Named little wife
If Peter the Great made Europe pay attention to Russia, then by Catherine the Great, any international political problems in Europe could hardly be solved satisfactorily without Russia's participation. And she herself has many fans among Parisians, which once set off "yekaterina fever". The store is named after Russia, and French aristocrats are willing to imitate some Russian customs and fashions.
She ruled Russia for 34 years, making the country step into the ranks of world powers, and was called "European Gendarmerie" because of her active intervention in European affairs. Russia's strength in the19th century largely benefited from the foundation laid by the yekaterina era.
Yekaterina is a woman who makes all Russians proud! But her life is not ordinary and smooth, so how did she become a great emperor from a kannika nimtragol who married to Russia from a foreign country?
The princess was born with a lively personality.
Catherine II, formerly known as Sophia August, was born into a declining aristocratic family in Stiding, Prussia. His father was a general in the Prussian army, and later he was made a duke. His fief was the principality of Anhalt-Zerbst, which was a very small principality in Germany at that time. His father served in the army, so he didn't go home to take care of his family. My mother is mean, impatient and difficult to get along with, and she lives in Paris all the year round. Therefore, Sophia, who was cheerful, active, naughty, courageous and often in trouble since she was a child, was not under the control of her parents. Although she is a princess of the principality, she often runs to the street to find her friends to play with.
Far from Russia, fate changed.
Sophia/Kloc-had an accident when she was 0/3 years old, which changed her fate. 1742, the grandson of Peter I of Russia, her distant cousin, Prince Karl Peter ulrich of Holstein, was elected as the heir to the Russian throne. This suddenly made his worth double, and many princesses in the German Principality dreamed of marrying him. Because of her father's relationship, Princess Sophia's marriage plan with the future heir to the Russian throne was supported by King Frederick II of Prussia.
Under the arrangement of Frederick II, the best painter in France was invited to paint a portrait of Princess Sophia and sent it to St. Petersburg for Queen Elizabeth Petrovsky to look at and show. Among many marriage schemes, the Russian court finally chose Princess Sophia August of anhalt after repeated screening.
1744 65438+1October, Queen Elizabeth of St. Petersburg sent a letter inviting the Duchess of anhalt and Princess Sophia to visit Russia. Although Queen Elizabeth did not make it clear that she chose Sophia as the wife of the future Crown Prince, the family of Duke anhalt understood the meaning. To this end, Princess Sophia and her daughter set off for Russia in the cold January. After a bumpy ride, I finally arrived in Moscow on February 9 1744.
Queen Elizabeth warmly hosted Princess Sophia's mother and daughter, Crown Prince Peter and her distant cousin, who was baptized by the Orthodox Church and given a Russian name, and was also polite to Princess Sophia. Because of his cousin, Peter naturally had trust in Sophia, so he soon spoke his mind publicly to Princess Sophia. He has a soft spot for Queen Elizabeth's maid, and marrying Princess Sophia is just impossible against Queen Elizabeth's wishes.
Sophia was very surprised. She didn't expect Peter to be so frank and naive in many things. At this time, Sophia understood that to gain a foothold in Russia, she must first become a Russian. To this end, she asked Queen Elizabeth to find her a teacher to learn Russian and Orthodox etiquette. Princess Sophia studies very hard, often late at night, and all the attendants are asleep. She is still studying hard.
Such efforts finally made Sophie ill, with a high fever for more than ten days and a coma. Everyone thinks she's dying. At this time, her mother specially invited a Lutheran priest to pray for her last days, but Princess Sophia asked to invite a priest who taught her Orthodox etiquette. The news spread and the court was very fond of her. A month later, she miraculously recovered, so the marriage between Princess Sophia and Crown Prince Peter was settled.
Officially renamed and renamed Zheng Dong.
1744 On June 28th, Princess Sophia converted to the Orthodox Church and officially changed her name to yekaterina Alekseevna. This baptism ceremony is yekaterina's first public appearance in Russia. She answered questions in fluent and clear Russian and spoke appropriately, which once again won the admiration of the court. The next day, Crown Prince Peter got engaged to yekaterina.
