Empire: World History - 75. Catherine the Great: The Golden Age

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Not a drop of Russian blood. A woman in a world ruled by men. A loveless marriage to a man who lacked even a shred of empathy. The odds were always stacked against Catherine the Great when she arrived from Prussia. But this German Princess and child of the Enlightenment was a political genius who possessed charm, beauty and impeccable people skills. All these were needed as she rose to power to become Empress of Russia and ushered in a golden age. Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Simon Sebag Montefiore to discuss the life of Catherine the Great. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Duremple. I'd like to just say straight up that I've had some of the most wonderful weeks of reading preparing for this reading. Simon Seabag Montefiorey's fantastic books, the Romanovs and Catherine Potemkin. It's always one of the great pleasures of doing this poem that you get to read the wonderful

books on the subject you're doing. But I've been on holiday in Scotland in the last two weeks and sitting in the forests that I've been imagining not dissimilar to the birch forest of the step and pretty chilly too up here at the moment. I can absolutely back this up because you've been sending me regular quotes saying, oh, he writes this really well. Oh, God, this is brilliant. Look, it turned to page this one. I've been knocked out. It's one of those things.

As I said at the beginning of our first episode with Seabagg, I was at college with him. And you can never really, you know, Prophet is never regarded in his own home. But reading this for that, I have had such an education in Russian history. And I would recommend to anyone. Thank you for blowing our special guest introduction. No, that was good, isn't it? I mean, it's unlike you to completely. It's very unlike me.

As you know, I like to keep my secrets close. Hello, Seabag. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just say that the fanboy is off the leash? No, no, that's so nice. It's great to be here with you both, so thanks for having me. Well, we're delighted. You did such a barnstormer on Peter the Great. Total barstorming. Yeah, so we wanted to do the stepping stone from great to great. It's wonderful to have you. We talked about your enormous work world, but Catherine and Petempton is very much the foundation of what we're going to be talking about.

And talking about a woman who is, well, in your opinion, what is she? Well, I mean, I think she's probably the greatest, the most successful sort of female statesman. I'm certainly of her time, but maybe of all history. That said, of course. We should point out here that your most recent book is indeed a history of the world and that you are in a position therefore to make this generalisation more than most of us. Yes, and of course, and of all these Russian characters are in that book, of course, as well. I mean, one should point out also that Catherine the Great and Potemkin, her sort of political partner,

who we'll talk about later on, you know, were Russian imperialists. And Russian imperialists are not in fashion at the moment, quite rightly so. And partly because Putin has used them and Peter the Great as his inspiration. But that said, I think that they were more humane, more cultured, more enlightened characters than virtually any other ruler of the Russian Empire. And one of the things I find really quite astonishing when we talk about history is the way in which great female characters are often produced in later life and reduced and reduced. So, you know, we had this when we talked about India and we talked about Rani Jindon of Punjab. He was referred to as the Messalina of Punjab.

It was always sexuality that was dragged to the forefront to disparage anything that she might have done of any value that, you know, she was a whore. And Catherine, I mean, we have to say, the big thing. thing that people will say when you say Catherine the Great, they immediately go, oh, you're the one who was in love with her horse. And that, I can see you bridle. That was a terrible pun, but I didn't mean it. It was a complete Freudian slip there. But you know, you don't like it when people say it because, I mean, let's just say what the myth is. The myth is that she had some contraption where she could make love with her stallion, right? Is it bullshit? It's a horrible lie. And I especially hate it because it's demeaning.

It was a rumour spread in the British press at the time. It's a contemporary lie, is it? It's a contemporary story that appeared in the Penny Dreadfuls, as it were, in late 18th century, Britain, when there was a huge crisis with Russia called the Olchakoff crisis, you know, about Russia expanding, actually, into Ukraine. So that's where it comes, these rumors come from. And she was demeaned by many people. I mean, I don't know if I can say this, but Frederick the Great, am I able to say what Frederick

the Great described how Russia worked? No, no, I'd say what he like here. Frederick the Great of Prussia, well, it was the greatest statesman of the middle of the century, a contemporary of Gavin the Great, you know, despise women and was terrified of women sexually, emotionally. He was a complete misogynist, but, you know, he said, you know, Catherine the Great, this is what happens when cock and co-and-grew Russia. But on the sort of whole story, I hate it.

I find it so demeaning. I sort of twitch when I hear it. And really it's because it is impossible to imagine for many, many men, even now where we are, that sort of that there could be a woman who is both a serious statesman, a political genius, who also was a sexual libertine and enjoyed sex. This is one of the reasons I hate, for example, the series, the Great, that's now, because it's still just sniggering about the fact that this woman had a sex life. Yeah, I agree. Despite everyone saying, oh, it's terrible.

very clever. It's a sort of, it's a sort of pastiche, it's a satire. No, it isn't. It's still just sniggering in 2023 or whatever we are about a woman having a sex life. So I hate it. And I, and I wanted to be to be treated seriously with her, with her flaws. I mean, she was on one side, a passionate woman and another side, a cold and ruthless power broker and seek her after power and empire. We should say that you don't blush at talking about her sex life. You deal in full with her sex life, but regarded very much as part of her personality and part of her, part of who she was and her life. And also, it was, she was of her time. I mean, it was the, this is the late 18th century. This is the time of Casanova and great characters like Voltaire and the Prancantzaline.

