A penniless German princess studied Russian by night and became Catherine the Great
Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst arrived in Russia in 1744 aged 15, a princess from a family with little money, betrothed to a cousin she had found detestable at first sight. She rose late at night to drill Russian lessons, converted to Orthodoxy, and eighteen years later overthrew her husband to rule the empire herself for 34 years.
Born in 1729 in Stettin, now Szczecin, where her father was a Prussian general and governor, she was groomed from childhood for an advantageous marriage, learning French, etiquette and Lutheran theology, and by her own account teaching herself swordplay. Her match with Peter, grandson of Peter the Great, grew out of diplomatic intrigue involving Frederick the Great of Prussia. Her scheming mother was eventually expelled from Russia amid spying accusations, but Empress Elizabeth adored the daughter.
A near-fatal illness soon after she arrived became a turning point. When her mother wanted a Lutheran pastor at her bedside, Sophie asked instead for an Orthodox priest, delighting the court. Received into the Orthodox Church in June 1744, she took the name Catherine and married Peter in August 1745, just after turning 16. The marriage was miserable, and she retreated into books. Reading Voltaire and, in 1754, the Roman historian Tacitus caused what she called a revolution in her thinking, teaching her to look for hidden self-interested motives behind people's stated ideals. Though she mastered Russian, she kept a heavy accent, and French remained the language of her court.
Peter became emperor in 1762 and lasted only seven months before Catherine deposed him in a coup; he died soon after, possibly on her orders. As empress she worked with favourites such as Grigory Potemkin and generals such as Alexander Suvorov, pushed Russia's borders south to the Black Sea and west into a partitioned Poland, and saw Russians become the first Europeans to settle Alaska.
She founded cities, universities and theatres, encouraged European immigration, and created the Smolny Institute, Europe's first state-funded higher education for women. Yet serfdom deepened, fuelling Pugachev's great rebellion of Cossacks and peasants. Often counted among the enlightened despots, she died in 1796.
Source: Catherine the Great
