Read Catherine the Great Online
Authors: Simon Dixon
T
here 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).
The most important (and appropriately weighty) study of Catherine’s reign in any language remains Isabel de Madariaga,
Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981), which has been reprinted several times. My debts to this book and its author are profound. No less incisive are the essays collected in Isabel de Madariaga,
Politics and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia
(London: Longman, 1998). John T. Alexander,
Catherine the Great: Life and Legend
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) ranks as the first modern scholarly biography, particularly interesting on medical matters and also strong on social history. Roderick E. McGrew,
Paul I of Russia 1754–1801
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) explores the troubled life of Catherine’s son. Like its subject, Simon Sebag Montefiore,
Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin
(London, 2000) is scintillating, wayward and occasionally overblown: but it is
packed with insight on the fluctuations of Court politics and remains obligatory reading on the 1780s. The need for a modern scholarly biography of Princess Dashkova is only partly fulfilled by A. Woronzoff-Dashkoff,
Dashkova: A Life of Influence and Exile
(
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
, 97, 3 (2008)). The best starting-point in English is Sue Ann Prince, ed.,
The Princess and the Patriot: Ekaterina Dashkova, Benjamin Franklin, and the Age of Enlightenment
(Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 2006).
Having celebrated its tricentenary in 2003, Catherine’s capital city is famous primarily as a glittering icon of secular cosmopolitanism. It is not always easy to recall that much of it was a building site in the eighteenth century. For a helpful reminder, see Christopher Marsden,
Palmyra of the North: The First Days of St Petersburg
(London: Faber and Faber, 1942), which wears its learning lightly. W. Bruce Lincoln,
Sunlight at Midnight: St Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia
(Oxford: Perseus Press, 2001) offers a more up-to-date treatment, as do the contributors to Anthony Cross, ed.,
St Petersburg, 1703–1825
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Dmitry Shvidkovsky,
The Empress and the Architect: British Architecture and Gardens at the Court of Catherine the Great
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996) brings together in a single, beautifully illustrated volume the author’s outstanding essays on Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk. Though it is full of fascinating information about the fate of Pavlovsk in Soviet times, Suzanne Massie’s tantalising
Pavlovsk: The Life of a Palace
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990) never quite tells you what you want to know about its early history. An exhaustive and very well-illustrated study of Falconet’s monument is provided by Alexander M. Schenker,
The Bronze Horseman: Falconet’s Monument to Peter the Great
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), though he makes the fractious sculptor seem more saintly than he was by needlessly blackening the reputation of Ivan Betskoy. Geraldine Norman,
The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum
(London: Jonathan Cape, 1997) breathes life into a unique institution, and very engagingly too.
Although the religious side of Catherine’s Court is harder to penetrate, there are helpful essays in Michael Schaich, ed.,
Monarchy and Religion: The Transformation of Royal Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Exhibition catalogues tell us a great deal about this and almost every other aspect of the empress’s life and reign. Among the informative English-language editions published in recent years is
Catherine the Great: Treasures of Imperial Russia from the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad
(London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1990). Fuller still are
Treasures of Catherine the Great
(London:
Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, 2000) and
Catherine the Great & Gustav III
(Helsingborg: Nationalmuseum, 1999). Both Cynthia Hyla Whittaker, ed.,
Russia Engages the World, 1453–1825
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) and
An Imperial Collection: Women Artists from the State Hermitage Museum
(London: Merrell, 2003) have plenty to say about Catherine. So does
British Art Treasures from Russian Imperial Collections in the Hermitage
, eds. Brian Allen and Larissa Dukelskaya (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996). Among permanent exhibits, Hillwood Museum stands out: anyone within reach of Washington D.C. should make the pilgrimage and purchase the exemplary catalogue by Ann Odom and Liana Paredes Arend,
A Taste for Splendor: Russian Imperial and European Treasures from the Hillwood Museum
(Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 1998).
