Great Catherine : The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia

by Carolly Erickson

Release Date: 15 August, 1995

Edition: Paperback

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Amazing Writing for an Amazing Woman

I got interested in Russian history after going to the Soviet Union when I was in 8th grade and then the Ukraine when I was in college. Then there is the fact that my husband is also of Russian descent. I picked Catherine the Great because she had such an influence and ruled for a long time. I can't wait to read Erickson's new book about another Russian royal family.

It is rare for an author of a biography to write such that you think you are reading a fiction romance story, but that is just what Carolly Erickson has done. I was drawn into the story of Catherine and her thoughts and feelings from the first page. From her mother's ambition, to her own ambition, to the murder of her husband, to her many lovers. The story just flows in an awesome fashion. The only dissappointment was that the book seemed to gloss over Catherine's many acomplishments as a ruler. It did seem like the book was mosty about her early life and not enough about her rule.

This book will take a while to get throught, it is not an easy read, but is well worth it to understand the history of a people who are such a mystery to most American people.

A woman beyond her time....

Erickson writes with authority in the realm of history, with an impressive list of books, under her belt, including, but not limited to Bloody Mary, Great Harry, Mistress Anne, Bonnie Prince Charlie, The First Elizabeth as well as many others. She is well respected in her field and uses a variety of primary sources when ever possible. In Great Catherine, Erickson uses primary sources including, but not limited to, Catherine's own memoirs as well as other writings of Catherine. Erickson also took advantage of other sources such as letters as well as dispatches of visiting ambassadors, letters and memoirs of contemporaries, both Russian and European, and contemporary descriptions of Russian society and the Russian court travelers, as well as political and administrative documents. Catherine is presented in a very human light throughout the entire book. In the beginning she is presented as a precocious little girl in the court of King Frederick, saying for all to hear and much to her mother's embarrassment, "Why does the king have such a short jacket? He's rich enough to afford a longer one isn't he?"(p.1) Later, when she was fourteen, and once again in the Court of King Frederick, just before embarking for Russia, to be presented to the Empress Elizabeth to see if she was indeed a suitable bride for Peter the third, Princess Sophie made easy conversation with the King and "amazed the court". (p.32) During her stay in Russia, Sophie became gravely ill and was nursed back to health by the Empress herself. The two became quite close and Sophie soon became the Empress's favorite and upon her indoctrination into the Russian Orthodox Church, was renamed by the Empress after her own mother, and second wife to Peter the Great. She was no longer Princess Sophie, but Grand Duchess Catherine of Russia. The mother-daughter relationship did not last as long as Catherine had hoped, for the Empress the suffered from paranoia and was constantly in a state of anxiety in great fear of being overthrown just as she had overthrown her predecessor. She turned on Catherine and blamed her alone for not having provided an heir and became increasingly cruel to her. It seems that after two years the royal couple had not in fact consummated the marriage. It was rumored that Peter was impotent or sterile, perhaps from the severe bout with the pox that he had suffered. Regardless Catherine knew that an heir was necessary and if she did not provide one then she would become unnecessary and would be disposed of as easily as she was chosen. She became pregnant with a child and was once again in the good graces with Empress Elizabeth. The child was a product of her love affair, with Sergei Saltykov. (p.121) Once he had accomplished the deed, he was sent away from Catherine, just as her son Paul was taken away from her once he was born. It seemed to Catherine that the Empress took great pleasure in her power to arrange the lives of those in her court. Since Catherine and Peter were estranged and he treated her with the utmost cruelty, she felt no guilt in taking a lover. Saltykov was only the fist of many lovers for Catherine and she soon was in an impassioned affair with Gregory Orlov, "a handsome hero of Zorndoff" and a "lieutenant in the Ismailovsky guards", who had four brothers that were also well respected in their regiments, that had political sway with the men in their command.(p.188) It was the Orlov brothers that helped Catherine in a successful a coup de tat against Peter, soon after the death of the Empress Elizabeth. She and Gregory had a son, Alexis Gregorovich, which in Russian means, Alexis son of Gregory. Catherine had a unusually great appetite for the opposite sex, but managed a voracious sex life as well as managing the affairs of Russia both on a national level as well as an international level. She wanted to restore the splendor of the old Byzantine Empire. So single-minded was she that she named her first grandson after the city of Constantinople, she called this her "Greek project" and talked of it "incessantly". (p.335) Through her reading of Voltaire, Diderot as well Montesquieu she "acquired lofty idea's about reform and she did bring some reform to Russia, but was sure to not let it go unchecked. She was truly horrified by the Pugachev Rebellion and quickly put it down and laid aside some of her idea's about reform. Erickson writes in a chronological order that is clear and concise, allowing easy to understanding of the many "plot" changes and diverse "characters" that filled the life of the Princess that would become the Empress of Russia. Erickson's usage of quotes is quite smooth and helps to give the feel of a novel is being read instead of historical biography. Some biographers of Catherine's found her sex life to be a major topic throughout their biographies. While Erickson does explain Catherine's various liaisons' she does not make them her entire focus. Erickson emphasizes the various deeds that made Catherine become known as Catherine the Great, such as her victories over the long undefeated Turks and her ideas on reform. Erickson shows that while under the rule of Catherine the Great, Russia experienced economic abundance as well as political power and stability. Carolly Erickson's version of Great Catherine stands out as a balanced and well-researched book. She supports her work with primary sources, such as Catherine's own memoirs and letters of state. This book is well written in clearly organized fashion. It feels like a roller coaster of a novel with all the intrigue, death, torture, betrayal and power and sex that is required to gain and keep a reader's attention and the great thing about the book, Great Catherine, is that it is all true.