Yekaterina I of Russia (2 May 1729-17 November 1796), born Sophie of Anhalt and also called Catherine the Great was the Tsarina of the Russian Empire from 1762 to 1796. The Wars of Catherine the Great extended the territory of the Russian empire, mostly at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and Poland. She was called "the Star of the North" by Voltaire.
Biography[]
Sophie of Anhalt was born in Stettin in Pomerania, belonging to Prussia. At the age of fifteen she was sent north to marry the Duke of Russia, named Peter. She learned the language and the customs, as well as changed her name from Sophie to Catherine, but she was strained by the hard work and plotted against Peter with her lover Grigory Orlov. In 1762 she deposed and killed Peter and became Empress of Russia. Idolizing Peter the Great, she decided to westernize and modernize Russia.
In a series of Russo-Turkish Wars she gained warm water ports and gained bits of Belarus and the Ukraine. She also promised peasants, land, or money to nobles and set down "The Instruction", her set of laws that were beneficial to nobles but not to peasants. She crushed Emelyan Pugachev's serf rebellion and later defeated Sweden in the 1780s, and with her new money she built a strict school for girls of the nobility, built a statue of Peter the Great, and transformed St. Petersburg into the "Venice of the North".
At the end of her reign, Yekaterina had conquered Poland and all of Russia and opened Japan to trade. She died of a stroke, and was succeeded by Paul I.
| Tsarina of Russia | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Peter III |
1762-1796 | Succeeded by: Paul I |