11. Catherine the Great: enlightened despot?

Who was Catherine II and how did she come to power?

Background

• Born 1729 in Stettin (Prussia) as a German princess.

• Came to Russia 1744 to marry Peter III.

Coup of 1762

• Peter III unpopular:

  • Admired Frederick II of Prussia

  • Ended Russian success in the Seven Years’ War

  • Planned war with Denmark

  • Alienated guards, senate, church

Support for Catherine

• Backed by Guards regiments

• Supported by nobility and senate

• Helped by lover Grigorii Orlov

Outcome

• 28 June 1762: Catherine proclaimed Empress.

• Peter III abdicated and soon died in captivity.

Why was Peter III unpopular?

Foreign policy

• Admired Frederick II.- went against one of their longest allies - Austria.

• Withdrew from the Seven Years’ War, returning conquered territory.

Military

• Introduced Prussian uniforms.

• Planned to move guards to fight for Holstein.

Political

• Limited powers of the Senate.

Church policy

• Confiscated church peasants.

Result

• Alienated nobility, guards, senate, and church → enabled Catherine’s coup.

Catherine II and the Enlightenment

What was Catherine’s relationship with Enlightenment ideas?

A:

Catherine promoted herself as an Enlightened ruler.

Connections with philosophes

• Corresponded with Voltaire.

• Bought Diderot’s library (1765).

• Hosted Diderot in Russia (1773-74).

Influences

• Montesquieu – law and political analysis.

• Beccaria – justice and punishment.

• Encyclopédie – spreading knowledge.

Historians debate

• Soviet historians: Enlightenment used as political propaganda.

• Isabel de Madariaga: Enlightenment had many conflicting ideas, so rulers selected what suited their state.

Catherine Nakaz 1762

Nakaz (Instructions)

• Written 1767 for the Legislative Commission to create a new law code.

Key ideas

• Russia is a European state.

• Autocratic rule necessary for a large empire.

• Laws should promote the common good.

• Punishment should be proportionate and humane (influenced by Beccaria).

• Supported religious tolerance.

Influences

• Many passages taken from Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws.

Outcome

• Commission failed to produce a new law code.

• But generated public debate and political discussion.

Catherine Church policy

1764 secularisation

• Confiscated church lands.

• About 1 million church peasants transferred to state control.

Policy

• State supremacy over Church.

• Religious toleration extended to:

  • Catholics

  • Protestants

  • Muslims

  • Jews (greater rights than elsewhere in Europe).

Result

• Church became financially weaker but still important culturally.

Local government reform 1775

Goal

• Fix administrative chaos left by Peter I.

Reform

• Empire divided into smaller provinces.

Administrative system

• Governor → general administration.

• Deputy governor → finances.

• Courts reorganised by social estate.

Judicial reforms

• Separate courts for:

  • Nobles

  • Townspeople

  • State peasants

Key principle

• Separation of administration and justice.

charter of 1785: what rights did Catherine grant to societal groups

Charter of the Nobility

• Nobles protected from corporal punishment.

• Could not lose property without trial by peers.

• Free from state service.

• Allowed to own land and serfs.

• Corporate noble assemblies created.

Charter of the Towns

• Rights for urban merchants and professionals.

• Property rights and local administration.

Result

• Strengthened elite social hierarchy.

Catherines social and political system: how was Russian society organised

Society structured by estates (sosloviia):

1. Nobility

2. Townspeople

3. State peasants

4. Serfs (controlled by nobles)

Characteristics

• Nobility gained privileges and autonomy - taxation excemption

  • Charter of the Nobility 1785:

    •  nobles could not be deprived of rank, honour, property or life without trial by their peers.

    • Confirmed the noble's immunity from corporal punishment and personal taxation

    • Noble land was freed from any state restrictions on its exploitation,

    • Confirmed the noble's right to buy land with serfs and set up manufacturing enterprises,

    • Confirmed the right to leave Russian service, to travel and to serve abroad.

• Serfdom remained strong.

• Administration became more efficient and structured.

Charter of the Towns 1785:

• granted the same kind of personal property and civil rights to the townspeople,

• corporal punishment banned, but only for rich merchants and entrepreneurs, and for a new category of 'distinguished citizens', mainly professional people.

