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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Katy Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy, and today we're

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Speaker 1: going to start with a quote from biographer Simon Dixon.

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Speaker 1: Only the most accomplished of actresses could have carried off

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Speaker 1: the part of the Virgin Queen when all present knew

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Speaker 1: her as an adulteress and as a usurper, and many

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Speaker 1: suspected her of regicide to boot. The woman we're talking

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Speaker 1: about is Catherine the Great, and when we left you

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Speaker 1: in our last episode, she had just deposed Peter the

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Speaker 1: Third and possibly had him murdered in her bejeweled crown.

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Speaker 1: She is now Empress of all the Russia's and convinced

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Speaker 1: that it is her god given destiny to rule. And

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Speaker 1: Catherine is an idealistic woman. She wants to westernize Russia,

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Speaker 1: and she wants to emancipate the serfs and give people

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Speaker 1: opportunities to receive education and apply all these ideals of

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Speaker 1: the Enlightenment that she holds so dear. But in the

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Speaker 1: end she betrays a lot of these principles that she

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Speaker 1: swears to live by. So was she great ultimately will

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Speaker 1: leave that up to you. We can't possibly fit all

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Speaker 1: of her life into only three podcasts. We'd probably need

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Speaker 1: about thirty episodes at least, So we're going to give

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Speaker 1: you an overview of her rule and just hit upon

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Speaker 1: some of the most important parts, some of the most

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Speaker 1: interesting parts of her life. So the situation in Russia

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Speaker 1: when she takes the throne isn't fantastic. They need money,

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Speaker 1: they're totally broke, the government is corrupt, the prisons are full,

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Speaker 1: and the legal system makes absolutely no sense. A lot

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Speaker 1: of these very archaic rules from the six hundreds. It's

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Speaker 1: impossible to navigate, and Russia was considered backward by the

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Speaker 1: rest of the world. Katherine wanted to change that and

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Speaker 1: and make her country a cultivated place. She's such a

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Speaker 1: cultivated woman, exactly, the place that has great cities and

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Speaker 1: great art and an admired government something like and stand

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Speaker 1: proudly alongside the other powers of Europe. So where do

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Speaker 1: you start if you're trying to radically change your country,

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Speaker 1: You start with administrative matter. So first things first, Katherine

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Speaker 1: is a hands on kind of ruler, so she investigates

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Speaker 1: the Senate, she sits in on meetings, and she insists

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Speaker 1: on being briefed on everything that's going on, and she

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Speaker 1: gets on people when they're not quick, not the apply,

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Speaker 1: She's not what they're used to. This is not how

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Speaker 1: government is supposed to be in their opinion, and in

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Speaker 1: her investigation she realizes that things are a mess. She

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Speaker 1: was asking about Russian towns and her senators had no

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Speaker 1: idea where they were, and then she realized they didn't

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Speaker 1: even have a map of Russia. And a lot of

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Speaker 1: these details are from Virginia Roundings biography of Katherine the Great,

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Speaker 1: we should add. So she has this huge empire, one

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Speaker 1: that could be powerful, but it's not being run well.

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Speaker 1: The people within the machinery don't even understand it, much

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Speaker 1: less outsiders. And if she wants to turn Russia around,

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Speaker 1: this is the first thing she has to tackle, this

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Speaker 1: administrative aspect, and she does. She gets the right people

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Speaker 1: in the right positions, even if they supported the previous ruler,

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Speaker 1: even though I think it was the tendency to sack

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Speaker 1: all the people who've been there before, and she institutes accountability.

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Speaker 1: She also draws up what's called the Great Instruction and

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Speaker 1: presents it to a legislative commission that she had put together.

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Speaker 1: Their job was to come up with ways to fix

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Speaker 1: Russia's legal system, and her instruction, which was clearly informed

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Speaker 1: by her Enlightenment reading, is impressive, Voltaire or thoughts. So

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Speaker 1: at least there's six D fifty articles and they're all

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Speaker 1: of her ideals laid out, but they're considered too progressive.

