Catherine the Great

by Simon Dixon

  66. Proskurina, Mify imperii, 279–314.

  67. Alexander, 286, 294–5, 321; Madariaga, 565–7; Parkinson, 48, 1 Dec. 1792 NS.

  68. Cross, 79–81; Montefiore, 436–7, 576, n. 43; Khrapovitskii, 403, 6 July 1792.

  69. Faggionato, Rosicrucian Utopia, 208–16; Madariaga, 527–30; Jones, Nikolay Novikov, 203–15.

  70. Alexander, 305.

  71. A. Cross, ‘Condemned by correspondence: Horace Walpole and Catherine “Slay-Czar”’, in Cross, Catherine the Great and the British, 25.

  72. See, for example, R. Butterwick, ‘Deconfessionalization? The policy of the Polish Revolution towards Ruthenia, 1788–1792’, Central Europe, 6 (2008), 91–121.

  73. R. H. Lord, The second partition of Poland: A study in diplomatic history (Cambridge, MA, 1915), 84–7, 512–16, remains the classic work. See also Eliseeva, Geopoliticheskie proekty, 272–89.

  74. Quoted in Lord, Second partition, 307.

  75. Schroeder, Transformation of European politics, 96, 104–5, 122–3.

  76. Zavadovskii, 340, 15 Nov. 1794.

  77. Schroeder, Transformation of European politics, 144–50; Madariaga, 441–51; Alexander, 319.

  78. KfZh (1796), appendix ii, ‘Vypiski iz arkhivnykh del’, 18.

  79. Grimm, 565, 14 Apr. 1792; 593, 11 Feb. 1794; 601, 3 Apr.

  80. Marker, Publishing, 226–9.

  81. ‘Kak gotovilos’ ekaterinoslavskoe dukhovenstvo k vstreche imper. Ekateriny II’, Kievskaia starina, 1887, no. 4, 797–8.

  82. L. G. Kisliagina, ‘Kantseliariia stats-sekretarei pri Ekaterine II’, in Gosudarstvennye uchrezhdeniia Rossii XVI-XVIII vv., ed. N. B. Golikova (M, 1991), 185–9.

  83. KfZh (1795), appendix ii, ‘Vypiski iz arkhivnykh del’, passim, quoted at 193–4 (Orlov); Grimm, 644, 25 Aug. 1795 (Suvorov); SIRIO, xlii: 256–7 (telescope).

  84. Khrapovitskii, 328, 18 Mar. 1790.

  85. Grimm, 597, 14 Feb. 1794.

  86. A. Odom and L. P. Arend, A Taste for Splendour: Russian Imperial and European treasures from the Hillwood Museum (Alexandria, VA, 1998), 212–4.

  87. KfZh (1795), appendix ii, 122, 173, 175.

  88. KfZh (1795), appendix ii, 185–6.

  89. Memoirs of Countess Golovine: A lady at the Court of Catherine II, trans. G. M. Fox-Davies (London, 1910), 129.

  90. Alexander, 321; Grimm, 570, 13 Aug. 1792; KfZh (1795), appendix ii, 234, 246, 248; ibid. (1796), 34.

  91. Grimm, 669, 18 Feb. 1796.

  92. Grimm, 583, 14 May 1793.

  93. Khrapovitskii, 404, 9–11 July 1792; Grimm, 618, 16 Jan. 1795; KfZh (1795), 65–80, 89–90.

  94. Quoted in W. B. Lincoln, Nicholas I: Emperor and autocrat of all the Russias (London, 1978), 49.

  95. Khrapovitskii, 378, 16 Oct. 1791.

  96. Sochineniia, xii: 702; SIRIO, xlii: 267. Cf. Alexander, 297–9.

  97. Grimm, 591, 11 Feb. 1794.

  98. Parkinson, 226, 18 Feb. 1794.

  99. Tooke, iii: 434.

  100. Stedingk, 81–2, 14 Feb. 1791 NS; A. Gribovskii, Zapiski o Imperatritse Ekaterine Velikoi, 2nd edn. (M, 1864), 29.

  101. C. F. P. Masson, Mémoires secrets sur la russie pendant les règnes de Catherine II et de Paul Ier (Paris, 1863), 70–1.

