Valishevsky write, when planning the overthrow of Peter III, Catherine turned to the French and the British for money, hinting to them what she was going to carry out.
The French reacted with distrust to her request to borrow 60 thousand rubles, not believing in the seriousness of her plan, but she received 100 thousand rubles from the British, which later may have influenced her attitude to England and France[20][21].
In the early morning of June 28 (July 9), 1762, while Peter III was in Oranienbaum, Catherine, accompanied by Alexey and Grigory Orlov, arrived from Peterhof to St. Petersburg, where the guards units swore allegiance to her.
Peter III, seeing the hopelessness of resistance, abdicated the throne the next day, was taken into custody and died under unclear circumstances.
In her letter, Catherine once pointed out that before his death, Peter suffered from hemorrhoidal colic.
After death (although the facts indicate that even before death see below) Catherine ordered an autopsy to be done in order to dispel suspicions of poisoning.
The autopsy showed (according to Ekaterina) that the stomach is absolutely clean, which excludes the presence of poison.
At the same time, as the historian N. I. Pavlenko writes, "The violent death of the emperor is irrefutably confirmed by absolutely reliable sources"[22] — Orlov's letters to Catherine and a number of other facts.
There are also facts indicating that she knew about the impending murder of Peter III.
So, already on July 4, 2 days before the emperor's death in the palace in Ropsha, Catherine sent a doctor Paulsen to him, and as Pavlenko writes, "the fact that Paulsen was sent to Ropsha not with medicines, but with surgical instruments for opening the body is indicative"[22].
After the abdication of her husband, Ekaterina Alekseevna ascended the throne as the reigning empress with the name of Catherine II, issuing a manifesto[23], in which the attempt to change the state religion and peace with Prussia was indicated as the basis for the removal of Peter.
To justify their own rights to the throne (and not the heir of 7 year old Paul) Catherine referred to "the desire of all Our loyal subjects is obvious and not hypocritical."
On September 22 (October 3), 1762, she was crowned in Moscow[24].
As V. O. Klyuchevsky described her accession, "Catherine made a double seizure: she took power from her husband and did not transfer it to her son, the natural heir of her father"[25].
The reign of Catherine II: general information
"The apotheosis of the reign of Catherine II".
Hood.
G. Guglielmi.
1767
In her memoirs, Catherine described the state of Russia at the beginning of her reign as follows:
Finances were depleted.
The army did not receive a salary for 3 months.
Trade was in decline, because many of its branches were given over to monopoly.
There was no proper system in the state economy.
The military department was plunged into debt; the naval department barely held on, being in extreme neglect.
The clergy were dissatisfied with the seizure of his lands.
Justice was sold at a bargain, and the laws were guided only in cases where they favored a strong person.
According to historians, this characteristic did not quite correspond to reality.
The finances of the Russian state, even after the Seven Year War, were by no means exhausted or upset: so, in general, for 1762, the budget deficit amounted to only a little more than 1 million rubles.
or 8 % of the amount of income[26].
Moreover, Catherine herself contributed to the emergence of this deficit, since only in the first six months of her reign, until the end of 1762, she distributed in the form of gifts to the favorites and participants of the coup on June 28 in cash, not counting property, land and peasants, 800 thousand rubles.
rub .
(which, of course, was not provided for by the budget)[27].
The extreme disorder and depletion of finances occurred just during the reign of Catherine II, at the same time the external debt of Russia also arose for the first time, and the amount of unpaid salaries and obligations of the government at the end of her reign far exceeded that left behind by her predecessors[28].
the governor had extensive administrative, financial and judicial powers, all military units and teams located in the provinces were subordinate to him.
The Governor General reported directly to the Emperor.
The Governors General were appointed by the Senate.
Provincial prosecutors and tiuns were subordinate to the governors General.
Finances in the governorates were handled by the Treasury Chamber headed by the Vice governor with the support of the Accounting Chamber.
The provincial surveyor headed by the surveyor was engaged in land management.
The executive body of the governor (governor) was the provincial board, which carried out general supervision of the activities of institutions and officials.
The Order of public Charity was responsible for schools, hospitals and orphanages (social functions), as well as estate judicial institutions: the Upper Zemsky Court for nobles, the Provincial Magistrate who considered lawsuits between citizens, and the Upper Reprisal for the trial of state peasants.
The criminal and civil chambers judged all estates, were the highest judicial bodies in the provinces
Captain ispravnik stood at the head of the district, the leader of the nobility, elected by him for three years.
He was the executive body of the provincial government.
In the uyezds, as well as in the provinces, there are estate institutions: for the nobles (the county court), for the townspeople (the city magistrate) and for the state peasants (the lower massacre).
There was a county treasurer and a county surveyor.
Representatives of the estates sat in the courts.
A conscientious court is designed to stop quarrels and reconcile those who argue and quarrel.
This trial was wordless.
The Senate becomes the highest judicial body in the country.
Since there were clearly not enough cities centers of counties, Catherine II renamed many large rural settlements into cities, making them administrative centers.
Thus, 216 new cities appeared.
The population of the cities began to be called burghers and merchants.
The city was transferred to a separate administrative unit.
At the head of it, instead of the voivodes, a mayor was put, endowed with all the rights and powers.
Strict police control was introduced in the cities.
The city was divided into parts (districts) that were under the supervision of a private bailiff, and the parts were divided into quarters controlled by a quarterly supervisor.
A 5 kopeck coin with a double headed eagle and the monogram of Catherine II
Historians note a number of shortcomings of the provincial reform carried out under Catherine II.
Thus, N. I. Pavlenko writes that the new administrative division did not take into account the existing ties of the population with shopping and administrative centers, ignored the national composition of the population (for example, the territory of Mordovia was divided between 4 provinces): "The reform shredded the territory of the country, as if cutting "on a living body""[29].
To.
Valishevsky believes that the innovations in the court were "very controversial in essence", and contemporaries wrote that they led to an increase in the amount of bribery, since now it was necessary to give a bribe not to one, but to several judges, the number of which increased many times[30].
N. D. Chechulin points out that the provincial reform led to a significant increase in the costs of maintaining the bureaucratic apparatus.
Even according to the preliminary calculations of the Senate, its implementation should have led to an increase in the total expenditures of the state budget by 12-15 %; however, these considerations were treated "with strange frivolity"; soon after the completion of the reform, chronic budget deficits began, which could not be eliminated until the end of the reign[50].
In general, the cost of maintaining the bureaucratic apparatus during the reign of Catherine II increased 5.6 times (from 6.5 million rubles in 1762 to 36.5 million rubles in 1796) - much more than, for example, the cost of the army (2.6 times)[51] and more than in any other reign during the XVIII XIX centuries.
Speaking about the reasons for the provincial reform under Catherine, N. I. Pavlenko writes that it was a response to the Peasant War of 1773-1775 under the leadership of Pugachev, which revealed the weakness of the local authorities and their inability to cope with peasant riots.
The reform was preceded by a number of notes submitted to the government from the nobility, in which it was recommended to multiply the network of institutions and "police supervisors" in the country[52].
Liquidation of the Zaporozhye Sich
His Serene Highness Prince Grigory Potemkin of Tauris
The implementation of the provincial reform in the Left bank Ukraine in 1783-1785 led to a change in the regimental structure (former regiments and hundreds) on the administrative division common to the Russian Empire into provinces and counties, the final establishment of serfdom and the equalization of the rights of the Cossack elders with the Russian nobility.
With the conclusion of the Treaty of Kyuchuk Kaynardzhi (1774), Russia received access to the Black Sea and the Crimea.
Thus, there was no need to preserve the special rights and management system of the Zaporozhye Cossacks.
At the same time, their traditional way of life often led to conflicts with the authorities.
After repeated pogroms of Serbian settlers, as well as in connection with the support of the Cossacks for the Pugachev uprising, Catherine II ordered the Zaporozhye Sich to be disbanded, which was executed by order of Grigory Potemkin on the pacification of the Zaporozhye Cossacks by General Peter Tekeli in June 1775.
The Sich was disbanded, most of the Cossacks were disbanded, and the fortress itself was destroyed.
In 1787, Catherine II together with Potemkin visited the Crimea, where she was met by an Amazon company created for her arrival; in the same year, an Army of Loyal Cossacks was created, which later became the Black Sea Cossack Army, and in 1792 they were granted the Kuban for eternal use, where the Cossacks moved, founding the city of Yekaterinodar.
The reforms on the Don created a military civil government on the model of the provincial administrations of central Russia.
In 1771, the Kalmyk Khanate was finally annexed to Russia.
Economic policy
See also: Economy of the Russian Empire
By the decree of the Empress, an incoming Insurance Expedition was established "at the State Loan Bank as part of it"
The reign of Catherine II was characterized by extensive development of the economy and trade, while maintaining the "patriarchal" industry and agriculture.
By a decree of 1775, factories and industrial plants were recognized as property, the disposal of which does not require special permission from the authorities.
In 1763, the free exchange of copper money for silver was prohibited, so as not to provoke the development of inflation.
The development and revival of trade was facilitated by the emergence of new credit institutions (the state bank and the loan cashier) and the expansion of banking operations (since 1770, the acceptance of deposits for storage was introduced).
A state bank was established and for the first time the issue of paper money — banknotes was established.
State regulation of prices for salt, which was one of the most vital goods in the country, was introduced.
The Senate has legislated the price of salt in the amount of 30 kopecks per pood (instead of 50 kopecks) and 10 kopecks per pood in the regions of mass salting of fish.
Without introducing a state monopoly on the salt trade, Ekaterina counted on increasing competition and, ultimately, improving the quality of the goods.
However, soon the price of salt was raised again[47].
At the beginning of the reign, some monopolies were abolished: the state monopoly on trade with China, the private monopoly of the merchant Shemyakin on the import of silk, and others[53].
The role of Russia in the world economy has increased — Russian sailing canvas has been exported to England in large quantities, exports of cast iron and iron have increased to other European countries (the consumption of cast iron in the domestic Russian market has also increased significantly)[54].
But the export of raw materials has grown especially strongly: timber (by 5 times), hemp, bristles, etc., as well as bread[55].
The country's export volume increased from 13.9 million rubles in 1760 to 39.6 million rubles in 1790[56]
Russian merchant ships began to sail in the Mediterranean Sea[54].
However, their number was insignificant in comparison with foreign ones — only 7% of the total number of ships that served Russian foreign trade in the late XVIII — early XIX centuries; the number of foreign merchant ships that entered Russian ports annually increased from 1,340 to 2,430 during her reign[57].
As the economic historian N. A. Rozhkov pointed out, in the structure of exports in the era of Catherine there were no finished products at all, only raw materials and semi finished products, and 80-90% of imports were foreign industrial products[58], the volume of import of which was several times higher than domestic production.
Thus, the volume of domestic manufacturing production in 1773 was 2.9 million rubles, the same as in 1765, and the volume of imports in these years was about 10 million rubles[59].
Industry developed poorly, there were practically no technical improvements in it and serf labor dominated[60].
So, cloth manufactories from year to year could not even meet the needs of the army, despite the prohibition to release cloth "on the side", in addition, the cloth was of poor quality, and it was necessary to buy it abroad[61].
Ekaterina herself did not understand the significance of the Industrial Revolution taking place in the West and argued that machines (or, as she called them, "machines") harm the state, since they reduce the number of employees[56].
Only two export industries developed rapidly — the production of cast iron and linen, but both were based on "patriarchal" methods, without the use of new technologies that were actively being introduced in the West at that time — which predetermined a severe crisis in both industries, which began soon after the death of Catherine II[62][63].
Monogram EII on the coin of 1765
In the sphere of foreign trade, Catherine's policy consisted in a gradual transition from protectionism, characteristic of Elizabeth Petrovna, to complete liberalization of exports and imports, which, according to a number of economic historians, was a consequence of the influence of the ideas of the physiocrats[64].
Already in the first years of his reign, a number of foreign trade monopolies and a ban on grain exports were abolished, which from that time began to grow rapidly.
In 1765, the Free Economic Society was founded, which promoted the ideas of free trade and published its own magazine.
In 1766, a new customs tariff was introduced, which significantly reduced tariff barriers compared to the protectionist tariff of 1757 (which established protective duties in the amount of 60 to 100 % or more); they were even more reduced in the customs tariff of 1782.