And so this was a time of libertinism. This is the heyday of liberty when libertism was completely acceptable. And she just lived like a man. She just, she took the same liberties and libertinism as a man and she enjoyed sex and wrote about it passionately. And later we're going to read some of her love letters. I can't wait for that. And I'm really, really glad you're doing this because, you know, Peter the Great, who we covered in the first two episodes of this series, the stuff about his torturing of his son or, you know, sort of the torture that he took part, that stuff doesn't stick somehow through history. It's not the first thing that comes to mind when you say Peter the Great. But it does to Catherine. So listen, all power to you,

sister. I'm very much for this retelling. The second very important thing, The Begg, that you raised just as we were coming on here, is the fact that, you know, she is a Russian imperialist. There was a fascinating article last weekend in the Financial Times by Timothy Gartonash, talking about how the Ukrainians were reacting to Pushkin's imperial poetry and imperial writing. The fact that he is like Kipling, a poet and a writer of empire, and someone who is a jingoist, in many ways. And the Ukrainians, understandably, in the face of an existential threat, have effectively cancelled Pushkin. But we always believe in the show, because we're dealing with imperialism every day here, that two difficult things can be true at the same time, that Catherine can be

an outright Russian imperialist who is conquering large chunks of other people's countries, and she can be a great ruler, who is a remarkable figure. I think that's right. I mean, I think one could say Pushkin is still a great, you know, a great poet, but he's also a Russian national, who are believed in the imperial rule of Poland. That rule of Poland was achieved by Catherine the Great. She swallowed Poland in 1796 and Poland did not reappear again until 1918. Well, look, there's a lot. As you can tell this, it's going to be a very rich tapestry. Just very briefly, when we left you, Peter the Great had died of a bladder infection, possibly and probably brought on by his venereal disease at the age of 52. Between the Great,

between Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. You have quite a few women rulers. I mean, he leaves it to Martha Strait Catherine, the wife that he takes who has no blue blood in her veins at all. And then there follows something which, I don't know, do people call it the Petticoat age? Because there are so many women who are involved. Yes, it's interesting that, you know,

one of the most chauvinistic countries in the world had a century almost of female rule. And so, you know, Peter the Great dies in 1725. He succeeded by this extraordinary wife who has the most meteoric rise, of modern times, Catherine I first. There's a short rule by a grandson, Peter the 2nd, who dies at 14. And then there's the Empress Anna, who's one of the most grotesque rulers of all times.

She's a sort of Game of Thrones villainess, who really is a grotesque figure, who had dwarf rowing, made her courtiers sit on chicken's eggs, clucking in chicken clothes. Any particular reason for that? Who, just for entertainment. I mean, her dwarf, Pedrilo, the Portuguese dwarf, when someone said, is your wife an ugly dwarf like you, he invited them to his house and he was in bed with a lactating goat. Oh, God. Dressed in her baby's clothes. She was accompanied by her three favorites, were the legless mama, Derisha the Handless and Garbushka the hunchback.

So she was a little thoroughly grotesque figure. She ruled for 10 years. And then we move on to another fascinating character. Anna Leopoldovna, who was in a threesome with her female lover and her male lover, and she was overthrown. And so we come in 1741, 25th of November, by another extraordinary and capable of this woman with an even more libertine love life than Catherine the Great. The very beautiful Venus of the North, Elizabetha, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine the First. And she sees his power with about 50 guardsmen in a sleigh.

riding wearing a breastplate and holding a spear. Brilliant. This is beyond Game of Thrones to now. And she's like, and you can see in pictures of her, if you look her up, she is literally this kind of blonde, blue-eyed Amazonian woman of incredible beauty. And of course, she was the daughter of Peter the Great, so she was specially loved. And she restored a lot of Russian power,

but she was also a spenderholic, sort of Imelda Marcos, with six thousand dresses. And she was ruthless with anyone that crossed her. And as she lost her look, she became incredibly vicious to other women at court. And she was, you know, extremely promiscuous and had many, many lovers at the same time. All of them, by the way, rather admirable people. Oh, okay. So she had rather good taste.

And her favorite lover was Alexei Razumovsky, who was a Cossack peasant boy in her choir, who she raised to count, and the most one of her. the most powerful families in Russia. So I love, I love this. We go back to Catherine, Catherine, the Great. I mean, and there is something, you'll have to bear with us, because a lot of people are called Ivan and Catherine and Peter at this time. It's just one of those things. I suppose it was like being called Brian at one era in Britain, but, you know, where lots of people have that name, but now, Catherine, let's talk about Catherine, born in 1729. Where was she born? And what was her circumstance?

