Catherine the great

The years from 1744 to 1762 were hard on Catherine. Peter proved to be a miserable husband, while the German princess’s position at the imperial court could be fairly described as isolated and even precarious. . . . Yet the future empress accomplished much more than merely surviving at court. In addition to becoming Orthodox in order to marry Peter, she proceeded to learn Russian language and literature will and to obtain some knowledge of her new country. Simultaneously she turned to the writings of the philosophers, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and others, for which she had been prepared by her earlier grounding in French literature. . . . The young prince adapted herself skillfully to the new environment circles. While simulating innocence and submissiveness, she participated in political intrigues and plots, carefully covering up her tracks, however, until she led the successful coup in mid-summer 1762, which brought deposition and death of her husband and made her Empress Catherine II

Yet, together with her formidable virtues, Cathrine the Great had certain weaknesses. Indeed the two were intrinisically combined. Determination easily became ruthlessness, ambition fed vanity just as vanity fed ambition, skill in propaganda would not stop short of asserting lies. Above all, the empress was a supreme egoist. As with most true egoists, she had few beliefs or standards of value outside of herself and her own overpowering wishes. Even Catherine II’s admirers sometimes noticed that she lacked something, call it charity, mercy, or human sympathy, and, incidentally that she looked her best in masculine attire. It was also observed that the sovereign took up every issue with the same unflagging drive and earnestness, be it Pugache’vs rebellion or correspondence with Voltaire, the partitions of Poland or her latest article for a periodical. Restless ambition served as the only common denominator in her many activities, and apparently, the only thing that mattered. Similarly, in spite of Catherine’s enormous display of enlightened view and sentiments and of her adherence to the principles of the Age of Reason, it remains extremely difficult to tell what the empress actually believed, or whether she believed anything. In fact, the true relationship of Catherine the Great to the Enlightenment constitutes one of the most controversial subjects in the histography of her reign. `Page 257