Fine. I’ll Just Do It Myself
By: Josie Munnings
Tags: Russia, Queen, Devotion, History, Catherine The Great

Fine. I’ll Just Do It Myself

How an inquisitive German girl became an accomplished Russian Tsarina

Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst was born in 1729 into minor nobility, as the Princess to a province in Germany. Her mother groomed her for a successful marriage so that she could elevate the rank of the family, and eventually managed to secure a meeting with Empress Elizabeth of Russia, who had taken in her nephew, Peter the Third, who was the heir to the Russian throne. At 11, the two met and Catherine despised his affinity for alcohol at such a young age and the fact that he still played with toy soldiers.

Elizabeth liked Sophie, however, and arranged for her marriage to Peter. Sophie then determined that she would win the hearts of the Russian people and set out to learn the Russian language and about the Orthodox church, as she had been taught Lutheran theology.

Sophie grew sick from reading and learning Russian late at night and contracted pneumonia. She nearly died from it, but even as she suffered at death’s door, rumors of how she got sick spread. The people loved her for her love of Russia.

There was a point where Sophie’s mother called for a Lutheran priest to give Sophie her last rites, but Sophie managed to say that she would only have her Orthodox father. Empress Elizabeth was further impressed with Sophie, and when Sophie eventually recovered, she was rechristened Catherine, brought into the Orthodox church, and married to Peter.

They were both 16 at the time.

Peter and Catherine did not get along, having separate lovers, and staying on opposite ends of the palace. Peter had evolved from playing with toy soldiers and instead ran mock drills with his male servants.

Catherine became friends with his mistress’s sister, who introduced her to a group of people who also despised Peter and did not want him to be Emperor. When Elizabeth died, Peter was crowned and began by halting the 7 Years War, which was on the brink of being won, and by forfeiting, he nullified the sacrifice of many Russian soldiers. He turned his attention to conquering Denmark, which was not really in the interest of Russia, especially after giving up Prussia at the end of the Seven Years War.

His actions doomed him in the eyes of the conspirators who were starting to plan a coup, which would make Catherine the Empress of Russia. Although this was leaked and had to happen earlier than anticipated, the coup went off spectacularly.

Peter was forced to abdicate after only six months as Emperor and conveniently died eight days after his abdication. The official cause of death was a stroke but was possibly an assassination.

Catherine became the Empress of Russia and turned her love for reading and philosophy into practice. She believed in the rule of law, where the law was upheld and not only at the whim of the Emperor/Empress.

She attempted to make a representative council that would inform her of what the people wanted but to no avail. Part of the problem was that many people did not know how to read or to think critically about a government and its actions. The people chosen to be a part of this council largely didn’t understand its purpose and this is where Catherine won her title of “The Great” although she nearly became Catherine the All Wise Mother of the Fatherland.

This assembly was eventually dissolved because of its uselessness and Catherine had to go about revamping the legal system alone. She got frustrated with a lot of writings of economics and politics, finding them too idealistic. She wrote in the margins of one of her books that if it were possible to solve all of the state’s economic problems in one day, she would have done so a long time ago.

Nevertheless, she filled up a whole palace with books and art and statues. She devoted several palaces to her love of culture, constructing a Chinese style palace and accompanying village, and also loved the traditional English gardens.

Catherine’s main love was for the law and philosophy and corresponded frequently with Voltaire. She wanted to bring education and enlightenment to the Russian people. Unfortunately, the public schools struggled to take off, although some noblemen would send their serfs to get an education so that they could serve their masters better.

The entirety of Russian was built from the 90% population of serfs who were essentially slaves. They could not hold wealth and were not allowed to leave the land of their owners (unless they were sent to school). Some managed to buy their freedom but were often just pulled back into serfdom, which Catherine eventually banned. She also gave them a way of reporting their master’s wrongdoings, which essentially boiled down to killing their serfs and not being noblemen and thus illegally holding serfs.

Ultimately, Catherine tried to make her country better, and she did improve it by leaps and bounds (including the size of the country itself, which annexed much of Poland during her reign). She was the longest reigning Empress of Russia and made an effort not to go to war during her reign, saying:

I sincerely want peace, not because I lack resources for war, but because I hate bloodshed.

While there was military activity during her reign, she pushed only to improve Russia, the country that she adopted, and grew to love.