page_title: Grigory Orlov
section_title: Years of power
hierarchical_section_title: Grigory Orlov / Years of power
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Жалованная грамота Екатерины II Г.Г. Орлову на графский титул. Санкт-Петербург, 1 июля 1763 г. Пергамен, чернила, акварель, гуашь, позолота, шелк, серебро, позолота. Девиз в гербе - Fortitudins et Constantia (Храбростию и постоянством). ГИМ
context_page_description: Prince Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov was the favorite of Catherine the Great of Russia. He led the coup which overthrew Catherine's husband Peter III of Russia, and installed Catherine as empress. For some years, he was virtually co-ruler with her, but his repeated infidelities and the enmity of Catherine's other advisers led to his fall from power.
context_section_description: Orlov was no statesman, but he had a quick wit, a fairly accurate appreciation of current events, and was a useful and sympathetic counselor during the earlier portion of Catherine's reign. He entered with enthusiasm, both from patriotic and from economic motives, into the question of the improvement of the condition of the serfs and their partial emancipation. As the president of the Free Economic Society, he was also their most prominent advocate in the great commission of 1767, though he aimed primarily at pleasing the empress, who affected great liberality in her earlier years.
  He was one of the earliest propagandists of the Slavophile idea of the emancipation of the Christians from Ottoman rule. In 1771, he was sent as first Russian plenipotentiary to the peace congress of Focşani, but he failed in his mission, owing partly to the obstinacy of the Ottomans, and partly (according to Panin) to his own outrageous insolence.
caption: Orlov's charter granting him the status of Count
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