For example, in the" moderately protectionist " tariff of 1766, protective duties averaged 30%, and in the liberal tariff of 1782 — 10%, only for some goods rising to 20-30 %[65].
Agriculture, like industry, developed mainly due to extensive methods (an increase in the amount of arable land); the promotion of intensive agricultural methods by the Free Economic Society created under Catherine did not have much result[66].
From the first years of Catherine's reign, famine began to occur periodically in the village, which some contemporaries explained by chronic crop failures, but the historian M. N. Pokrovsky associated with the beginning of mass grain exports, which had previously been banned under Elizabeth Petrovna, and by the end of Catherine's reign amounted to 1.3 million rubles a year.
Cases of mass ruin of peasants have become more frequent.
The Holodomors acquired a special scope in the 1780s, when they covered large regions of the country.
Bread prices have increased significantly: for example, in the center of Russia (Moscow, Smolensk, Kaluga) they increased from 86 kopecks in 1760 to 2.19 rubles in 1773 and to 7 rubles in 1788, that is, more than 8 times[67].
Introduced into circulation in 1769, paper money banknotes in the first decade of its existence accounted for only a few percent of the metal (silver and copper) money supply, and played a positive role, allowing the state to reduce its costs for moving money within the empire.
However, due to the lack of money in the treasury, which has become a constant phenomenon, since the beginning of the 1780s, there was an increasing issue of banknotes, the volume of which by 1796 reached 156 million rubles, and their value devalued by 1.5 times.
In addition, the state borrowed money abroad in the amount of 33 million rubles and had various unpaid internal obligations (bills, salaries, etc.) in the amount of 15.5 million rubles.
Thus, the total amount of the government's debts amounted to 205 million rubles, the treasury was empty, and budget expenditures significantly exceeded revenues, which was stated by Paul I upon his accession to the throne[68].
All this gave rise to the historian N. D. Chechulin in his economic research to conclude about the "severe economic crisis" in the country (in the second half of the reign of Catherine II) and about the "complete collapse of the financial system of Catherine's reign"[42].
Corruption.
Favoritism
See also: Corruption in the Russian Empire
...In the alleys of Sarsky village…
The dear old lady lived
Nice and a little prodigal,
Voltaire's first friend was,
I wrote the order, burned the fleets,
And she died while boarding the ship.
Since then, the haze.
Russia, a poor power,
Your strangled glory
She died with Ekaterina.
A. Pushkin, 1824[69]
By the beginning of Catherine's reign, the system of bribery, arbitrariness and other abuses on the part of officials was deeply rooted in Russia, as she herself loudly declared shortly after taking the throne.
On July 18, 1762, just 3 weeks after the beginning of her reign, she issued a Manifesto on extortion, in which she stated many abuses in the field of public administration and justice and declared a fight against them.
However, as the historian V. A. Bilbasov wrote, "Catherine soon became convinced herself that "bribery in state affairs" is not eradicated by decrees and manifestos, that this requires a radical reform of the entire state system — a task ... that was not up to the shoulder of either that time or even later"[70].
There are many examples of corruption and abuse of officials in relation to her reign.
A striking example is the Prosecutor General of the Senate Glebov.
For example, he did not stop at taking away wine purchases issued by local authorities in the provinces and reselling them to "his" customers who offered a lot of money for them.
Sent by him to Irkutsk, back in the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, the investigator Krylov with a detachment of Cossacks seized local merchants and extorted money from them, forced their wives and daughters to cohabit, arrested the vice governor of Irkutsk, Wolf, and essentially established his own power there[71].
There are a number of references to abuse on the part of Ekaterina's favorite Grigory Potemkin.
For example, as the British Ambassador Gunning wrote in his reports, Potemkin"by his own authority and contrary to the Senate, disposed of wine purchases in a way that was unprofitable for the treasury" [72].
In 1785-1786, another favorite of Catherine, Alexander Ermolov, previously an aide de camp of Potemkin, accused the latter of embezzling funds allocated for the development of Belarus.
Potemkin himself, justifying himself, said that he had only "borrowed" this money from the treasury[73].
Another fact is cited by the German historian T. Griesinger, who points out that the generous gifts received by Potemkin from the Jesuits played an important role in allowing their order to open its headquarters in Russia (after the Jesuits were banned everywhere in Europe)[74].
As N. I. Pavlenko points out, Catherine II showed excessive softness in relation not only to her favorites, but also to other officials who had sullied themselves with extortion or other offenses.
Thus, the prosecutor General of the Senate, Glebov (whom the empress herself called "a cheat and a swindler"), was only removed from office in 1764, although by that time a large list of complaints and cases against him had accumulated.
During the events of the plague riot in Moscow in September 1771, the commander in chief of Moscow, P. S. Saltykov, showed cowardice, fearing the epidemic and the riots that had begun, wrote to the Empress a resignation and immediately left for the patrimony near Moscow, leaving Moscow at the mercy of a mad crowd that staged pogroms and murders throughout the city.
Catherine only granted his request for resignation and did not punish him in any way[75].
Therefore, despite the sharp increase in the cost of maintaining the official apparatus during her reign, abuses did not become less.
Shortly before her death, in February 1796, F. I. Rostopchin wrote: "Crimes have never been so frequent as now.
Their impunity and audacity have reached the extreme limits.
Three days ago, a certain Kovalinsky, who was the secretary of the military commission and was expelled by the Empress for embezzlement and bribery, has now been appointed governor in Ryazan, because he has a brother, a scoundrel like him, who is friends with Gribovsky, the head of the office of Platon Zubov.
One Ribas steals up to 500,000 rubles a year"[76].
A number of examples of abuse and embezzlement are associated with Catherine's favorites, which, apparently, is not accidental.
As N. I. Pavlenko writes, they were "for the most part grabbers who were happy about personal interests, and not about the good of the state"[77].
The very favoritism of that era, which, according to K. Valishevsky, "under Catherine became almost a state institution"[78], can serve as an example, if not corruption, then excessive spending of public funds.
Thus, it was estimated by contemporaries that gifts to only 11 of Catherine's main favorites and the costs of their maintenance amounted to 92 million 820 thousand rubles[79][80], which was several times higher than the annual expenditures of the state budget of that era and was comparable to the amount of the external and internal debt of the Russian Empire formed by the end of her reign.
"It was as if she was buying the love of favorites," writes N. I. Pavlenko, "she was playing at love," noting that this game was very expensive for the state[81].
In addition to unusually generous gifts, the favorites also received orders, military and official titles, as a rule, without any merit, which had a demoralizing effect on officials and the military and did not contribute to improving the efficiency of their service.
For example, when he was very young and did not shine with any merits, Alexander Lansky managed to receive the Orders of Alexander Nevsky and St. Anna, the ranks of Lieutenant General and adjutant General, the Polish Orders of the White Eagle and St. Stanislaus and the Swedish Order of the Polar Star in 3-4 years of "friendship" with the Empress; he also made a fortune of 7 million rubles[82].
As the French diplomat Masson, a contemporary of Catherine, wrote, her favorite Platon Zubov had so many awards that he looked "like a seller of ribbons and hardware"[83].
In addition to the favorites themselves, the generosity of the empress truly knew no bounds in relation to various persons close to the court; their relatives; foreign aristocrats, etc.
So, during her reign, she gave away a total of more than 800 thousand peasants.
For the maintenance of Grigory Potemkin's niece, she gave out about 100 thousand rubles annually, and for the wedding she gave her and her fiance 1 million rubles[84].
She sheltered "a crowd of French courtiers who had a more or less official appointment at the court. therins" (Baron Breteuil, Prince of Nassau, Marquis of Bombelle, Calonne, Count Esterhazy, Count of Saint Pri, etc.), who also received gifts unheard of in generosity (for example, Esterhazy — 2 million pounds)[85].
Large sums were paid to representatives of the Polish aristocracy, including King Stanislaw Poniatowski (in the past her favorite), who was" planted " by her on the Polish throne.
According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, Catherine's very nomination of Poniatowski as the king of Poland "entailed a string of temptations": "First of all, it was necessary to prepare hundreds of thousands of ducats for bribing Polish magnates who traded in the fatherland..."
[86].
Since that time, sums from the treasury of the Russian state with the light hand of Catherine II flowed into the pockets of the Polish aristocracy — in particular, this is how the latter's consent to the partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was acquired[87].
Education, science, health care
In 1768, a network of city schools was created, based on a class based system.
Schools began to open actively.
Under Catherine, special attention was paid to the development of women's education, in 1764 the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens and the Educational Society of Noble Maidens were opened.
The Academy of Sciences has become one of the leading scientific bases in Europe.
An observatory, a physics room, an anatomical theater, a botanical garden, tool workshops, a printing house, a library, and an archive were founded.
On October 11, 1783, the Russian Academy was founded.
However, historians give a low estimate advances in the field of education and science.
A. troyat indicates that the work of the Academy was built mainly in the cultivation of our own personnel, and on inviting famous foreign scientists (Euler, Pallas, Bemer, Storch, Kraft, Miller, Vacmaster, Georgi, Klinger, etc.), however, "to make all of these scientists in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences has not enriched the Treasury of human knowledge"[88].
V. O. Klyuchevsky also writes about this, referring to the testimony of a contemporary of Manstein.
The same applies to education[89].
According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, when the Moscow University was founded in 1755, it had 100 students, and 30 years later — only 82.
Many students could not pass the exams and get a diploma: for example, during the entire reign of Catherine, not a single doctor received a scientific diploma, that is, he did not pass the exams.
The studies were poorly organized (the training was conducted in French or Latin), and the nobles went to study very reluctantly.
The same shortage of students was in two maritime academies, which could not even recruit 250 students, put on the staff[90].
Moscow Educational Home
There were orders of public charity in the provinces.
In Moscow and St. Petersburg there are Educational homes for street children, where they received education and upbringing.
A Widow's Treasury was created to help widows.
Mandatory smallpox vaccination was introduced, and Catherine decided to set a personal example to her subjects: on the night of October 12 (23), 1768, the empress herself was vaccinated against smallpox.
Among the first vaccinated were also Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna[91][92].
Under Catherine II, the fight against epidemics in Russia began to acquire the character of state events that were directly part of the responsibilities of the Imperial Council and the Senate.
By the decree of Catherine, outposts were created, located not only on the borders, but also on the roads leading to the center of Russia.
The "Charter of Border and Port Quarantines"was created[93].
New areas of medicine were developing in Russia: hospitals for the treatment of syphilis, psychiatric hospitals and orphanages were opened.
A number of fundamental works on medicine have been published.
National policy
After the annexation of the lands that were formerly part of the Polish — Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Russian Empire, there were about a million Jews in Russia a people with a different religion, culture, way of life and way of life.
In order to prevent their resettlement to the central regions of Russia and to attach them to their communities for the convenience of collecting state taxes, Catherine II in 1791 established a pale of settlement, beyond which Jews had no right to live.
The line of settlement was established in the same place where the Jews had lived before — on the lands annexed as a result of the three partitions of Poland, as well as in the steppe regions near the Black Sea and sparsely populated territories east of the Dnieper.
The conversion of Jews to Orthodoxy removed all restrictions on living.
It is noted that the pale of settlement contributed to the preservation of the Jewish national identity, the formation of a special Jewish identity within the Russian Empire[94].
In 1762-1764, Catherine published two manifestos.
The first — "On allowing all foreigners entering Russia to settle in which provinces they wish and on the rights granted to them" called on foreign citizens to move to Russia, the second defined a list of benefits and privileges for immigrants.
Soon the first German settlements appeared in the Volga region, reserved for immigrants.
The influx of German colonists was so great that already in 1766 it was necessary to temporarily suspend the reception of new immigrants until the settlement of those who had already entered.
The creation of colonies on the Volga was increasing: in 1765 — 12 colonies, in 1766 — 21, in 1767 — 67.
According to the census of colonists in 1769, 6.5 thousand families lived in 105 colonies on the Volga, which was 23.2 thousand people[95].
In the future, the German community will play a significant role in the life of Russia.