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Speaker 1: Their refuge to progressive even for France, little liberal, they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't p Russia. So these are thrown out and it's

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Speaker 1: a blow to Catherine. You can imagine, she's put so

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Speaker 1: much effort into this huge project early in her reign

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Speaker 1: and it's thrown out the door without a second thought.

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Speaker 1: But she has our ideals of what a Russian people

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Speaker 1: could be, and she can't quite get them into play.

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Speaker 1: She has dreams of establishing a school kind of like

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Speaker 1: sancyr which is the one we mentioned in the Madame

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Speaker 1: Lunenal podcast to educate young women and um we mentioned

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Speaker 1: when we were introducing the podcast that she was advocating

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Speaker 1: emancipating the serfs, even though, being a woman who would

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Speaker 1: think things through, she knew that this couldn't happen immediately.

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Speaker 1: If you say all the serfs are free, chaos, So

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Speaker 1: she realizes that it'll take a while. She's hoping that

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Speaker 1: it's something that will happen over the next hundred years

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Speaker 1: or so, because her belief about laws that in order

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Speaker 1: to introduce laws first you have to feel out the

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Speaker 1: sentiments of your pee, which is a wise idea, pretty

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Speaker 1: much exactly what Peter the third did not do. But

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Speaker 1: this would prove to be to the detriment of the

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Speaker 1: serfs later in her rule. But onward and upward and outward.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk foreign affairs. So the first of these big

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Speaker 1: foreign affairs is the Russo Turkish War. But before to

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Speaker 1: get into that a little background, Catherine gets a big

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Speaker 1: chance to extend Russia's power in seventeen sixty three when

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Speaker 1: the King of Poland dies. Catherine has the perfect replacement

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Speaker 1: for the her former lover, Poniatowski, and her diplomats managed

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Speaker 1: to threaten the Polish government into accepting this guy's their

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Speaker 1: new king. He becomes Stanis Last the second Augustus, and

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Speaker 1: is elected. So it doesn't last for that long though,

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Speaker 1: because in seventeen sixty eight we have rebellions in Poland,

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Speaker 1: and since Katherine has installed Pontowski there, she has a

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Speaker 1: vested interest in what's going on and keeping him there exactly,

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Speaker 1: and she sends in troops. So France gets involved and

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Speaker 1: it's like, how can you let this happen in Turkey?

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Speaker 1: You should probably get on this, And then the Cossacks

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Speaker 1: were causing murderous trouble in Turkey. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: we have all the ingredients for war, and this is

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Speaker 1: just one of the Russo Turkish wars to arified. They

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Speaker 1: began much earlier and they would continue for many years.

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Speaker 1: But in this particular bout Russia crushes its enemy. There's

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Speaker 1: this decisive battle at ches Me in seventeen seventy, which

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Speaker 1: brightened the spirits of the Russian people considerably, many of

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Speaker 1: whom suspected they would never see their conscripted men again.

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Speaker 1: But glory on the battlefield isn't everything, because disaster strikes

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Speaker 1: in the form of plague, and it originated in Turkey,

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Speaker 1: but the Russian government didn't understand its severity and they

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Speaker 1: underestimated it. For sure, certain cities are quarantined, but the

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Speaker 1: plague spreads and soon we have hundreds of people in

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Speaker 1: Moscow dying every day. Their bodies are in the streets,

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Speaker 1: and those who are still alive are rioting, and in

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Speaker 1: the frenzy the archbishop is even killed. It's finally Katherine's lover,

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Speaker 1: Gregory Orlov, who saves the day he arrives in Moscow,

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Speaker 1: organizes food and clothing drives, takes precaution against the spread

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Speaker 1: of disease, burning down old houses, keeping the couriers away

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Speaker 1: because they would obviously be spreading it in the city,

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Speaker 1: and fumigates the city too. But then the snow came

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Speaker 1: and the cold seemed to put a stop to the

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Speaker 1: epidemic where he could not, but not before it killed

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Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty thousand people in Russia. Shortly after this,

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Speaker 1: Katherine considered peace with Turkey and a treaty was signed,

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Speaker 1: but as we mentioned, it didn't end the series of wars.

