Catherine the Great

by Simon Dixon

  113. Grimm, 221, 27 Sept. 1781.

  114. S. Ia. Karp, ‘Perepiska Grimma s Verzhennom (1775–1777)’, in Russko-frantsuzskie kul’turnye sviazi v epokhu Prosveshcheniia: Materialy i issledovaniia (M, 2001), 137–8, Grimm to Vergennes, 15 Feb. 1777. De Mailly’s piece was delivered, to general acclamation, in June 1778: see Grimm, 95.

  115. Grimm, 84, 2–4 Mar. 1778; N. Rotshtein, ‘Novyia knigi po keramiki’, Starye gody, Apr. 1909, 219. ‘A Rouble is 5 French livres’, Bentham, ii: 126, J. Bentham to S. Bentham, 18 June 1778.

  116. Grimm, 135, 16 Apr. 1779.

  117. Quarenghi, 58, to Betskoy, July 1784.

  118. Madariaga, 387–9; Smith, Love and Conquest, 115–20; Montefiore, 246–9, 252–9; Lopatin, 176, 15 July 1783.

  119. L. V. Tychinina and N. B. Bessarabova, Kniaginia Dashkova i imperatorskii dvor (M, 2006), 40–63, summarises the evidence of KfZh.

  120. Madariaga, 535.

  121. G. I. Smagina, ‘Kniaginia Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova: Shtrikhi k portretu’, in E. R. Dashkova, O smysle slova ‘vospitanie’: sochineniia, pis’ma, dokumenty (M, 2001), 56–63, 71–2.

  122. Beer and Fiedler, i: 20, Cobenzl to Joseph II, 5 May 1780 NS.

  123. Dimsdale, 57; Proschwitz, 196, C. to Gustav III, 10 Jul. 1783.

  124. Grimm, 84, 2–4 Mar. 1778. See also, Parkinson, 27, 11 Nov. 1792.

  125. ‘Dnevnik grafa Bobrinskago’, RA, Oct. 1877, 135, 23 Feb. 1782.

  126. AKV, xxi: 264.

  127. V. I. Piliavskii, Dzhakomo Kvarengi (Leningrad, 1981), 63, 73–4; Cross, 282, where the ownership of the estate is unidentified.

  128. Corberon, ii: 330, 4 Sept. 1780 NS.

  129. Grimm, 253, 15 Nov. 1782; Zavadovskii, 279, n.d. [Feb. 1783].

  130. KfZh (1783), 59. Of these, 2640 were nobles and 490 merchants. 8170 tickets had been issued: 7100 to nobles and 1070 to merchants.

  131. Grimm, 268, 3 Mar. 1783; KfZh (1783), 78–9.

  132. Zavadovskii, 275, 25 Nov. 1782.

  133. Harris Diaries, ii: 11–12.

  134. Grimm, 274–5, 20 Apr. 1783.

  135. Lopatin, 186, 16 Oct. 1783.

  136. Grimm, 316–7, 7 July 1784.

  137. Parkinson, 49–50; see also 45–6.

  138. AKV, xxi: 284, n.

  139. Alexander, 216–7, is misled by SIRIO, xxvi: 281, where Bezborodko’s letter to Potëmkin, reporting that the funeral took place ‘yesterday’, is misdated 28 July 1784. The letter’s contents, and the collateral evidence of KfZh, place it at 28 June. Montefiore, 553, n. 3, unaccountably dates it 29 June, which invalidates his account of a funeral on 27 July, pp. 312–4.

  140. KfZh (1784), 380.

  141. SIRIO, xxvi: 281, Bezborodko to Potëmkin [28 June 1784].

  142. RS (Sept. 1879), 151, C. to U. Ia. Lanskaia, oddly dated 25 June rather than 26 June.

  143. KfZh (1784), 382–4.

  144. AKV, xxi: 462, E. Polianskaia to S. R. Vorontsov, 6 July 1784.

  145. AKV, xxxi: 444, A. R. to S. R. Vorontsov, 21 July 1784.

  146. Lettres au Prince de Ligne, 47, 18 Aug. 1784; J. T. Alexander, ‘Aeromania, “fire balloons”, and Catherine the Great’s ban of 1784’, The Historian, 58 (1996).