During the reign of Catherine, the country included the Northern Black Sea region, the Azov Sea, the Crimea, Novorossiya, the lands between the Dniester and the Bug, Belarus, Courland and Lithuania.
The total number of new subjects acquired by Russia in this way reached 7 million[25].
As a result, as V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote, in the Russian Empire "the discord of interests" between different peoples increased[96] This was expressed, in particular, in the fact that the government was forced to introduce a special economic, tax and administrative regime for almost every nationality, for example, the German colonists were completely exempt from paying taxes to the state and from other duties; the line of settlement was introduced for Jews; at first the poll tax was not levied at all from the Ukrainian and Belarusian population on the territory of the former Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then it was levied in half.
The indigenous population was the most discriminated against in these conditions, which led to such an incident: some Russian nobles in the late XVIII early XIX centuries.
as a reward for their service, they were asked to "enroll in the Germans" so that they could enjoy the appropriate privileges.
city" or "citizen", from the word "place" — a city and "place" - a town).
Merchants of the 1st and 2nd guilds and prominent citizens were exempted from corporal punishment.
Representatives of the 3rd generation of eminent citizens were allowed to initiate a petition for the assignment of nobility.
The granting of maximum rights and privileges to the nobility and its complete exemption from duties towards the state led to the appearance of a phenomenon widely covered in the literature of that era (the comedy "Nedorosl" by Fonvizin, the magazine "Drone" by Novikov, etc.) and in historical works.
As V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote, a nobleman of the Catherine era "represented a very strange phenomenon: the manners, habits, concepts, feelings, the very language in which he thought everything was foreign, everything was imported, and at home he had no living organic connections with others, no serious business... in the West, abroad, they saw him as a disguised Tatar, and in Russia they looked at him as a Frenchman accidentally born in Russia"[90].
Despite the privileges, in the era of Catherine II, property inequality among the nobles greatly increased: against the background of certain large fortunes, the economic situation of some of the nobility worsened.
As pointed out by historian D. Blum, a number of major nobles owned by tens and hundreds of thousands of serfs, which was not in the previous reign (when rich is the owner of more than 500 souls); at the same time, almost 2/3 of all landlords in 1777 was less 30 serfs male and 1/3 of the landlords is less than 10 shower; many of the nobles who wanted to enter public service, did not have the funds to purchase appropriate clothing and shoes[100].
V. O. Klyuchevsky writes that many of the children of the nobility during her reign, even becoming the students of the Maritime Academy and "receiving a small stipend (scholarship), 1 RUB per month, "from the street kids" couldnot even attend the Academy, and they had, according to the report, not the Sciences to think, but about their own food on the side to acquire the means for its content"[90].
The peasantry.
Peasants in the era of Catherine made up about 95 % of the population, and serfs — more than 90 %[source not specified 792 days] of the population, while the nobles made up only 1%, and the rest of the estates — 9 %.
According to the reform of Catherine, the peasants of the non chernozem regions paid dues, and the chernozem ones worked out serfdom.
According to the general opinion of historians, the situation of this largest group of the population in the era of Catherine was the worst in the entire history of Russia.
A number of historians compare the situation of serfs of that era with slaves[101].
As V. O. Klyuchevsky writes, the landowners "turned their villages into slave owning plantations, which are difficult to distinguish from North American plantations before the liberation of the Negroes"[102]; and D. Blum concludes that "by the end of the XVIII century, the Russian serf was no different from a slave on a plantation"[103].
Nobles, including Catherine II herself, often called serfs "slaves", which is well known from written sources[104].
The trade of peasants reached a wide scale: they were sold in markets, in advertisements on the pages of newspapers; they were lost at cards, exchanged, given, forcibly married.
The peasants could not take the oath, take payoffs and contracts, could not leave their village for more than 30 versts without a passport permission from the landowner and local authorities.
According to the law, the serf was completely at the mercy of the landowner, the latter had no right only to kill him, but could torture him to death — and there was no official punishment for this[105].
There are a number of examples of landlords maintaining serf "harems" and dungeons for peasants with executioners and instruments of torture.
During the 34 years of his reign, only in a few of the most egregious cases (including Daria Saltykova), landowners were punished for abuses against peasants[106].
During the reign of Catherine II, a number of laws were adopted that worsened the situation of peasants:
The decree of 1763 assigned the maintenance of the military commands sent to suppress peasant protests to the peasants themselves.
According to the decree of 1765, for open disobedience, the landowner could send a peasant not only to exile, but also to hard labor, and the term of hard labor was set by him; the landowners also had the right to return the exiled from hard labor at any time.
The decree of 1767 forbade peasants to complain about their master; disobedient people were threatened with exile to Nerchinsk (but they could go to court), In 1783 serfdom was introduced in Little Russia (Left Bank Ukraine and the Russian Black Earth region), In 1796 serfdom was introduced in Novorossiya (Don, North Caucasus), After the partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, the serfdom regime was tightened in the territories that were ceded to the Russian Empire (Right Bank Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland).
According to N. I. Pavlenko, under Catherine "serfdom developed deep and wide", which was "an example of a blatant contradiction between the ideas of the Enlightenment and government measures to strengthen the serfdom regime"[107]
During her reign, Catherine gave away more than 800 thousand peasants to landowners and nobles, thereby setting a kind of record[108].
Most of them were not state peasants, but peasants from the lands acquired during the partitions of Poland, as well as palace peasants[109].
But, for example, the number of assigned (posession) peasants from 1762 to 1796 increased from 210 to 312 thousand people, and these were formally free (state) peasants, but converted to the position of serfs or slaves[110].
The posession peasants of the Ural factories took an active part in the Peasant War of 1773-1775..
At the same time, the situation of the monastic peasants was eased, which were transferred to the jurisdiction of the College of Economy along with the lands.
All their duties were replaced by a monetary levy, which gave the peasants more independence and developed their economic initiative.
As a result, the unrest of the monastery peasants stopped.
The higher clergy (episcopate) lost its autonomous existence due to the secularization of church lands (1764), which gave episcopal houses and monasteries the opportunity to exist without the help of the state and independently of it.
After the reform, the monastic clergy became dependent on the state that financed it.
Religious policy
In general, a policy of religious tolerance was declared in Russia under Catherine II.
Thus, in 1773, the law on tolerance of all faiths was issued, prohibiting the Orthodox clergy from interfering in the affairs of other confessions[111]; the secular authorities reserve the right to decide on the establishment of churches of any faith[112].
Upon assuming the throne, Catherine canceled the decree of Peter III on the secularization of the lands of the church.
But already in February 1764, she again issued a decree on depriving the Church of land property.
Monastic peasants numbering about 2 million people.
both sexes were removed from the jurisdiction of the clergy and transferred to the management of the College of Economy.
The state is responsible for the patrimony of churches, monasteries and bishops.
In Little Russia, the secularization of monastic possessions was carried out in 1786.
Thus, the clergy became dependent on the secular authorities, since they could not carry out independent economic activity.
Catherine obtained from the government of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth an equation in the rights of religious minorities — Orthodox and Protestants.
In the first years of the reign of Catherine II, the persecution of the Old Believers stopped.
Continuing the policy of her deposed husband Peter III, the Empress supported his initiative to return the Old Believers, the economically active population from abroad[113].
They were specially assigned a place on Irgiz (modern Saratov and Samara regions)[112].
They were allowed to have priests[114][115].
However, already in 1765, the persecution resumed.
The Senate decided that the Old Believers were not allowed to build temples, and Catherine confirmed this with her decree; the already built temples were demolished[116].
During these years, not only churches were destroyed, but also a whole city of Old Believers and schismatics (Vetka) in Little Russia, which then ceased to exist[117].
And in 1772, the sect of the Eunuchs in the Orel province was persecuted.
K. Valishevsky believes that the reason for the continued persecution of Old Believers and schismatics, unlike other religions, was that they were considered not only as a religious, but also as a socio political movement[116].
Thus, according to the doctrine common among schismatics, Catherine II, along with Peter I, was considered the "Antichrist tsar"[118][119].
The free migration of Germans to Russia led to a significant increase in the number of Protestants (mainly Lutherans) in Russia.
They were also allowed to build churches, schools, and freely perform divine services.
At the end of the XVIII century, there were more than 20 thousand Lutherans in St. Petersburg alone.
The Jewish religion retained the right to the public exercise of faith.
Religious matters and disputes were left to the Jewish courts.
Jews, depending on their available capital, were assigned to the appropriate estate and could be elected to local self government bodies, become judges and other civil servants.
By the decree of Catherine II in 1787, the full Arabic text of the Islamic holy book of the Koran was printed for the first time in Russia in the printing house of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg for free distribution to "Kyrgyz".
The publication differed significantly from the European ones, primarily in that it had a Muslim character: the text it was prepared for publication by Mullah Usman Ibrahim.
From 1789 to 1798, 5 editions of the Koran were published in St. Petersburg.
In 1788, a manifesto was issued in which the Empress ordered "to establish in Ufa a spiritual assembly of the Mohammedan law, which has in its department all the spiritual ranks of that law, ... excluding the Tauride region"[120].
Thus, Catherine began to integrate the Muslim community into the system of the state structure of the empire.
Muslims were given the right to build and restore mosques.
Buddhism also received state support in the regions where it was traditionally practiced.
In 1764, Catherine established the post of Hambo Lama the head of the Buddhists of Eastern Siberia and Transbaikalia[121].
In 1766, the Buryat lamas recognized Catherine as the incarnation of the White Tara Bodhisattva for her benevolence to Buddhism and humane rule.
Catherine allowed the Jesuit Order, which was by that time officially banned in all European countries (by decisions of European states and a bull of the pope), to move its headquarters to Russia[122].
In the future, she patronized the order: she gave it the opportunity to open its new residence in Mogilev, banned and confiscated all issued copies of the "slanderous" (in her opinion) history of the Jesuit Order, visited their institutions and rendered other favors[116].
Domestic political problems
The Plague Riot of 1771
The fact that a woman who had no formal rights to this was proclaimed empress gave rise to many contenders for the throne, which overshadowed a significant part of the reign of Catherine II.
So, only from 1764 to 1773, seven False Peter III appeared in the country (who claimed that they were nothing but the" resurrected " Peter III) - A. Aslanbekov, I. Evdokimov, G. Kremnev, P. Chernyshov, G. Ryabov, F. Bogomolov, N. Krestov; the eighth was Yemelyan Pugachev[123].
And in 1774-1775, the "case of Princess Tarakanova", who posed as the daughter of Elizabeth Petrovna, was added to this list.
During 1762-1764, 3 conspiracies were uncovered with the aim of overthrowing Catherine, and two of them were associated with the name of Ivan Antonovich[124] — the former Russian Emperor Ivan VI, who at the time of Catherine II's accession to the throne continued to remain alive in prison in the Shlisselburg fortress.
The first of them involved 70 officers.
The second took place in 1764, when Lieutenant V. Ya.
Mirovich, who was on guard duty in the Shlisselburg fortress, persuaded part of the garrison to his side in order to free Ivan.
The guards, however, in accordance with the instructions given to them, stabbed the prisoner, and Mirovich himself was arrested and executed.
In 1771, a major plague epidemic occurred in Moscow, complicated by popular unrest in Moscow, which was called the Plague Riot.
The rebels defeated the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin.
The next day, the crowd stormed the Donskoy Monastery, killed Archbishop Ambrose, who was hiding in it, and began to smash the quarantine outposts and the houses of the nobility.
Troops under the command of G. G. Orlov were sent to suppress the uprising.
After three days of fighting, the riot was suppressed.
The Peasant War of 1773-1775
Vasily Perov "The Pugachev Trial" (1879), Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Main article: The Peasant War of 1773-1775
In 1773-1775, there was a peasant uprising led by Yemelyan Pugachev.
It covered the lands of the Yaitsky army, the Orenburg province, the Urals, the Kama Region, Bashkiria, part of Western Siberia, the Middle and Lower Volga regions.
During the uprising, the Cossacks were joined by Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Ural factory workers and numerous serfs from all provinces where military operations were unfolding.
After the suppression of the uprising, some liberal reforms were curtailed and conservatism intensified.
Main stages:
september 1773 March 1774 March 1774 — July 1774 July 1774-1775
On September 17, 1773, the uprising begins.