  102. Alexander, 322–4.

  103. KfZh (1796), 667–76; 724–5; RBS, Pritits-Reis (SPb 1910), ‘Anna Protasova’.

  104. Alexander, 324–5; McGrew, 187–9; KfZh (1796), 736–48.

  Epilogue

  1. Karlik favorita: Istoriia zhizni Ivana Iakubovskago, ed. V. P. Zubov (Munich, 1968), 41.

  2. Zapiski, mneniia i perepiska admiral A. S. Shishkova, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1870), i: 9–10.

  3. Wortman, Scenarios, 171–2; McGrew, 210.

  4. Madariaga, 569–70; McGrew, 184–5, 190, and ch. 6 passim.

  5. Parkinson, 22–3, 143.

  6. Memoirs of Countess Golovine, 129.

  7. See Hughes, ‘The funerals of the Russian emperors and empresses’, 395–419.

  8. Memoirs of Countess Golovine, 130–2.

  9. M. B. Asvarishch, et al, Tsareubiistvo 11 Marta 1801 goda (SPb, 2001), 69, no. 24.

  10. McGrew, 194.

  11. Asvarishch, Tsareubiistvo, 24–32.

  12. Asvarishch, Tsareubiistvo, 67, no. 28.

  13. Wortman, Scenarios, 172–3; M. Safonov, Zaveshchanie Ekateriny II: Roman-issledovanie (SPb, 2002), 216–26; Asvarishch, Tsareubiistvo, 23, no. 22.

  14. Asvarishch, Tsareubiistvo, 69, no. 25.

  15. Zapiski A. A. Iakovleva, byvshego v 1803 godu ober-prokurorom Sv. Sinoda, ed. V. A. Andreev (M, 1915), 36, note; Sobranie rechei…Amvrosiem Mitropolitom Novgorodskim i Sanktpeterburgskim (M, 1810), 17, 66–7.

  16. P. Hayden, ‘Tsarskoe Selo: The History of the Ekaterininskii and Aleksandrovskii Parks’, in A sense of place: Tsarskoe Selo and its poets, eds. L. Loseff and B. Scherr (Columbus, OH, 1993), 28.

  17. A. Makhrov, ‘Architecture and politics: Catherine the Great’s “Greek Project” in the works of Nikolai L’vov’, SGECRN, 26 (1998), 12; Wortman, Scenarios, 153, 160, 172–3.

  18. McGrew, ch. 10.

  19. PSZ, xxvi: 19,779, 12 Mar. 1801. This section draws in revised form on materials first discussed in my article, ‘The posthumous reputation of Catherine II in Russia, 1797–1837’, SEER, 77 (1999), 646–79, where further references may be found.

  20. A. G. Cross, ‘Contemporary responses (1762–1810) to the personality and career of Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, NS 27 (1994), 56; The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot, ed. the Marchioness of Londonderry and H.M. Hyde (London, 1935), 52, Martha’s Journal, 23 Sept. 1803.

  21. A. Malinovskii, ‘Svedeniia dlia zhizneopisaniia Kniagini Ekateriny Romanovny Dashkovoi’, appendix to S. R. Dolgova, ‘E.R. Dashkova i sem’ia Malinovskikh’, in Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova: Issledovaniia i materialy (SPb, 1996), 78.

  22. Russian Journals, 206, Catherine to her sister, Alicia, 2 Dec. 1805.

  23. K[niaginia] D[ashkova] and A. K., Podlinnye Anekdoty Imperatritsy Ekateriny Velikoi Premudroi Materi Otechestva (M, 1806), iii.

  24. V. Iu. Afiani, ‘Stanovlenie zhurnal’noi arkheografii v Rossii v pervoi treti XIX v.’, Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1989 god (M, 1990), 30.