Why is Catherine called “the Great”?

Political achievements

• Stabilised monarchy after coups.

• Strengthened nobility and administration.

Cultural achievements

• Promoted education and arts.

• Encouraged Enlightenment debate.

State building

• Reformed provincial government.

• Expanded bureaucratic structure.

Historical interpretation

• Not simply for territorial expansion, but for modernising governance and elite culture.

• Yet, was she truly an enlightened ruler?:

Critics

• Used Enlightenment ideas selectively.

• Maintained serfdom and autocracy.

Supporters

• Introduced legal reform debates.

• Promoted education and intellectual life.

• Modernised administration.

• Catherine was an “Enlightened autocrat”: she used Enlightenment ideas to strengthen the Russian state rather than limit monarchy.

how far was she committed to the enlightenment?

• Attempted to embody the Russian people by studying the culture, language - Rosseau link in a Republican sense

• Attempting to please the people and showcase public good

• She had selective engagement towards the enlightenment, she used it when it suited her

• Monica Greenleaf (older view) believes that Catherine was performative, she was smart on how to get power

  • Anything of the enlightenment which curbed her power was disregarded

• Was she performing for the likes of philosophers or even the Russian people? Did the Russian people even care - did they just want a tsar back?

  • How effective was it? Can it legitimise her rule?

  • What are more traditional forms she couldve used? War, military, conquest (that’s what shes known for, not enlightenment)

• Isabela view (newer): was she personally committed to the enlightenment? What even is the enlightenment, there were differing views amongst enlightenment philosophers, therefore her commitment needs to also amplify which view is being talked about, we have to go b ack and see

 

Monica Greenleaf (2004) – Performing Autobiography

• Argument: Catherine II used her autobiographies as political self-fashioning, deliberately rewriting her life to justify her rule, control her reputation, and present herself as an Enlightened ruler to Europe.

• She wrote multiple versions of her memoirs, each adapting to changing political circumstances, enemies, and public narratives.

• The memoirs helped construct the myth of “Le Mirage Russe” – Catherine as an Enlightened despot, philosopher-ruler, and civiliser of Russia.

• Because she was a foreign usurper who seized power in 1762, print culture and Enlightenment writing became tools to legitimise her authority internationally.

• She modelled her narrative partly on Henri IV of France, portraying herself as the restorer of order after the weak rule of Peter III.

• Catherine balanced masculine authority (military leadership, command) with feminine traits (friendliness, vulnerability) to make female rule acceptable.

• She avoids describing Peter III’s murder, keeping her narrative morally clean and presenting her accession as inevitable and rational.

• Greenleaf argues that Catherine’s changing memoirs reflect shifts in Enlightenment culture itself, evolving from personal and emotional narratives to colder, more analytical political justification.

• Overall: Catherine’s Enlightenment image was carefully constructed propaganda, shaping both her legitimacy and Europe’s perception of Russia as a civilised Enlightened empire.

Adrian Jones (2005) – A Russian Bourgeois Arctic Enlightenment

• Argument: Enlightenment ideas did spread beyond the imperial court, but in places like Archangel they developed in a limited and hybrid form, shaped by local merchant culture, economic interests, and Russia’s social hierarchy.

• Archangel was a frontier trading town with strong connections to English and Dutch merchants, making it unusually open to new ideas.

• Local historian Krestinin portrayed the city as a civic, enlightened commercial society, celebrating merchants as active citizens promoting trade and prosperity.

• Catherine’s policies allowing more local merchant control over trade helped encourage this perception of enlightened civic development.

• However, Jones argues this image was largely ideological rather than fully real, since Russia lacked key Enlightenment conditions such as rule of law, social equality, and independent civic institutions.

• Russian merchants still operated within a state-dominated system of taxes, hierarchy, and rank, limiting genuine bourgeois autonomy.

• As a result, Enlightenment rhetoric about civil society, citizenship, and rational progress coexisted with xenophobia, nationalism, and social inequality.

• Overall: the Arctic example shows that Enlightenment ideas did circulate in Russian society, but they were adapted, constrained, and reshaped by Russia’s social and political structures.