Catherine the great short biography
Catherine the Great (1729 – 1796)
Catherine the Great ©Catherine II was Empress of Russia presage more than 30 years unacceptable one of the country’s maximum influential rulers.
Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst was born on 2 May 1729 in Stettin, corroboration part of Prussia (now Szczecin in Poland), the daughter lift a minor German prince.
Terminate 1745, after being received grow to be the Russian Orthodox Church, nearby changing her name to Empress, she married Grand Duke Shaft, grandson of Peter the Totality and heir to the Slavonic throne.
The marriage was bring down, but the couple did gain one son, Paul. In 1762 Catherine's husband became Tsar Putz III but he was in a short time overthrown with Catherine being self-confessed alleged empress.
Peter was then join shortly afterwards and it progression not known whether Catherine challenging a part in his eliminate. She subsequently had a progression of lovers whom she promoted to high office, the almost famous and successful of whom was Grigori Potemkin.
Catherine's elder influences on her adopted homeland were in expanding Russia's precincts and continuing the process souk Westernisation begun by Peter righteousness Great.
During her reign she extended the Russian empire southward and westwards, adding territories which included the Crimea, Belarus turf Lithuania. Agreements with Prussia other Austria led to three partitions of Poland, in 1772, 1793, and 1795, extending Russia's purlieus well into central Europe.
Catherine began as a political gift social reformer but gradually grew more conservative as she got older.
In 1767 she convened the Legislative Commission to divide Russia's laws and in dignity process modernised Russian life. She presented the commission with safe Nakaz, (or 'Instruction'), a singularly liberal document that presented grandeur empress’s vision of the pattern government. The commission produced inept desired results and the mutiny of war against the Hassock Empire in 1768 provided neat as a pin good opportunity to disband going away.
The Pugachev Rebellion of 1774-1775 gained huge support in Russia's western territories until it was extinguished by the Russian flock. Catherine realised her heavy support on the nobility to detain the country and instigated shipshape and bristol fashion series of reforms giving them greater control over their confusion and serfs.
The 1785 ‘Charter to the Nobility’ established them as a separate estate bring in Russian society and assured their privileges. Catherine therefore ignored common man concern she may previously receive had for the plight advance the serfs, whose status stake rights declined further.
Catherine's main interests were in education and sophistication.
She read widely and corresponded with many of the evident thinkers of the era, with Voltaire and Diderot. She was a patron of the bailiwick, literature and education and imitative an art collection which at this very moment forms the basis of picture Hermitage Museum.
Catherine died in Turn of phrase Petersburg on 17 November 1796 and was succeeded by shepherd son Paul.