  25. Zapiski kasatel’no Rossiiskoi Istorii: Sochineniia Gosudaryni Imperatritsy Ekateriny II, 6 parts (SPb, 1801); Filosoficheskaia i politicheskaia perepiska Imperatritsy s Doktorom Tsimermannom etc. (SPb, 1801); Ermitazhnyi Teatr Velikiia Ekateriny etc. etc. (M, 1802); Perepiska Rossiiskoi Imperatritsy Ekateriny II s gospodiny Vol’tera etc., 2 parts (M, 1803).

  26. [N.M. Karamzin], Pokhval’noe slovo Ekaterine Vtoroi (M, 1802).

  27. P. Kolotov, Deianiia Ekateriny, Imperatritsy i Samoderzhitsy Vserossiiskiia, 6 parts (SPb, 1811).

  28. I. S[reznevskii], Dukh Ekateriny Velikiia etc. etc. (SPb, 1814), foreword, n.p.

  29. Russian Journals, 386, 388, Martha’s Journal, 7 Oct. 1808.

  30. F. F. Vigel, Zapiski, ed. S. Ia. Straikh, 2 vols. (M, 1928), i: 100.

  31. P. Sumarokov, Progulka po 12-ti guberniiam s istoricheskimi i statisticheskimi zamecheniiami v 1838 godu (SPb, 1839), 202.

  32. D. Davydov, Voennye zapiski, ed. V. Orlov (M, 1940), 415; idem, Sochineniia (M, 1985), 129.

  33. A. I. Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, 30 vols. (M, 1954–65), vii: 53; A. Herzen, My past and thoughts, trans. C. Garnett, 4 vols. (London, 1968), ii: 531.

  34. 1857–1861: Perepiska Imperatora Aleksandra II s Velikim Kniazem Konstantinom Nikolaevichem; Dnevnik Velikago Kniazia Konstantina Nikolaevicha, eds. L. G. Zakharova and L. I. Tiutiunnik (M, 1994), 212, diary, 13 Dec. 1859.

  35. Herzen, My past and thoughts, ii: 448.

  36. A. P. Kern, Vospominaniia, dnevniki, perepiska (M, 1989), 115; Zapiski Sverbeeva, i: 242–4; ii: 283–4.

  37. T. A. Alekseeva, Vladimir Lukich Borovikovskii i russkaia kul’tura na rubezhe 18–19 vekov (M, 1975), 105–6.

  38. A. Grigor’ev, Vospominaniia, ed. B. F. Egorov (
M, 1988), 37.

  39. Russian Journals, 386, Martha’s Journal, 7 Oct. 1808.

  40. K. Sh-v, ‘Tsaritsyno’, Vestnik Evropy, 11 (1804), July, 219–22.

  41. P. A. Viazemskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, v: 127–8; A. F. Merzliakov, ‘Rassuzhdenie o Rossiiskom slovesnoti v nyneshnem ee sostoianii (1812)’ reprinted in Literaturnaia kritika 1800–1820-kh godov, ed. L. G. Frizman (M, 1980), 125.

  42. Sochineniia Nikolaia Grecha, 3 vols. (SPb, 1855), iii: 320–1.

  43. K. N. Batiushkov, Opyty i stikakh v proze, ed. I. M. Semenko (M, 1977), 80.

  44. Literaturnaia kritika, ed. Frizman, 36–7, 43.

  45. Poliarnaia zvezda, eds. V. A. Arkhipov et al (Moscow-Leningrad, 1960), 15.

  46. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, xiii: 178, to A. A. Bestuzhev, late May/early June 1825.

  47. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 12 vols. (Philadelphia, PA, 1874–7), ii: 115.

  48. PSZ, xxvi: 19,904, 5 June 1801.

  49. Parkinson, 61; V. Khodasevich, Derzhavin: A biography, trans. A. Brantlinger (Madison, WI, 2007), 93–4; N. Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality 1825–1855 (Berkeley, CA, 1969), 116–7.

