Catherine II (1729-1796), Empress

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Catherine II (1729-1796, St. Petersburg), Empress (from 1761), wife of Emperor Peter III (1745). Nee Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst. Lived in St. Petersburg from 1744, coming to power by dethroning her husband (1762). During the reign of Catherine II, Russia was engaged in long wars with Turkey, Sweden, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, gaining large territories in the Black Sea region, Ukraine, and Belorussia. She carried out a series of national reforms. Excessive State taxes, preservation of serfdom, and an extension of nobility rights gave birth to a severe political and financial crisis, which occurred in the first half of the 19th century. Many new public and cultural institutions appeared during Catherine II's reign, which revived St. Petersburg with active and luxurious development, including the building of the Marble, Taurida, Yusupov, and Kamenoostrovsky palaces; the Maly and Sredny hermitages and the Hermitage Theatre; the Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor; the Smolny Institute; the palaces and parks of Tsarskoe Selo, Pavlovsk, Gatchina, Pella; the Fontanka and Neva (present-day Kutuzovskaya, Dvortsovaya, and Angliiskaya) embankments; and the Peter and Paul Fortress Bastions, which were dressed in stone. Government was repeatedly reformed, establishing the position of City Head (1766), reorganising the City Council (1775), and establishing a Municipal Duma (1786). In St. Petersburg, Catherine II lived in the Winter Palace; before taking the throne, she usually spent her summers in Oranienbaum, where the Sobstvenny Garden was laid out for her, and where she ordered the construction of the China Palace and the Katalnaya Gorka (the Skating Hill). From the 1760s, she preferred to live in Tsarskoe Selo. She was buried in the SS. Peter&Paul Cathedral. There are monuments to Catherine II in St. Petersburg (see Catherine II's monument) and in Tsarskoe Selo (1862, artist M.O. Mikeshin, sculptor I.N. Schroder, not preserved).

References: Бильбасов В. А. История Екатерины Второй. СПб., 1890-1891. Т. 1-2; Каменский А. Б. "Под сению Екатерины": Вторая половина XVIII в. СПб., 1992; Омельченко О. А. "Законная монархия" Екатерины II: Просвещенный абсолютизм в России. М., 1993; Брикнер А. Г. История Екатерины Второй. М., 2002.

G. V. Kalashnikov. Catherine II, Empress
Mikeshin Mikhail Osipovich
Peter III, Emperor
Schroder Ivan Nikolaevich
Каменский А. Б. "Под сению Екатерины": Вторая половина XVIII в. СПб., 1992
Омельченко О. А. "Законная монархия" Екатерины II: Просвещен. абсолютизм в России. М., 1993
Бильбасов В.А. История Екатерины Второй. СПб., 1890 - 1891
Брикнер А. Г. История Екатерины Второй. М., 2002 Marble Palace
Tauride Palace
Yusupov Palace (94 Moika River Embankment)
Hermitage Theatre
Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor
Smolny Institute
St. Peter and Paul fortress
St. Peter and Paul fortress
Winter Palace
China Palace (Lomonosov)
SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral
Catherine II, Monument to
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