Who was Catherine the Great? – one of the greatest leaders of Russia. During her reign, Russia became the most powerful empire in the world.
Sophie Friederike Auguste von
Anhalt-Zerbst (1729-1796) was born in Stettin, a military town in Prussia. She
spoke German, so she learned French, the language of aristocrats. She listened
closely to what adults discussed. She was a good observer and she noticed that
her mother’s bragging and being the center of attention made her unpopular. So
she didn’t want to be this way.
At fourteen, Sophie was chosen to
marry Peter, the future emperor of Russia. She was actually excited about it as
she was adventures and life in a big country and as cold as Russia didn’t scare
her.
Peter was also from Prussia, but he
missed his homeland and didn’t like studying Russian, and didn’t like Russia.
Catherine was opposite. She took it very seriously, studying the language and
the rituals of the Russian Orthodox Church.
They married on August 21, 1745,
and Sophie became Catherine. Peter started ignoring Catherine from day one of
their marriage. She became very lonely. Thus, she started reading a lot. She
especially liked the work of philosophers of the Enlightenment.
Peter had many women and was
ignoring Catherine. Eventually, she accepted a man that was pursuing her,
Sergei Saltykov. She had a baby-boy with him who was accepted as the son of
Peter.
Elizabeth the Empress, who didn’t
have children, swept Catherine’s new born baby and treated him as hers.
Catherine had no say in it.
But giving royalty a son was a big
deal, so she used it to her advantage, and started demanding more respect. She
became close friends with the British ambassador and the Russian
vice-chancellor. She impressed them with her knowledge and intelligence.
She also developed a close
relationship with the Polish nobleman, Stanislaw Poniatowski who briefly became
her partner and they had a daughter in 1757, but she lived for only fifteen
months.
After the death of Elizabeth, Peter
openly was taking Prussia’s side, when Catherine fully embraced Russia and its
people.
With the help of the Russian army,
she was secretly escorted to Kazan Cathedral where the Russian Orthodox
archbishop declared her empress in the eyes of the church.
She dethroned her own husband, who
died in July 1762 supposedly naturally, but most likely was assassinated.
She was crowned empress on
September 22, 1762. She knew that Russia was deeply in debt. She put her salary
back into the national treasury. She studied what was happening in Russia for
fifteen hours per day.
She sought out the brightest people
she could find to fill the important positions. She listened to representative
of each region of Russia, giving people voice.
She truly wanted to improve people’s lives. She built hospitals and made sure the doctors were well-educated, in the long run saving many lives against illnesses. She established schools for boys and girls. She created one of the greatest collections of art, thus, becoming a center of culture and philosophy. She wanted to free all the serfs, but that was very challenging to do.
A French philosopher, Denis
Diderot, was so impressed with her that he began to refer to her as Catherine
the Great, and others followed.
Many people expected her to remarry
and have children, but she wanted to rule on her own.
Stanislaw Poniatowski was still
deeply in love with her, but she used him as his puppet. She helped him to
become the King of Poland. But with time, to put an end to some wars and to
make other powerful rulers happy and not to rage new wars, they divided Poland
into three parts.
After the war with Turkey,
returning soldiers brought with them bubonic plague, killing thousands of
people. Catherine almost lost the control of Moscow.
In 1772, Catherine’s son, Paul, who
was taken from her as a baby, didn’t have a good relationship with his mother.
He imitated his father from the stories he heard about him. He was pro-Prussia
and against Russia. She knew he wouldn’t be the right ruler.
Then, an imposter pretending to be
Peter III created a lot of followers and a lot of trouble. After his capture
and execution, Catherine felt she had to be a tough ruler.
In 1773, Paul married a Prussian
princess, Sophie, who took the name Maria Fyodorovna.
Catherine, despite not wanting
wars, continued to be hungry for more lands, taking over Crimea as she wanted
access to the Black Sea, and now wanted to take over Constantinople – to make
Russia the largest empire in the world. She didn’t win Constantinople but still
gained more new territory.