On August 2 1, 1745, the Russian court held a grand wedding for them, and yekaterina was made the Grand Duchess. Of course, married life is not happy for yekaterina. Because her husband Peter had a secret love before marriage. After five years of marriage, yekaterina is still a virgin. Living in seclusion in the deep palace all day, killing time by reading. There was no purpose at first, but later I became interested in Voltaire's works and began to read books on political philosophy. I found ten volumes of national history of Bender, insisted on reading one volume every eight days, read four volumes of history of philosophy, and a large number of Russian books. This enabled her to have a deep knowledge and understand Montesquieu's profound legal spirit.
Although yekaterina doesn't have a beautiful appearance, she is in her prime of life, has a decent speech and elegant manners, and is naturally attractive. This made her have a lover soon. Scholars who study her believe that her first love was a hero in the Seven Years' War, and Chernyshev was the adjutant of Crown Prince Peter. After that, Sergei Saltikoff was recognized as a handsome man in court. It is said that Queen Yelisavita also liked Saltykov at that time, but Saltykov chose yekaterina. The Queen was so angry that Saltykov had to run to the countryside to hide. Later, when Saltikoff returned to St. Petersburg again, Queen Elizabeth seemed to have forgotten it.
Marriage unfortunately leads to new love.
After five years of marriage, Peter and yekaterina have never given birth, which means that the Russian Empire still has no heir, and Queen Elizabeth is greatly annoyed. The queen was furious with the crown prince's maid-in-waiting, and scolded: The empire has no queen, what's your use! The waitress had to secretly remind yekaterina to give birth to an imperial heir for Queen Elizabeth anyway, otherwise your position would be lost. Yekaterina suddenly woke up and finally gave birth to a boy named Paul at 1754.
After yekaterina gave birth to his grandson Paul, it was even worse. She wrote in her diary that after Paul was born, everyone, including Queen Elizabeth, revolved around him. The baby was sent to the Queen's Palace as soon as she was born, and she was left unattended on the maternity bed for more than three hours. Finally, when she woke up, she had to endure the pain and go back to the bedroom alone.
In the first year of Paul's birth, yekaterina was in poor health and seldom participated in court activities. Until a dance, a young earl named poniatowski attracted her. Compared with former lover Saltykov, poniatowski is younger, more educated and elegant in speech, while poniatowski fell in love with yekaterina at first sight, and they soon became lovers. In St. Petersburg, poniatowski lived in the home of Count Lev naryshkin, and naryshkin was a good friend of yekaterina. This facilitated their tryst. However, the relationship between the two quickly spread, and Crown Prince Peter did not care.
One night, poniatowski sneaked into yekaterina's bedroom in Baum, Auranen, and was caught by the guards and put in front of Peter. Peter knew exactly what had happened, but poniatowski's silence angered Peter, so he was accused of plotting to assassinate him because he was armed. Yekaterina hurried to Peter's lover, comforted each other, and whispered in Vorenkova's ear: You can make us all happy, but it's only a little effort. Vorenkova got the message and rushed to Crown Prince Peter to persuade Peter to let him go in front of poniatowski. Peter, who is acting strangely, said loudly, there is one person missing here! He broke into yekaterina's bedroom, dragged yekaterina into his room, pointed to poniatowski and said, Are you satisfied this time? At this point, four people meet, no scruples. Pognat kowski comes to yekaterina every night. Sometimes the four of them have dinner together, and then they go back to their bedroom and live in peace.
Be in trouble and unwilling to sink.
1758, yekaterina gave birth to a daughter named Anna. Peter publicly stated that he didn't know how she got pregnant or who her daughter was. Peter's attitude towards yekaterina is becoming more and more arrogant.
Yekaterina wrote in her diary that she has only three choices to consider: the first is to continue to be Peter's wife and live and die with Peter; Second, at the mercy of Peter, he was arrested or deposed by Peter and sent to a monastery; The third is to take the initiative to control your own destiny. But she doesn't know how she will attack in the future. Besides, Queen Elizabeth is still here. Who dares to make a move?
So she began to seek support. First of all, she got the support of Betuzev, then Prime Minister of the Cabinet. The mature and sophisticated politician immediately had a clear idea, that is, after the death of the queen, yekaterina must be given the upper position, otherwise Peter will take power and everyone will have a hard time. At this moment, yekaterina is still in a state of being pushed away.
However, Beturev's plan was quickly condemned by the Queen's cronies. This made Queen Elizabeth very angry. As a result, Bittsev was exiled, poniatowski was forced to stay away from St. Petersburg, and Chernyshev and Saltykov also went abroad. 1759, Anna, a daughter born just a few months ago, died, and yekaterina's mother, the Duchess of anhalt, also died in Paris. The hostile relationship between yekaterina and Crown Prince Peter became public.