Near the Yaitsky town, government detachments that were going to suppress the rebellion are switching to the side of 200 Cossacks.
Without taking the town, the rebels go to Orenburg.
October 5 March 22, 1773-1774 standing under the walls of Orenburg.
March July 1774 the rebels seize the factories of the Urals and Bashkiria.
Under the Trinity Fortress, the rebels are defeated.
On July 12, Kazan is captured.
On July 17, they were defeated again and retreated to the right bank of the Volga.
On September 12, 1774, Pugachev was captured.
Historians believe that the peasant war of 1773-1775 was one of the manifestations of an acute social crisis that broke out in the middle of Catherine's reign, which was marked by many uprisings in different parts of the country (the Kizhi Uprising in Zaonezhye in 1769-1770, the plague riot of 1771 in Moscow, the uprising of the Yaitsky Cossacks of 1769-1772, etc.) [125].
A number of historians point to a change in the nature of social protests, their acquisition of a class, anti court, character.
Thus, D. Blum notes that the participants of the Pugachev uprising killed about 1,600 noblemen, and almost half of them were women and children, and cites other cases of murders of noblemen during peasant uprisings of that era[126].
As V. O. Klyuchevsky writes, the peasant uprisings during Catherine's reign "were colored with a social color, they were not uprisings of the governed against the administration, but of the lower classes against the higher, ruling, against the nobility"[90].
Freemasonry
Main article: The History of Freemasonry in Russia
1762-1778 characterized by the organizational design of Russian Freemasonry and the dominance of the English system (Elagin Freemasonry).
In the 60s and especially in the 70s of the XVIII century.
Freemasonry is becoming increasingly popular in the circles of the educated nobility.
The number of Masonic lodges increases many times.
In total, about 80 Masonic lodges are known to have been established during the reign of Catherine II, whereas previously they numbered only a few [127].
Researchers of Freemasonry associate this, on the one hand, with the fashion for everything new and foreign (one of the founders of Russian Freemasonry, I. P. Elagin, called it "a toy for idle minds"), and on the other hand, with the new trends of the enlightenment era and the awakening of public interests among the nobility[128].
Catherine's policy towards Freemasonry was quite contradictory.
On the one hand, she had nothing to reproach the Masons for, except for the strange rituals that she ridiculed in her comedies.
But there were no prohibitions on the activities of Freemasons during her reign, with the exception of isolated cases (see below).
On the other hand, as the historian V. I. Kurbatov writes, "Catherine was very suspicious of Freemasonry", in which she "saw a threat to her rule"[129].
These suspicions concerned two points.
First, she was afraid of the excessive strengthening of foreign influence spread through Masonic lodges.
So, when in 1784 the Elaginsky lodges for unknown reasons, but at their own request, suspended their work, resuming their meetings only 2 years later, Catherine honored the order with "for the conscientiousness of its members to avoid all contacts with foreign freemasons, with real political relations, she has great respect for them".
Secondly, the Empress's suspicions concerned the publishing and journalistic activities of the Moscow Masonic lodges of the Martinists and Rosicrucians, headed by N. I. Novikov, I. G. Schwartz, and others, in whose books and articles she saw hints addressed to her own board.
In 1786, all these lodges were closed, which was the only case of this kind under Catherine, and some members of these lodges, first of all Novikov himself, as well as M. I. Nevzorov and V. Ya.
Kolokolnikov, were subjected to repression[130].
In addition, in 1786, 6 books published by the Moscow Rosicrucians were banned.
These facts indicate the desire of Catherine II to control Freemasonry and allow only such activities that did not contradict her interests.
Development of literature.
The Novikov case and the Radishchev case
According to a number of historians, Russian literature in the era of Catherine, as well as in the XVIII century as a whole, was in its infancy, being engaged, according to K. Valishevsky, mainly in the "processing of foreign elements"[131].
The same opinion is expressed by A.Troyer, who writes that Sumarokov, Kheraskov, Bogdanovich and other Russian writers of that era have many direct borrowings from French writers[132].
As the French historian A. Leroy Beaulieu stated in the XIX century, the tendency of Russia of the XVIII century to imitate everything foreign for a whole century slowed down the birth of an original national literature[133].
The "official" literature of the Catherine era is represented by several well known names: Fonvizin, Sumarokov, Derzhavin — and a very small number and volume of works written by them, and does not go to any comparison with the Russian literature of the first half of the XIX century.
However, there was also "unofficial" literature: Radishchev, Novikov, Krechetov — which was banned, and the authors were severely repressed.
A number of other, less well known authors, for example, Knyazhnin, whose historical drama ("Vadim Novgorodsky") was also banned, and the entire circulation was burned, suffered a similar fate.
According to historians, the policy of the Empress, which consisted, on the one hand, in a kind of personal "leadership" of literary creativity, and on the other hand, strict censorship and repression against objectionable writers, did not contribute to the development of domestic literature[131][134].
This applied to both individual works and literary works.
the number of magazines.
During her reign, several magazines appeared, but none of them, with the exception of the magazine "All Sorts of Things", published by Catherine herself, could not last long.
The reason was, as G. V. Plekhanov wrote, and with which the historian N. I. Pavlenko agrees, that the publishers of magazines "considered themselves entitled to criticize, while Felitsa [Catherine II] considered them obliged to admire"[135].
So, Novikov's magazine "Drone" was closed by the authorities in 1770, as historians believe, due to the fact that it raised acute social topics — the arbitrariness of landowners against peasants, widespread corruption among officials, etc.
After that, Novikov managed to start publishing a new magazine "Painter", in which he already tried to avoid acute social topics.
However, this magazine was also closed a few years later.
The same fate was suffered by the "St. Petersburg Bulletin", which existed only a little more than two years, and other magazines[136].
The same policy was carried out in relation to published books — and not only in the country, but also abroad, concerning Russia and imperial politics.
Thus, Catherine sharply criticized the book published in 1768 by the French astronomer Chappe d'Auteroche about his trip to Russia, in which he wrote about bribery and human trafficking that reigned among officials, as well as Levek's "History of Russia" (L'evesque), published in 1782 in France, in which, in her opinion, there was too little praise for the empress[137].
Thus, according to a number of historians, not only "harmful" works were ostracized, but also "insufficiently useful", dedicated not to the glorification of Russia and its empress, but to some other, "extraneous", and therefore "unnecessary" things.
In particular, it is believed[138] that not only the content of individual books and articles, but also Novikov's publishing activity itself, which was conducted on a large scale (out of 2,685 books published in 1781-1790 in Russia, 748 books, that is, 28 %, were published by Novikov[139]), irritated the empress.
So, in 1785, Catherine II instructed Archbishop Platon to find out if there is anything "harmful" in the books produced by Novikov.
He studied the books published by him, which were mostly published for the purposes of public education, and in the end he did not find in them "anything reprehensible from the point of view of faith and the interests of the state."
Nevertheless, a year later the Novikov Masonic lodges were closed, a number of his books were banned, and a few years later he himself was repressed.
As N. I. Pavlenko writes, "The composition of the crime could not be convincingly formulated, and Novikov was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress for 15 years without a trial, by the personal decree of Catherine II of May 1, 1792.
The decree declared him a state criminal, a charlatan who profited by deceiving gullible people"[140].
The fate of Radishchev is very similar.
As historians point out, in his book "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" there are no calls for the overthrow of the existing system and for the elimination of serfdom.
Nevertheless, the author was sentenced to death by quartering (after a pardon, it was replaced by a 10 year exile to Tobolsk) - for the fact that his book is " filled with harmful thoughts that destroy public peace, detract from the respect due to the authorities..."[141].
According to historians, both in the" Novikov case "and in the" Radishchev case " a certain role was played by the wounded pride of Catherine, who was accustomed to flattery and could not stand people who dared to express their critical judgments that went against her own[140][142].
Foreign policy of Russia in the reign of Catherine II
The foreign policy of the Russian state under Catherine was aimed at strengthening the role of Russia in the world and expanding its territory.
The motto of its diplomacy was as follows: "you need to be in friendship with all the powers in order to always keep the opportunity to take the side of the weaker... keep your hands free... do not drag your tail behind anyone"[143].
However, this motto was often neglected, preferring to attach the weak to the strong, contrary to their opinion and desire.
Expansion of the borders of the Russian Empire
The new territorial growth of Russia begins with the accession of Catherine II.
After the First Turkish War, in 1774, Russia acquired important points at the mouths of the Dnieper, the Don and in the Kerch Strait (Kinburn, Azov, Kerch, Yenikale).
Then, in 1783, Balta, the Crimea and the Kuban region joined.
The Second Turkish War ended with the acquisition of the coastal strip between the Bug and the Dniester (1791).
Thanks to all these acquisitions, Russia is becoming a firm foot on the Black Sea.
At the same time, the Polish sections give Western Russia to Russia.
According to the first of them, in 1773, Russia received part of Belarus (the provinces of Vitebsk and Mogilev); according to the second partition of Poland (1793), Russia received the regions of Minsk, Volyn and Podolsk; according to the third (1795-1797) — the Lithuanian provinces (Vilna, Kovno and Grodno), Black Russia, the upper course of the Pripyat and the western part of Volyn.
Simultaneously with the third division, the Duchy of Courland was also annexed to Russia.
Sections of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth
Main article: Sections of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth
The federal Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth included the Polish Kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The reason for the intervention in the affairs of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was the question of the situation of dissidents (that is, the non Catholic minority Orthodox and Protestants), so that they would be equalized with the rights of Catholics.
Catherine exerted strong pressure on the gentry to elect her protege Stanislaw August Poniatowski to the Polish throne, who was elected.
Part of the Polish gentry opposed these decisions and organized an uprising raised in the Bar Confederation.
It was suppressed by Russian troops in alliance with the Polish king.
In 1772, Prussia and Austria, fearing the strengthening of Russian influence in Poland and its success in the war with the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), offered Catherine to divide the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in exchange for ending the war, otherwise threatening war against Russia.
Russia, Austria and Prussia brought in their troops.
Sections of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth under Catherine
In 1772, the First partition of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth took place.
Austria received all of Galicia with districts, Prussia — West Prussia (Pomerania), Russia the eastern part of Belarus to Minsk (the provinces of Vitebsk and Mogilev) and part of the Latvian lands that were previously part of Livonia.
The Polish Sejm was forced to agree to the partition and renounce claims to the lost territories: Poland lost 380000 km2 with a population of 4 million people.
Polish nobles and industrialists promoted the adoption of the Constitution of 1791; the conservative part of the population of the Targowica Confederation turned to Russia for help.
In 1793, the Second Partition of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth took place, approved at the Grodno Sejm.
Prussia received Gdansk, Torun, Poznan (part of the lands along the Warta and Vistula rivers), Russia Central Belarus with Minsk and Novorossiya (part of the territory of modern Ukraine).
In March 1794, an uprising began under the leadership of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, whose goals were to restore territorial integrity, sovereignty and the Constitution on May 3, but in the spring of the same year it was suppressed by the Russian army under the command of A.V. Suvorov.
Russian Russian Embassy in Warsaw During the Kosciuszko Uprising, the rebellious Poles who seized the Russian embassy in Warsaw discovered documents that had a great public resonance, according to which King Stanislav Poniatowski and a number of members of the Grodno Sejm at the time of the approval of the 2nd section of the Polish — Lithuanian Commonwealth received money from the Russian government in particular, Poniatowski received several thousand ducats[87].
In 1795, the Third Partition of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth took place.
Austria received Southern Poland with Luban and Krakow, Prussia Central Poland with Warsaw, Russia Lithuania, Courland, Volhynia and Western Belarus.
October 13, 1795 the conference of the three powers on the fall of the Polish state, it lost its statehood and sovereignty.
Russian Turkish wars.
Annexation of Crimea to Russia
Catherine II and Grigory Potemkin at the Monument "1000th anniversary of Russia" in Veliky Novgorod
Russian Russian Turkish War of 1768-1774, Russian Turkish War of 1787-1792
An important direction of Catherine II's foreign policy was also the territories of the Crimea, the Black Sea region and the North Caucasus, which were under Turkish rule.