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Speaker 1: Another began in seventy seven and continued almost until her death.

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Speaker 1: But by the end of all of these, the Black

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Speaker 1: Sea was opened up to the Russian fleet. Katherine's taken

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Speaker 1: over the Crimean Peninsula, and most of the Ukraine and

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Speaker 1: Poland has been divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria. So

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Speaker 1: they've got this big foothold in the Mediterranean, and also

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Speaker 1: a chance against the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, Russia expands over

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Speaker 1: two hundred thousand miles during Katherine's reign. Ultimately, but picking

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Speaker 1: up with Crimea once, Katherine has an X Crimea which

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Speaker 1: which comes during that Second War the seven to see

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Speaker 1: she wants to inspect this new place she owns, so

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Speaker 1: she resolves to visit, but does so in style, of course,

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Speaker 1: and her Crimean voyage was famously compared to Cleopatra's fleet.

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Speaker 1: So that's going to give you a good idea of

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Speaker 1: what this is like. Her entourage left in January sev seven,

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Speaker 1: and her own coach was like a house again according

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Speaker 1: to Rounding, it had its own bedroom, a sitting room,

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Speaker 1: a library, thirty horses had to pull it, and their

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Speaker 1: double but a classy one, Sarah. There are several of

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Speaker 1: these for all of the people in her entourage. So

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Speaker 1: picture this procession of sable hats and slaves, and they

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Speaker 1: make their sea journey from Kiev in April on this

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Speaker 1: impressive fleet of galleys and barges and munitions boats. And

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Speaker 1: this is where a famous myth about Catherine comes in

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Speaker 1: the Potempkan villages, and Potemkin was one of her lovers

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Speaker 1: but also her right hand man and her government basically

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Speaker 1: this all powerful minister. He'll come up in the next

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Speaker 1: episode come and the myth is that he built these

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Speaker 1: Potemkin villages, which were just fake storefronts, basically think of

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Speaker 1: like a Hollywood set, to make Russia look more developed

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Speaker 1: and prosperous than it actually was as people went by.

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Speaker 1: But Roundings Biography says that perhaps this was a misunderstanding

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Speaker 1: because as this grand procession passes the towns, the very

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Speaker 1: excited citizens put up triumphal arches and other decorations, and

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Speaker 1: maybe it was misinterpreted. I think we've talked about that

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Speaker 1: in almost every Monarch episode we've done. When the monarch

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Speaker 1: goes on the grand tour, people build a bunch of

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Speaker 1: temporary structures to be impressive and impress their king or queen.

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Speaker 1: And this was an exceptionally lavish journey. In one place

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Speaker 1: they landed Potemkin and I had an English garden created

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Speaker 1: for the Empress in a matter of days, and she

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Speaker 1: found her place very charming. But the contrast of this

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Speaker 1: journey to conditions in Russia's stark where they were suffering

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Speaker 1: from a food shortage and general unrest. So general unrest,

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Speaker 1: of course, leads to conspiracies and we have many a

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Speaker 1: foot throughout Katherine's reign, but we also have a rebellion.

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Speaker 1: So remember the baby Emperor who we talked about a

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Speaker 1: while ago in the six Yeah, he's always at the

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Speaker 1: back of people's minds as a possibility when things are bad,

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Speaker 1: if if you're tired of the current ruler, there's always

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Speaker 1: this baby in prison who is now, of course a

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Speaker 1: grown man. And there's only one real attempt to rescue him, though,

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Speaker 1: which we talked about in the last podcast, and we

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Speaker 1: ended it saying that some believed Lieutenant Mirovich really was

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Speaker 1: trying to help I have in the sixth escape, while

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Speaker 1: others believed he was just a pawn of Katherine's. According

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Speaker 1: to the biography I keep referring to, it was the

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Speaker 1: real thing, and no one knew what Ivan was like

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Speaker 1: after all of these years in solitary confinement. If he

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Speaker 1: was absolutely an idiot like the Earl of Buckingham speculated

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Speaker 1: in a letter from lack of human contact, or if

