Catherine the great Archives - History of Royal Women

Catherine the Great – The later years (Part five)

July 22, 2020 Moniek 0

Read part four here. Catherine saw her son as her rival, and she never gave him a role in government. Despite this, he and his wife were required to appear at official ceremonies. He and his mother had very little contact otherwise. Catherine even began to consider skipping Paul all together and making her eldest [read more]

Catherine the Great – Ruling an Empire (Part four)

July 21, 2020 Moniek 0

Read part three here. Catherine enforced her success by rewarding those who helped to put her on the throne, including the church and the army. She also cancelled the unpopular alliance with Prussia but assured them she had no wish for a new war. She also called on Russia’s two most experienced statesmen. She settled [read more]

Catherine the Great – The coup that made her Empress in her own right (Part three)

July 20, 2020 Moniek 0

Read part two here. As Empress Elizabeth’s health deteriorated, Catherine found herself pregnant with Gregory Orlov’s child, and she began to seclude herself. Peter was already talking of repudiating her and Catherine did not want to fuel the fire by appearing in public while pregnant. On 3 January 1762, Empress Elizabeth suffered a massive stroke, [read more]

Catherine the Great – An Empress-in-waiting (Part two)

July 17, 2020 Moniek 0

Read part one here. Sophie had arrived at the Russian court as a 14-year-old German Princess to marry the 15-year-old Grand Duke Peter – heir and nephew of Empress Elizabeth of Russia – accompanied by her mother, Johanna. They were received like Queens, much to Johanna’s delight who considered the match her personal triumph. Sophie [read more]

Catherine the Great – The little-known German Princess (Part one)

July 15, 2020 Moniek 0

In the early hours of 2 May 1729, 16-year-old Princess Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein Gottorp, wife of the 39-year-old Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, gave birth to her first child in a merchant’s house in Szczecin (in present-day Poland). The house served as temporary quarters for her husband, who was stationed there as a general [read more]

The Great Series Review – A comedy in corsets

May 26, 2020 Moniek 0

SPOILER ALERT The Great promises to be a comedy loosely based on the life of Catherine the Great. When they say loosely, they mean it. Within the first 15 minutes, Catherine is married to Emperor Peter III of Russia (in reality – they married in 1745 during the reign of his aunt Empress Elizabeth of [read more]