38 From German Princess to Russian Tsarina
21.5.3: From German Princess to Russian Tsarina
Born to the family of impoverished German aristocracy, Catherine the Great’s fate was decided when she was chosen to become wife of her second cousin, the prospective tsar Peter III, whom she eventually overthrew to become the Empress of Russia in 1762.
Learning Objective
Detail Catherine the Great’s journey from German Princess to sole ruler of Russia
Key Points
- Catherine II of Russia reigned Russia from 1762 until her death in 1796. Born Sophia Augusta Fredericka to Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and Princess Johanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp in Stettin, Pomerania, her fate was decided after she was chosen to become wife of her second cousin, the prospective tsar Peter of Holstein-Gottorp (as Peter III).
- Catherine spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with the Empress, but also with her husband and with the Russian people. She applied herself to learning the language and wrote that when she came to Russia she decided to do whatever was required of her to become qualified to wear the crown.
- Although Sophia’s father, a devout German Lutheran, opposed his daughter’s conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, in 1744 the Russian Orthodox Church received Princess Sophia as a member with the new name Catherine and the (artificial) patronymic Alekseyevna (daughter of Aleksey). On the following day, the formal betrothal took place in Saint Petersburg.
- Count Andrei Shuvalov, chamberlain to Catherine, is credited as the source of rumors regarding the monarch’s intimate affairs. These rumor led many, including Peter, to believe that her two children were not fathered by her husband.
- After the death of Empress Elizabeth in 1762, Peter succeeded to the throne as Emperor Peter III and Catherine became empress consort. The tsar’s eccentricities and policies, including a great admiration for Frederick the Great of Prussia, alienated the same groups that Catherine cultivated.
- Catherine staged a coup and had her husband arrested, then forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. Eight days after the coup and just six months after his accession to the throne, Peter III died at the hands of Alexei Orlov. Historians find no evidence for Catherine’s complicity in the supposed assassination.
Key Terms
- enlightened despotism
- Also known as enlightened absolutism or benevolent absolutism: a form of absolute monarchy or despotism inspired by the Enlightenment. The monarchs who embraced it followed the participles of rationality. Some of them fostered education, and allowed religious tolerance, freedom of speech, and the right to hold private property. They held that royal power emanated not from divine right but from a social contract whereby a despot was entrusted with the power to govern through a social contract in lieu of any other governments.
- the Seven Years’ War
- A world war fought betwe