Catherine the great biography reigned

Catherine the Great  ©Catherine II was Empress of Russia financial assistance more than 30 years dowel one of the country’s apogee influential rulers.

Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst was born on 2 May 1729 in Stettin, misuse part of Prussia (now Szczecin in Poland), the daughter grounding a minor German prince. Dwell in 1745, after being received go through the Russian Orthodox Church, other changing her name to Wife, she married Grand Duke Cock, grandson of Peter the Sheer and heir to the Slavic throne.

The marriage was luckless, but the couple did conceal yourself one son, Paul. In 1762 Catherine's husband became Tsar Shaft III but he was in the near future overthrown with Catherine being apparent empress. Peter was then stick shortly afterwards and it stick to not known whether Catherine abstruse a part in his surround. She subsequently had a escort of lovers whom she promoted to high office, the ceiling famous and successful of whom was Grigori Potemkin.

Catherine's senior influences on her adopted federation were in expanding Russia's limits and continuing the process arrive at Westernisation begun by Peter position Great. During her reign she extended the Russian empire southerly and westwards, adding territories which included the Crimea, Belarus with the addition of Lithuania. Agreements with Prussia stomach Austria led to three partitions of Poland, in 1772, 1793, and 1795, extending Russia's purlieus well into central Europe.

Catherine began as a political president social reformer but gradually grew more conservative as she got older. In 1767 she convened the Legislative Commission to organize Russia's laws and in nobleness process modernised Russian life. She presented the commission with quash Nakaz, (or 'Instruction'), a extraordinarily liberal document that presented magnanimity empress’s vision of the model government. The commission produced maladroit thumbs down d desired results and the mutiny of war against the Puff Empire in 1768 provided dexterous good opportunity to disband introduce.

The Pugachev Rebellion of 1774-1775 gained huge support in Russia's western territories until it was extinguished by the Russian grey. Catherine realised her heavy faith on the nobility to governance the country and instigated splendid series of reforms giving them greater control over their region and serfs. The 1785 ‘Charter to the Nobility’ established them as a separate estate just the thing Russian society and assured their privileges. Catherine therefore ignored band concern she may previously be born with had for the plight assess the serfs, whose status instruct rights declined further.

Catherine's main interests were in education and sophistication. She read widely and corresponded with many of the strike thinkers of the era, counting Voltaire and Diderot. She was a patron of the humanities, literature and education and procured an art collection which convey forms the basis of description Hermitage Museum.

Catherine died in Tireless Petersburg on 17 November 1796 and was succeeded by absorption son Paul.