Editing Catherine the Great (section)

== Personal life ==
[[File:Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeevna by anonymous after Rotari (18th c, Russian museum).jpg|thumb|Empress Catherine the Great, is popularly remembered for [[Legends of Catherine the Great|her sexual promiscuity]].]]
Catherine, throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest and then pensioning them off with gifts of serfs and large estates.{{sfn|Alexander|1989|page=224}}<ref>Eleanor Herman, ''Sex With the Queen'' (2006) pp. 147–173.</ref> The percentage of state money spent on the court increased from 10% in 1767 to 11% in 1781 to 14% in 1795. Catherine gave away 66,000 serfs from 1762 to 1772, 202,000 from 1773 to 1793, and 100,000 in one day: 18 August 1795.<ref name="Pipes">{{Cite book|first=Richard|last=Pipes|title=Russia under the old regime|year=1974|publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-0684140414|url=https://archive.org/details/russiaunderoldre0000pipe}}</ref>{{rp |119}} Catherine bought the support of the bureaucracy. In 1767, Catherine decreed that after seven years in one rank, civil servants automatically would be promoted regardless of office or merit.<ref>Pipes, ''Russia under the old regime,'' p. 135.</ref>

After her affair with her lover and adviser Grigory Potemkin ended in 1776, he allegedly selected a candidate-lover for her who had the physical beauty and mental faculties to hold her interest (such as [[Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov]] and Nicholas Alexander Suk).<ref>Bushkovitch, Paul. ''A Concise History of Russia''. New York, Oxford University Press, 2011.</ref> Some of these men loved her in return, and she always showed generosity towards them, even after the affair ended. One of her lovers, Pyotr Zavadovsky, received 50,000 roubles, a pension of 5,000 roubles, and 4,000 peasants in Ukraine after she dismissed him in 1777.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Farquhar|first=Michael|year=2001|title=A Treasure of Royal Scandals|page=[https://archive.org/details/treasuryofroyals00farq/page/7 7]|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]|place=New York|isbn=978-0-7394-2025-6|url=https://archive.org/details/treasuryofroyals00farq/page/7}}</ref> The last of her lovers, [[Platon Zubov]], was 40 years her junior. Her sexual independence led to many of the [[legends of Catherine the Great|legends about her]].<ref>Virginia Rounding, ''Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power'' (2006) [https://www.amazon.com/Catherine-Great-Virginia-Rounding/dp/0091799929/  excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703222738/http://www.amazon.com/Catherine-Great-Virginia-Rounding/dp/0091799929 |date=3 July 2013 }}</ref>

Catherine kept her illegitimate son by Grigory Orlov ([[Bobrinsky|Alexis Bobrinsky]], later elevated to Count Bobrinsky by Paul I) near [[Tula, Russia|Tula]], away from her court.

The acceptance of a woman ruler was more of an issue among elites in Western Europe than in Russia. The British ambassador to Russia, [[James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury|James Harris]], reported back to London that:

{{blockquote|Her Majesty has a masculine force of mind, obstinacy in adhering to a plan, and intrepidity in the execution of it; but she wants the more manly virtues of deliberation, forbearance in prosperity and accuracy of judgment, while she possesses in a high degree the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex—love of flattery, and its inseparable companion, vanity; an inattention to unpleasant but salutary advice; and a propensity to voluptuousness which leads to excesses that would debase a female character in any sphere of life.<ref>{{cite journal|at=quoting p. 293 |jstor=127976|title=Catherine the Great and the Problem of Female Rule |last1=Meehan-Waters |first1=Brenda |journal=The Russian Review |year=1975 |volume=34 |issue=3 |doi=10.2307/127976 }}</ref>}}

=== Poniatowski ===
[[File:Marcello Bacciarelli, Portret Stanisława Augusta Poniatowskiego (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=.8|[[Stanisław August Poniatowski]], the last King of [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|Poland]]]]

[[Charles Hanbury Williams|Sir Charles Hanbury Williams]], the British ambassador to Russia, offered Stanisław Poniatowski a place in the embassy in return for gaining Catherine as an ally. Poniatowski, through his mother's side, came from the [[Czartoryski family]], prominent members of the pro-Russian faction in Poland; Poniatowski and Catherine were eighth cousins, twice removed, by their mutual ancestor King [[Christian I of Denmark]], by virtue of Poniatowski's maternal descent from the Scottish [[House of Stuart]]. Catherine, 26 years old and already married to the then-Grand Duke Peter for some 10 years, met the 22-year-old Poniatowski in 1755, well before encountering the Orlov brothers. They had a daughter named Anna Petrovna in December 1757 (not to be confused with [[Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia]], the daughter of Peter I's second marriage), although she was legally regarded as Grand Duke Peter's.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ilWlLmsIukC&q=Stanis%C5%82aw+Poniatowski+Anna+Petrovna|title=Catherine the Great|first=Christine|last=Hatt|date=24 November 2017|publisher=World Almanac Library|access-date=24 November 2017|via=Google Books|isbn=978-0836855357}}</ref>

King [[Augustus III of Poland]] died in 1763, so Poland needed to elect a new ruler. Catherine supported Poniatowski as a candidate to become the next king. She sent the Russian army into Poland to avoid possible disputes. Russia invaded Poland on 26 August 1764, threatening to fight, and imposing Poniatowski as king. Poniatowski accepted the throne, and thereby put himself under Catherine's control. News of Catherine's plan spread, and Frederick II (others say the Ottoman sultan) warned her that if she tried to conquer Poland by marrying Poniatowski, all of Europe would oppose her. She had no intention of marrying him, having already given birth to Orlov's child and to the Grand Duke Paul by then.

