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The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #515 in Books
• Published on: 2011-11-08
• Released on: 2011-11-08
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.58" h x 1.68" w x 6.56" l, 2.39 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 656 pages

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2011: Once upon a time, there was a minor German princess named Sophia. In 1744, at the age of 14, she was taken by her ambitious mother--removed from her family, her religion, and her country--to a foreign land with a single goal: marry a prince and bear him an heir. Once in Russia, she changed her name, learned the language, and went on to become the world's richest and most powerful woman, ruler of its then-largest empire. She is remembered as Catherine the Great.

There may be no better author than Robert K. Massie to take on the daunting task of documenting this most rare of human lives. Massie, a former president of the Authors Guild, is a seasoned biographer of the 400-year Romanov dynasty, most notably with Peter the Great: His Life and World, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 and remains one of the most arresting biographies I've even encountered.

In his page-turning chronicle of Catherine II, Massie (now 82) compiles the most complete and compelling narrative to date of this singular woman. Married to an incompetent man-child who was unwilling or unable to help her fulfill her primary role--giving birth to a son--she ultimately grew to become a trailblazer among monarchs: friend of philosophical giants, incomparable patron of the arts, prosecutor of multiple wars, pioneer of public health, maker of kings, and prodigious serial lover.

Indeed, her accomplishments and shortcomings as an autocrat and a woman make for a remarkable saga, but that's not to say that just any author could do justice to Catherine's lasting legacy. (Many have tried.) Massie situates Catherine's early life and three-decade reign as empress amidst the tumult of the European Enlightenment, enriching his own narrative with telling excerpts of her letters and rich discussions of her political environment and personal motivations.

Put simply, Massie is just the man to take this endlessly fascinating life and craft an utterly memorable book. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman is a towering accomplishment, one of the year's best books in any genre. --Jason Kirk

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Featured Images from Catherine the Great

The imperial coronation crown designed for Catherine. The crown was used in all six of the Romanov coronations that followed.

Catherine's coronation portrait. She is wearing her new imperial crown.

Paul, Catherine's son, in one of the Prussian uniforms he delighted in wearing.

Portrait of Peter III

Gregory Orlov, Catherine's third lover, who was with her for eleven years and helped to put her on the throne.

Gregory Potemkin, covered with medals, titles, land, palaces, and responsibilities by a passionately loving Catherine.

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Review
PRAISE FOR CATHERINE THE GREAT

"Massie once again delivers a masterful, intimate, and tantalizing portrait of a majestic monarch."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"[A] rich, nuanced examination of Russia's lone female leader..."—The Daily Beast

“What Catherine the Great offers is a great story in the hands of a master storyteller.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“Dense and detailed, enriched by pages of full-color illustrations, Massie’s latest will transport history lovers.” —People

“What a woman, what a world, what a biography.” —USA Today
 
“[Massie] hasn’t lost his mojo. . . . a consistently nimble and buoyant performances . . . [Massie] has always been a biographer with the instincts of a novelist. He understands plot—fate—as a function of character, and the narrative perspective he establishes and maintains, a vision tightly aligned with that of his subject, convinces a reader he’s not so much looking at Catherine the Great as he is out of her eyes. . . juicy and suspenseful.” — Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review

“A meticulously, dramatically rendered biography…” —O, The Oprah Magazine
 
“What a Woman!” —Elle magazine
 
“In Catherine the Great, Massie has created a sensitive and compelling portrait not just of a Russian titan, but also of a flesh-and-blood woman.”—Newsweek
 
“[A] meticulously detailed work about Catherine and her world…Massie makes Catherine’s story as gripping as that of any novel. His book does full justice to a complex and fascinating woman and to the age in which she lived.” — Historical Novels Review

About the Author
Robert K. Massie was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and studied American history at Yale and European history at Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He was president of the Authors Guild from 1987 to 1991. His previous books include Nicholas and Alexandra, Peter the Great: His Life and World (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize for biography), The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War, and Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea.

