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Extra History: Catherine the Great · Acedra
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[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to the few minutes I have at home on the month with every convention ever. Uh I mean welcome to lies. And for any of you guys who haven't been through this with us before. Uh this is the part of extra history where I get to confess our mistakes, talk about our errors, and generally apologize for having flags in the show. Actually, you know what's bad? This time we actually got the flag right. Uh, a ton of folks mentioned we use the modern Russian flag, but that
0:32
flag's actually been in use since basically the 17th century. We just all sort of think of it as the modern flag because it's the flag that replaced the old flag of the USSR. Uh, so to many of us, it's newish. Uh, but no, that has been around for for centuries. Um, but back to lies. First off, I want to apologize to all the Lithuanians who watch this show. When we talked about Poland in the later episodes, we were actually talking about the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Usually, when
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Catherine's disillusion of that entity is talked about, it's referred to as one of the partitions of Poland. So, I end up referring to it as Poland, and that's just 100% my fault and wrong. Oh, also on that note, Catherine is only called the Great in Russia. She isn't seen as quite as favorably uh in say Poland or Lithuania. And since I'm at it, before I dive into some of the major historical contentions, uh there are actually a few other minor points that I would like to
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clear up. Um first, I use both the term empress and Zar Zarita in these episodes. Um this was actually so I could talk about it here because I think it's neat. Uh Peter the Great changed the official title of the Russian monarch from Zar to emperor back during his reign as sort of part of his realignment to the west because he wanted uh the ruler of Russia to sound less foreign in European courts. But a ton of the time both inside and outside of Russia, people would still call the
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ruler of Russia Zars uh even in official communications. But what I really liked is that Catherine was actually both an empress and a zarita. Any place that wasn't Russia proper that she took over like the Crimea, she called herself the Zarita of. Um so while it's probably fair to say that Zar or Zarita was considered a less formal title by this point in history, you'll still see it heavily in use. Uh, oh, and speaking of Peter the Great and things that were
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still heavily in use, um, when Catherine shows up to meet Elizabeth in Moscow, it seemed like a lot of people thought that there was an error because, ever humble, Peter the Great moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg. And yes, I know it's a different Peter, but really St. Petersburg uh, during his reign. So anyway, while the capital was in St. Petersburg. The royal family still had palaces in Moscow and still spent a ton of time there and it was still one of
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the most important cities in Russia, which is where they are when in episode 2, Katherine just shows up. Uh, interestingly, while the official capital was St. Petersburg, much of the business of government still happens wherever the court and the monarch were. So often Moscow served as sort of a second unofficial center of government. Uh oh, and speaking of official parts of Russia, one of the things I had to cut out of this series was the Pale of Settlement. And I reflecting on I think
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I was wrong to do so. There just wasn't any place I could really fit it. Um, but it's a huge oversight. So let me correct it here. Several times Russian emperors had tried to expel all of the Jews from Russia but with marginal success. Um but as territories from the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth were annexed they brought with them a huge Jewish population. So towards the end of her reign, Katherine decreed that a swath of western Russia uh was going to be the
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pale of settlement or basically the only legal place for most Jews to live in Russia. And even there uh where they could live and sort of what they could engage in as trades was was really limited. Life in the pale was pretty grim. and packing all of the Jewish population into one area will just have terrible and disastrous repercussions down the line. Um, but you know what? I probably should be doing this in some type of order. So, let's hop into episode one.
