![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Day 22 - Catherine the Great
Mar. 22nd, 2018 07:42 amCatherine the Great
The first thing I will say is the horse and animal rumors about Catherin the Great are not true. They were made up by those who could not stand the fact that a woman was strong enough to depose her insane husband and run her country for many years much better than he could have. Strong women throughout history have been portrayed as harlots or worse, perverts, when in truth, it was simply the reaction of a male dominated society to female intelligence and strength.
Gets of soapbox
Catherine the Great was born Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729 to an impoverished Prussian prince. Her named was changed when she married Peter, heir to the Russian throne. She despised him. He was pale and drank too much and played with toy soldiers. She gathered supporters about her and had a coup in mind. Her husband arrested one of her supporters, thus forcing her hand. She deposed her husband and became empress of Russia.
Under Catherine, Russia grew into a huge nation of wealth and power, expanding all the way to Alaska in the Americas and into the modern day Ukraine. It also became a leader in the arts, with Catherine at the helm. She wanted to be seen as an Enlightenment leader. While she modernized Russia and gave it culture and art that it lacked, feudalism was still in existence so the only people actually affected by her enlightenment were the nobility.
She reigned over 30 years and put down several insurrections and died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 67.
You can read her own memoirs in Memoirs of Empress Catherine the Great, translated from the original French.
Robert K. Massie wrote Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. Massie is a Pulitzer Prize winner and also wrote Nicholas and Alexandra about the last Czar of Russia and the Russian revolution.
The Great imperial Crown
The first thing I will say is the horse and animal rumors about Catherin the Great are not true. They were made up by those who could not stand the fact that a woman was strong enough to depose her insane husband and run her country for many years much better than he could have. Strong women throughout history have been portrayed as harlots or worse, perverts, when in truth, it was simply the reaction of a male dominated society to female intelligence and strength.
Gets of soapbox
Catherine the Great was born Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729 to an impoverished Prussian prince. Her named was changed when she married Peter, heir to the Russian throne. She despised him. He was pale and drank too much and played with toy soldiers. She gathered supporters about her and had a coup in mind. Her husband arrested one of her supporters, thus forcing her hand. She deposed her husband and became empress of Russia.
Under Catherine, Russia grew into a huge nation of wealth and power, expanding all the way to Alaska in the Americas and into the modern day Ukraine. It also became a leader in the arts, with Catherine at the helm. She wanted to be seen as an Enlightenment leader. While she modernized Russia and gave it culture and art that it lacked, feudalism was still in existence so the only people actually affected by her enlightenment were the nobility.
She reigned over 30 years and put down several insurrections and died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 67.
You can read her own memoirs in Memoirs of Empress Catherine the Great, translated from the original French.
Robert K. Massie wrote Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. Massie is a Pulitzer Prize winner and also wrote Nicholas and Alexandra about the last Czar of Russia and the Russian revolution.
The Great imperial Crown
