Tsarin Ekaterina II von Anhalt-Zerbst, "the Great"

1729 - 1796  (67 years)    Has more than 100 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

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  Name	Ekaterina II von Anhalt-Zerbst
  Prefix	Tsarin
  Suffix	"the Great"
  Birth	2 May 1729	Stettin, Polska
  Gender	Female
  Death	6 Nov 1796	St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya
  Prominent People (2)	Click the arrow on the left to show/hide these 2 events.
  *
  1762 - Moskva, Rossiya  - *
  Siblings	4 Siblings
  + 1. Tsarin Ekaterina II von Anhalt-Zerbst, "the Great",   b. 2 May 1729, Stettin, Polska d. 6 Nov 1796, St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya  (Age 67 years) ▻ Tsaar Pjotr III von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp,  m. 1 Sep 1745 ;   Graf Sergei Vassilovich Saltykov,  m. 1752 ;   Krol Stanislaw II August Poniatowski,  m. 1755 ;   Prince Grigori Grigorievitch Orlov,  m. 1760 ;   Alexander Vasilchikov,  m. 1773 ;   Prinz Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin,  m. 1774 ;   Peter Zavadovsky,  m. 1776 ;   Simeon Zoric,  m. 1777 ;   Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov,  m. 1778 ;   Alexander Lanskoy,  m. 1779 ;   Alexander Ermolov,  m. 1785 ;   Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov,  m. 1786 ;   Reichsfürst Platon Alexandrovich Zubov   2. Prinz Wilhelm Christian Friedrich von Anhalt-Zerbst,   b. 17 Nov 1730, Stettin, Polska d. 27 Aug 1742, Dornburg  (Age 11 years)   3. Fürst Friedrich August von Anhalt-Zerbst,   b. 8 Aug 1734, Alt Stettin d. 3 Mar 1793, Luxembourg  (Age 58 years) ▻ Landgräfin Karoline von Hessen-Kassel,  m. 17 Nov 1753 ;   Prinzessin Friederike von Anhalt-Bernburg,  m. 27 May 1764   4. Prinzessin Auguste Christine Charlotte von Anhalt-Zerbst,   b. 10 Nov 1736, Schloss Stettin d. 24 Nov 1736, Schloss Stettin  (Age 0 years)   5. Prinzessin Elisabeth Ulrike von Anhalt-Zerbst,   b. 17 Dec 1742, Berlin, Brandenburg, Deutschland d. 5 Mar 1745, Zerbst, Sachsen-Anhalt, Deutschland  (Age 2 years)
  Person ID	I6715	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Father	Fürst Christian August von Anhalt-Zerbst,   b. 29 Nov 1690, Dornburg a.d.Saale d. 16 Mar 1747, Zerbst, Sachsen-Anhalt, Deutschland (Age 56 years)
  Mother	Princess Joanna Elizabeth von Holstein-Gottorp,   b. 24 Oct 1712, Gottorp d. 30 May 1760, Paris, Île-de-France, France (Age 47 years)
  Family ID	F3056	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Tsaar Pjotr III von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp,   b. 21 Feb 1728, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Deutschland d. 7 Jul 1762, Ropscha (Age 34 years)
  Marriage	1 Sep 1745	St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya
  Family ID	F3057	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	29 Aug 2000

  
  

  Family 2	Graf Sergei Vassilovich Saltykov,   b. Abt 1720   d. Yes, date unknown
  Marriage	1752
  Type: Affair
  Children	+ 1. Tsaar Pawel I von Holstein-Gottorp,   b. 1 Oct 1754, St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya d. 11 Mar 1801, Mikhailovski Castle, St. Petersburg, Rossiya (Age 46 years)
  Family ID	F22188	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 3	Krol Stanislaw II August Poniatowski,   b. 1732   d. 25 Nov 1795 (Age 63 years)
  Marriage	1755
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F203106	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 4	Prince Grigori Grigorievitch Orlov,   b. 6 Oct 1734, Lyutkino d. 13 Apr 1783, Neskuchnoye (Age 48 years)
  Marriage	1760
  Children	1. Elizabeth Alexandrovna Alexeeva Orlov,   b. 1761, St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya + 2. Count Alexei Grigorievitch Bobrinskoy,   b. 11 Apr 1762, Winter Palace, St.Petersburg, Rossiya d. 20 Jun 1813, Bogoroditsk (Age 51 years)
  Family ID	F22201	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 5	Alexander Vasilchikov
  Marriage	1773
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F371854	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 6	Prinz Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin,   b. 24 Sep 1739, Tsizhova d. 16 Oct 1791, Moldova (Age 52 years)
  Marriage	1774
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F22189	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 7	Peter Zavadovsky
  Marriage	1776
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F371855	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 8	Simeon Zoric
  Marriage	1777
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F371856	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 9	Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov
  Marriage	1778
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F371857	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 10	Alexander Lanskoy
  Marriage	1779
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F371858	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 11	Alexander Ermolov
  Marriage	1785
  Type: Affair
  Family ID	F371859	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Nov 2013

  
  

  Family 12	Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov,   b. 30 Sep 1758   d. 11 Oct 1803 (Age 45 years)
  Marriage	1786
  Type: separation
  Family ID	F291031	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2009

  
  

  Family 13	Reichsfürst Platon Alexandrovich Zubov,   b. 15 Nov 1767   d. 7 Apr 1822 (Age 54 years)
  Family ID	F291033	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2009

  
  

• Event Map	Click to hide
  		Birth - 2 May 1729 - Stettin, Polska Marriage - 1 Sep 1745 - St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya Prominent People - * - 1762 - Moskva, Rossiya Death - 6 Nov 1796 - St. Petersburg, Ingria, Rossiya  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Photos