  147. KfZh (1784), 396, 398–9, 442–7; Sochineniia, xii:.

  148. Grimm, 337, 25 Apr. 1785; AKV, xxxi: 448, A. R. to S. R. Vorontsov, 29 Aug. 1784; KfZh (1784), 452–4.

  149. KfZh (1784), 456–9.

  150. Grimm, 318, 322, 9 and 26 Sept. 1784.

  151. Beer and Fiedler, i: 482, 484, Cobenzl to Joseph, 3 Nov. 1784.

  Chapter 11

  1. KfZh (1785), 221–2.

  2. Madariaga, 484; Alexander, 218; Cross, ‘By the Banks of the Thames’, 243, quoting S. R. Vorontsov.

  3. Beer and Fiedler, ii: 37, Cobenzl to Joseph, 14 May 1785; Alexander, 217; Grimm, 336, 24 Apr. 1785.

  4. Jones, Emancipation of the Russian Nobility, ch. 8; Madariaga, 295–9.

  5. D. Griffiths and G. Munro, eds., Catherine II’s Charters of 1785 to the Nobility and the Towns (Bakersfield, CA, 1991), passim, esp. p. lxiv, introduction by Griffiths.

  6. KfZh (1785), 281, 307; Coxe, ii: 290–5; Ségur, ii: 262–3.

  7. Zavadovskii, 289, 28 Apr. 1785.

  8. PSZ, xxii: 16,381, 28 Apr. 1786.

  9. Grimm, 342, 1 June 1785.

  10. Lettere, 162, 31 May 1785.

  11. SIRIO, xv: 23, C. to Paul and Maria Fëdorovna, 16 June 1785.

  12. Lettere, 162, 8 June 1785.

  13. Coxe, i: 444, 424, 422.

  14. R. E. Jones, Provincial development in Russia: Catherine II and Jakob Sievers (New Brunswick, NJ, 1984); N. V. Sereda, Reformy upravleniia Ekateriny Vtoroi (Moscow, 2004). A. Jones, ‘A Russian bourgeois’s Arctic Enlightenment’, Historical Journal, 48 (2005), 623–46, shows that merchant civic involvement was not confined to the central provinces.

  15. Grimm, 343, 20 June 1785.

  16. KfZh (1785), 311; Lettere, 162, 31 May 1785.

  17. KfZh (1785), 281–360, passim.

  18. KfZh (1785), 340.

  19. KfZh (1785), 354–5; Cross, 298.

  20. KfZh (1785), 363–7.

  21. Ségur, ii: 265–6.

  22. D. V. Tsvetaev, ‘Ukazy i pis’ma Imperatritsy Ekateriny Velikoi’, Zhurnal ministerstva iustitsii (Dec. 1915), 195, C. to Viazemskii, 16 June 1785; Grimm, 342, 14 June.

  23. KfZh (1785), appendix, 45.

  24. Grimm, 344, 28 June 1785.

  25. Letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, 10 May 1786 NS, quoted in M. R. Key, Catherine the Great’s Linguistic Contribution (Carbondale, IL, 1980), 62, an odd but not wholly negligible book.

  26. SK, 6812; Madariaga, Short History, 99.

  27. Belekhov and Petrov, Ivan Starov, 103–14.

  28. SIRIO, xv: 23, C. to Paul and Maria Fëdorovna, 8 June 1785.

  29. Gerchuk, Bazhenov, 123–63.

  30. Parkinson, 212, 19 Nov. 1792.

  31. Madariaga, 524–5; McGrew, 195–6.

  32. Grimm, 167, 2 Jan. 1780.

  33. Zimmerman, 245–6, 17 Apr. 1786.

  34. Pis’ma N.I. Novikova, eds. M. V. Reizin, et al (SPb, 1994), 42; Jones, Nikolay Novikov, 185–91; Marker, Publishing, 220–6; Zimmerman, 247, 22 Apr. 1787.

