Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

by Robert K. Massie

She always refused extravagant titles, whether from the Legislative Assembly in 1764, which wished to name her Catherine the Great; from Voltaire, who filled his letters with flowery tributes; or from Grimm, who called her Catherine the Great in a letter in 1788. Replying to Grimm, she wrote, “I beg you no longer to call me Catherine the Great, because … my name is Catherine II.” It was after her death that Russians began speaking of her as “Catherine the Great.” She was a majestic figure in the age of monarchy; the only woman to equal her on a European throne was Elizabeth I of England. In the history of Russia, she and Peter the Great tower in ability and achievement over the other fourteen tsars and empresses of the three-hundred-year Romanov dynasty. Catherine carried Peter’s legacy forward. He had given Russia a “window on the West” on the Baltic coast, building there a city that he made his capital. Catherine opened another window, this one on the Black Sea; Sebastopol and Odessa were its jewels. Peter imported technology and governing institutions to Russia; Catherine brought European moral, political, and judicial philosophy, literature, art, architecture, sculpture, medicine, and education. Peter created a Russian navy and organized an army that defeated one of the finest soldiers in Europe; Catherine assembled the greatest art gallery in Europe, hospitals, schools, and orphanages. Peter shaved off the beards and truncated the long robes of his leading noblemen; C...