Week 10

Empress Elizabeth makes plans for a successor and finds this young man a wife from Germany: this is the future Catherine the Great called Sophie when she first came to Russia with her mother in 1744.

"Empress Elizabeth, like her predecessor Anna, had to provide for a succession to her throne, as she had no children of her own. She chose her nephew, Karl Peter Ulrich, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and the son of her older sister Anna Petrovna, who had married the then Duke in 1725. Elizabeth’s idea was to keep the succession in her family, not in the family of Empress Anna. The Holstein connection also had diplomatic advantages in relation to Sweden and the German states, especially Prussia. Elizabeth brought the boy to Russia in 1742 with a large suite of Holsteiners and he converted to Orthodoxy with the name Peter in honor of his grandfather, Peter the Great. The young Peter was not a particularly promising boy, and Elizabeth decided that he needed a wife. She chose Sophie, the daughter of the Duke of Anhalt-Zerbst – Anhalt-Zerbst being a small German principality in the Prussian orbit. Sophie’s mother was also from the Holstein family, so that Sophie and Peter were cousins and were both related to the then King of Sweden. The family also had the support of Frederick the Great of Prussia, victorious in war with Austria (1740–1748), and whom Elizabeth opposed but wished to placate. In 1744 Sophie came to Russia with her mother and there was instructed in Orthodoxy, eventually taking the name Catherine at conversion. Thus at the age of fifteen the future Catherine the Great took up her position at the Russian court as the wife of the heir to the throne. The young girl was lonely, and her mother’s intrigues only increased their isolation. The one bright spot for the princess was that she got along with the Empress well on a personal level." Bushkovitch, Paul. A Concise History of Russia (Cambridge Concise Histories) (p. 113). Cambridge University Press.

 

 

REQUIRED READING

Paul Bushkovitch,

A Concise History of Russia,

Cambridge University Press,

ISBN 0521543231

RECOMMENDED READING

Robert Massie,

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman,

Random House Trade Paperbacks,

ISBN 0345408772