  50. M. V. Klochkov, ‘Nakaz imperatritsy Ekateriny II v sudebnoi praktike’, Sbornik statei v chesti M. K. Liubavskago (Petrograd, 1917), 1–18.

  51. Arkhiv brat’ev Turgenevykh, vyp. 6: Perepiska Aleksandra Ivanovicha Turgeneva s kn. Petrom Aleksandrovichom Viazemskim, chast’ I: 1814–1833 gody (Petrograd, 1921), 295, Aug. 1833; Dekabrist N. I. Turgenev: Pis’ma k bratu S. I. Turgenevu, ed. N. G. Svirin (M, 1936), 245, 15 Dec. 1817; Madariaga, Politics and Culture, 236.

  52. AKV, xxi: 361.

  53. Karamzin’s Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, ed. and trans. R. Pipes (New York, 1972), 133.

  54. M. M. Speranskii, Proekty i zapiski, ed. S. N. Valk (Moscow-Leningrad, 1961), 20, 140.

  55. Memoirs of Countess Golovine, 35.

  56. For detailed references, see my essay ‘“Prosveshchenie”: Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Russia’, in Peripheries of the Enlightenment, eds. R. Butterwick, S. Davies and G. Sanchez-Espinoza, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (2008:01).

  57. Sochineniia Derzhavina, ed. Grot, iii: 211–3.

  58. ‘O nravstvennom sostoianii voisk Rossiiskoi imperii i v osobennosti Gvardeiskogo korpusa’, ed. N. A. Kargopolova, Reka vremen, 1 (1995), 40.

  59. A. Viskovatov, Kratkaia istoriia Pervago Kadetskago Korpusa (SPb, 1832), 35, 38, 46–8.

  60. Polevoi, Literaturnaia kritika, 168–9.

  61. M. A. Gillel’son, P. A. Viazemskii: zhizn’ i tvorchestva (Leningrad, 1969), 225–8.

  62. A.I. Kornilovich, Sochineniia i pis’ma (Moscow-Leningrad, 1957), 211.

  63. Shishkov, ‘Dostopamiatnye skazaniia’, 20; M. Al’tshuller, Predtechi slavianofil’stva v russkoi literature: Obshchestvo ‘Beseda liubitelei russkogo slova’ (Ann Arbor, MI, 1984), 36–7.

  64. Sumarokov, Cherty Ekateriny Velikiia, xix, 46, 48–9.

  65. Dolgorukov, Kapishche moego serdtsa, 235.

  66. A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 17 vols. (M, 1937–59), ix: 32, note.

  67. I. I. Dmitriev, Vzgliad na moiu zhizn’ (SPb, 1895), 161.

  68. Ostaf’evskii arkhiv kniazei Viazemskikh, t. 2: Perepiska P.A. Viazemskago s A.I. Turgenvym 1820–1823 (SPb, 1899), 45–6, 11 Aug. 1820.

  69. A. G. Tartakovskii, Russkaia memuaristika XVIII-pervoi polovine XIX v.: Ot rukopisi k knige (M, 1991), 215, 218–9.

  70. M. Mokrousova, ‘A. I. Turgenev—sobiratel’ istochnikov po istorii Rossii’, Sovetskie arkhivy, 1974: 4, 40–1.

  71. See S. Dixon, ‘Pushkin and history’, The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin, ed. A. Kahn (Cambridge, 2006).

  72. Khrapovitskii, 31, 13 Apr. 1787. See also A.A. Vasil’chikov, Semeistvo Razumovskikh, vol. V (SPb, 1894), 1–35; L. Maikov, Pushkin: Biograficheskie materialy i istoriko-literaturnye ocherki (SPb, 1899), 397–413.