Although books written for scholars can sometimes seem hard going, even to the initiated, the best work on Catherine’s Russia is stylish and penetrating. Richard S. Wortman,
Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 1: From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995) is a brilliant study of the ways in which the ritual presentation of the monarchy inspired the loyalty of its leading subjects. Whereas Wortman emphasises the secularising influence of classical Roman models, Gary Marker,
Imperial Saint: The Cult of St Catherine and the Dawn of Female Rule in Russia
(DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007), reveals the persistence of religious symbolism in Court culture, focusing on Catherine I in an interpretation which carries broader implications for the remainder of the eighteenth century. John LeDonne,
Ruling Russia: Politics and Administration in the Age of Absolutism, 1762–1796
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) is a powerful study of patronage. David L. Ransel explores a key interest group in
The Politics of Catherinian Russia: The Panin Party
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976). Complementary studies of the nobility are offered by Robert E. Jones,
The Emancipation of the Russian Nobility, 1762–1785
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), and Paul Dukes,
Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobility: A Study Based on the Materials of the Legislative Commission of 1767
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). One gets a good sense of the ways in which nobles assimilated and imitated Court culture from Priscilla Roosevelt,
Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), and from Douglas Smith,
The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great’s Russia
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), an imaginative recreation of Count Nikolay
Sheremetev’s marriage to a serf actress, particularly good on the setting in which they lived. John T. Alexander,
Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia: Public Health and Urban Disaster
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980) is a first-class social history of Moscow in the early 1770s. Catriona Kelly,
Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) offers a brilliant (and often very funny) way into the history of Russian manners. Rafaella Faggionato,
A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia: The Masonic Circle of N.I. Novikov
(Amsterdam: Springer, 2005) is the most significant recent study of Freemasonry, though the English translation is inelegant. W. Gareth Jones,
Nikolay Novikov: Enlightener of Russia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) remains the single most important study of the Enlightenment in Russia, a subject which awaits a full-scale treatment. See also
Russia in the Age of the Enlightenment: Essays in Honour of Isabel de Madariaga
(London: Macmillan, 1990) and my own essay ‘“Prosveshchenie”: Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Russia’, in
Peripheries of the Enlightenment
, eds. Richard Butterwick, Simon Davies and Gabriel Sanchez-Espinoza,
Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century
, 2008:01. On the wider context, try Larry Wolff,
Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), a clever book which may overestimate the extent to which the Poles and Russians needed the
philosophes
to alert them to the problem of their own backwardness. Foreign policy is expertly covered by H. M. Scott,
The Emergence of the Eastern Powers
1756–1773 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Isabel de Madariaga,
Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality of 1780: Sir James Harris’s Mission to St Petersburg during the American Revolution
(London: Hollis and Carter, 1962), which ranges much more widely than its title might imply. I have commented on some of these scholars’ conclusions in two earlier attempts to set Catherine and her reign in the broader context of the history of eighteenth-century Europe:
The Modernisation of Russia, 1696–1825
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and
Catherine the Great: Profile in Power
(Harlow: Longman, 2001). Both these books give lists of further reading.
Readers of Russian will learn much from attractively written books by Evgenii Anisimov,
Zhenshchiny na rossiiskom prestole
(St Petersburg: Norint, 1998), and Aleksandr Kamenskii,
Pod seniiu Ekateriny: Vtoraia polovina XVIII veka
(Moscow: 1992), the first study of Catherine’s reign to be published in Russia since the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Despite its title, V. S. Lopatin,
Potemkin i Suvorov
(Moscow: Nauka, 1992) has just as much to say about Catherine: this book’s
rehabilitation of Potëmkin, based on the author’s excellent editions of the correspondence of the two men, underpins the argument of Montefiore’s English biography. More specialised are the work of the legal scholar, O. A. Omel’chenko,
‘Zakonnaia monarkhiia’ Ekateriny II: Prosveschennyi absoliutizm v Rossii
(Moscow, 1993), and two studies of the relationship between literature and politics by Andrei Zorin,
Kormia dvuglavogo orla: Literatura i gosudarstvennaia ideologiia v Rossii v poslednei treti XVIII–pervoi treti XIX vek
(Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2001), and Vera Proskurina,
Mify imperii: literatura i vlast’ v epokhu Ekateriny II
(Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2005), who is not always quite so convincing. In the late 1880s, V. A. Bilbasov completed only two volumes of what promised to be a massive biography before running into trouble with the censors. His
Istoriia Ekateriny Vtoroi
, 2 vols (SPb-Berlin, 1890–91), remains the most detailed study of Catherine’s life before 1763. The troubled relationship between Catherine and her husband is explored in unprecedented detail by O. A. Ivanov,
Ekaterina II i Petr III: istoriia tragicheskogo konflikta
(Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2007), a book which reached me just as my own went to press.
Ekaterina II: Annotirovannaia bibliografiia publikatsii
, eds. I. V. Babich, M. V. Babich and T. A. Lapteva (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004), is an invaluable guide to the voluminous published sources on Catherine and her reign. Students of St Petersburg will find a very helpful bibliography of Russian work by A. M. Konechnyi in
Europa Orientalis
(1997, no. 1). No less crucial for the history of eighteenth-century Russian painting is the illustrated catalogue of the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg–Gosudarstvennyi russkii muzei,
Zhivopis’: XVIII vek
, ed. Grigorii Goldovskii (St Petersburg: Palace Editions, 1998)–which carries a limited amount of summary information in English.