Russian Russian Empire When the uprising of the Bar Confederation broke out, the Turkish Sultan declared war on Russia (the Russo Turkish War of 1768-1774), using as a pretext that one of the Russian detachments, pursuing the Poles, entered the territory of the Ottoman Empire.
Russian troops defeated the Confederates and began to win one after another victories in the south.
Having achieved success in a number of land and sea battles (The Battle of Kozludzhi, the Battle of the Pock marked Grave, the Battle of Cahul, the Battle of Larga, the Battle of Chesma, etc.), Russia forced Turkey to sign the Treaty of Kyuchuk Kaynardzhi, as a result of which the Crimean Khanate formally gained independence, but de facto became dependent on Russia.
Turkey paid military indemnities to Russia in the order of 4.5 million rubles, and also ceded the northern coast of the Black Sea along with two important ports.
After the end of the Russo Turkish War of 1768-1774, Russia's policy towards the Crimean Khanate was aimed at establishing a pro Russian ruler in it and joining Russia.
Under the pressure of Russian diplomacy, Shahin Giray was elected khan.
The previous khan, a protege of Turkey, Devlet IV Giray, tried to resist at the beginning of 1777, but it was suppressed by A.V. Suvorov, Devlet IV fled to Turkey.
At the same time, the landing of Turkish troops in the Crimea was prevented and thus an attempt to unleash a new war was prevented, after which Turkey recognized Shahin Giray as Khan.
In 1782, an uprising broke out against him, which was suppressed by the Russian troops brought to the peninsula, and in 1783, by the manifesto of Catherine II, the Crimean Khanate was annexed to Russia.
After the victory, the Empress, together with the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, made a triumphal trip to the Crimea.
The next war with Turkey took place in 1787-1792 and was an unsuccessful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to regain the lands that had been ceded to Russia during the Russian Turkish War of 1768-1774, including the Crimea.
Here, too, the Russians won a number of important victories, both on land — the Battle of Kinburna, the Battle of Rymnik, the capture of Ochakov, the capture of Izmail, the battle of Fokshany, the campaigns of the Turks to Bendery and Akkerman, etc., and sea — the battle of Fidonisi (1788), the Battle of Kerch (1790), the Battle of Cape Tendra (1790) and the Battle of Kaliakria (1791).
As a result, in 1791, the Ottoman Empire was forced to sign the Iasi Peace Treaty, which secured the Crimea and Ochakov to Russia, and also pushed the border between the two empires to the Dniester.
The wars with Turkey were marked by major military victories of Rumyantsev, Orlov Chesmensky, Suvorov, Potemkin, Ushakov, and the establishment of Russia on the Black Sea.
As a result, the Northern Black Sea region, the Crimea, and the Kuban region were transferred to Russia, its political positions in the Caucasus and the Balkans were strengthened, and Russia's authority on the world stage was strengthened.
According to many historians, these conquests are the main achievement of the reign of Catherine II.
At the same time, a number of historians (k.Valishevsky, V. O. Klyuchevsky, etc.) and contemporaries (Frederick II, French ministers, etc.) explained the "amazing" victories of Russia over Turkey not so much by the strength of the Russian army and navy, which were still quite weak and poorly organized, as a consequence of the extraordinary decomposition of the Turkish army and state during this period[86][144].
Relations with Georgia and Persia
Main article: St. George's Treatise
Under the tsar of Kartli and Kakheti, Irakli II (1762-1798), the united Kartli Kakhetian state was significantly strengthened, its influence in Transcaucasia was growing.
The Turks are being expelled from the country.
Georgian culture is being revived, book printing is emerging.
Enlightenment is becoming one of the leading areas of public thought.
Heraclius turned to Russia for protection from Persia and Turkey.
Catherine II, who was at war with Turkey, on the one hand, was interested in an ally, on the other, she did not want to send significant military forces to Georgia.
In 1769-1772, a small Russian detachment under the command of General Totleben fought against Turkey on the side of Georgia.
In 1783, Russia and Georgia signed the Treaty of St. George, establishing a Russian protectorate over the Kingdom of Kartli Kakheti in exchange for military protection of Russia.
In 1795, the Persian Shah Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar invaded Georgia and after the Battle of Krtsanis ravaged Tbilisi.
Russia, fulfilling the terms of the treaty, began military operations against it and in April 1796, Russian troops stormed Derbent and suppressed the resistance of the Persians on the territory of modern Azerbaijan, including major cities (Baku, Shamakhi, Ganja).
Relations with Sweden
Taking advantage of the fact that Russia entered the war with Turkey, Sweden, supported by Prussia, England and Holland, unleashed a war with her for the return of previously lost territories.
The troops that entered the territory of Russia were stopped by General anshef V. P. Musin Pushkin.
After a series of naval battles that did not have a decisive outcome, Russia defeated the Swedish battle fleet in the battle of Vyborg, but because of a storm, it suffered a heavy defeat in the battle of the rowing fleets at Rochensalm.
The parties signed the Verel Peace Treaty in 1790, according to which the border between the countries has not changed.
Relations with other countries
In 1764, relations between Russia and Prussia were normalized and an alliance treaty was concluded between the countries.
This treaty served as the basis for the formation of the Northern System — the union of Russia, Prussia, England, Sweden, Denmark and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth against France and Austria.
The Russian Prussian English cooperation continued further.
In October 1782, a Treaty of friendship and trade was signed with Denmark.
In the third quarter of the XVIII century.
there was a struggle of the North American colonies for independence from England — the bourgeois revolution led to the creation of the United States.
In 1780, the Russian government adopted the "Declaration of Armed Neutrality", supported by the majority of European countries (ships of neutral countries had the right of armed protection when attacked by the fleet of a belligerent country).
In European affairs, Russia's role increased during the Austro Prussian War of 1778-1779, when it mediated between the warring parties at the Teschen Congress, where Catherine essentially dictated her terms of reconciliation, restoring balance in Europe[145].
After that, Russia often acted as an arbitrator in disputes between the German states, which turned directly to Catherine for mediation.
One of Catherine's grandiose plans in the foreign policy arena was the so — called Greek Project[146] — joint plans of Russia and Austria for the division of Turkish lands, the expulsion of the Turks from Europe, the revival of the Byzantine Empire and the proclamation of Catherine's grandson, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, as its emperor.
According to the plans, a buffer state of Dacia will be created in place of Bessarabia, Moldavia and Wallachia, and the western part of the Balkan Peninsula will be transferred to Austria.
The project was developed in the early 1780s, but it was not implemented due to the contradictions of the allies and the reconquest of significant Turkish territories by Russia independently.
After the French Revolution, Catherine was one of the initiators of the anti French coalition and the establishment of the principle of legitimism. .
She said: "The weakening of the monarchical power in France puts all other monarchies in danger.
For my part, I am ready to resist with all my might.
It's time to act and take up arms"[147].
However, in reality, she withdrew from participating in hostilities against France.
According to popular opinion, one of the real reasons for the creation of an anti French coalition was to divert the attention of Prussia and Austria from Polish affairs[145].
and it is necessary for Catherine to carry out her plans, which are far from consistent with the character of directness and honor, which are now the invariable rule of our policy...".
"And our true strength," the Emperor Nicholas I wrote in his own hand[148].
Catherine II as a figure of the Enlightenment Era
Catherine II legislator in the Temple of Justice (Levitsky D. G., 1783, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg)[151]
The long reign of Catherine II, 1762-1796, was filled with significant and very contradictory events and processes.
The golden age of the Russian nobility was at the same time the age of Pugachevism, the "Order" and the Laid commission were side by side with persecution.
Nevertheless, Catherine tried to preach among the Russian nobility the philosophy of the European Enlightenment, with which the Empress was well acquainted.
In this sense, her reign is often called the era of enlightened absolutism.
Historians argue about what enlightened absolutism was — the utopian teaching of the enlighteners (Voltaire, Diderot, etc.) about the ideal union of kings and philosophers, or a political phenomenon that found its real embodiment in Prussia (Frederick II the Great), Austria (Joseph II), Russia (Catherine II), etc.
These disputes are not groundless.
They reflect the key contradiction between the theory and practice of enlightened absolutism: between the need to radically change the existing order of things (class system, despotism, disenfranchisement, etc.) and the inadmissibility of shocks, the need for stability, the inability to infringe on the social force on which this order rests — the nobility.
Catherine II, like perhaps no one else, understood the tragic insurmountability of this contradiction: "You," she reproached the French philosopher D. Diderot, " write on paper that will tolerate everything, while I, the poor empress — write on human skin, so sensitive and painful."
Its position on the question of the serf peasantry is very indicative.
There is no doubt about the negative attitude of the Empress to serfdom.
She has repeatedly thought about ways to cancel it.
But it did not go further than cautious reflections.
Catherine II clearly realized that the elimination of serfdom would be indignantly perceived by the nobles.
Serfdom legislation was expanded: landowners were allowed to exile peasants to hard labor for any period, and peasants were forbidden to file complaints against landowners.
Attempts at transformations in the spirit of enlightened absolutism were:
the convocation and activity of the Laid Commission (1767-1768); the reform of the administrative territorial division of the Russian Empire; the adoption of a Charter of letters to cities, which formalized the rights and privileges of the "third estate" — citizens.
The urban estate was divided into six categories, received limited self government rights, elected the mayor and members of the city Duma; the adoption in 1775 of the manifesto on freedom of entrepreneurship, according to which no permission from government bodies was required to open an enterprise; the reforms of 1782-1786 in the field of school education.
Of course, these transformations were limited in nature.
The autocratic principle of governance, serfdom, and the class system remained unshakable.
Pugachev's Peasant War (1773-1775), the capture of the Bastille (1789) and the execution of King Louis XVI (1793) did not contribute to the deepening of reforms.
They went on intermittently, and in the 90s they stopped altogether.
The persecution of A. N. Radishchev (1790) and the arrest of N. I. Novikov (1792) were not accidental episodes.
They testify to the deep contradictions of enlightened absolutism, the impossibility of unambiguous assessments of the "golden age of Catherine II".
Perhaps it was these contradictions that gave rise to the opinion that exists among some historians about the extreme cynicism and hypocrisy of Catherine II[152][153][154]; although she herself contributed to the emergence of this opinion with her words and actions.
First of all, as a result of her actions, the bulk of the Russian population became even more disenfranchised, deprived of normal human rights, although it was in her power to achieve the opposite — and for this it was not necessary to abolish serfdom[155].
Her other actions, such as the liquidation of sovereign Poland, also hardly corresponded to the ideas of the Enlightenment, which she verbally adhered to.
In addition, historians give examples of her specific words and actions that support this opinion:
As V. O. Klyuchevsky and D. Blum point out, in 1771 Catherine found it "indecent" that peasants were sold at public auctions "under the hammer", and she issued a law prohibiting public auctions.
But since this law was ignored, Catherine did not seek to enforce it, and in 1792 she again allowed the sale of serfs at auctions, while prohibiting the use of an auctioneer's hammer, which, apparently, seemed especially "indecent"to her[102][156].
In another example given by them, we are talking about the decree of Catherine, which forbade peasants to file complaints against landowners (for this they now faced whipping and life hard labor).
Catherine issued this decree on August 22, 1767, "at the very time when the deputies of the Commissions were listening to the articles of the "Order" on freedom and equality"[102][157]; D.
Blum also gives the following example: landlords often drove out old or sick peasants into the street (giving them freedom at the same time), who were consequently doomed to death.
Catherine, by her decree, obliged the landlords to take a receipt from the peasants before this, that they agree to this[158] As A. points out.
Troyes, Catherine constantly referred to serfs as "slaves"in her correspondence.
But as soon as the French educator Diderot used this word during a meeting with her, she was terribly indignant.
"There are no slaves in Russia," she said.
- Serfs in Russia are independent in spirit, although they are forced by their bodies"[159].
N. I. Pavlenko cites a number of letters from Catherine to Voltaire.
In one of them (1769), she wrote: "... our taxes are so unencumbered that there is no peasant in Russia who would not have a chicken when he wants it, and for some time they prefer turkeys to chickens."
In another letter (1770), written in the midst of the Holodomor and riots that engulfed different parts of the country: "In Russia, everything is going as usual: there are provinces in which they almost do not know that the war has been going on for two years.