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• Notes

  Tsarin 1762-1796 born in the Baltic seaport town of Stettin, then a part of German Pomerania. Little Sophia was nicknamed Feke or Figchen. Little is known about her early life, except that which Catherine related in her unfinished autobiography years later. Figchen's mother, Joanna, was the sister of Karl August, who had been engaged to Elizabeth I of Russia before she took the throne. Elizabeth kept a fondness for him and his family long after his death. In the early 1740's Elizabeth was searching for a wife for her nephew and heir, Peter. Fidgen was the right age and a sentimental choice for the romantic Empress of Russia. Figchen and her mother were summoned by Elizabeth to Russia late in 1743. The potential match of the young German princess and the heir to the Russian throne was actively promoted by her mother and the Prussian King, Frederick, who saw the alliance as a way to further Prussian interests at the court of St. Petersburg. He eyed Figchen carefully at a banquet in her honor in Berlin before she left for Russia. He always claimed he saw greatness in her, even when Sophia was a child. Crossing the border into Russia she went from Riga to St. Petersburg and on to Moscow, finally meeting Elizabeth on February 9, 1744. Elizabeth was enchanted with her. Figchen immediately began to study Russian and Orthodoxy, with the end result of abandoning Lutheranism for the Russian Church, being re-christened Yekaterina - Catherine. Her husband-to-be was a great disappointment to everyone. He was sickly, mean spirited and ill-equipped mentally or physically to rule a vast empire like Russia. He was also unable to consummate his marriage to Catherine. Elizabeth didn't understand the fault was Peter's and pressured the couple to produce a son - thus securing the dynasty. When it was clear this wasn't going to happen, Elizabeth permitted an affair between Catherine and a handsome Russian officer, Serge Saltykov. Catherine conceived and bore a son, Paul, who was accepted by Peter as his own. Immediately after his birth, little Paul was carried off to Elizabeth's quarters and the Empress raised him as her own. Catherine and Peter hated one another. On the death of Elizabeth on December 25, 1761, Peter ascended the throne as Peter III. He quickly showed his mania for all things Prussian by forming an alliance with Prussia that was to Russia's detriment. Peter ordered the proud Imperial guard regiments to dispose of their uniforms from the days of Peter the Great in exchange for tight-fitting uniforms in the Prussian style. He followed this with the imposition of new, brutal military rules on the same Prussian model, which turned the armed forces against him. Hatred of Peter grew quickly among all classes and the country accepted with relief the coup-d'etat of Catherine, who deposed her husband on June 28, 1762. Catherine ascended the throne as the most pious and Orthodox Empress, Catherine II, crowned on September 22, 1762 with tremendous pomp and ceremony at the heart of Russian culture and Orthodoxy in the ancient Moscow Kremlin. Her husband, Peter had been murdered by her lover Orlov, his brother and some other henchmen some months before, and was soon forgotten. Catherine solidified her position by awarding her supporters with high government positions and grants of land, money and serfs. Catherine quickly began to make changes in government and society based on the convictions she had assimilated during her study of French philosophes of the Enlightenment and the authors of ancient Rome. She was deeply disappointed by the difficulty of imposing foreign precepts - even if they were rational ones - of government on Russia. It became easier and easier to abandon her principals. Catherine slipped deeper and deeper into autocracy - all the while maintaining the facade of an enlightened ruler. The ruin of the Orthodox church, which had begun under Peter the Great, was continued under Catherine, who seized it's wealth and turned it's prelates and priests into state employees. She built marvelous new monuments across Russia and transformed St. Petersburg into a truly European city of Imperial pretensions. The arts, music and education where patronized by her, and Catherine pumped millions of rubles into the creation of the Hermitage collection, which today is the delight of Russia and the world. No other Russian monarch appreciated beauty as much as Catherine, she set the stage for the emergence of a national Russian culture that would emerge as something unique and wonderful in the 19th century. Re-marriage was out of the question and she probably never took a husband again; although it has been rumored that she and a later lover, Potemkin, were secretly married in the Church of St. Samson in Petersburg. Much has been made of Catherine's libido. She has entered history with a mixed reputation due to the young men who entered her life in it's later years. Had she been a man, no one would have spoken of it, and many of the most famous tales about her are untrue. She dealt with the issue of her affairs head-on and justified it to herself as the need of an autocrat for companionship and diversion. Throughout her life she was estranged from her son, Paul, who grew up hating his mother for her condescending treatment of him and her role in the murder of his imagined father, Peter III, which he believed was more direct than history has proven. Paul never accepted the fact that his father was Serge Saltykov. The empathy between mother and son was mutual. Catherine felt Paul was foolish and unbalanced. Once on the throne he was sure to undo all of her accomplishments. He rashly boasted of this many times in Russia and on journeys abroad. Catherine planned to bypass Paul and leave her crown to his first son and her favorite grandson, Alexander. Feeling she had a number of years left, she did not make the arrangements for the transition to Alexander and upon her death from a heart attack on November 6, 1796 the throne passed to Paul. Catherine's achievements were many. She left Russia much stronger, more prosperous and beautiful than she had found it. That she failed in much she had set out to do had less to do with her and more to do with human nature. Catherine was unable to transform Russia through her will alone. Since she was unwilling to use terror or force to transform society, she chose a more patient path, hoping to gradually raise the level of culture by legislation, education, and example. She single-handedly grafted onto Russian rootstock the bud-wood of western culture, which was taken and remolded two generations later into something marvellous.