  73. Imperatorskoe russkoe istoricheskoe obshchestvo, 1866–1916 (Petrograd, 1916), 4–5, 60.

  74. SIRIO, xiii: i.

  75. This section draws, in revised form, on sources first discussed in my ‘Catherine the Great and the Romanov Dynasty: The case of the Grand Duchess Mariia Pavlovna (1854–1920)’, in Russian Society and Culture and the Long Eighteenth Century, eds. Bartlett and Hughes (Münster, 2004), 195–208, where further references may be found.

  76. S. S. Trubachev, ‘G.P. Danilevskii: biograficheskii ocherk’, in G.P. Danilevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 8th edn., 24 vols. (SPb, 1901), i: 44, 46, 61, 79–88; ‘Vospominaniia E. N. Opochinina’, ed. E. V. Bronnikova, Vstrechi v proshlym, 7 (M, 1990), 65; M. M. Stasiulevich i ego sovremenniki v ikh perepiske, ed. M. K. Lemke, 5 vols. (SPb, 1911–13), v: 326–7.

  77. A. Bogdanovich, Tri poslednikh samoderzhtsa (M, 1990 edn.), 133, 27 Jan. 1890.

  78. C.A. Stoddard, Across Russia: From the Baltic to the Danube (London, 1892), 74, 40.

  79. F.-X. Coquin, ‘Le monument de Catherine II à Saint-Pétersbourg’, in Catherine II et L’Europe, ed. Davidenkoff, 21–2.

  80. SIRIO, xiii: xii-xiii.

  81. V.O. Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia, 8 vols. (M, 1956–9), v: 309–11.

  82. Bil’basov, passim; Dnevnik gosudarstvennogo sekretaria A. A. Polovtsova, ed. P. A. Zaionchkovskii, 2 vols. (M, 1966), ii: 260, 15 Jan. 1890; 341, 8 Jan. 1891; P. A. Zaionchkovskii, Rossiiskoe samoderzhavie v kontse XIX stoletiia: Politicheskaia reaktsiia 80-kh—nachala 90-kh godov (M, 1970), 285–6.

  83. See A. Pyman, The life of Aleksandr Blok: I, The distant thunder, 1880–1908 (Oxford, 1978), 51.

  84. For example, L. Zhdanov [L. G. Gel’man], V setiakh intriga: Dva potoka. Istoricheskii roman vremeni Ekateriny II (SPb, 1912); M. Evgeniia, Liubovniki Ekateriny (M, 1917).

  85. Velikii kniaz’ Nikolai Mikhailovich, Russkie portrety XVIII i XIX stoletii, 5 vols. (SPb, 1905–9); J. E. Bowlt, The silver age: Russian art in the early twentieth century and the ‘World of Art’ group (Newtonville, MA, 1979), 166–7; R. Buckle, Diaghilev (London, 1979), 84–8.

  86. Dnevnik V. N. Lamzdorfa (1886–1890), ed. F. A. Rotshtein (Leningrad, 1926), 93–4, 15 Jan. 1888; 203, 24 Mar. 1889.

  87. Dnevnik Polovtsova, ii: 203, 31 May 1889.

  88. N. Notovich, L’Empereur Alexandre III et son entourage (Paris, 1893), 93.

  89. R. Wortman, ‘The Russian empress as mother’, in The family in imperial Russia: New lines of historical research, ed. D. L. Ransel (Urbana, IL, 1978), 61.

  90. Sir G. Buchanan, My mission to Russia and other diplomatic memories, 2 vols. (London, 1923), i: 175–6.

  91. John Hanbury-Williams, The Emperor Nicholas II: As I knew him (London, 1922) 58, diary, 4 Oct. 1915.

  92. Suvorov, Pis’ma, 204, to I. M. [José] Ribas.

  93. The plant’s formal name was cardamine nivalis: see A. K. Sytin, ‘P. S. Pallas, P. I. Shangin i Ekaterina Velikaia’, Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, 2 (1997), 124.

  94. Shcherbatov, 235.

  95. Diderot, Mémoires pour Catherine II, ed. P. Vernière (Paris, 1966), 197–8; D. Griffiths, ‘To live forever: Catherine II, Voltaire and the pursuit of immortality’, in Russia and the World of the Eighteenth Century, eds. Bartlett, Cross, Rasmussen, 446–68.

