Book Details
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Audiobook Details
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Date Started: January 4, 2013
Date Finished: February 5, 2013
I ‘read’ this book in audio book form and it took me a little longer than I would have liked to finish it. Probably didn’t help that I went a week or so without actually listening to any of it and then Troy and I were in Myanmar for another week, but that’s beside the point. 😉
To the book!
I actually really liked this book and gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. It is a very well-written and well-researched biography of a very complex woman.
One of the things I liked about this book is that it didn’t just tell about Catherine’s time on the throne. Robert K. Massie put a great deal of research into where she came from, what her parents were like, what made her parents the way they were, how she grew up, the religious climate during her childhood, how it came about that she was chosen to marry Grand Duke Peter of Russia, how her life in Russia was before, during and after her betrothal, why Empress Elizabeth treated Catherine the way she did, how Empress Elizabeth came to the throne, the reasons for the marriage delays, the reasons why Catherine’s mother did what she did during Catherine’s betrothal. Goodness. And that’s all before she even got married. After she got married, Mr. Massie gave a very detailed account of her life as a Grand Duchess of Russia and an even greater detailed account of her life as Empress Catherine the Great.
When I chose this book, I had a preconceived notion that it would be like some of the other biographies I’ve read: skimming over the person’s life at before the peak of their ‘greatness’, going into a fair amount of detail for the pinnacle of the life and then quickly wrapping up the end. This book, totally not like that. This was in-depth all the way. As a person who is fascinated with the Russian culture and Russian history, that is the best thing ever! This book delves deeply into the political, religious and economic climate of Russia, not only during the years of Catherine’s reign, but also for the years preceding her first coming to Russia.
Along with learning a great deal more about Russian culture and history than I had anticipated, I also learned more about the atmosphere of Europe in general. Not just in regards to Russia, but just the overall feel of how countries in Europe related to each other, which countries had treaties with who, the reasons behind some of those treaties and the relationships between the different monarchs. It was quite interesting. I learned quite a bit about Russia’s wars with Turkey, the division and obsolescence of Poland, how the Revolutionary War in France affected treaties around Europe, how the Revolutionary War in France affected some of Catherine’s decrees and ways some of the monarchs used to sway the outcomes of situations in other countries.
From reading I’d done before, I knew that Catherine had wanted to emulate Peter the Great and bring her country into greater enlightenment, but I didn’t realize the extent to which she’d gone to bring about her ideals. Sadly, many of the changes she had wanted to bring about failed, but she did try.
I think the biggest change she tried to bring about, and failed in, was in freeing the serfs. When she began her reign, she was full of all these noble ideas of freedom for all and for everyone being treated equally. One of the decrees of her early reign was fair, agreed-upon wages for serfs. This brought about an immediate strike and the military had to be called in to get the serfs to go back to work. Catherine very much wanted to abolish serfdom, but things kept occurring that caused her to need to delay ending serfdom. Eventually, the several things occurred that made her realize, for the sake of national stability, serfdom would not be abolished during her reign.
It was actually pretty interesting to see Catherine progress from an idealistic young woman who wanted to bring about the betterment of her country to the mature empress who realized it would take more than her lifetime to bring about the changes she had envisioned. She did what she could, but not all the changes she wanted could be done.
I think one of the greatest things she did in regards to bettering Russia were mandating a nationwide medical system. Before she came to power, doctors and hospitals were rare outside of large cities. She decreed that each district would have a hospital as well as a prescribed amount of doctors and staff. She sent Russian citizens to other countries in Europe to be trained in medicine and she brought medical experts from other countries to advise her in getting a medical system set up.
Another one of her actions in regards to medicine was to get vaccinated against smallpox. Five years after Catherine ascended the throne, 1767, smallpox hit Russia. Over 20,000 people died. Catherine enlisted the help of Dr. Thomas Dimsdale, a famous inoculator from England, to help rid her country of the disease. The means why which they got the rest of the country to get past their fears of inoculation was for Catherine to be inoculated. Her son, the Grand Duke Paul, was then inoculated. Both survived. That gave nobles the courage to try it themselves and thus it trickled down and thousands of people were inoculated. Catherine very much saved her population by her courageous decision.
Sending people off to get medical degrees wasn’t the only education Catherine cared about. Any nobleman who showed an interest in learning and was adept at it, she sent to be educated. Other people who were interested in learning were educated in Russia by people who har already received their educations. Her goal was to bring about a more educated and open-minded Russia. She wanted to catch Russia up to the intelligence and enlightened natures of the rest of Europe.
I could go on and on about the things Catherine did. Was she a flawed woman? Yes. Did she make mistakes? Yes. Did she make choices that in hindsight seem cruel? Sometimes. But overall, she did great and wonderful things for her country. She gained strongholds in the Baltic to strengthen the Russian Navy, she increased medical care and education, she did what she could to improve the living conditions of the citizens, the advocated interrogation without torture, she taught people to treat fellow citizens with more care and respect, she brought decorum to her court and relaxed attitudes to private gatherings. She tried to do good by her people and her country and for the most part, she succeeded. I was fascinated by this book and I was pleased to learn all the in-depth facts about this amazing woman. I will definitely be reading it again in the future and I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more about Catherine the Great, Russian history, European history and world history.