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Speaker 1: he was a perfectly normal man capable of rule. Mirovich

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Speaker 1: apparently believed in the latter, and as we know, Ivan

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Speaker 1: was killed in this attempt, and when she heard Catherine wrote,

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Speaker 1: I have read with great amazement your reports and all

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Speaker 1: the marvels which have taken place at Shlisselburgh. The divine

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Speaker 1: guidance is wonderful and inexhaustible, which that seems pretty cold,

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Speaker 1: considering it's this poor prison man who has been held

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Speaker 1: in captivity as whole life. Caverne initially wanted him to

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Speaker 1: become a monk because that would be pretty convenient to

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Speaker 1: He wouldn't have any airs, so that would be great.

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Speaker 1: Not quite as convenient as dead, though this worked out

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Speaker 1: just as well. But it's not just Ivan the Six

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Speaker 1: who people are interested in. There are also conspiracies to

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Speaker 1: put Catherine's own son, Paul, on the throne. Paul is

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Speaker 1: not a fan of his mother. Oh she doesn't like

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Speaker 1: him either. He very much like his probable father, Peter

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Speaker 1: the Third. And Catherine doesn't deal with these conspiracies lightly either.

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Speaker 1: Possible punishments included having your ears torn out or the

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Speaker 1: skin stripped from your back before you were sent to Siberia.

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Speaker 1: They all got sent to Siberia. She learned from her

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Speaker 1: own coup to be careful exactly. And then, of course

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Speaker 1: there is a third possible claimant to the throne, and

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Speaker 1: that's Peter the Third, but wait, he died in our

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Speaker 1: last podcast, so he doesn't seem like a very valid candidate.

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Speaker 1: That doesn't stop several people from claiming they are Peter

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Speaker 1: the Third, which we've seemed to have noticed in a

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Speaker 1: lot of Russian scenes that we've read. There was one

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Speaker 1: pretender in particular who threatened the Empress, and that brings

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Speaker 1: us to the Pugachev Rebellion. In seventeen seventy two, a

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Speaker 1: cossack named a Million Pugachev announces that he is Peter

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Speaker 1: the Third. No one. They're out, way far out the gurls,

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Speaker 1: although they weren't called the eels then they were renamed

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Speaker 1: after this to sort of disassociate exactly. No one there

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Speaker 1: had ever seen Peter, and the only thing they knew

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Speaker 1: about Catherine was that she forced them to fight in

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Speaker 1: these wars. They're not a fan, no, And some people

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Speaker 1: just wanted to rebel. They knew perfectly well that he

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Speaker 1: was not Peter the Third, but it was, you know,

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Speaker 1: good a cause, and some actually believed that he was

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Speaker 1: the czar. But either way, he had followers, and the

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Speaker 1: ranks grew quickly, and he made the types of promises

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Speaker 1: you can't really keep. It was reminding me when you

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Speaker 1: know this high school sophomore running for class president, and

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Speaker 1: there's always like free cokes from the vending machine if

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Speaker 1: you liked me, promises you can't keep in any way.

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Speaker 1: But he said they could have everything they ever wanted, food, clothing,

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Speaker 1: including their freedom, and he would depose Catherine and his

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Speaker 1: army steadily grew to three thousand men. They began taking villages,

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Speaker 1: raping women, mutilating the dead bodies of the officers they killed,

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Speaker 1: and then they were ten thousand, and they sacked the

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Speaker 1: city of Kazan and then sarah Top in seventeen seventy four.

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Speaker 1: And we should mention that Katherine hadn't interfered before this.

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Speaker 1: She surely would have squashed it before it got to

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Speaker 1: this extent, but it was difficult to get that far

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Speaker 1: away exactly, and so she again underestimated how just how

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Speaker 1: big this rebellion was. And of course her troops were

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Speaker 1: out fighting Russo Turkish wars. But fortunately for her, uh

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Speaker 1: Pugachev starts to lose some of the cities, and Katherine

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Speaker 1: sends men who are conveniently on the way home from

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Speaker 1: the Russo Turkish war, and Pugachev's own men betray him too,

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Speaker 1: so ultimately he's lost. She said of him, I think

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Speaker 1: that there has hardly been anyone so destructive to the

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Speaker 1: human race since tamer Lane. And yet she had a

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Speaker 1: certain measure of respect for this illiterate, slightly crazy Cossack.