Catherine loved spending time with
her two oldest grandsons. She took charge of their education as she had plans
for their future. She also had ideas how she wanted to have the boys raised.
She wanted them to plant and to grow their own gardens. They were scolded only
in private, and praised in public. She said, “I praise loudly. I blame softly.”
She died on November 17, 1796 of a
stroke.
As soon as Paul was crowned emperor
of Russia, he enacted a law that only the oldest son could inherit the throne.
Catherine became the last woman to rule Russia.
This biography exemplifies a woman
who was a great listener and observer, and through this process gained valuable
wisdom. She was open to what others had to say, especially philosophers of
Enlightenment. She was quiet until she saw an opportunity to demand respect.
Thus, gaining power, and with that creating such alliances that backed her to
be the ruler. She truly cared about the people of Russia. Her rule wasn’t about
filling her coffers with money. It was about what was best for the people,
which is very much missing in today’s world.
Source: Penguin Workshop, 2021
TRENDING INSPIRATION: Be a good listener and observer, and through this process gaining valuable wisdom.
Traits:
·
She was a good listener
and observer from childhood.
·
She was adventures,
and life in Russia excited her. She embraced its culture, religion, language,
people.
·
She was open to what
other thinkers had to say, especially philosophers of the
Enlightenment.
·
She was ignored at first, but after giving birth to a son,
which was a big deal for royalty, she used it to her advantage, and started
demanding more respect.
·
With the help of the people who saw Catherine as the right
person to lead the country she was declared the empress in the eyes of the
church. With her new power, she dethroned her own husband.
·
She studied what was
happening in Russia for fifteen hours per day as she deeply cared for the
country she was leading and its people.
·
She sought out the
brightest people she could find to fill the important positions.
·
She listened to
representative of each region of Russia, thus giving people voice.
·
She truly wanted to improve people’s lives, and she did.
·
Some events made her feel that she had to be a tough ruler,
and that started building her ego and hunger for more lands.
FURTHER INSPIRATION AND RECOMMENDATION:
Catherine the Great was highly spirited person. Her character brings to mind another woman’s journey. Spirit Guided by Catherine Anne Williams.
The author, psychologist, shares
her journey from addiction and self-destruction to awakening and living in
Oneness.
As she shares her personal stories,
she blends it with scientific knowledge, spiritual teachings, and practical
tools in order to align our body with soul and the Source.
She grew up in a family of
scientists with high expectations, and her not being good enough led her to
addiction and self-destruction. When she had a near-death experience at nine
years-old, that’s when she had her first spirit communication but the
connection with her spiritual path came much later. As it happens with most
cases, we need to go through certain experiences, often painful, in order to
wake us up and start connecting the dots and seeing where those dots lead.
We, humans, struggle with seeing
the whole picture. How good and bad events in our lives serve a purpose, not
for us to become victims, but to wake us up to see a bigger picture. Thus, the
author presents her own story to make a point. How her rejection and
abandonment led her to seek other’s approval and love, which further resulted
in addiction and abusive relationships. But her greatest suffering became her
biggest gifts for spiritual awakening.
The author also points, to what
many others stated before and proved through their work with people who healed
themselves, that the spirit runs our body, thus, we have this spiritual ability
to heal ourselves. The physical body is the manifestation of the flow of
information in the spiritual body. Also, we all have psychic abilities, and we
know things without knowing why, but we have been programmed to disconnect
ourselves from the inner knowing.
Through her own story, she offers a
guidebook how to clear the clutter of societal conditioning in order to live
from the spiritual center.
This book offers a range of
information, overview of physics and how the universe works, insights from
neuroscience, and spiritual concepts from Eastern philosophies. This
information is mostly brief thus not overwhelming in its scope. The author’s
personal experience reinforces what she teaches about healing ourselves from
different conditions which mask our emotional traumas which need to be release.