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

417 of 424 people found the following review helpful.
Massie Does It Again!
By Kayla Rigney
I really enjoyed this biography of Catherine the Great. Like Robert K. Massie's other biographies, *Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman* is well-researched and well-written. His deep connection and understanding of the ways of Imperial Russia are strangely effortless. He steps into his subject's world and takes us there, too.

I was immediately struck by the way Massie made Catherine *accessible.* I felt empathy for her -- an empathy I didn't feel before. The story of her hideous marriage to Grand Duke Peter has been portrayed often in film and in print. All sources agree he was a monster who preferred his mistress to his wife, was scarred mentally as well as physically by small pox, and had he lived, would have gutted the Russian Orthodox Church -- and probably brought down an entire empire. *Portrait of a Woman* shows not only how badly Catherine was treated by her so-called "husband" but also how quickly she learned the *game* of the Imperial Court. Catherine was beautiful and intelligent -- and frankly, a better ruler than Peter could ever have been. She was well-read and well-educated in a time when most women couldn't read or write. In order to survive in the court, she spent years honing her skills in diplomacy. When her husband didn't produce an heir, she found a lover who would. I felt compassion for this Catherine, *because* she was resourceful and *because* she took action when it was needed. And some of those actions as Empress were taken with her subjects in mind.

Reading *Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman,* allowed me to rediscover a strong, intelligent woman who wanted to bring her Imperial Russia *forward.* In 1768, she and her son Paul were inoculated with small pox -- hoping to show her subjects that there was a way to avoid getting a devastating case of the disease. This small act of bravery on her part was completely overshadowed by the epidemic of bubonic plague which decimated the population of Moscow and eventually led to rioting. How could I have forgotten these important pieces of history? And yet, I had. There are no new answers regarding the murder of Grand Duke Peter -- did she or didn't she? And as to Catherine's relationships with other men in her life, it becomes apparent that there was always that underlying, chafing question of balance of power. (But on the whole, she had good relationships with her lovers; and she rewarded their loyalty.) Her own son, Paul, hated her -- believing that she'd murdered his father, when he wasn't Grand Duke Peter's son in the first place. Paul punished her after her death by reinstating the right of male succession only.

Massie reintroduced me to the very human Catherine, who so loved her dogs that she had a special cemetery created for them at Tsarskoe Selo, And this flawed, yet generous Empress once made a gift of an expensive diamond ring to a serf -- in spite of the uproar it caused. And finally, Catherine, who enjoyed books, reading and philosophy, purchased Voltaire's library of books from his niece after he died. I liked seeing this side of Catherine the Great. I needed to be reminded that her passions and loves were varied as my own are varied.

I spent my weekend immersed in *Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.* I was transported into Catherine's life -- and into a rich, harsh, ugly, beautiful, lost past. Massie's latest biography joins *Nicholas & Alexandra,* *Peter the Great: His Life and World,* and *The Romanovs: The Final Chapter* as must-have books about the rulers of Imperial Russia.

164 of 171 people found the following review helpful.
The Life Of A Woman And A Nation
By John D. Cofield
Catherine the Great is second only to Peter the Great as a great modernizing ruler of Russia, a country which repeatedly falls behind the rest of the world, then races to catch up, at least on the surface, within a few years' time. Catherine's story is even more remarkable than Peter's, since she was not born in Russia and had not a drop of Russian blood, and her original name wasn't even Catherine.

Sophia Fredericka of Anhalt-Zerbst was an impecunious little princess in an insignificant prinicipality buried deep in Germany. In her early years she seemed destined to marry someone just as obscure as she and to remain unknown to the larger world. Her ambitious mother, who had the good fortune to be related by marriage to the Swedish and Russian royal families, had other plans. She kept in touch with the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, whose nephew and heir was just the right age for Sophia, for many years until Elizabeth sent word for mother and daughter to come to St. Petersburg for a visit. Shortly after they arrived, Sophia's mother and the Empress had arranged for a marriage between 14 year old Sophia and the 15 year old Grand Duke Peter, heir to the Russian throne. Sophia converted to Orthodoxy and had her name changed to Catherine, then married the future Emperor.