  35. Grimm, 372, 10 Nov. 1785.

  36. Diderot, Oeuvres, ed. L. Versini (Paris, 1995), iii: 515, 546 (paras viii, lxxv).

  37. Grimm, 372–3, 23 Nov. 1785.

  38. Piliavskii, Kvarengi, 121.

  39. Ibid., 64.

  40. KfZh (1785), 704.

  41. Piliavskii, Kvarengi, 122.

  42. Khrapovitskii, 19 and 21 Apr. 1786.

  43. MP, ii: 343; G. Seaman, ‘The national element in early Russian opera’, Music and Letters, 42 (1961), 260–1. Lettres de Cte Valetin Esterhazy a sa femme 1784–1792, ed. E. Daudet (Paris, 1907), 318–9.

  44. G. Moracci, ‘“Bolee truda nezheli smekha”: Pis’mo Ekateriny II L’vu Aleskandrovichu Naryshkinu’, Russian Literature, 52 (2002), 243–9.

  45. L. D. O’Malley, The dramatic works of Catherine the Great: Theatre and politics in eighteenth-century Russia (Aldershot, 2006), 140–67.

  46. Lopatin, 209, Potëmkin to C., 6 Oct. 1786.

  47. Zimmerman, 244, C. to Dr Zimmerman, 10 Jan. 1786.

  48. Grimm, 328, 17 Dec. 1786.

  49. Sochineniia, iv: appendix, 189–219; Khrapovitskii, 163, 29 Sept. 1788; 167, 5 Oct.; 174, 15 Oct.

  50. AKV, xxi: 467, Elisaveta Polianskaia to S. R. Vorontsov, 1 Jan. 1787.

  51. Krapovitskii, 21, 17 Dec. 1786; Lopatin, 212, C. to Potëmkin, 18 Dec.; A. G. Brikner, ‘Zel’mira: epizod iz istorii tsarstvovaniia imperatritsy Ekateriny II’, Istoricheskii vestnik (1890), 277–303; 551–72.

  52. Zavadovskii, 276–7, 26 Jan. 1783.

  53. Bentham, iii: 310, S. Bentham to J. Bentham, 6/17 Sept. 1784; KfZh (1784), appendix, 71, 26 Sept.

  54. ‘Pis’ma grafa A.R. Vorontsova k bratu ego grafu Semenu Romanovichu i ego supruge, 1783–1785’, AKV, xxxi: 463–4, 24 Oct., 1 Nov. 1784; Bezborodko, 27
9, 23 July 1785; Grimm, 333, 15 Apr. 1785.