/kloc-in the spring of 0/760, Gregory orlov was one of the officers who escorted the adjutant of the Prussian king captured in the Battle of Chandorf to St. Petersburg. His five brothers were all officers. He has little education, but he is tall, handsome and burly. He can fight on horseback, play cards, drink, dance and fight. Since ancient times, beauty loves heroes, and orlov was soon worshipped by the upper-class women in St. Petersburg. Yekaterina saw all this. When she gave orlov a hint, orlov began to pursue yekaterina enthusiastically, and often showed her love to yekaterina in a crazy way.
In the meantime, yekaterina has been thinking about the question "What should I do when the Queen dies and Peter succeeds to the throne?". 17611On February 25th, Queen Elizabeth died, and Peter succeeded to the throne, known as Peter III in history.
Ascend to the throne and make great achievements.
1762 in April, yekaterina and orlov gave birth to a boy. A few months later, when Peter heard the news, he flew into a rage and ordered the arrest of yekaterina. But Peter's adjutant hesitated, and then under the persuasion of everyone, Peter changed his mind about arresting yekaterina. Later, at the state banquet to celebrate the signing of the peace treaty with Prussia, Peter swore and insulted yekaterina in front of many domestic and foreign guests. Leading to a more rigid relationship between the two. At this moment, orlov and his brother are stepping up their series in the guard, preparing to launch a coup to overthrow Peter III and make yekaterina reign.
1762 At the end of June, the situation took a turn for the worse, and an officer of the Guards who was involved in planning the coup was arrested, and the coup attempt was exposed. On June 28th, yekaterina and orlov, with the support of Razumovski, Duke Volkonski and Pan Ning, the imperial teacher when Queen Elizabeth was alive, staged a coup ahead of schedule and successfully overthrew Peter III, becoming the eighth emperor of Russian Empire and the fourth queen in imperial history.
But according to the rules left by Peter the Great, yekaterina's behavior was rebellion and usurpation, so the first thing yekaterina did after he ascended the throne was to explain why she gained political power. Yekaterina knew that his behavior did not conform to the rules, so he took moral and political aspects as a breakthrough. She signed the declaration twice, denouncing Peter III's crimes and denouncing many of his actions as Russian betrayal and crimes. Therefore, the coup was launched to save Russia, and coronation was "the choice of the Russian people."
In any case, yekaterina's coup was planned and promoted by the guards and confidants, without bloodshed or resistance, and was more widely accepted after he ascended the throne. Therefore, after yekaterina seized the imperial power, he devoted all his energy to national construction.
Although yekaterina's Russia was not riddled with problems, there were many problems. At that time, the state treasury was empty and the army had not paid wages for three months. Trade is not active enough, and hoarding and monopoly are serious. The national government is slack, the maritime government is tired, and it almost collapses. Justice is unfair, but the strong obey. Faced with this situation, she put forward a series of administrative measures, such as restoring state administrative order, strengthening state machinery, promoting trade prosperity, and increasing national treasury revenue. In addition, in her policy objectives, she also pointed out that Russia must become a formidable power if it wants to win the respect of the people and neighboring countries.
During the coup, a young cavalry officer named potemkin was active and outstanding, which attracted the attention of yekaterina. When rewarding all those who participated in the coup, yekaterina personally changed the rank of cavalry second lieutenant originally proposed for potemkin to captain. From then on, she paid special attention to potemkin.
After that, potemkin led the troops to fight in the front line, until 12 years later, 1774, yekaterina personally wrote to recall potemkin to St. Petersburg. Potemkin was very excited and immediately left for St. Petersburg to see yekaterina. From then on, potemkin became the most famous and powerful lover in yekaterina. And yekaterina's best man. All military affairs are decided by yekaterina and Bo Jiangjin. Until his death, potemkin was always a figure in the Russian Empire. He devoted himself to yekaterina until his death.
Since 1792, yekaterina has been in poor health, and potemkin's death has dealt her a fatal blow. In addition, the third partition of Poland and the war against Turkey also greatly weakened her energy. 1September, 796, yekaterina could not afford to get sick. 165438+1In the early morning of October 6, 73-year-old Catherine II died of illness, and her eldest son Paul succeeded to the throne.