Catherine the Great

Love, Sex, and Power

Virginia Rounding

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780312328870
• eBook ISBN: 9781429967983
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This biography of the longest reigning monarch of Imperial Russia is "a vivid portrait of a sensual and intellectual woman" ( Washington Post ).

Dutiful daughter, frustrated wife, passionate lover, domineering mother, doting grandmother, devoted friend, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers—the Empress Catherine II, the Great, was all these things, and more. Her reign lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during those years she built on the work begun by her most famous predecessor, Peter the Great, to establish Russia as a major European power and to transform its new capital, St. Petersburg, into a city to rival Paris and London in the beauty of its architecture, the glittering splendor of its Court and the magnificence of its art collections. Yet the great Catherine was not even Russian by birth and had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne; she seized it and held on to it, through wars, rebellions and plagues, by the force of her personality, by her charm and determination, and by an unshakable belief in her own destiny.

This is the story of Catherine the woman, whom power alone could never satisfy, for she also wanted love, affection, friendship and humor. She found these in letter-writing, in grandchildren, in gardens, architecture and greyhounds—as well as in a succession of lovers which gave rise to salacious rumors throughout Europe. The real Catherine, however, was more interesting than any rumor.

Using many of Catherine's own words from her voluminous correspondence and other documents, as well as contemporary accounts by courtiers, ambassadors and foreign visitors, Virginia Rounding penetrates the character of this most powerful, fascinating and surprisingly sympathetic of eighteenth-century women.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Family Tree
• Dramatis Personae
• Prologue
• 1 From Feudal Anthill to the Court of Russia
• 2 Engagement and Wedding
• 3 Early Married Life
• 4 Catherine Grows Up
• 5 Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams and Stanislas Poniatowski
• 6 Empress of All the Russias
• 7 Murder, Coronation and Conspiracy
• 8 Catherine Sets to Work
• 9 Laws, Smallpox and War
• 10 The Heroic Orlov
• 11 Confusion and Unrest
• 12 Passion and Pretenders
• 13 New Lovers and a New Daughter-in-Law
• 14 Grandsons and Other Acquisitions
• 15 The Empress and the Emperor
• 16 The Failures of Physicians
• 17 Convalescence and Recovery
• 18 The Great Crimean Voyage, and ‘Proverbs’ in Petersburg
• 19 The Beginning of the End
• 20 Last Years
• 21 Death and Burial
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Recommendations for Further Reading
• Acknowledgements
• Index
• Copyright