It sounds like a fairy tale, but it turned into a nightmare. Peter was a snivelling little wretch who hated Russia, his aunt, and Catherine. Covered with smallpox scars, mentally undeveloped and psychologically unbalanced, Peter refused to have anything to do with Catherine and spent night after night playing with toy soldiers. Catherine, tucked into bed beside him but completely ignored, spent her time reading and learning all she could about her new country. She had a quick and agile mind and did an excellent job educating herself through the writings of the French Enlightenment philosophes. However, all this reading and studying was not going to help her achieve her primary purpose, to have children who would continue the Romanov dynasty. After nine years she achieved this goal with the assistance of a Russian nobleman and gave birth to her son Paul.

In 1762 Empress Elizabeth died and Peter III took the throne. Within six months he had so outraged the Russian people that Catherine, with the assistance of her current lover and his brothers and friends, was able to quickly overthrow him and become Empress Catherine II. Her reign of 34 years saw Russia increase in wealth, population, and land area. She fought and won wars with Turkey and Sweden and helped to partition Poland out of existence. Her wide ranging reading had convinced her of the desireability of religious toleration, increased civil liberties, and of representative government, but she was just as convinced that Russia wasn't ready for such Enlightenment principles. When she did try to make reforms she was frightened into limiting or discarding them entirely by serf rebellions and eventually by the French Revolution. She did encourage education and development, assisted by her friendships with Voltaire and Diderot among others, and she was responsible for beginning the magnificent Hermitage art collection and for a number of beautiful palaces and other buildings in and around St. Petersburg.

Of course, what most people think of when they think of Catherine the Great is her colorful personal life. Catherine had a number of lovers throughout her life, but the popular image of a sex crazed hoyden isn't accurate. She seems to have valued her men friends for their intellectual as well as their physical abilities, and to have craved attention and affection above all. She was faithful to each of her favorites (more than they were to her) and when one retired or was replaced he was given money and land and remembered fondly. As she aged she grew in dignity and influence, and by the time of her death in 1796 Russia was a much larger and more powerful nation which, while still backwards in many ways, had made a surprising amount of progress.

Robert K. Massie's newest work is a fitting companion to Nicholas and Alexandra, Peter the Great, and The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. It also compares well to his excellent studies of Anglo-German rivalry before and during World War I: Dreadnought and Castles of Steel. As always, he writes clearly with a good eye for an entertaining anecdote which helps Catherine's life fit into the larger Russian and European context during the tumultuous eighteenth century. Massie introduced me to Russian history when I first read Nicholas and Alexandra at the age of 14 and confirmed me in my love of the subject with his other books. His Catherine the Great is just as remarkable and appealing, and I cannot recommend it too highly.

156 of 181 people found the following review helpful.
A merely good book on a great subject
By Sam A. Mawn-Mahlau
Tackling Catherine the Great is not, and never has been, for the faint of heart. There is a heavy shelf filled with works by the eminent and the colorful, by Oldenberg, Troyat, and others, and there is fascinating original material available as well. But it is no good to praise someone for their Alpine skill when they climb the Himalayas - they have chosen the tougher climb, and it will measure them.

Massie brings capable writerly craftsmenship, a deep knowledge of Russian history, and a reader-friendly commercial sheen to bear, applying each tool with care, and writes a highly readable and engaging biography. But, in the end, I'm left unsatisfied. It was a fun read and the hours were well-spent. The work is worthy of, and will get, some attention; the subject is worthy, however, of more and better. Massie's opening chapters draw so heavily from Catherine's own memoirs that I wish I would have read them instead. The book adds a bit of harmless gloss to the memoirs, but gives us a redacted and bloodless summary in place of the real thing. Massie's later chapters promise a deeper analytical framework yet skate through with less detail or analysis than, say, the great Riasanovsky surveys. Massie offers little here that is terribly new and interesting. There was no Eureka moment, no insightful rebellion, just a recital from the Orthodox liturgy.

If you have a bias toward reading contemporary works instead of dusty classics, you may prefer Massie's Catherine over those other books on the shelf. But, in the end, I wish Massie had applied his tools to some interesting but inadequately explored character he could have brought to life rather than writing what is really just another capable book on an already heavy shelf, adding a pound or two but not much more to what is already there. He gets a solid three stars, but no more.