She's born in Stettin. She's of a very, very minor royal family. Staten, we should say is now in Poland, which is now in Poland. And she was the daughter of the prince of Anhalt Zerbst, which was a tiny, tiny little principality in the Holy Roman Empire. And not a drop of Russian blood. Not a drop of Russian blood. She was completely German. Her mother was a Holstein. Her father was an Anhalt of the Anhalt family. Her father was a general in Frederick the Great's army. Sounds like two different kinds of lager. Yes. Father was a Cronenberg and her mother was a stellar. Exactly, exactly. And she was born in 1729, and at the age of 14 or 15, she's married to the heir to the Russian throne. Now, when Elizabetha comes to the throne, she has no children, many, many lovers, but no children. So she calls to Russia, her nephew, who is Peter Duke of Holstein, Carl Peter Ulrich of Holstein. He is Peter the Great's grandson. He's completely brought up in Germany.

He comes to Russia, and she wants to avoid all the instability of the early year. So she comes. This is the same sort of time as, I mean, not quite the same, a little bit before, but all these Germans arriving and taking over the British monarchy too. It's exactly the same time. They arrive in 1714, the Hanoverians. And at the same time, this young Holstein Duke is brought over to rule Russia as air. But Elizabeth is a very formidable autocratics.

She does everything herself. She dominates everything. She decides everything. And when she brings him over, she has to, marry him. He's a child when she brings him. So in 1744, you know, just around the same time as, you know, Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 45 in Britain, the time of George II. I'm recording this 10 miles from Culloden Moore, I should say. There we are. So this is exactly the same time as Kulloden. She brings over, as a favour, as a gesture towards Prussia, towards Russia,

to improve Russian relations with Prussia, she brings over a Prussian candidate. And the Prussian candidate is a 14-year-old, 15-year-old girl, Sophie of Anne Holtzab. And this is, we'll now call her Catherine the Great for simplicity. Okay, so she's born Sophie, but she is, she is our Catherine, yeah. So Russia has two airs. And she doesn't speak Russian? She's not orthodox. Neither of them speak Russian. She's not Orthodox. She converts to Orthodox. He takes the name Catherine. And then she takes the name Catherine named after Elizabeth's mother, of course, who died at 43. The great love of Peter the Great, who we had the last episode. Yeah. Great love of Peter, the Great. So Peter, the heir to the throne, the future Peter the third, hates Russia.

And there he learns some Russian, he's never perfected as Russian. And basically, he worships Frederick the Great. the great German Prussian king. Yeah, I mean, it's not his only problem. It's a big problem. He's not a looker. He's got like smallpox. He's had smallpox. He's not pretty to look at.

He drinks too much, which is a thing in the Russian Empire. And she thinks, as well as there's infidelity, that she's going to have to put up with, that he's an animal torturer, which as we mentioned, I think, in an earlier episode, nowadays we regard as one of the early signs of psychopathy. But she thoroughly detests him, and he doesn't like her very much either.

On one occasion, you write, see, Bag, that he catches a rat, which he sentences to death by a military tribunal that hangs in her bedroom, which... Yeah, but it is worth saying. He's definitely a grotesque figure. He's definitely charmless, and he's lacking in all empathy.

He's obsessed with soldiers, German soldiers, Russian soldiers, and he is one of my favorite words, a parado maniac. And he's always, he's always worshipping German soldiers. Now, one of the things that...

Maybe you should just say, for those that don't know, what Frederick the Great of Prussia did to military tactics in Europe at this time. Well, Frederick the Great was an extraordinary character. He had his own story as fascinating, and it's all in the world, by the way. He was a military genius, a political genius, a great statesman. Revolutionized military tactics for a generation. Introduced muskets, horse artillery, the drilling of soldiers and all that stuff begins with him. Yeah, he created, I mean, he was one of the people, Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugen, and then Frederick the Great followed on from that and created modern 18th century military tactics. Late 18th century.

And they made possible Napoleon. Right. And indeed the conquest of India and so on. This is all done by drilled seapoy units copying Frederick the Great. So Peter, Catherine's husband, is no Frederick. And he doesn't have the, you know, the acuity or the military thought process. But what he likes is the accout. And I thought this was really interesting that, you know, he so despises everything Russian, as you say, that he makes, you know, his Russian soldiers change out of their comfortable, comfy, baggy Russian uniforms and wear very, very tight breeches and shiny buttons to make them look more like Frederick's army.

And all their hair and everything. So he was very, he was already unpopular. And he also was the opposite of his new young wife, Catherine, who was, who literally defines empathy. You know, she's brilliant. with people. She later said that as soon as she arrived in the Russian court, first of all, she learned Russian perfectly to write it and read it. Secondly, she made herself the Russian candidate, as it were, out of the couple. She realized that the court was run by old ladies, like all courts. So she made best friends with them and she said she learned the name of every one of their poodles and pug dogs. This is very clever. Parats and fools. Parats and fools. But she also, of course, was very attractive. She was not beautiful. She was curvations. She was curvations.

She had gorgeous, Auburn hair, she had very blue eyes. She had a high forehead. She was small, but she had sex appeal and she had charm. And that became enormously important. And she was brilliant. She read the Enlightenment writers. She read everything. Corresponded with Voltaire.