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You know, when Catherine was 14 and her 24year-old cousin started to hit on her, for some reason, all the historians I read seemed to be cool with this. Um, but even though their relationship never went past a few kisses, I couldn't see the way it round out as anything but a little bit on the creepy side. Um, but the thing I found curious was that it wasn't just me, right? Even though this thing sort of thing happened all the time amongst the nobility back then, uh,
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Catherine's parents seem to find it a little creepy. Um, in fact, at one point, this cousin Cavalier proposed to Catherine and she said Ever Clever, uh, she said she'd say yes if he could get her father's consent, something she knew would never happen. Um, of course, had he been a better match with more prospects, who knows, right? But so even then, this was a little odd. Oh, and if you're wondering why Katherine and her mother were invited to Russia, but her father was just left out of it,
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everyone, including the very pragmatic Frederick the Great, knew that her father was devout Lutheran and would tank the whole deal if his daughter had to convert to being Eastern Orthodox. So, you know, it's either just to leave him out of it and have his daughter ask permission when it's basically a done deal and she's 1,000 mi away. Uh, but on to episode two, which I'm actually excited to talk about because it's sort of one of these big major points of of modern disagreement
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about Catherine, and that's the role of Peter III. Recently, there was a book by a German historian called Elena Palmer that attempted to resuscitate the reputation of Peter III on the grounds that he was sort of a liberal reformer who was overthrown by reactionary nobles. Uh, interestingly, as far as I can trace it, the Wikipedia page on Peter III was heavily edited to basically reflect solely this view. And so it gained a sort of popular notoriety, but it's something that I
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just can't see. And it's not really in consensus with any with the academic consensus. But first off, I mean, it's absolutely true. There were some very liberal measures regarding uh freedom of religion and the position of the surfs that Peter enacted. But from what I read, it seemed that he signed just a lot of what was put in front of him or what his friends around him wanted to sign. Um, some of which happened to be very liberal. But his overall sort of political ineptitude and inability to
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navigate public opinion makes it hard for me to see him as a champion of liberal causes overthrown before his time. Uh, and yes, much of the direct evidence we have about Peter III comes from writings that occurred during Catherine's lifetime. And she lived a long time and reigned a long time. So basically, anyone who knew Peter while he was alive is probably writing about it during that period. So it's hard to tell. But even writings from rulers outside of Russia from his younger days
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don't speak that glowingly of Peter and sort of Frederick the Great who Peter idolized and the person who really should be most indebted to Peter because he basically saved his life and saved his entire country just doesn't speak very highly of him. Uh and so it's something that's totally worth looking into on your own. But honestly, like if you want to talk about political hatchet jobs, I'm not even sure it's remotely fair to say that people tried to smear Peter worse than they did Catherine. I
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mean, after all, what's the first thing that most people know about Catherine, right? It's that absurd and patently stupid lie that she died sleeping with a horse. Uh, and past that, most people today think of her as lentious and ruled by her sexuality by the highest. I mean, highest count that's considered remotely plausible. She had 22 different sexual partners over the course of her long lifetime. This is actually way less than many of the male European monarchs of
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the time. And in fact, a lot of her relationships lasted for years. And during them, as far as we know, she was actually faithful. I mean, given how long she lived, uh that's like one new partner every two 2 and 1/2 years of her adult life. Um, now she had plenty of flaws, don't get me wrong. She was paranoid. She had a need for control. There are times where she certainly doesn't know her own limits, but those flaws are not what's passed down to us. Um, so to me, really, she gets a harsher
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character assassination in my book than Peter does. Um, but speaking of Peter, let's move on to episode three and his removal from power.
