Catherine would never get the chance to meet him in person, but through these letters, she and Voltaire discussed everything from disease prevention to Catherine's love of English gardens. Russia fascinated Voltaire, who had written a biography of Peter the Great. Early in her reign, she began a correspondence with one of her favorite authors: The great Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. Voltaire was basically Catherine the Great's pen pal.Ĭatherine, a bibliophile, built up a collection of 44,000 books. She never married again, and took numerous lovers during her long reign. She was formally crowned on September 22, 1762. With Peter out of the picture, Catherine became the new empress of Russia. Eight days later, he was killed while in the custody of one of Catherine's co-conspirators. In July 1762, just six months after he took the throne, Peter III was deposed in a coup d'état. He enraged the military by pulling out of the Seven Years’ War and making big concessions to Russia’s adversaries in the process.Įventually, Catherine believed that Peter was going to divorce her-so she worked with her lover, Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov, and her other allies to overthrow him and take the throne for herself. Peter III assumed the throne on January 5, 1762, and was immediately unpopular. Catherine the Great overthrew Peter the III so that she could rule. Catherine had at least three affairs, and hinted that none of her children were her husband's. Her memoirs portray the Tsar as a drunk, a simpleton, and somebody who “took pleasure in beating men and animals.” Whether these statements are accurate or not, Catherine and her spouse were clearly unhappy, and they both had extramarital affairs. Kachalov, Public Domain // Wikimedia CommonsĬatherine and Peter were an ill-matched pair: Catherine was bright and ambitious whereas Peter, according to Britannica, was "mentally feeble." Catherine didn’t like him: “Peter III had no greater enemy than himself all his actions bordered on insanity,” she wrote in 1789. Catherine the Great's marriage to Peter the III was rocky. Sophie converted to Russian Orthodoxy-despite her Lutheran father’s objections-and took on a new Russian name: Ekaterina, or “Catherine.” Her official title would be Empress Catherine II ( Peter the Great's second wife had been Empress Catherine I). But thanks to her mother’s campaigning, she was chosen to marry Karl Peter Ulrich (later known as Tsar Peter III), heir to the Russian throne. She was the daughter of Christian August, a minor German prince and general in the Prussian army, and Princess Johanna Elisabeth, who had connections to the Russian royal family.ĭespite being a princess herself, young Sophie wasn’t exactly a top-tier member of the European nobility. The woman who would become Catherine the Great was born Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst on Ap(Julian Calendar) in Stettin, Prussia (now Szczecin, Poland). Catherine the Great's name wasn't Catherine. Here's what you need to know about the unlikely ruler, who is the subject of not one, but two new series: HBO's Catherine the Great, which debuted in late 2019, and Hulu's The Great, which is streaming on Hulu now. During her 34-year reign, she transformed Russia’s culture while expanding its borders. Catherine the Great moved to a foreign land as a teenager and became one of the most important leaders in its history.
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