Forgotten Women : The Leaders (9781788400312) by Tsjeng Zing

Author:Tsjeng, Zing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2018-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

Over her 34-year reign, Catherine not only held on to power but also wielded it brilliantly, with many describing the period of her rule as the golden age of the Russian Empire. Under Catherine, Russian forces established control over the northern shores of the Black Sea. Even her parade of affairs proved useful in this regard; when she raised one talented lover, the military officer Grigory Potemkin, to an eye-wateringly high rank, he repaid her by successfully annexing the Crimea.

Her achievements were not just limited to the military sphere. At home, she also built hospitals, expanded universities and attempted to reform Russian law so that it better adhered to her own values, culled from her voracious reading of Montesquieu and other great thinkers. Though the resulting set of legal guidelines, the Nakaz, was never put into practice, it dealt with everything from the administration of justice to principles of religious freedom and introduced Enlightenment principles to Russian government.

By the time Catherine passed away at the age of 67, Russia had been transformed into a global power, the borders of which stretched from Poland to the Crimea. She may never have found a way to marry her Enlightenment ideals with the demands of autocratic rule, but she died leaving her country in a far better place than it had been under Peter.

No woman has ruled Russia since her death. In fact, her son Paul I, who succeeded her as emperor, altered the rules of succession so that men were the preferred candidates – which we can only see as the highest praise for all that Catherine accomplished.

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