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A lot of people wanted to know why Catherine was accepted as a monarch even though she didn't have royal blood and she was a foreigner. And really again it at least in part boils down to Peter. He was deeply deeply unpopular. The army hated him for snatching them from victory and putting them just back in harm's way. Uh and the church hated him for a number of his attempted reforms. uh some of which Katherine would actually later just successfully double down on. Uh and the populace of major
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cities hated him for just seeming churish and just disrespecting Russian tradition and I mean appearing to love Germany more than the land he ruled. Uh and the aristocracy just had a whole web of reasons. Sure there were plenty who probably liked him as well but many of them had a whole web of reasons not to like him. So then comes along Catherine who seems like a ruler who will bring some stability and who also seems to have respect or perhaps even zeal for
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Eastern Orthodoxy and Russian tradition and who cleverly is promising everyone at least a little bit of what they want. But for Catherine who was ever insecure about her position, even this wasn't quite enough, right? Uh because after she takes over, she locked up Peter III far away from the seat of power and had Kagori Orlov, her lover, and his brothers guard Peter. Now, this was a royal imprisonment, right? And so, like all this sort of imprisonments during at
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this time, it's not exactly like you're in a prison cell or doing hard labor. A royal imprisonment was more like a house arrest at one of the more dreer and rundown palaces, uh but still a palace. and everyone pretended like it wasn't imprisonment. So, Peter's jailers hung out with him, sort of like they were all just buddies having a nice vacation away from the city. Uh, which of course leads them all drinking together, which somehow winds up not long thereafter and
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one of the brothers accidentally killing Peter in a drunken brawl. Now, as far as I can tell, the general consensus on this is that Catherine didn't have anything directly to do with his murder, but it was quite clear that the question of what to do with Peter was a major issue for the state. It's kind of a Henry Thomas Beckett sort of thing, right? The empress made it very evident that she was struggling with the issue of Peter and some of her chief subordinates went out and took that as a
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suggestion that he just quietly pop off this myrtle coil. Of course, they had the whole accident cover story. So, she quietly pardoned them and let the matter slide. History and of course her European opponents would though never let the matter slide. And this remains a stain on her legacy even in most modern accounts. Uh it's one of the things that comes up most often when talking about uh the negative sides of her. And of course, fuel is added to this by one of
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the most bizarre parts of her whole story because this there was actually another secret emperor of Russia who was locked in basically a black site prison when Catherine took over the throne. Uh this was Ivan IV. Ivan had been 2 months old when he was coronated. And barely a year later, Elizabeth, yes, the Elizabeth who summoned Catherine early in our story, overthrows the regent who's ruling for him and locks this like 1 and 1/2year-old away. For the next 12 years, he just sees nobody but his
13:15
jailer. And then somehow, rumor of his imprisonment starts to circulate. And Elizabeth is having them spirited away to a yet more secure location where he's simply referred to as the prisoner. And not even the commander of the prison knows his name and who he actually is. Well, when Catherine takes over, she's made aware of his location. And ever worried about her position on the throne, she gives strict orders to keep him shackled and guarded at all times and to prevent sort of any chance of
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rebellion from forming around him. He's not to be released even under direct order from her. And if anyone tries to free him, the guards are given orders that they should slay him rather than risk letting him find freedom. Now, some of the men of the guards start to piece things together. All the secrecy, the perpetual imprisonment, the hasty transfer so many years ago, they they kind of get the picture. They know who he is. And there's a mutiny. And the plan is to proclaim the prisoner emperor
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and sort of form a rebellion around him. So they seize the captain of the guard and rush to the prison cell and they demand that the prisoner be uh handed over. But the jailers still loyal to the commander and knowing that it's only a matter of minutes before they break into the prison itself. Uh they turn around and they carry out their orders. They cut down Ivan on the spot. And so Catherine becomes secure on her throne at last, but with another royal murder
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on her conscience. Um, but I got carried away in telling that story. I love I love all these weird fascinating stories. Um, but I'll try and keep it a little shorter. Uh, we were on episode 4,
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so rapid fire time. Uh, lots of people wanted to know what Katherine's relationship to the Enlightenment was. basically she liked to think of herself as part of it. Uh she considered herself an enlightened monarch. She read all the philosophers of the day and had a long-standing correspondence with uh Voltaare and this was famous all over Europe. And so she also used it in part to convince the rest of Europe that Russia wasn't some backwater land, but rather sort of participating in the
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enlightenment in an enlightened nation ruled by an enlightened ruler like herself. Of course, this had a touchandgo relationship with the truth. She was an autocrat at heart and most of the more democratic aspects of the Enlightenment she shrugged off. she at least claimed to believe in the aristocracy sort of having a paternal role with regards to the surfs that it was their job to look after and make pleasant life for the lesser folk. Uh which is why almost all of her reforms
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of the institution of surfom focused on encouraging the nobility to use their surfs better rather than really granting any rights or freedoms to the surfs themselves. When she grew older though, she suffered through a number of rebellions, right? And as she had to put down all these rebellions, she started to feel like enlightenment philosophy was excellent in the salons of Paris, but not actually practical in the real world. Uh so she began to roll back some more of her stridident enlightenment
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policies like not censoring books. Uh oh, and those peasant rebellions, right? They always came with a pretender who claimed to be Peter or Ivan or some such. So getting those two guys murdered turned out to either be a really good idea or to not matter at all. And I'm genuinely not sure which. Oh, and a cool story regarding the Enlightenment stuff. Uh you know how she brought vaccine to Russia? Well, she had a relay of express horses set up for the doctor who
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inoculated her in case he killed her and needed to get out of dodge fast. So, it can't be said that she took no risks for her enlightenment philosophy or that she didn't actually believe in it. It was just that her own character flaws and the very difficulties of some of these philosophies uh limited how much she really stood firm on them and implemented them. All right, episode five.