She read her Voltaire. She read Deidre. She read everything. So she was kind of really an extraordinary person. But at the Russian court, it was an extremely dangerous place. Elizabetha was absolutely, she wasn't Peter the Great's daughter for nothing. She had one of her best friend's tongue ripped out for plotting against her. She cut the hair off somebody else who defied her dress costume rules.

She loved having met transvestite balls where the men had to dress as women, and the women had to dress as men, which meant that she could show off her legs. I could show good legs, I guess. Which were rather good, she had good legs. So she could wear sort of job push, boots and stride around with throwing her hair around. Did she have Peter's height? And she had Peter's height.

She was a sort of gorgeous giantess. She's quite the mother-in-law factor. Quite the mother-in-law. So here's Catherine. She's married. She's got quite a ferocious mother-in-law who has, you know, given her blessing. She's married to a man who, as you say, is challenged in many, many ways and also disliked by the court.

How soon does she start seeking solace and all-off in particular? When does he become a thing? Well, it may well be that Peter and Catherine had a moment when they were lovers and they actually did have a happy period. It's possible. But if that was the case, it didn't last long. Because remember, she wrote the history of this and she could lie when she needed to her. But he certainly took a lover, a mistress, quite soon. And then she did too. And that first was Sergei Soltakov. She and Peter were under immense pressure to provide an heir, which was the whole point of their marriage. and none was apparent.

So it soon became clear that they had barely had sex or if they had for a very short time. So it's possible that Elizabetha knew that somebody else was going to have to make her pregnant. And so she encouraged a good-looking aristocrat called Sergei Soltakov to have sex with her, to have an affair with them. They made it possible.

She got pregnant and she had the air in 1754, Paul, who Catherine later implied was not Peter's son. But actually... Which would mean that the Romanovs later of are actually not Romanovs at all. Yeah, they could have been Soltikovs. However, it sometimes happens, even in the 18th century, that people are the children of their own parents. It's been known.

And Paul was extremely like Peter III. And as we may see, if we go on long enough in this podcast, his experience in power was very similar to his father. And he also had this strange lack of empathy. So she has a son, the marriage is broken, they hate each other. And Anita, what happens next? Well, I just want to know about Gregori O'Ollof, because that to me is like a real sort of Romeo and Juliet kind of like a true love affair. Played by your friend Sasha Devon. Yes, I know. He is my friend.

In the great. How very glamorous of you, Anita. I'm so honestly, I can't tell you how very glamorous. I've just unloaded Nicardo order. That's how glamorous I am just before this. We expect nothing less of you but to know film stars playing Grigory O'Oloff. Tell me about, just focus. Gregori O'Oloff, who are he? He was not her first lover. He was probably her third lover, maybe.

She'd had an affair with Stanislav Pony Otelski, the Polish secretary of British ambassador. And this is important later. And they had an affair. And they're plotting almost Catherine to the gallows. Right. Because Frederick the Great invaded Saxony. that led to the Seven Years' War, in which William D'Rimple has written much about what happened in India during the Seven Years' War and Clive of India and all that, the East India Company. But this war, Russia entered the war against Frederick the Great.

Elizabetha hated the fact that Frederick the Great had called her a whore, as well as other things I've mentioned already. And so the Russians were fighting against the Prussians. Catherine the Great became embroiled in intrigues that Elizabeth found very suspicious and virtually led to all of their arrest and downfall. but they survived. One of the officers in the Seven Years' War, in the Russian army, was Gregori Olaf. He now became Catherine's secret lover. And it was very useful to have Gregori Olaf because he was one of the guards regiments founded by Peter the Great, the guards regiments that were the Praetorian Guard of St Petersburg and the Romanov dynasty. So she now had the muscle that would be very, it was invaluable in Russian politics. And he was impressive too. I mean,

physically impressive as she was. He was a big, he was a big, man. He was a striding man. He was a giant. He was one of these Russian giant. I don't know why they bred these men at this time, but they did. So how quickly does this bad, failed marriage turn to open warfare between the couple? I mean, we don't fully know because Catherine sort of rewrote it so much late and she so hated her son, Paul, that she actually wrote down that he wasn't the son of Peter III. Even though he may have been. probably was. She wanted to hurt her own son. She wanted to hurt her own son. I think often in royal families, they don't get on with their own families and they create their own. But that's

another story. But the point was, it was now open warfare. And Elizabetha, the Empress, was actually on Catherine's side. Again, she said, my nephew is a true monster, she said. So she hated him too. We should say, again, for anyone that's watching the Great and is taking that to be real history, that Elizabetha is the character who is the stuffed mummy in the Great and the And it's never alive for Catherine the Great. This is, again, complete nonsense. Exactly. Exactly. So by 1761, seven years war was going on, Elizabetha is dying, and the Russians are winning some amazing victories against Prussia. Which is no small achievement at this. No small achievement. There are battles like

Gross-Yargustorf, Zorndorf, Kurnersdorf, where young Gregori Olaf, the guardsman wins his spurs and comes back a war hero. Because we often have this view of Russia as having these enormous peasant armies that they throw into battle and treat as mincemeat. But these are strategically won battle against the greatest military strategists in Europe. Yes, but they were one with Russian cannon fodder and they exactly follow what you described as a Russian army today and then. So the relationship is not good. Elizabetha, the mother-in-law is on Catherine's side. Peter must feel all of this and be deeply suspicious. And then something happens. where Peter, all his suspicions about Catherine, are sort of vindicated.