  55. Coxe, i: 245.

  56. Khrapovitskii, 23, 17 Jan. 1787.

  57. KfZh (1787), appendix: 5, C. to Ia. A. Brius, 17 Jan. 1787; Bychkov, 166, C. to N. V. Repnin, 16 Jan. 1787.

  58. Istoricheskii ocherk Smolenska (SPb, 1894), 55–7.

  59. Khrapovitskii, 23–4.

  60. Slova i rechi Georgiia Koniiskago, Arkhiepiskopa Mogilevskago (Mogilev, 1892), 242.

  61. Engelhgardt, 54.

  62. Bentham, iii: 523, 525–6, J. Bentham to G. Wilson, 9/20 Feb. 1787.

  63. AKV, xii: 35, P. V. Zavadovskii to A. R. Vorontsov, 8 Mar. 1787.

  64. Ségur, iii: 31.

  65. Lettere, 166, 30 Jan 1787.

  66. Lettere, 167, 6 Feb. 1787.

  67. Zimmerman, 247, 22 Apr. 1787; V. S. Ikonnikov, ‘Kiev v 1654–1855 gg.’, Kievskaia starina (Sept. 1904), 273.

  68. Quoted in L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, 127, 130.

  69. Lettere, 175, 15 Mar. 1787.

  70. Zimmerman, 247, 22 Apr. 1787.

  71. Grimm, 393, 8 Feb. 1787; Khrapovitskii, 28, 20 Mar.; Montefiore, 357–62.

  72. Khrapovitskii, 26, 22 Feb. 1787.

  73. Archivo del General Miranda, Viajes: Diarios 1785–1787 (Caracas, 1929), ii: 256, 11 Feb. 1787.

  74. Lettere, 170, 20 Feb. 1787; 175, 15 Mar.

  75. Khrapovitskii, 24, 7 Feb. 1787. The abbess was the former Countess Anna Pavlovna Iaguzhinskaia.

  76. Lettere, 169, 16 Feb. 1787.

  77. Baedeker’s Russia 1914 (London, 1971 edn.), 381.

  78. N. Ia. Ozeretskovskii, Puteshestvie po Rossii 1782–1783, ed. S. Kozlov (SPb, 1996), 135, diary, 12 June 1783; Archivo del General Miranda, ii: 259, 15 Feb. 1787.

  79. KfZh (1787), appendix.

  80. Ibneeva, Puteshestviia Ekateriny, 145–6.

  81. SIRIO, 23: 396, 2 Apr. 1787; ibid., 703–5, ‘Vedomost’ o den’gakh, perevodimykh k statskomu sovetniku baronu Grimmu’.

  82. Khrapovitskii, 25–32, 15 Feb.—21 Apr. 1787; I. Reyfman, Ritualized violence Russian style: The duel in Russian culture and literature (Stanford, CA, 1999), 52–3.

  83. Khrapovitskii, 32, 16 Apr. 1787; Madariaga, Short History, 207–8.

  84. Ibneeva, Puteshestviia Ekateriny, 140–4 (142).

  85. Lettere, 179, 1 Apr. 1787; Khrapovitskii, 30, 4 Apr.

  86. Bantysh-Kamenskii, Spiski, 159.

  87. A. M. Panchenko, ‘Potemkinskie derevni kak kul’turnyi mif’, XVIII vek, 14 (1983), 93–104.

  88. SIRIO, xv: 105, C. to Paul and Maria Fëdorovna, 14 May 1787; Madariaga, 373. Kherson had actually been founded in 1778.

  89. Ozeretskovskii, Puteshestvie, 131, diary, 22 May 1783.

  90. O. I. Eliseeva, Geopoliticheskie proekty G. A. Potemkina (M, 2000), 191–216.

  91. Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla, ch. 4; A. Schönle, ‘Garden of the Empire: Catherine’s appropriation of the Crimea’, Slavic Review, 60 (2001), 1–23.

  92. S. Dickinson, ‘Russia’s First “Orient”: Characterizing the Crimea in 1787’, Kritika, 3 (2002), 22–4; Khrapovitskii, 28, 14 Mar. 1787.

  93. Khrapovitskii, 38–9, 8 June 1787; 40, 21 June.

  94. Papmehl, Metropolitan Platon, 48–9.

  95. D. Smith, The Pearl: A true tale of forbidden love in Catherine the Great’s Russia (New Haven, CT, 2008), 75–84 (75).

  96. Zimmerman, 251, 3 Dec. 1787.

  97. Lopatin, 223, C. to Potëmkin, 24 Aug. 1787; 229–30, Potëmkin to C., 16 Sept; 232, Potëmkin to C., 24 Sept; 238, C. to Potëmkin, 2 Oct.; 240, C. to Potëmkin, 9 Oct.

  98. Alexander, 264, 269; Madariaga, 396–405; Lopatin, 329, 16 Dec. 1788.

  99. Khrapovitskii, 215, 18 Dec. 1788.

  100. Madariaga, 401.

  101. Lopatin, 300, C. to Potëmkin, 3 July 1788; 303, 17 July.

  102. Madariaga 399–400, Montefiore, 360–1.

  103. Khrapovitskii, 277, 21 Apr. 1789; Alexander, 219–21.

  104. Lopatin, 355, C. to Potëmkin, 29 June 1789.

  105. Madariaga, 540–1.

  106. Lopatin, 372, Potëmkin to C., 22 Sept. 1789.

  107. Lopatin, 379, C. to Potëmkin, 18 Oct. 1789.

  108. A. Iu. Andreev, Russkie studenty v nemetskikh universitetakh XVIII—pervoi poloviny XIX veka (M, 2005), 182–208.

  109. Madariaga, 541–5; C.’s notes in A. N. Radishchev, A Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow, trans. L. Wiener, ed. R. P. Thaler (Cambridge, MA, 1958), 239–40, emphasis in the original.

