Presidential Library project Persons of Russia: Catherine the Great

On 2 May (21 April O.S.) 1729 in the German city of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) Sophia Augusta Frederica Angalt-Zerbst was born, the future Russian Empress Catherine II.

The electronic collection Persons of Russia, which contains materials about outstanding Russian state, political, military, public and church figures, figures of science, culture and art, is being created and constantly updated on the Presidential Library's portal. A separate selection of materials in the section "Emperors" is devoted to Catherine II.

Of great interest are rare publications that reflect the state activity of Catherine II. These are her extensive correspondence with European monarchs, with her associates: the President of the College of Foreign Affairs, Count N. I. Panin, Field Marshal Count P. S. Saltykov and many others.

Of particular interest among these documents is, for example, the correspondence between Catherine II and Etienne-Maurice Falcone ("Falconet", as they said at the time), the sculptor to whom the empress entrusted the creation of the monument to Peter the Great, which became one of the symbols of St Petersburg. These letters, published in the 17th volume of the "Collection of the Imperial Russian Historical Society " (1876), allow the reader to learn what the Frenchman and Catherine II's personal secretary, the president of the Imperial Academy of Arts - Ivan Betskoi- argued about, how the creative idea was formed and the grandiose monument was gradually created.

The users of the Presidential Library portal have an opportunity to see and appreciate the other side of the sovereign's active activity - creative: the collection Persons of Russia includes collections of her literary works.

Thus, Works of Empress Catherine II (1893) includes her comedies of manners, historical performances, comic operas, allegorical tales, journal satirical and polemical articles.

Edition of Empress Catherine II. Selected Works (1894) also includes articles of ethical character in general and pedagogical in particular. For example, the pedagogical work "Civil Elementary Education" is called a kind of "Domostroy" of that time. One can say that the literary activities of the sovereign serve as a historical source to get acquainted with the aesthetic tastes and manners of high society that reigned in the second half of the 18th century.

Some of the rare editions included in the collection of the Presidential Library Persons of Russia tell about the private life of the Empress. Among them are Notes of Catherine II, Empress of Russia (1876). According to the preface, these are authentic memoirs of the Empress, found after her death: "They were sealed in a bag with the inscription: To His Imperial Highness, V. Prince Pavel Petrovich, my kindest son". Thanks to this publication, users of the Presidential Library portal can learn about the life of the Empress in her own words.

From the book The History of Catherine the Great (1900), one can also learn that Princess Sophia-Augusta-Frederika grew up in an environment that was quite consistent with the simple lifestyle of the family of the Stettin commandant. "The girl played with the children of the townspeople; no one called her Princess, not even Sophia, but the diminutive Fike; at town festivities in the city garden she got lost in the crowd of children, frolicking, running with her peers - says the author of the essay V. A. Bilbasov.- Persons who played with her in childhood, recalled, however, later, when the Princess of Cerbst became already Russian Empress, that during these games Fike always took on the role of the organiser, gave the tone, commanded others; over the years, her peers noticed in her predilection for fun, peculiar to more boys than girls.

As history has shown, this modest Prussian princess was destined to become the Russian sovereign, about whom E. D. Zhelyabuzhsky wrote in a letter. D. Zhelyabuzhsky will write in his work Empress Catherine II and her famous associates (1874): "Catherine's subjects called her their mother tsaritsa, foreigners-contemporaries marvelled at her wisdom, and posterity honours her with the name of the Great".

More interesting information about the life and state activity of Catherine II can be found on the portal of the Presidential Library in the section "Day in History", as well as in the electronic collection House of Romanov. The Zemsky Sobor of 1613.