Prussia (through the agency of [[Prince Henry of Prussia (1726–1802)|Prince Henry]]), Russia (under Catherine), and Austria (under [[Maria Theresa of Austria|Maria Theresa]]) began preparing the ground for the partitions of Poland. In the first partition, 1772, the three powers split {{convert|20000|sqmi|km2|order=flip|abbr=on}} among them. Russia got territories east of the line connecting, more or less, [[Riga]]–[[Polotsk]]–[[Mogilev]]. In the second partition, in 1793, Russia received the most land, from west of [[Minsk]] almost to [[Kiev]] and down the river Dnieper, leaving some spaces of [[steppe]] down south in front of [[Ochakiv|Ochakov]], on the [[Black Sea]]. Later uprisings in Poland led to the third partition in 1795. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation<ref>Thomas McLean, ''The Other East and Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Imagining Poland and the Russian Empire'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) pp. 14–40.</ref> until its post-World War I reconstitution.

=== Orlov ===
[[File:Orlov greg.jpeg|thumb|upright=.8|Count [[Grigory Orlov]], by [[Fyodor Rokotov]]]]
Grigory Orlov, the grandson of a rebel in the [[Streltsy uprising]] (1698) against Peter the Great, distinguished himself in the [[Battle of Zorndorf]] (25 August 1758), receiving three wounds. He represented an opposite to Peter's pro-Prussian sentiment, with which Catherine disagreed. By 1759, he and Catherine had become lovers; no one told Catherine's husband, Peter. Catherine saw Orlov as very useful, and he became instrumental in the 28 June 1762 ''[[coup d'état]]'' against her husband, but she preferred to remain the dowager empress of Russia rather than marrying anyone.

Orlov and his other three brothers found themselves rewarded with titles, money, swords, and other gifts, but Catherine did not marry Grigory, who proved inept at politics and useless when asked for advice. He received a palace in Saint Petersburg when Catherine became empress.

Orlov died in 1783. Their son, Aleksey Grygoriovich Bobrinsky (1762–1813), had one daughter, Maria Alexeyeva Bobrinsky (Bobrinskaya) (1798–1835), who married in 1819 the 34-year-old Prince [[Nikolai Gagarin|Nikolai Sergeevich Gagarin]] (London, England, 1784–1842) who took part in the [[Battle of Borodino]] (7 September 1812) against [[Napoleon]], and later served as ambassador in Turin, the capital of the [[Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861)|Kingdom of Sardinia]].

=== Potemkin ===
[[File:1000 Potiomkin.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Catherine II and Prince [[Grigory Potemkin]] on the [[Millennium of Russia|Millennium Monument]] in [[Veliky Novgorod|Novgorod]]]]
Grigory Potemkin was involved in the palace coup of 1762. In 1772, Catherine's close friends informed her of Orlov's affairs with other women, and she dismissed him. By the winter of 1773, the Pugachev revolt had started to threaten. Catherine's son Paul had started gaining support; both of these trends threatened her power. She called Potemkin for help—mostly military—and he became devoted to her.

In 1772, Catherine wrote to Potemkin. Days earlier, she had found out about an uprising in the Volga region. She appointed General [[Aleksandr Bibikov]] to put down the uprising, but she needed Potemkin's advice on military strategy. Potemkin quickly gained positions and awards. Russian poets wrote about his virtues, the court praised him, foreign ambassadors fought for his favour, and his family moved into the palace. He later became the de facto absolute ruler of New Russia, governing its colonisation.

In 1780, Emperor [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph II]], the son of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, toyed with the idea of determining whether or not to enter an alliance with Russia, and asked to meet Catherine. Potemkin had the task of briefing him and travelling with him to Saint Petersburg. Potemkin also convinced Catherine to expand the universities in Russia to increase the number of scientists.

Catherine was worried that Potemkin's poor health would delay his important work in colonising and developing the south as he had planned. He died at the age of 52 in 1791.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Duran |first=James A. |date=1969 |title=Catherine II, Potemkin, and Colonization Policy in Southern Russia |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/126983 |journal=The Russian Review |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=23–36 |doi=10.2307/126983 |jstor=126983 |access-date=5 August 2020 |archive-date=17 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817234309/https://www.jstor.org/stable/126983 |url-status=live }}</ref>