What happens? Well, first of all, Elizabetha dies in the end of 1761, and Peter succeeds to the throne. In six months, he manages to offend every single section of the Russian elite, the guards, because he immediately makes peace with his hero, Frederick the Great, therefore throwing away all the Russian gains. I mean, the Russians had actually taken Berlin, by the way, during this war. He pulls the back, doesn't I mean, he pulls the back. I mean, he pulls them back in a decisive, a victory that should have been theirs.

And he says, no, we're going to stop this. We're going to fight Denmark. Denmark. Who cares about Denmark? Yeah. And by the way, this was known, Frederick the Great said this is an absolute miracle, but he said he must be mad, but it's a miracle. And this is known as the miracle of the House of Brandenburg. And those of you who know World War II will remember that when Roosevelt died in 1945, Hitler, who had a portrait of Frederick Great on his wall, was hoping that exactly that would happen. there'd be a division. And he was hoping for the miracle of the House of Banab. But anyway, it didn't happen for Hitler.

But it did happen for Frederick the Great. And so he offended the guards. He offended the church who he mocked. He offended the aristocracy. He offended everyone. And he offended and he threatened to arrest and try his wife, who he was suspected of plotting against him. Now, immediately plots were whirling around the Russian court.

And two of them began to be centered, around Catherine, the wife, the Tsarina, the wife of the emperor. And Peter's court was completely German. Everyone in it was German. He brought lots of Germans over, and they were all absolutely hated. While Catherine was the Russian heroine, and Oloff was the hero of the guards. Very clever bit of maneuvering by Catherine. Yes. And of course, Oloff, Grigory Oloff and his brother, Alexi, known as Scarface, who was much more of a ruffian, and much cleverer than Grigori. Grigory wasn't very clever, but he was very good-natured. But they were the heroes of the guards, the heroes of the Seven Years' War. And so they became the centre. Now, in June, 1762, some of the conspirators were

suddenly arrested. And Catherine was asleep out at Peterhoff, Peter the Great's little villa, Monplezier, my pleasure, out at Peterhoff, when this person was arrested. And the Olaf said, we're either going to have to have the coup now, or we're all of. going to hang. So it four in the morning, they jump into their carriage, and Alexei Olaf goes out to Montplezia, and he literally bursts into her bedroom, and he says, the coup's on now, we have to seize power and overthrow the Tsar now, or we all die. Catherine jumps out of bed, jumps into the carriage. Jumping onto the back of the carriage is a young sergeant in the guards Gregori Potemkin, who we will hear of later. Twenty-two years old at this point. They turn around and

they gallop for St. Petersburg, which is about half a now. or now by carriage. To explain why this is important, this is a gallop for the hearts, minds, boots and sabres of the Russians in St. Petersburg. So she's doing her hair as they're going at breakneck speed to get their first. With the French hairdresser, Michelle, though less.

Well, what happens is you get exactly right. On the way, first of all, they meet Gregori, all of her actual lover, and she switches carriages. But they also pick up Michelle, the French hairdresser. Has he been got out of his bed earlier or was he always on sort of standby at 2 in the morning? He was on standby. That's what happens when you have imperial clients. And he jumps up the carriage.

And as they go along, he does her hair in the carriage on the way to the revolution. So it's all done by the time she arrives. She then arrives, appeals to all the guards regiments. They all join her. And she takes St. Petersburg. Well, she does it barrack by barrack. I find this also really, you know, amazing about her. So she starts in the one barrack.

and she talks in her fluent Russian, and she's beautiful, and she looks the part now. And she says, look, I'm throwing myself on your mercy. And they respond emotionally to her. They kneel. Someone drags out a crucifix. They all swear loyalty. And she does it from barrack to barrack to barrack, goes to the church. So suddenly, she has like a little rolling stone built up a huge momentum in the very city that bears her husband's name.

Yes. And meanwhile, her husband is just sort of, is asleep or failing to. to gather anyone and completely misplaying the coup? There's a terrible moment when he doesn't know about it yet. And so he turns up at Peter off at Montpleasure. And he goes into the, he goes into the, her house, and he goes into her bedroom. And there's just a dress on the bed.

And he looks around and she's gone and he suddenly realizes, oh my God. And he says to his people around him who are all German. He says, oh my God, I told you what she was capable of. But he tries to gather support. But everywhere he goes, he turns up and he says, it's the emperor, open up and they go, there is no emperor Peter the third. Long live Emperor Catherine the second. It's just amazing.

