Catherine the Second, Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias

Catherine the Great has been remembered either as one of the most famous or as one of the most infamous of Russia’s rulers. Her path to the throne was an unusual one, made possible through marriage and a coup.  The reign that followed was marked by her Enlightened gaze, by a series of successful wars that expanded Russia’s empire in ever more Imperial ways, by the beginnings of Russia’s famed intelligentsia, by the peak of the influence of Russia’s nobility, by the nadir of the status of its serfs, and by one of the most terrifying uprisings ever to disrupt the country. Her story, in other words, is filled with delights and horrors only fitting for one of the most contradictory rulers ever to sit on Russia’s throne