  Chapter 12

  1. Khrapovitskii, 331, 3–4 May 1790; KfZh (1790), 217.

  2. Khrapovitskii, 333, 23 May 1790.

  3. KfZh (1790), 269; Zavadovskii, 329–30, 14 June 1790.

  4. KfZh (1790), 301–2, 26 June 1790; Lopatin, 419, 28 June; Grimm, 493, 12 Sept.

  5. Alexander, 281–2; Madariaga, 413–4; Lopatin, 426, 9 Aug. 1790.

  6. Lopatin, 426, 9 Aug. 1790; KfZh (1790), 425–43; MP, iii: 83–4.

  7. Runkevich, Aleksandro-Nevskaia Lavra, ii: 146; S. K. Batalden, Catherine II’s Greek Prelate: Eugenios Voulgaris in Russia, 1771–1806 (New York, 1982), 79–80 and passim.

  8. Lopatin, 429, 29 Aug. 1790.

  9. Stedingk, 21, 10 Oct. 1790 NS.

  10. Khrapovitskii, 349, 1–5, 7 Oct. 1790.

  11. Grimm, 500, 27 Sept. 1790.

  12. Stedingk, 99, 17 Mar. 1791 NS; 23, 10 Oct 1790 NS.

  13. Stedingk, 78, 8 Feb. 1791 NS; 33, 18/27 Oct. 1790.

  14. Khrapovitskii, 350, 24 Oct. 1790.

  15. Stedingk, 40, J. J. Jennings to G. de Franc, 13 Nov. 1790 NS.

  16. KfZh (1790), 614.

  17. Stedingk, 44–5, 26 Nov. 1790 NS.

  18. SIRIO, xlii, 123–4; Stedingk, 45, 26 Nov. 1790 NS; Khrapovitskii, 350–1, 25, 29, 31 Oct., 1, 5, 6, 10 Nov. 1790.

  19. Stedingk, 57–8, 29 Dec. 1790 NS.

  20. V. S. Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov (M, 1992), 187–97; P. Longworth, The art of victory: The life and achievements of Field-Marshal Suvorov (London, 1965), 165–74.

  21. Montefiore, 450 (Damas); A. V. Suvorov, Pis’ma, ed. V. S. Lopatin (M, 1986), 207, Suvorov to Potëmkin, 11 Dec. 1790.

  22. Montefiore, 580, n. 22; Stedingk, 65, 14 Jan. 1791 NS.

  23. A. Zorin, ‘Redkaia veshch’: ‘sandunovskii skandal’ i russkii dvor vremen Frantsuzskoi revoliutsii’, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 80 (2006), 91–110. See also, W. Rosslyn, ‘Petersburg actresses on and off stage (1775–1825)’, in St Petersburg 1703–1825, ed. Cross, esp. 122, 140.

  24. M. Duffy, The Englishman and the foreigner (London, 1986), 40, pl. 86.

  25. A. Cross, ‘Catherine in British caricature’, in Catherine the Great and the British: A pot-pourri of essays (Nottingham, 2001), 33–8; Alexander, 289.

  26. J. Black, British foreign policy in an age of revolutions, 1783–1793 (Cambridge, 1994), 285–91.

  27. Khrapovitskii, 359, 15 Mar. 1791; Madariaga, 417–9.

  28. Stedingk, 112, 8 Apr. NS.

  29. Khrapovitskii, 361, 7–8 Apr. 1791. Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov, 228, ascribes these words to Potëmkin.