So he begins to sort of, it's a terror, it's a nightmare. Yeah. And meanwhile in Petersburg, she holds this amazing parade of all the guards outside the Winter Palace, the Hermitage Museum, which many of you will have been to. And there's a famous occasion. As she reviews the guards, there's a famous portrait of her, which hangs at Peterholst still, of her reviewing these guards, dressed in a male uniform. I love this so much because she's wearing the kind of George Washington tricorn hat,

they're showing her very shapely leg as well. Doesn't she have the... She has great leg and she has the hat and she's wearing a military uniform, a guards man's uniform, again, you know, appealing to the guards and appealing to the memory of Elizabetha, of course, as well. As she goes along, she reviews Potemkin and she notices Potemkin as a very good looking young man. And when his horse tries to go back to the ranks,

it's trained to ride in squadron. So it refuses to go. And later he said, you know, I owe all my fortune to a disobedient horse. I like one thing that she says while she's reviewing, you know, that very famous image of her. She says, you know, for a man's work, you have to wear a man's outfit. So she understands all about even propaganda, you know, in a way that I suppose it's quite new where Russian czars before have ruled because it's their divine right to rule. She knows you've got to work at it.

And also, she needs a sword, and she doesn't have the sword knot. So she's looking and she says, and Pettenkin spots it. And that's when he rides up and gives her the right sword to wear. And he's already very ambitious and a young thruster. So then they march. Then she leads the march on Peter. And they march out and they arrest poor Peter III. We're going to take a break very, very shortly.

But just before the break, I mean, his response is pathetic and sad to say the least. first of all he says, look, sorry I've been a real git. Can we share power? She doesn't answer. Then he says, do you want to have it all? And then she doesn't answer. How long does he live after that? Yeah, does she have him bumped off?

Or does that just happen in her name? Well, then he asks just for his violin, his mistress, his violin and his pet dog. And she gives him those. And he's arrested. he's put in Amropshire a palace under guard of the Aulov brothers and the Anpotemkin, incidentally, and he survives eight days after the coup. He's 34. She's 33 now as Empress. And he survives. And they write letters to us saying they call him the freak. They said, the freak, we're getting old getting drunk with the freak. But basically, they're picking up

courage to kill him because this is a one-man system. This is an autocracy. You can only have one-zar. She doesn't give the order, though, does it? It doesn't a do. direct order. She doesn't give the direct order, but everyone knows it has to be done. I suspect, including her, and the orloffs get drunk with the freak, as they call Peter Third, and then strangle him and kill him. And the announcement, there's a public, there's a press release, and it says, Peter, the former emperor, Peter III has died of piles of hymeroids. Melancholic hemorrhoids. And later, when when Catherine the Great invited the philosopher, Dalenbert, to, and Russia, he wrote back, He didn't write back, but he said, no, I can't go because I have piles.

And they can be a fatal disease in Russia. And piles can be a fatal disease in Russia. So he's dead. She's Empress. Okay, we're going to take a break there. Not on piles. I mean, that's not where I just suddenly, that was my limit. This is not bad.

But we are going to join us after the break, where we start with the reign of Catherine. They're great. Welcome back. So you're joining us after poor old Peter has been strangled, maybe or maybe not. on Catherine the Great's word. But then she is now. There she is. She's on her own.

Diled of piles. You haven't read the press release. No, the press release said he died of piles. She said posterity will never forgive me for having Peter the third murdered. Yes, she was very guilty, wasn't she? She thought she'd be remembered as a regicide. But posterity did forgive her. His rule was, I suppose, very much forning over the German court.

She had a thing for the French court, didn't she? and very quickly, Russia starts transforming to her tastes, does it not? Well, she loves the French court. She loves the French Enlightenment. So she corresponds with Diderot, with Volta. And Volta even designs an outfit for her, doesn't it? He suggests. Yes, he suggests things for her.

And she also corresponds with them all the time. And she understands it in the 18th century. You know, he wrote these letters, they could be read and repeated by everybody. You know, they were... I'm not clacking open a beer, it's Diet Coke. What? Was that a tonic? I just got really thirsty.

It's just a fizzy pot. Is that a Holstein beer in honour of... No, it's a fizzy pop is what it is. Peter of Holstein. Anyway, she... It's much louder than I thought. Tried. Sorry. She corresponded very much with the Enlightenment with Volta.

And he called a Catherine the Great. But she was also, and this was true, even more so of her later friend, Potemkin, a total anglomaniac. And she had English gardens, English gardens. She bought the pictures from Houton, didn't she? She bought the pictures from Houton to Robert Walpole's huge art collection. She bought lots of Joshua Reynolds. Which was seen as a sign of British decline and the rise of Russia at the time.

Yes. And so she was a huge art collector and everything. Their gardens were English, their pictures were English, their admirals were English. As you know, Admiral Gregg came home. But she was also very much interested in the Enlightenment. She was very relaxed. She had a very relaxed court and she loved having private. dinners with her friends like the Oloff brothers, her lovers and her court. Yeah, no, so, so, okay, there's a

civilised aspect that is brought in with her. But also, I mean, she reforms things for her people, and I think that's often overlooked. Tell us a little bit about the legal reforms that she does. She tries to get the serfs, have better lives, she tries to stop torture. Yes, we haven't described what serfdom is. Serfdom was a system not unlike slavery, though without the racial aspect of of chattled slavery, but it was a system in which the Russian peasantry, who were 90% of the population, could not leave their estates, could be sold with the estates, and could be given to people, all sold, as they were known as souls, and they could be given to people. And it was a hereditary ownership. It was literally ownership, was very close to slavery, but they could be freed. But obviously,

they were Russian, so there was no racial aspect to it. And it was a system to control the peasantry, who provided the army and provided taxes and food and grain. So Catherine was very sympathetic with the idea of liberating the serfs. But she also understood, and this is something else we haven't talked about, that the Russian Empire was conquered and ruled by a partnership between the Romanovsar and the aristocracy who owned the estates. And on their estates, they were altocrats. They were mini-altocrats.

