Concise Russian history for a traveler

The reign of Catherine the Great (1762-96). The daughter of poor German princeling, Catherine had come to Russia at the age of 15 to be the bride of the heir presumptive, Peter, grandson of Peter I.

Historiography of Catherine’s reign has been dominated by two approaches: a dramatization and romanticization of her personal life, which was indeed colorful for the number and variety of her lovers; and the viewpoint of the 19th century liberalism, which took literally her self-description as a "philosopher on the throne".

I  recent    years,    scholars   have   seen   Catherine’s

government as working to further the formation of a modern civil society.

Catherine’s reign was notable for imperial expansion. First in importance for the Empire were the securing of the northern shore of the Black Sea, annexation of the Crimea, and the expansions into the steppes beyond the Urals and along the Caspian Sea. In her social policy Catherine aimed at steering the nobility toward cultural interests and economic activity so as to reduce their dependence on state services. Turning the nobility’s interests toward economic activity brought the return home of many landowners to supervise the operations of their estates.

Secular education was widely propagated by Catherine. At first it focused on technical subjects – those directly related to the prosecution of war, the building of a navy, and running of the government, but as Western ways of life spread among the upper classes, the focus of education broadened. There developed a class of nobles who were interested in culture for the sake of their own development, as well as for cutting a good figure in society. The most notable feature of Catherine’s cultural heritage was a creation of the Hermitage Museum, that nowadays ranks among the largest art museums in the world.