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Speaker 1: He was brought to Moscow in a cage and then beheaded.

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Speaker 1: He was supposed to be quartered first, but Katherine had

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Speaker 1: se and gave the secret okay, to make it easier

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Speaker 1: on him. Just behead him. And she gave amnesty to

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Speaker 1: the people who participated in the revolt except his family. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were stuck in prison to prison. So Kevin gives

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Speaker 1: amnesty to restore the peace. Because after all, she has

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Speaker 1: a great empire to rule, and she focuses that greatness

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Speaker 1: on her cities, making them these amazing, spectacular places. She's

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Speaker 1: a great patron of the arts. The Hermitage collection in St.

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Speaker 1: Petersburg is huge, yeah that it houses millions of pieces

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Speaker 1: of art, from porcelain to paintings. And she started with

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Speaker 1: Rembrandts and Rubens and even by s. Voltaire's library. She

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Speaker 1: supported lots of painters and sculptors and writers. She even

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Speaker 1: did some writing herself and transformed St. Petersburg from a

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Speaker 1: city with wolves and bears wandering through the streets into

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Speaker 1: one that could stand beside the great cities of Europe proudly.

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Speaker 1: And to do this she expands trade. She builds that

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Speaker 1: school for young ladies that she had always dreamed of,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of other schools. She builds a medical

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Speaker 1: school too, and establishes safe place safe places for women

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Speaker 1: to bring unwanted babies, no questions asked, uh, even if

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Speaker 1: an alarming number of them died and they were there. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And one of my favorite things, being a medical history lover,

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Speaker 1: she brought vaccines to Russia, being one of the first

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Speaker 1: to be inoculated against smallpox. And of course once the

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Speaker 1: royal family you know, goes under it and they turn

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Speaker 1: out fine, it became more acceptable. It's like our our

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Speaker 1: guy John Snow from the Ghost Map, who does either

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Speaker 1: for Queen Victoria while she's having her baby, and suddenly

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Speaker 1: it's okay. Exactly setting examples. Yeah, it's it's not just

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Speaker 1: wedding dresses. But there was a price to all of

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Speaker 1: this glory. And if you remember the surfs she wanted

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Speaker 1: to emancipate, things actually got much much worse for them,

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Speaker 1: as they were considered property and part of the lands

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Speaker 1: that they were associated with. They were of course highly

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Speaker 1: desired by nobles, and if she freed the serfs as

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Speaker 1: she had planned, she would lose the nobles, the people

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Speaker 1: who largely kept her in power. By the end of

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Speaker 1: her reign, she made the Ukrainians serfs as well as

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Speaker 1: all of the Russian peasants. So it's not just things

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Speaker 1: got worse for the serfs there already were. They were

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Speaker 1: many many more, don't her. If you're going to have

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Speaker 1: a great Russia, you've got to have this surf economy

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Speaker 1: supporting it and happy nobles to back you up. So

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Speaker 1: it does improve the economy, and it builds the cities

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Speaker 1: and the great buildings that she's dreamed of, and it

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Speaker 1: brings all of these really impressive projects to life, but

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Speaker 1: obviously at the expense of the common people. She also

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Speaker 1: secularized the property of the clergy to get a lot

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Speaker 1: of those serfs, putting more cracks in the Orthodox Church.

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Speaker 1: And according to Britannica, the clergy had held a third

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Speaker 1: of the land and serfs in Russia. So those are

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Speaker 1: big taking and just in case you get it confused

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Speaker 1: with the last episode. Her husband Peter the Third, had

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Speaker 1: already secularized the monastic property, but not the not the clergy,

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Speaker 1: so you might wonder how she got so far from

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Speaker 1: where she began and her principles. After a certain point

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Speaker 1: governing the people, Catherine realized or decided that the Enlightenment

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Speaker 1: wouldn't work on the Russian people, that they were too backward,

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Speaker 1: and she would have to say goodbye to some of

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Speaker 1: her old ideas and concentrate instead on the glory of

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Speaker 1: Russia instead of enlightening the people. And the French Revolution,

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Speaker 1: which comes late in her life, only serves to harden

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Speaker 1: that conviction, because, after all, look, this is where the

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Speaker 1: Enlightenment got the French monarchy. She doesn't want to lose

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Speaker 1: her head, the French radicals in the revolutionaries, all of that.