And this system, this partnership had been very successful. And she realized, despite writing a very enlightened instruction in 1767 and holding a huge commission to discuss all these things, she did abolish torture. But in the end, she realized that she couldn't abolish serfdom without losing her throne. Well, because the nobles wouldn't have it. They would have no one to work their land. And remember, I remember she's a usurper. She has no Russian blood. She's not a Romanov.

And she has to be extremely careful not to be murdered like her husband. And we'll talk about some of her other achievements in a moment, but where is Paul, the hated son, at all this time? He's growing up at this time. She was perfectly kind to him as a child. But as he grows up, he begins to feel that he should be ruling. His mother shouldn't be. And what had happened to his father who died of hemorrhoids?

And so as he gets nearer maturity, which can be anything from 14 to 18, he begins to think that he should be ruled. And some people think a woman shouldn't be ruling, especially not a usurper like Catherine. And even her chief minister, Nikita Panin, is sympathetic to Paul having a larger part in the government. And this is a great danger to her. I'm glad there is sort of love and affection at the beginning.

And it is kind of exemplified with her use of the smallpox inoculation. So we did an episode, a previous episode, on Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who was in the Ottoman court. And I think doesn't she predate Catherine, or is it around the same time? I'm trying to think of the time. No, Catherine is later. Catherine is much later. But it's very much a similar thing.

So in that case, Lady Mary saw people taking postures and putting them in cuts on other people, and that was the first inoculation, which she then brings back to Britain. Well, the fascinating thing about these inoculations is that simultaneously all over the world, people were using something like this, using sort of cowpox or the giving of smallpox in a small dose to make people immune to it. They were also doing it in West Africa. They were doing it in the Ottoman Empire and worked in Montague brought it back to England. Jenner developed it and then Catherine the Great hired a doctor, Baron Dimsdale, an English doctor and he came to Russia and he inoculated Catherine herself and Paul, and both survived, of course.

And all of. And she has all of it. Yeah, everyone she loves. Everyone she loved. They were inocled. It worked. And this was a huge, so she was a risk taker. She was experimental. She was an innovator. And it was a much more tolerant court, too, a much more fun court than it had been under all these appalling tyrants. I was also really struck by the fact she established Russia's first state-funded school. I mean, that is so ahead of its time. It's amazing. Yeah, and the first girls' boarding school.

Amazing. The Smolny, the Smally Institute. So she did lots of amazing things. This presumably is not for the peasants. This is only for a small group of nobles. But she always said, you know, you philosoph, she said to Voltaire and Deidreau and people like that. She said, they were constantly saying to reform more to free the service. She said, you know, you philosoph, I don't understand, you write on paper, but I write with human flesh.

In other words, people are more complicated. And another thing, she said, once somebody said to about, but you're an autocrat, you can do whatever you like. She said, I'll tell you what autocracy means. Autocracy means, I have an idea. I propose it to my counsel. I consult everybody I can to see if they'll approve of it. And if they approve of it, I do it.

And if they don't, I can't. That's an autocrat. She also says somewhere, doesn't she, that autocracy is more difficult than it looks. Yes, she says it's much more difficult than it looks. But at the same time, all these admirable things, she's living with Oloff, who's her lover, she makes him a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, because Russian emperors don't give princestowns at this stage. It's interesting. She has to arrange it with the emperor, with the Habsburg emperor.

Right. And so O'Ollho becomes a prince, and he becomes vastly wealthy, and she gives him thousands of serfs as a present and estates, and he becomes the richest man in Russia for a while. But at the same time, he's unfaithful. to her. And that's a big galling when you're Empress of Russia. Yeah, really, Oloff, you ratbag. What are you doing? But she's very close to the Oloff brothers still. And then in foreign policy, she starts to look at expanding Russia. So first thing she does is to impose on Poland. Remember, it's a sort of satellite state. She imposes as king, Polish kings are elected,

her ex-lover, Stanislav Ponti Atalski, the former secretary of the British ambassador. How does this happen, see, Ben, because in the previous episode, during Peter the Great's reign, Poland was a very strong monarchy that was also attacking the Swedes and was really quite independent. How come that she could just impose a ruler? It wasn't really. What really happened to Poland under Augustus is strong and during that war, the Great Northern War, is that Poland was occupied by the Swedes, fought all over and destroyed as a great power. Got it. And it became, it emerged from that as Peter the Great sort of satellite, but they still elected their kings. It was pretty unruelable. Its nobility was extremely independent-minded. It was one of the freest countries in Europe, by the way. And it had an elected Siem, an assembly. And every noble had a right of veto. Wasn't that one of the books? Yes, every, you know, it had the veto, the Librarum veto. It had all sorts of fascinating things. Everything had to be unanimous. Every law had to be unanimous. And everyone, so,

Everyone had a rate of veto. Completely unmanageable. Unmanageable. And kings were elected. So Catherine put her troops around the Sien, the parliament, and had her friend elected king of Poland. And that's the first thing. And that was the first step in the downfall of Poland, which happened in her reign.