There is no shortage of anything anywhere: they sing thanksgiving prayers, dance and have fun"[160].
A special topic is the relationship between Catherine and the French enlighteners (Diderot, Voltaire).
It is well known that she was in constant correspondence with them, and they expressed a high opinion of her.
However, many historians write that these relations were in the nature of obvious "sponsorship", on the one hand, and flattery, on the other[154].
As N. I. Pavlenko writes, having learned that Diderot needed money, Catherine bought his library for 15 thousand livres, but did not take it away, but left it to him, "appointing" him as a lifelong caretaker of his library with the payment of a "salary" from the Russian treasury in the amount of 1000 livres a year.
Voltaire was showered with various favors and money, and acquired his library after his death, paying generous sums to his heirs.
For their part, they also did not remain in debt.
Diderot lavished praise and flattery on her, and "put his critical notes under the cloth" (for example, only after his death were his sharp critical "Remarks about the Order" of Catherine[161] discovered).
As K. points out.
Waliszewski, Voltaire called it "the Semiramis of the North" and claimed that the sun, illuminating the world of ideas, moved from the West to the North; wrote for "prepared" for him on the orders of Catherine the materials of the history of Peter I, which caused the ridicule of other European scientists[162].
A. troyat notes that Voltaire and Diderot competed in the exaggerated praise Catherine, citing relevant examples (so, Diderot, in turn, wrote that he "puts her on the same level" with Caesar, Lycurgus and Solon, above Frederick the Great, and only after meeting her in Russia, his soul, previously "the soul of a slave", became "the soul of a free", etc.), and even were jealous of each other for her favors and attention[163].
Therefore, even A. S. Pushkin wrote about the "disgusting buffoonery of the "empress" in relations with the philosophers of her century, "and according to Friedrich Engels," The Court of Catherine II turned into the capital of the then enlightened people, especially the French; ...she managed to mislead public opinion so much that Voltaire and many others sang of the "northern Semiramis" and proclaimed Russia the most progressive country in the world, the fatherland of liberal principles, the champion of religious tolerance"[154]
Nevertheless, it was during this era that the Free Economic Society appeared (1765), free printing houses worked, there was a hot magazine controversy, in which the Empress personally participated, the Hermitage (1764) and the Public Library in St. Petersburg (1795), the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens (1764) and pedagogical schools in both capitals were founded.
Ekaterina and educational institutions
In May 1764, the first educational institution for girls in Russia was founded — the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens.
Next, the Novodevichy Institute for the education of middle class girls was opened.
Soon Catherine II drew attention to the Land Gentry Corps, and in 1766 its new charter was adopted.
Developing the Decree "Institutions for the administration of the provinces of the All Russian Empire" [164] in 1775, Catherine II actively began to solve problems in education.
The duty to open schools of the provincial and district level was assigned by her to the orders of the public charity.
In 1780, Ekaterina made an inspection trip to the CE vero to the western regions of Russia.
This trip showed the successes achieved and what was still to be done in the future.
For example, in Pskov, she was informed that a school for petty bourgeois children, unlike noble ones, had not been opened.
Ekaterina immediately granted 1000 rubles for the establishment of a city school, 500 rubles.
— for a theological seminary, 300 - for an orphanage and 400 - for an almshouse.
In 1777, the state Commercial School for merchants was opened.
In St. Petersburg, Catherine II founded an educational institution at St. Isaac's Cathedral at her own expense in 1781.
In the same year, six more schools were organized at the temples.
By 1781, 486 people were studying in them[165].
At the same time, as the historian Kazimir Valishevsky writes, "The beginning of public education as it exists now in Russia was laid by educational institutions opened in St. Petersburg by Novikov, whom Catherine considered an enemy and rewarded with prison and chains for his work for the benefit of Russia"[166].
Ekaterina is a writer and publisher
Portrait by Lampi the Elder, 1793
Catherine belonged to a small number of monarchs who so intensively and directly communicated with their subjects by compiling manifestos, instructions, laws, polemical articles and indirectly in the form of satirical works, historical dramas and pedagogical opuses.
In her memoirs, she confessed: "I canot see a clean pen without feeling the urge to immediately dip it in ink."
Catherine was engaged in literary pursuits, leaving behind a large collection of writings, notes, translations, fables, tales, Comedy "About time!", "Birthday of Mrs. Warchalking", "Front of a noble Lord", "Lady Vestnikov with the family," "the Bride of the invisible" (1771-1772), essays, the libretto for the Opera five ("Fava", "Novgorodskiy Bogatyr Bohuslavice", "the Brave and the bold knight Freeice", "Goremaster Kosometovich", "the Fedulov with children"; the premiere took place in Saint Petersburg in 1786-91 gg.).
Catherine was the initiator, the organizer and the author of the libretto pompous national Patriotic project "historic action", "Primary Oleg", which attracted the best composers, singers and choreographers (premiered in St. Petersburg on 22 October 1790).
All St. Petersburg performances of the works of Catherine was extremely feature rich.
The operas "Fevey" and "Gorebogatyr", as well as the oratorio "Initial Management" were published in clavier and score (which at that time in Russia was an extraordinary rarity).
Ekaterina participated in the weekly satirical magazine "All sorts of things", published since 1769.
The Empress turned to journalism in order to influence public opinion, so the main idea of the magazine was to criticize human vices and weaknesses.
Other subjects of irony were the superstitions of the population.
Ekaterina herself called the magazine: "Satire in a smiling spirit."
However, some historians believe that a number of her writings and even letters were written not by herself, but by some anonymous authors[167], pointing out too sharp differences in style, spelling, etc.between her different writings.
K. Valishevsky believes that some of her letters could have been written by Andrei Shuvalov, and literary works by N. I. Novikov during the period of their "reconciliation" after 1770.
So, all her comedies that were successful were written only during the period of her "friendship" with Novikov, at the same time, the comedy "Woe to the Hero" (1789), written later, is criticized for rudeness and vulgarity, uncharacteristic for comedies of the 70s[168].
She was jealous of negative assessments of her work (if any).
So, having learned after the death of Diderot about his critical note to her "Order", in a letter to Grimm on November 23, 1785, she made rude statements to the French educator[161].
Development of culture and art
Catherine considered herself a "philosopher on the throne" and favourably treated the age of Enlightenment, was in correspondence with Voltaire[169], Diderot, d'Alembert.
During her reign, the Hermitage and the Public Library appeared in St. Petersburg.
She patronized various fields of art — architecture, music, painting.
It is impossible not to mention the mass settlement of German families initiated by Ekaterina in various regions of modern Russia, Ukraine, as well as the Baltic countries.
The goal was to modernize Russian science and culture.
At the same time, many historians point to the unilateral nature of such patronage on the part of Catherine.
Money and awards were lavished mainly on foreign figures of science and culture, who spread the glory of Catherine II abroad.
The contrast is particularly striking in relation to domestic artists, sculptors and writers.
"Catherine does not support them," writes A. Troyer, " and shows them a feeling somewhere between condescension and contempt.
While living in Russia, Falcone was outraged by the rudeness of the tsarina in relation to the excellent artist Losenko.
"The poor man, humiliated, without a piece of bread, wanted to leave St. Petersburg and came to me to pour out his grief," he writes.
Fortia de Piles, who traveled to Russia, is surprised that Her Majesty allows the talented sculptor Shubin to huddle in a cramped room, having neither models, nor students, nor official orders.
During her entire reign, Catherine made an order or gave subsidies to very few Russian artists, but she did not skimp on purchases of works by foreign authors"[88].
Catherine II's exit to the court
As N. I. Pavlenko notes, "the poet G. R. Derzhavin received only 300 souls of peasants, two gold snuffboxes and 500 rubles during his entire life of service at the court"[80] (although he was not only a writer, but also an official who performed various assignments), while foreign writers, without doing anything special, received whole fortunes from her.
At the same time, it is well known what kind of "award" a number of Russian writers Radishchev, Novikov, Krechetov, Knyazhnin received from her, who were repressed, and their works were banned and burned.
As K. writes: Valishevsky, Ekaterina surrounded herself with "mediocre foreign artists" (Brompton, Koenig, etc.), leaving talented Russian artists and sculptors to their fate.
The engraver Gabriel Skorodumov, who studied his art in France and was discharged by Catherine from there in 1782, could not find a job at her majesty's court, and he was forced to work as a carpenter or an apprentice.
The sculptor Shubin and the artist Losenko did not receive orders from the Empress and her courtiers and were in poverty; Losenko gave himself up to drunkenness in despair.
But when he died, and it turned out that he was a great artist, the historian writes, Catherine "willingly added his apotheosis to her greatness."
"In general, the national art," Valishevsky concludes, " owes Catherine only a few models of the Hermitage, which served for the study and imitation of Russian artists.
But, apart from these models, she did not give him anything: not even a piece of bread"[170].
The episode with Mikhail Lomonosov, which occurred at the very beginning of the reign of Catherine II, is also known: in 1763, Lomonosov, unable to withstand a single struggle in a dispute between Normanists and anti Normanists, submitted his resignation with the rank of state councilor (then he was a collegiate adviser); Ekaterina initially granted his request, but then canceled her decision, obviously not wanting to quarrel with one of the most prominent Russian scientists.
In 1764, Catherine II personally visited the house of Lomonosov, giving him this honor, but in January 1765, she allowed the young German historian Schletzer access to historical archives, which was opposed by Lomonosov, who assumed that Schletzer was taking them abroad for publication and enrichment (here, perhaps, there is a personal insult to Lomonosov, who was not allowed to visit these archives)[171]; but his reproaches remained unanswered, especially since already in January 1765 he fell ill with pneumonia and died in April.
Catherine II and propaganda
Many historians point out that propaganda played an extremely important role in Catherine's activities[172], and some even believe that propaganda was the main meaning of her entire reign[153].
Among the obvious examples of propaganda actions of Catherine II, they indicate:
1.A competition for the best solution of the peasant question announced in 1765 under the auspices of the Free Economic Society.
Within 2 years, 162 competitive works were sent, including 155 from abroad.
The prize was awarded to a member of the Dijon Academy, Bearda de Labey, who presented a "balanced" essay that proposed not to rush either with the abolition of serfdom or with the allotment of land to the peasants, but first to prepare the peasants for the perception of freedom.
According to N. I. Pavlenko, despite the wide resonance that the competition had in Russia and abroad, "the contest essays were kept secret, their content was the property of persons who were members of the competition commission"[173].
2. The" Order " of Catherine (1766) and the work of the Laid Commission (1767-1768), whose debates lasted a year and a half with the participation of more than 600 deputies and ended with the dissolution of the commission.
The "Order" was published 7 times during the reign of Catherine only in Russia, and "became widely known not only in Russia, but also abroad, because it was translated into the main European languages"[174].
Illumination on the occasion of Catherine's passage through Kanev
3.
The trip of Catherine and her entourage in 1787 with a large group of foreigners (about 3000 people in total) from St. Petersburg to the south of Russia for the glorification of Russia's victories over the Ottoman Empire and success in the development of the conquered lands.
It cost the treasury from 7 to 10 million rubles.
To organize the trip: in some cities along the way, buildings were specially built where the motorcade stopped; repairs and painting of the facades of buildings along the progress of the motorcade were urgently carried out (according to Count Langeron), and the population was obliged to wear the best clothes on the day of its passage; all beggars were removed from Moscow (according to M. M. Shcherbatov) [37]; a staging of the battle of Poltava was organized, in which 50 thousand people participated; some cities (Bakhchisarai) were illuminated with numerous lights, so that and at night they shone like day.
In Kherson, the guests were greeted by the inscription: "The way to Constantinople".
As N. I. Pavlenko notes, at that time there was a drought in Russia, and a famine was coming, which then engulfed the whole country; and Turkey regarded the whole event as a provocation and immediately began a new war with Russia[175].
In Europe, after this trip, a myth appeared about the "Potemkin villages", built by Potemkin specifically for "throwing dust in the eyes" of the Empress.
4. Among the achievements of Catherine's reign was the figure of 3161 factories and plants built by 1796[176], while before the beginning of the reign of Catherine II, the number of factories and plants on the territory of the Russian Empire was only a few hundred.