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Speaker 1: She never thought that those ideas would come to such

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Speaker 1: violence against anointed monarch, so even it was based on

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Speaker 1: things she professed to believe in, she repudiated it couldn't

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Speaker 1: like the results. By that time. These concerns preoccupied her

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Speaker 1: later years of life, and her own death came not

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Speaker 1: long after that November five s and despite other reports

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Speaker 1: of her death, this is how it went she had

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Speaker 1: gone to the bathroom. She stayed too long and one

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Speaker 1: of her servants came to check on her. She'd collapsed,

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Speaker 1: so she was brought to her bedroom and died there

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Speaker 1: the next night. She did not die in the bathroom,

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Speaker 1: as people keep saying, so the cause of death as

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Speaker 1: a stroke. And Paul assents to the throne, even though

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Speaker 1: Catherine had hoped that her beloved grandson Alexander would take over.

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Speaker 1: We already know Paul and Catherine don't get along very well.

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Speaker 1: And Paul becomes emperor immediately, has Peter's remains brought up

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Speaker 1: in his coffin displayed next to Catherine like they're these

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Speaker 1: pious husband and wife. Is a huge slap in the face,

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Speaker 1: a lot of disrespect towards his mother because of course

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Speaker 1: she despised her husband, and that makes them look like

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Speaker 1: co rulers when that wasn't the case at all, And

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Speaker 1: they're buried next to each other um at the cathedrals

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Speaker 1: of St. Peter's and Paul. So Paul the First does

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Speaker 1: not last very long because he is so much like

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Speaker 1: his father Peter the third. He's assassinated five years later,

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Speaker 1: and Alexander, the beloved grandson finally becomes emperor at age

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Speaker 1: twenty three. So Catherine brought Europe to Russia and forever

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Speaker 1: changed the balance of power in Europe. We can definitely

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Speaker 1: say that about her. If you'd like to let us

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Speaker 1: know your opinions, you can email us at History Podcast

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And next up in

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Speaker 1: our Catherine series is Catherine's lovers, none of which are

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Speaker 1: at Quine. I would like to add, and will end

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Speaker 1: with a quote from a letter she wrote to her lover,

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Speaker 1: but Temkin, the trouble is that my heart is loath

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Speaker 1: to remain even one hour without love. If that gives

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Speaker 1: you an idea of where we're going, and that brings

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Speaker 1: us to listener mail. So we received a card from

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Speaker 1: Kate in Ohio and really cool card. I know. I

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Speaker 1: have to say, I have finally been quoted on a

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Speaker 1: greeting card, Thank god, from our from our art Heist episode.

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Speaker 1: Kate's card has a really cool watercolor of me empty

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Speaker 1: frame and also my quote sometimes art is too hot

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Speaker 1: to unload. But she's she's captained it, So why do

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Speaker 1: people put on big mustaches and steal it? Which we

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Speaker 1: just love this, It's really funny, And she wrote that

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Speaker 1: I listened to you when I'm traveling, but also in

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Speaker 1: painting and drawing and put my favorite quotes and names

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Speaker 1: like Thursday, October Fletcher in my sketch book. So thanks

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Speaker 1: for your card, Katie. We think it's really cool and

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Speaker 1: we'll maybe take a picture for you guys and put

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Speaker 1: it up on Twitter and Facebook. Follow us on Twitter

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Speaker 1: at missed in History or join our Facebook fan page

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Speaker 1: and see what we're up to. And please check out

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Speaker 1: our homepage at www dot house stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit

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Speaker 1: how staff works dot com and be sure to check

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