And she would ultimately swore to divvy up Poland, consume it. And it wouldn't emerge again till what, the 20th century? It didn't emerge again until 1918 when it was re-founded by the great Marshall Kilsutski. So the thing is, It wasn't good for Poland. Then in 1768, the Russo-Turkish War. The Russia-Turkish War. And one of the things that helped launch it was one of the last slave raids by the Tartas.

Remember that the Tartas still rule their own kingdom. They still rule their kingdom, the Carnate of the Crimea, which is this cavalry-based, now rather declining, very declining kingdom, the carnate. We talked earlier, Seabag, about what popular... of Ukraine was, and you said it was very mixed. Is it a largely tartar population in the Crimea at this point? Yes, and this is the fascinating thing, that South Ukraine is completely different from North Ukraine. So while North Ukraine is filled with Ukrainians, South Ukraine is, in fact, has no Ukrainians and except there's the Zaporosian host of Cossacks, who have their own republic

on the island outside Zaporosia nuclear, the nuclear works now. But south of that, it's a desert and it's really filled with Tartas, Mongols and other peoples, Muslim peoples. And it's basically a Muslim, Turkish and Mongol world without Slavs, without Ukrainians, all Russians, which is very important for what happens next. So, yes, and what happens next? I mean, if Peter the Great is credited with opening up the Baltic, Catherine was very interested in opening up the Black Sea and the surrounding Balkan region. So what is this war all about, the Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774? And what happens? And how does she fare?

Yeah, 70-7-74. It's a war against the Ottoman Empire and against their allies, the Tata-Kans. And it's fought at sea in the Mediterranean partly by Alexei Orloff, who commands a fleet, and a great field-martial Rumi Ansef who commands on land. Alexeiolov is Scarface. Scarface, yes. And basically the Russians perform extremely well. And this is the moment that everyone realized that the Ottoman Empire is obsolete. They have these huge armies that are completely disorganized. Is this when it becomes the sick man of Europe?

That's a bit later. This is the beginning. This is the beginning of the sick man of Europe. And so what happens is for a while, their amazing run of victories in 1770, where on land and sea, the Battle of Chesmi, where Admiral Oloff and the real commander is Admiral Samuel Gregg of Scotland. I love all these Scots admirals that tell us. Yes, yes.

So she wins a series of amazing victories. And the Baltic fleet steams through Gibraltar and comes and surprises everybody on the coast of Anatolia? Yes. And so there's this amazing. And, you know, they bombard Jaff. And they bombard Israel. They bombard Jaffa. and they interfere, they actually back the first sort of Palestinian ruler, a rebel against the

Ottoman Turks, of course, in Palestine. But anyway, the real point here is that the war starts very well. They occupy large bits of what is now South Ukraine, but the problem is it goes on too long and the Ottomans keep fighting back and they have more manpower. So then Catherine starts to have a massive crisis, the biggest crisis of her career. And what basically happens is the war's going on and on and is now sort of stale-mated. Pugachov, there's a huge peasant rebellion on the Volga, led by Emelyan Pugachov, a Cossack, who claims that he is Peter III, who you remember was strangled 10 years earlier.

It's not him. We know it's not him. It's not him. Lots of people believe it is him or choose to believe it, and it's marching on Moscow. And the third thing that happens, things happen in threes, is that Paul is becoming grown up. he's 17 now, and that he wants to take over and rule the empire. And also, Catherine's

relationship with all offers broken down, and she's taken a new lover that Alexander Vasilchikov, who she hates. He's a cold fish, and he's later called, she and Potemkin later call him iced soup is his nickname, which tells you a lot about him. So she faces this monumental crisis, 1772, 1773. She's isolated. The men around her all want to overthrow her, make Paul emperor, that would mean she'd be locked up forever in a single room in a monastery all murdered. Yeah, I was going to say if she was lucky a single room in all history. Yeah, all murdered. Remember what happened to Sophia, Peter the Great's sister? So she also despises Paul and knows that he is very like his father, Peter III. In other words, a disastrous

freak. The war's going on and on and Pugachov is marching on. So she's in massive crisis. And it is this point that she starts to think about a very, very masterful and handsome guards officer, who she's known all along, who is named Gregory Petjomkin, Petemkin, and who she'd resisted turning to because he was so haughty and dominating. And that is where we're going to leave that. This is a cliffhanger, and it's going to be good. Join us for the next episode of Empire. at what happens when these two come together, Catherine and Potemkin. Till then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnond. And goodbye from me, William Drupul.