  30. M. S. Anderson, Britain’s discovery of Russia 1553–1815 (London, 1958), 154–85.

  31. Alexander, 289; Parkinson quoted in Cross, 328.

  32. P. Schroeder, The Transformation of European politics 1763–1848 (Oxford, 1994), 81.

  33. Stedingk, 103–4, 25 Mar. 1791 NS; Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov, 215.

  34. Tooke, iii: 365. On this influential work, see D. Griffiths, ‘Castéra-Tooke: the first Western biographer(s) of Catherine II’, SGECRN, 10 (1982), 50–62.

  35. Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla, 138–41.

  36. Tooke, iii: 367–8.

  37. Quoted in Wortman, Scenarios, 145.

  38. Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla, 126–7.

  39. Stedingk, 137, 18 May 1791 NS; Grimm, 519, 29 Apr. 1791.

  40. Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla, 128–30; Madariaga, 424.

  41. See R. Butterwick, ‘Political discourses of the Polish Revolution, 1788–1792’, English
Historical Review, 120 (2005), 695–731.

  42. Constitution quoted in J. Michalski, ‘The meaning of the Constitution of 3 May’, in Constitution and reform in eighteenth-century Poland, ed. S. Fiszman (Bloomington, IN, 1997), 271.

  43. Madariaga, 420–44; Schroeder, Transformation of European politics, 83–6 (86).

  44. Khrapovitskii, 371–2, 16 Aug. 1791.

  45. Lettres de Cte Valentin Esterhazy a sa femme 1784–1792, ed. E. Daudet (Paris, 1907), 305, 12 Sept. 1791.

  46. Lettres de Esterhazy, 288, 4 Sept. 1791; Grimm, 558, 16 Sept.; 560, 23 Sept; Khrapovitskii, 374–5, 16 Sept.

  47. Lettres de Esterhazy, 301, 9 Sept. 1791.

  48. Madariaga, 425–6.

  49. Lopatin, C. to Potëmkin, 468, 16 Sept. 1791; 470, 30 Sept.

  50. Tooke, iii, 385.

  51. Lopatin, 470, C. to Potëmkin, 3 Oct; Potëmkin to C., 4 Oct.; Khrapovitskii, 374–6; Montefiore, 481–6.

  52. Lettres de Esterhazy, 347, 29 Oct. 1791.

  53. Suvorov, Pis’ma, 226–7, to D. I. Khvostov, [30 Oct.] and 12 Dec. 1791; Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov, 224–7.

  54. Khrapovitskii, 377, 12 Oct. 1791; Grimm, 561, 13 Oct.

  55. Obshchii arkhiv Ministerstva Imperatorskago Dvora: Opisi domov i dvizhimago imushchestva kniazia Potemkina-Tavricheskago, kuplennykh u naslednikov ego Imperatritseiu Ekaterinoiu II (M, 1892), passim; Montefiore, 344; Batalden, Catherine II’s Greek Prelate, 75–6.

  56. Grimm, 605, 27 Aug. 1794.

  57. Belekhov and Petrov, Ivan Starov, 81–102; A. G. Cross, ‘British sources for Catherine’s Russia: 1) Lionel Colmore’s Letters from St Petersburg, 1790–91’, SGECRN, 17 (1989), 31.

  58. Parkinson, 37, 17 Nov. 1792.

  59. Cross, 274–6.

  60. SIRIO, xlii, 19 Jan. 1793.

  61. Khrapovitskii, 346, 2 Sept. 1790; 405, 22 July 1792.

  62. Madariaga, 412; Alexander, 281; KfZh (1796), appendix II, ‘Vypiski iz arkhivnykh del’, 18. Catherine translated Plutarch into Russian from the Latin, probably using one of the widely available Greek-Latin parallel editions of his work: see Khrapovitskii, 325, 331, 559.

  63. The Memoirs of Catherine the Great, ed. and trans. Cruse and Hoogenboom, xlix—liv, ‘Introduction’ by Hoogenboom.

  64. Grimm, 609, 29 Aug. 1794; SIRIO, xlii: 320–21, undated, 1792.

  65. J. P. LeDonne, Absolutism and ruling class: The formation of the Russian political order 1700–1825 (New York, 1991), 21; idem, Ruling Russia, 350.