  96. Grimm, 77, 2 Feb. 1778.

  97. Shcherbatov, 255, 241–5, 251–3, (241). Compare Martha Wilmot’s reflections on a present given to Princess Dashkova: ‘It was the first present she ever receiv’d from Katherine the Second, & certainly serv’d to recall the most interesting period of a friendship which then existed assuredly, as Katherine was only a Grand Dutchess; but for which sentiment they say a Crown very very rarely leaves room & I doubt whether the Great Katherine form’d an exception to the general observation.’ Russian Journals, 159, Martha’s Journal, 1 Dec. 1805 NS.

  98. KfZh (1790), 160.

  99. See K. Rasmussen, ‘Catherine II and the image of Peter I’, Slavic Review, 37 (1978), 51–69.

  100. Cross, 322–3.

  FURTHER READING />
  There is no shortage of primary material in translation to guide the English-speaking reader straight to the heart of Catherine’s sensibility. The latest edition of The Memoirs of Catherine the Great, ed. and trans. Mark Cruse and Hilde Hoogenboom (New York: Random House, 2005), also offers a perceptive introduction to the circumstances of their composition. No less entrancing is Love & Conquest: Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Prince Grigory Potemkin, ed. and trans. Douglas Smith (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004). Correspondence of Catherine the Great when Grand-Duchess, with Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams and Letters from Count Poniatowski, ed. and trans. the Earl of Ilchester and Mrs Langford Brooke (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1928), gives a unique insight into Catherine’s political ambitions at the Court of Empress Elizabeth. Unfortunately it has not been reprinted. Neither is there a modern translation of the empress’s Nakaz, though two contemporary English versions have been published by W. F. Reddaway, ed., Documents of Catherine the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), and Paul Dukes, ed., Russia Under Catherine the Great: Volume 2 Catherine the Great’s Instruction (NAKAZ) to the Legislative Commission, 1767 (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1977). Diderot’s pungent ‘Observations on the Nakaz’ are translated in Diderot, Political Writings, ed. John Hope Mason and Robert Wokler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). While Antony Lentin, ed., Catherine the Great and Voltaire (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners), offers a selection of their correspondence in translation, the French originals are readily available in the magisterial edition by Theodore Besterman, published by the Voltaire Foundation.

  Among the few Russian memoirs available in English, one of the most attractive and informative is the Memoirs of Countess Golovine: A Lady at the Court of Catherine II, trans. G. M. Fox-Davies (London: David Nutt, 1910), which covers the latter part of the reign. Far more self-absorbed are The Memoirs of Princess Dashkova, trans. and ed. Kyril Fitzlyon, recently reissued with an introduction by Jehanne M. Geith (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995). A sense of the riches buried in British archives can be gathered from three very different published journals: Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, ed. Third Earl of Malmesbury, 4 vols. (London: Richard Bentley, 1844); A Lady at the Court of Catherine the Great: The Journal of Baroness Elizabeth Dimsdale, 1781, ed. Anthony Cross (Cambridge: Crest Publications, 1989); and John Parkinson, A Tour of Russia, Siberia and the Crimea, 1792–1794, ed. William Collier (London: Frank Cass, 1971). Each offers unique insights into Catherine and her times. The Russian experiences of Dimsdale and Parkinson, along with hundreds of others, are explored in Anthony Cross, By the Banks of the Neva: Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). The same author’s companion volume, By the Banks of the Thames: Russians in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1980), brings to life the Russians who journeyed in the opposite direction. Much the most sophisticated of these was Nikolai Karamzin, whose Letters of a Russian Traveller has been published in an excellent translation by Andrew Kahn in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 2003:04 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2003). For the broader context, see Sara Dickinson, Breaking Ground: Travel and National Culture in Russia from Peter I to the Era of Pushkin (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006).