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First off, we have to talk about PMPkin's ancestor, uh, Peter Pmpkin Pota. Uh, because he's kind of rad. He's an ambassador with just a serious sense of style. Uh, when negotiating with the Spanish, every time someone would mention the Zar, he would insist that the king of Spain take off his hat and wouldn't start up the negotiations again until he did so. Uh, and when he was negotiating with the Danes, he found the Danish king. He arrived there and the Danish king is too sick to get out of
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bed. So what does he do? He orders another bread brought into the room and put next to the kings and he laid down and negotiated with him laying in bed in order to show that they were negotiating as equals. Um, so fascinating dude. But on to PMPkin proper. remember how he was appointed guardian of the exotic peoples during the great assembly Katherine put together? Well, he ne he kind of never dropped that role. Um, for the rest of his life, at least to a degree larger
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than most of the Russian nobles, he would look out for the minority populations in Russia, although he has a very conflicted history with um the Kha'Zixs. Uh, but this whole thing, he might have also been doing it to be contrarian and irk a lot of the like straight lace gent uh, gentry because that was kind of the guy he was. Oh, and on his relationship with Catherine, they were ridiculously adorable at times. They worked in different wings of the palace, but they had servants run each
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other tiny notes all day long. I always imagine it as that couple who works on different floors of a company but emails each other pictures of tiny animals throughout the workday. Um, and he I mean the guy was clearly intelligent and brave and hardworking, but he wasn't all great. Um, somewhere there's a quote from him about how much he liked fine living, right? He indulged in good food and luxurious palaces and after he and Catherine broke up, especially the
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company of beautiful women. uh his life was opulent and expensive and ostentatious and Catherine and thus the state paid for most of it and this plus his sort of special relationship with Catherine and his general level of power in the empire made him a ton of enemies which leads us to Pmpkin villages uh which I hate to tell you are fictitious. Um it's almost certain and it fits his character that PMPkin tried to show Katherine the better parts of the villages they passed through um as they
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were passing through his domain because he was kind of ruling a part of Russia that they had taken over uh not autonomously but he was ruling a large part of Russia at the time. Um but the idea that he created facades and orchestrated villagers to seem productive and happy is almost stretching that basic fact way past where it breaks. Um, it's likely that his enemies, while he was far away, basically ruling his own domain, invented the idea of pmpkin villages to
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help discredit him. Uh, but hey, at least it provides us a useful term today. Uh, oh, episode 6, tie-in time.
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Remember the is the episodes we did on the history paper money? Well, neat facts. One, Katherine actually introduced the first banknotes to Russia. And two, uh, when they were struggling to sort of topple the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, Frederick the Great flooded it with counterfeit money in order to destabilize the economy. So crafty guy. Um, also Walpole. So you know how Walpole was an avid collector of art all his life. Uh, and he ended up with one of the finest collections of
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all of England outside the crown. Um, well, one of his grandsons, George Walpole, uh, was an ineterate gambler and quite possibly slightly mad. But anyway, he gambled himself way deep into debt. And to get out of it, he sold his grandfather's art collection. Uh, the whole of England thought that it would go to one of the national museums or that the monarchy might add it to the royal collection. But you know who swooped it up? You guessed it, Catherine. uh to this day it serves as
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the backbone of the gallery at the Hermitage. If you want to see Rembrandts or Van Dykes that were once owned by Robert Walpole, that's where you'll find them. But all right, um as always, check out the incredible music made by the brothers Kinder. It should be posted alongside this video. And join us next time as we delve into the wild world of Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. I will see you all then. Take care everyone. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
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