However, as academician S. G. Strumilin established, this figure greatly overestimated the actual number of factories and plants, since even kumys "factories" and sheep "factories" were included in it, "just to heighten the glorification of this queen"[177].
5. Catherine's letters to foreigners (Grimm, Voltaire, etc.), as historians believe, were also part of her propaganda.
Thus, K. Valishevsky compares her letters to foreigners with the work of a modern news agency, and further writes: "her letters to her favorite correspondents, like Voltaire and Grimm in France and Zimmerman and partly Ms. Boelcke in Germany, can not be called anything but purely journalistic articles.
Even before being published, her letters to Voltaire became the property of everyone who followed the slightest act and word of the patriarch of Ferney, and literally the entire educated world followed them.
Grimm, although he did not usually show her letters, but instead told their contents wherever he went, and he visited all the houses in Paris.
The same can be said about the rest of Catherine's correspondence: it was her newspaper, and individual letters were articles"[178].
6. So, in one of the letters to Grimm, she quite seriously assured him that there are no thin people in Russia, only well fed[37].
In a letter to Boelcke at the end of 1774, she wrote: "It used to happen before, driving through the village, you see little children in only a shirt, running barefoot in the snow; now there is not a single one who does not have an outer dress, a sheepskin coat and boots.
The houses are still wooden, but they have expanded and most of them are already two floors " [160].
In a letter to Grimm in 1781, she presented to him the "result" of her reign, where, along with the number of provinces and cities established by her and the victories won, she indicated, among other things, that she had issued 123 "decrees on easing the fate of the people"[179].
7. In a letter to Belka on May 18, 1771, after the epidemic began in Moscow and an official quarantine was introduced, she wrote: "To anyone who tells you that there is a pestilence in Moscow, tell him that he lied..."
[160].
Features of personal life
Check the neutrality.
There should be details on the discussion page.
Main article: List of men of Catherine II
Catherine on falconry.
Painting by V. Serov.
Unlike her predecessor, Catherine did not conduct extensive palace construction for her own needs.
For comfortable movement around the country, she arranged a network of small travel palaces along the road from St. Petersburg to Moscow (from Chesmensky to Petrovsky) and only at the end of her life she began to build a new country residence in Pella (it has not been preserved).
In addition, she was concerned about the lack of a spacious and modern residence in Moscow and its surroundings.
Although she did not visit the old capital often, Catherine for a number of years cherished plans for the reconstruction of the Moscow Kremlin, as well as the construction of suburban palaces in Lefortovo, Kolomenskoye and Tsaritsyn.
For various reasons, none of these projects was completed.
Ekaterina was a brunette of medium height.
She combined high intelligence, education, statesmanship and commitment to"free love".
Ekaterina is known for her connections with numerous lovers, the number of which (according to the list of the authoritative Ekaterina scholar P. I. Bartenev) reaches 23.
The most famous of them were Sergey Saltykov, G. G. Orlov, lieutenant Vasilchikov of the Horse Guards, G. A. Potemkin, Hussar Zorich, Lansky, the last favorite was cornet Platon Zubov, who became a general.
According to some sources, Catherine was secretly married to Potemkin (1775, see The Wedding of Catherine II and Potemkin).
After 1762, she planned a marriage with Orlov, but on the advice of those close to her, she abandoned this idea.
Catherine's love affairs are marked by a series of scandals.
So, Grigory Orlov, being her favorite, at the same time (according to M. M. Shcherbatov) cohabited with all her ladies in waiting and even with his cousin 13 year old sister.
The favorite of the Empress of Lansk used an aphrodisiac to increase "male strength" (contarid) in ever increasing doses, which, apparently, according to the conclusion of the court doctor Weikart, was the cause of his unexpected death at a young age[180].
Her last favorite, Platon Zubov, was a little more than 20 years old, while the age of Catherine at that time was already over 60.
Historians mention many other scandalous details (the "bribe" of 100 thousand rubles paid to Potemkin by the future favorites of the empress, many of whom were previously his aides de camp, the testing of their "male strength" by her ladies in waiting, etc. [181] [182]).
The perplexity of contemporaries, including foreign diplomats, the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, etc., was caused by the enthusiastic reviews and characteristics that Catherine gave to her young favorites, mostly devoid of any outstanding talents[183][184].
As N. I. Pavlenko writes, "neither before Catherine, nor after her, debauchery did not reach such a wide scale and did not manifest itself in such a frankly provocative form"[185]
Catherine II on a walk in the Tsarskoye Selo Park.
A painting by the artist Vladimir Borovikovsky, 1794
It is worth noting that in Europe, the "debauchery" of Catherine was not such a rare phenomenon against the background of the general licentiousness of the mores of the XVIII century.
Most of the kings (with the possible exception of Frederick the Great, Louis XVI and Charles XII) had numerous mistresses.
However, this does not apply to reigning queens and empresses.
Thus, the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa wrote about the "disgust and horror" that such persons as Catherine II instill in her, and this attitude towards the latter was shared by her daughter Marie Antoinette[186].
As K. Valishevsky wrote in this regard, comparing Catherine II with Louis XV, "the difference of the sexes until the end of time, we think, will give a deeply different character to the same actions, depending on whether they are committed by a man or a woman... besides, the mistresses of Louis XV never influenced the fate of France"[187].
There are numerous examples of the exceptional influence (both negative and positive) that Catherine's favorites (Orlov, Potemkin, Platon Zubov, etc.) had on the fate of the country, starting from June 28, 1762 and up to the very death of the empress, as well as on her domestic, foreign policy and even military actions.
According to N. I. Pavlenko, in order to please the favorite Grigory Potemkin, who was jealous of the glory of Field Marshal Rumyantsev, this outstanding commander and hero of the Russian Turkish wars was removed by Catherine from the command of the army and had to retire to his estate.
Another, very mediocre commander, Musin Pushkin, on the contrary, continued to lead the army, despite his mistakes in military campaigns (for which the empress herself called him "a real fool") - due to the fact that he was "the favorite of June 28", one of those who helped Catherine seize the throne[188].
In addition, the institution of favoritism had a negative effect on the mores of the upper nobility, who sought benefits through flattery to a new favorite, tried to lead "their man" to the empress as a lover, etc.
A contemporary of M. M. Shcherbatov wrote that the favoritism and debauchery of Catherine II contributed to the decline of the morals of the nobility of that era, and historians agree with this[189].
Catherine had two sons: Pavel Petrovich (1754[190]) and Alexey Bobrinsky (1762 the son of Grigory Orlov), as well as a daughter Anna Petrovna who died in infancy (1757-1759, possibly by the future king of Poland Stanislaw Poniatowski).
Less likely is the motherhood of Catherine in relation to a pupil of Potemkin named Elizabeth, who was born when the empress turned 45 years old.
Awards
Order of Saint Catherine (10.02.1744) Order of St. Andrew the First Called (28.06.1762) Order of St. George 1 art . (26.11.1769)
Order of St. Vladimir 1 art . (22.09.1782)
Swedish Order of the Seraphim (21.11 1763) Prussian Order of the Black Eagle (1762) Polish Order of the White Eagle (1787)
Artistic images of Catherine
In cinema
«Forbidden Paradise», 1924.
In the role of Catherine Paul Negri "The Caprice of Catherine II", 1927, Ukrainian SSR.
In the role of Catherine — Vera Argutinskaya "The Dissolute Empress", 1934 Marlene Dietrich "Munchausen", 1943 Brigitte Horney.
"A Royal Scandal", 1945 — Tallulah Bankhead.
"Admiral Ushakov", 1953.
In the role of Ekaterina — Olga Zhizneva.
"John Paul Jones", 1959 Bette Davis "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", 1961 Zoya Vasilkova.
"The Missing Letter", 1972 Lydia Vakula "Yemelyan Pugachev", 1977;
"The Golden Age", 2003 Viya Artman " There is an idea!", 1977 Alla Larionova "Katharina und ihre wilden Hengste", 1983 Sandra Nova.
"The Tsar's Hunt", 1990 — Svetlana Kryuchkova.
"Young Ekaterina", 1991.
Russian Russian Revolution In the role of Ekaterina — Julia Ormond "Dreams about Russia", 1992 — Marina Vladi "Anecdotiada", 1993 — Irina Muravyeva "Russian Riot", 2000 — Olga Antonova "Russian Ark", 2002 Maria Kuznetsova "Like Cossacks", 2009 Nonna Grishaeva.
"The Sovereign and the Robber", 2009.
In the role of Ekaterina — Alyona Ivchenko.
TV movies
«Great Catherine», 1968.
In the role of Catherine — Jeanne Moreau "Meeting of Minds", 1977.
In the role of Catherine — Jane Meadows.
"The Captain's Daughter", 1978.
In the role of Ekaterina — Natalia Gundareva "Mikhailo Lomonosov", 1986.
In the role of Catherine Catherine Kohv "Russia", England, 1986.
In the role — Valentina Azovskaya.
"Countess Sheremeteva", 1988.
In the role of Ekaterina — Lidia Fedoseeva Shukshina.
"Vivat, midshipmen!", 1991; "Midshipmen 3", (1992).
In the role of Princess Fike (the future Catherine) — Kristina Orbakaite "Catherine the Great", 1995.
In the role of Catherine Catherine Zeta Jones "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", (2002).
In the role of Ekaterina — Lydia Fedoseeva Shukshina.
"Favorite", 2005.
In the role of Ekaterina — Natalia Surkova "Catherine the Great", 2005.
In the role of Catherine Emily Bruni "Pen and sword", 2007.
In the role of Ekaterina Alexander Kulikov "The Secret of the Maestro", 2007.
In the role of Ekaterina — Olesya Zhurakovskaya "Catherine's Musketeers", 2007.
In the role of Ekaterina — Alla Oding "Silver Samurai", 2007.
In the role of Ekaterina — Tatyana Polonskaya " The Romanovs.
The Fifth Film", 2013.
In the role of the young Catherine — Vasilisa Elpatyevskaya; in adulthood Anna Yashina.
"Ekaterina", 2014.
In the role of Ekaterina — Marina Alexandrova.
"Great", 2015.
In the role of Ekaterina — Yulia Snigir.
In fiction
Nikolai Gogol.
"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" (1832) by Alexander Pushkin.
"The Captain's Daughter" (1836) by Grigory Danilevsky.
"Princess Tarakanova" (1883) Eugene Salias.
"The Petersburg Action" (1884), "In Old Moscow" (1885), "The Senate Secretary" (1896)," Peter's Days " (1903) Natalia Manaseina.
The Zerbst Princess (1912) by Bernard Shaw.
"The Great Catherine" (1913) Lev Zhdanov.
"The Last Favorite" (1914) by Pyotr Krasnov.
"Catherine the Great" (1935) Nikolai Ravich.
"Two Capitals" (1964) Vsevolod Ivanov.
"The Empress Fike" (1968) by Valentin Pikul.
"With a Pen and a Sword" (1963-72) by Valentin Pikul.
"The Favorite" (1976-82) by Maurice Simashko.
"Semiramide" (1988) Boris Akunin.
"Extracurricular Reading" (2002) Vasily Aksenov.
"The Volteryans and the Volteryans" (2004)
Monuments to Catherine II
See also: Monument to Catherine II
Saint Petersburg
Odessa
Krasnodar
Sevastopol
Ekaterinoslav (lost)
Simferopol (lost)
Vilna (lost)
Veliky Novgorod, the monument "The Millennium of Russia"
Monument "200 years with Russia", Vladikavkaz
In 1846, the monument to the Empress was inaugurated in the city named after her — Ekaterinoslav.
During the Civil War, the monument was saved from drowning in the Dnieper by the Makhnovists by the director of the local historical museum.
During the occupation of Dnepropetrovsk by the fascists, the monument was taken out of the city in an unknown direction.
Not found until today.
In Veliky Novgorod, on the Monument "1000th anniversary of Russia", among 129 figures of the most outstanding personalities in Russian history (for 1862), there is a figure of Catherine II.
In 1873, the monument to Catherine II was opened on Alexandrinskaya Square in St. Petersburg (see the section Famous Figures of the Catherine era).
In 1890, a monument to Catherine II was erected in Simferopol.
It was destroyed by the Soviet government in 1921.
In 1904, a monument to Catherine II was opened in Vilna.
