Read The Memoirs of Catherine the Great for Free Online

disinherit Peter III, which reinforces Catherine’s case for her legitimacy.
    While Catherine’s legitimacy was questioned in Russia, in the eyes of public opinion in Europe her coup and the consequent murder of her husband reflected badly on the stability of Russia and its government, which undermined her credibility. 25 Catherine’s final memoir addresses her ability to create a stable government by stressing her good judgment, even temper, fairness, and ultimately, her genius for rule. Catherine’s long rule broke a pattern. In eighteenth-century Russia, coups were the rule, not the exception. In the absence of male heirs of the right age, the practice of naming an heir appears to have led to a series of coups by unmarried female rulers and their favorites. 26 In 1727, Catherine I was succeeded by the last direct male heir of the Romanov line, Peter II (1715–30), Peter the Great’s grandson by his son Alexei (1690–1718). 27 Before her death, Catherine I had signed a will naming first Peter II and then her daughters, Anna and Elizabeth, as heirs. 28 After the sudden death three years later of Peter II at age fifteen, Elizabeth was pushed aside for Anna Ivanovna (1693–1740), the widowed Duchess of Courland and daughter of Peter the Great’s half brother and co-czar, Ivan V (1666–96). On her deathbed, Empress Anna designated her grandnephew, the infant Ivan VI (1740–64), as heir, and her German favorite, Ernst Johann Bühren (1690–1772), Duke of Courland, as regent. 29 Bühren lasted twenty-two days before being ousted by the infant’s parents, Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg and Prince Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Bevern. In November 1741, Elizabeth seized power and imprisoned Ivan VI for life; unfortunately for Catherine, he was killed on her watch in 1764. Later, the French
philosophe
Denis Diderot (1713–84) advised Catherine to reinstate primogeniture as a check on the ruler’s power, which she of course could not do without making her own rule illegitimate. 30 But her son, Paul, in his rejection of all things Catherinian, had three sons, and upon his coronation, he immediately returned to a system of primogeniture and the ideal of a proper royal family. However, as Catherine feared, this did not prevent Paul, who behaved as a tyrant, from being overthrown and killed in a coup. Ironically too, if the memoirs are accurate and Catherine in fact knew, Paul was perhaps biologically a Saltykov, and so despite all the male heirs, the Romanov bloodline ended not with Nicholas II (1868– 1918) but with Peter III and Ivan VI.
    Because of the fundamental weakness of her position, Catherine’s success depended on her political skills, her policies, and her personality. Her memoirs paint an unflattering picture of Elizabeth’s personality and style of rule, and Catherine thus implies that she has done things differently. 31 For example, under Elizabeth, allies could become enemies overnight, and such elder statesmen as Bestuzhev-Riumin were humiliated, stripped of all privileges, condemned to death, and exiled. Elizabeth thus continued her predecessors’ method of midnight arrests, torture, and imprisonment of her enemies, which one historian has termed “mini-coups.” 32 In contrast, Catherine carefully promoted and rewarded opponents until they were no longer in a position to harm her. Like Elizabeth, Catherine depended for support on family clans, political factions, ministers, favorites, and the elite guards, who formed a complex network of alliances. Throughout her early reign, Catherine relied extensively on the clan of Grigory Orlov (her favorite from 1760 to 1772), who with the Chernyshev extended family and the elite guards supported her coup. 33 Her opponents, the faction around her son’s governor, Count Nikita Panin (1718–83), favored making Paul the Emperor and Catherine his regent until his majority in 1772, and generally tried to limit Catherine’s power. As 1772 approached and Panin