It was dismantled and evacuated deep into Russia in 1915.
In 1907, the monument to Catherine II was opened in Ekaterinodar (it stood until 1920, it was restored on September 8, 2006)[191].
In Moscow, a monument to Catherine II, which is a bronze statue of the Empress on a pedestal, was unveiled in front of the M. B. Grekov Studio of Military Artists (Sovetskaya Armiya str., 4).
In 2002, a monument in her honor was opened in Novorzhev, founded by Catherine II [192].
In 2007, a monument to Catherine II was opened in the city of Vyshny Volochek; the sculptor Yu.
V. Zlotya.
On October 27, 2007, monuments to Catherine II were opened in Odessa and Tiraspol.
In 2007, in the city of Marx (Saratov region) a monument to Catherine II was unveiled.
On May 15, 2008, a monument to Catherine II was opened in Sevastopol [193].
On September 14, 2008, the monument to Catherine II the Great was opened in Podolsk.
The monument depicts the Empress at the time of signing the Decree of October 5, 1781, where the entry appears: "... we most graciously command that the economic village of Podol be renamed the city... " [194].
The author is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts Alexander Rozhnikov.
On July 7, 2010, a monument to Catherine the Great was erected in the east of Germany in the city of Zerbst.
On August 23, 2013, as part of the Irbit Fair, the monument in Irbit, demolished in 1917, was rediscovered[195].
Catherine on coins and banknotes
Golden half plate for palace use with a profile of Catherine II.
1777
Gold 2 rubles for palace use with the profile of Catherine II, 1785
Imperial Russian coin of 10 rubles with a portrait of Catherine II, 1766
Catherine the Great on Katenka Tsarskaya Storublevka in 1898 and 1910
Ekaterina on five hundred Pridnestrovian rubles 2004
Memory
External video files Ekaterina II Alekseevna - "The Legitimate monarchy".
A documentary film from the series " Russian Tsars"
In 1778, Catherine composed for herself the following humorous epitaph (trans. from Fr.):
Buried here
Catherine the Second, born in Stettin
April 21, 1729.
She spent 34 years in Russia, and came out
There she married Peter III.
Fourteen years old
She made a triple project like
To my wife, Elizabeth I and the people.
She used everything to achieve success in this.
Eighteen years of boredom and solitude made her read a lot of books.
Having entered the Russian throne, she aspired to the good,
She wanted to bring happiness, freedom and property to her subjects.
She forgave easily and did not hate anyone.
Condescending, who loved ease in life, cheerful by nature, with the soul of a Republican
And with a kind heart — she had friends.
The work was easy for her,
In society and the verbal sciences, she
I found pleasure.
Notes
↑ Show compactly
Камен Kamensky A. B. Catherine II //Questions of History 1989 # 3 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Record #118560565 / / Gemeinsame Normdatei — 2012-2015.
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↑ http://www.history gatchina.ru/article/smert e2.htm Place of death of Catherine II the great, ↑ Anna Petrovna (a daughter of Peter III) // Russian biographical dictionary : in 25 volumes.
- St. Petersburg.
- M., 1896-1918 .
Ос osmnadt vкk: historical collection Google Books.
Verified on March 12, 2013.
↑ A. Shirokorad.
The Northern wars of Russia.
AST, 2001.
page 284.
Дю Dürnburg, 1742.
An autograph.
The State Archive of the Russian Federation.
The notebook was started in April 1742 in the family residence.
In 1782, Catherine gave it to her favorite A.D. Lansky.
In 1806, Ya.
A. Druzhinin, an official of the Imperial Chancellery, purchased it from M. A. Al (nrzb) and transferred it to the library of the Winter Palace for storage.
↑ http://www.hronos.km.ru/biograf/ekater2.html ↑ Bilbasov V. A. History of Catherine the great.
Berlin, 1900, t 1, pp.
117-118 Зап Notes of the Empress Catherine the Second.
- Moscow: Orbita, 1989.
Ан Henri Troyer.
Catherine the Great.
- Moscow: Eksmo, 2004 — - (Series "Russian biographies") - P. 127 — - ISBN 5-699-01632-5 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress).
Book 1.
Part 2.
Chapter 1, I. Перейти Go to: 1 2 Pokrovsky M. N.
Russian History since ancient times.
/ With the participation of N. Nikolsky and V. Storozhev.
T. 4. - M., 1911 — - p.
46. Перейти Go to: 1 2 Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
- Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2006.
- p. 30 — - (ZhZL) — ISBN 5-235-02808-2 Биль Bilbasov V. A.
The history of Catherine the Second.
Vol. 1. - Berlin, 1900.
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Биль Bilbasov V. A.
The History of Catherine the Second.
Vol. 1. - Berlin, 1900.
- P. 445.
Биль Bilbasov V. A.
The history of Catherine the Second.
Vol. 1. - Berlin, 1900.
- p. 355.
↑ Klyuchevsky V. Course of Russian history.
Lecture LXXV.
Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
- Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2006.
- p.
29. Тру Troaya A. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2007, p. 165 Каз Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 1, Part 2, Chapter 2, III ↑ Go to: 1 2 Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 50 ↑ Manifesto "On the accession of Empress Catherine II to the throne".
Russian Russian Antiquity, 1893.
— Vol. 80. — No. 12. — p. 487-496 Перейти Go to: 1 2 Klyuchevsky V. Course of Russian History.
Описание Description of the coronation, anointing and communion of Empress Catherine II // Russkaya starina, 1893.
- Vol. 80. - No. 12. - p. 487-496 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Klyuchevsky V. Course of Russian History.
Lecture LXXVI Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, p .
43, 61 Каз Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 1, Part 2, Chapter 3, III Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, pp.
372-374 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 179 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 2, Part 2, Chapter 2, III Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 71 ↑ Empress Catherine the Second ↑ Klyuchevsky V. O. Course of Russian History.
Part V.-Moscow: State Socio Economic Publishing House, 1937.
↑ Russie a la fin du 19e siecle, sous dir.
de M.Kowalevsky.
Paris, 1900, p. 76 ↑ So, the second and third partitions of Poland caused a protest movement on the part of the Poles: the most massive was the Kosciuszko Uprising of 1794.
See Grabenski V.
History of the Polish People.
Minsk, 2006, pp.
486-500 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 180 ↑ Go to: 1 2 3 Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 2, Part 2, Chapter 1, V. Chechulin N. D. Essays on the History of Russian finance in the Reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, pp.
372-373 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 189 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 294 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 140 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 374 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 301, 329 Том Tomsinov V. A. Empress Catherine II (1729-1796) / / Russian jurists of the XVIII XX centuries: Essays on life and creativity.
In 2 volumes.
- Zertsalo.
- M., 2007.
- Vol. 1. - p. 63. - 672 p — - ("Russian legal heritage").
- 1000 copies.
— ISBN 978-5-8078-0144-9.
Каз Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 2, Part 1, Chapter 2, I Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 114 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Klyuchevsky V. Course of Russian History.
Lecture LXXVII ↑ Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 129, 131 Тру Troya A. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2007, p. 242 Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 85-86, 331-332 Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 313 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, pp.
175-178 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 94 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Berdyshev S. N. Catherine the Great.
- Moscow: Mir kniga, 2007.
- 240 p. Rozhkov N.
Russian history in comparative historical coverage (fundamentals of social dynamics) Leningrad Moscow, 1928, vol .
7, p .
41 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, pp.
304-305 ↑ Russie a la fin du 19e siecle, sous dir.
de M. Kowalevsky.
Paris, 1900, pp.
687, 691 ↑ Rozhkov N. A.
Russian history in comparative historical coverage (fundamentals of social dynamics) Leningrad Moscow, 1928, vol .
7, p .
41 Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
Russian Russian Factory, M.-L., 1934, p. 60-62 Туг Tugan Baranovsky, M.-L., 1934, p. 60-62 ↑ Tugan Baranovsky, M. Russian Factory, M.-L., p. 399-400 ↑ St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 222 ↑ Strumilin, S. G. Essays on the Economic History of Russia.
M. 1960, p .
399-400 ↑ Tugan Baranovsky, M. Russian Factory
, M.-L., 1934, p. 59 ↑ Wallerstein I.
The Modern World System III.
The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World Economy, 1730-1840s.
San Diego, 1989, p. 142 Туг Tugan Baranovsky M. Russian factory.
M.-L., 1934, p.
37. Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 208, 211, 215 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 295 Покров Pokrovsky M. N.
Russian history since ancient times.
With the participation of N. Nikolsky and V. Storozhev.
Moscow, 1911, vol .
4, pp.
91-92, 106-113 Чеч Chechulin N. D. Essays on the history of Russian finance in the reign of Catherine II.
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323, 373, 364, 87 ↑ [http://www.pushkinskijdom.ru/Portals/3/PDF/XVIII/21 tom XVIII/Berezkina/Berezkina. pdf Catherine II in Pushkin's poem "I am sorry for the Great wife"].
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Moscow, 2007, p. 355 ↑ Grisinger T. The Jesuits.
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Minsk, 2004, p. 487 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 332 Каз Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 3, Part 1, Chapter 3, IV Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 355 ↑ Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 3, part 2, Chapter 3, I Тру Troya A. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2007, p. 409 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
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Moscow, 2006, p. 389, 371 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 376 Тру Troya A. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2007, p. 430 ↑ Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 3, Part 1, Chapter 1, III ↑ Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book.
2, part 2, chapter 3, III ↑ Go to: 1 2 3 Klyuchevsky V. O. Course of Russian History.
Lecture LXXVI ↑ Go to: 1 2 Grabenski V.
History of the Polish People.
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Lecture LXXXI ↑ Konstantin Kudryashov.
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367, 376 Покров Pokrovsky M. N.
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Lecture LXXX Bl Blum J. Lord and Peasant in Russia.
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The Tolerant Empress //Nezavisimaya gazeta from 03.11.2004 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Smakhtina M. V. Government restrictions on entrepreneurship of Old Believers in the XVIII first half of the XIX century.
// Materials of the scientific and practical conference "Prokhorov Readings" А. A. Mylnikov: "The Senate was instructed to develop a provision on the free return of Old Believers who fled to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and other countries in recent years due to religious persecution.
The returnees were offered to settle in Siberia, the Barabinsk steppe and some other places at their discretion. ...
The circle of decrees by which the emperor promised to protect the Old Believers "from the insults and oppressions he committed" was sealed with a solemn manifesto on February 28.
Those who fled abroad "Great Russian and Little Russian people of different ranks, as well as schismatics, merchants, landowner peasants, yard people and military deserters" were allowed to return until January 1, 1763 "without any fear or fear" "[1] Бег Beglopopovschina / / Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 vols.
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Екат Catherine wrote about the reform of Patriarch Nikon in 1763 — " Nikon is a person who excites disgust in me.
I would be happier if I hadnot heard of his name…
Nikon also tried to subdue the sovereign: he wanted to become a pope...
Nikon brought confusion and divisions in the fatherland the church was peaceful before him and holistically united.
Triperstie was imposed on us by the Greeks with the help of curses, tortures and death executions…
Nikon made Alexey the tsar's father a tyrant and torturer of his people " [2] ↑ Go to: 1 2 3 Kazimir Valishevsky.
Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book 2, Part 1, Chapter 3, II ↑ Pokrovsky M. N.
Russian history since ancient times.
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4, p. 209 ОМ OMDS: the goals of creation and the initial stage of activity ↑ Russian Buddhists celebrate the 240th anniversary of the approval of the Hambo Lama Institute by Catherine II ↑ Grisinger T. The Jesuits.
A complete history of their overt and secret deeds from the foundation of the order to the present time.
Minsk, 2004, p. 485 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
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554-557 Кур Kurbatov V. I. Secret Society of Freemasons.
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Paris, 1881, volume 1, p. 257 Тру Troyes A. Catherine the Great.
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Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), book.
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Catherine the Great (The Novel of the Empress), Supplement (Catherine II and the Opinion of Europe), I ↑ see, for example: Kurbatov V. I. Secret Society of Freemasons.
Moscow Rostov n/A, p. 227 Пав Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, p. 282 ↑ Go to: 1 2 Pavlenko N. I. Catherine the Great.
Moscow, 2006, pp.
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Moscow, 2006, pp.
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