Once the terror of Eastern Europe, Poland had long been in decline.
Catherine aimed to make that decline permanent.
*intro music*
When Catherine first made war on the Ottomans,
the biggest losses ended up being suffered by the Poles rather than the Ottoman Empire.
For years, Catherine had a puppet, a former lover on the throne of Poland.
But keeping him there, and keeping him doing the bidding of Russia was becoming more and more difficult.
Vast amounts of troops and treasure were required to keep Poland passive
and, as you might remember, the first Russo-Ottoman conflict was, at least officially,
caused by Russian troops chasing Polish rebels over the border into Ottoman territory.
But Poland was at the center of everything. Literally.
The three great powers in Eastern Europe at the time were Prussia, Austria and Russia.
And in the middle of all of them sat Poland.
So, Poland became the solution for a very thorny problem that faced the king of Prussia, Frederick the Great.
You see, Frederick had agreed to a secret alliance with Catherine. But the terms of it were very specific.
If either of them fought with one of the other powers, all the other had to do was provide some financial support.
But if either was attacked and ended up fighting two powers, well the other one had to go all in, joining their side.
Now, Frederick really didn’t like the idea of actually militarily supporting Russia.
He wanted them on his side and all, but the 7 Years War had really done a number on his forces and his treasury,
and in the Ottoman conflict, Russia was being a true pain and stomping the Turks far more than anybody really thought they would,
which of course worried Austria, who needed the Ottomans as a counterbalance to Russia.
Naturally, this meant that the Austrians were about to join the war on the Ottoman side,
which would mean that Frederick would have to do the very boring and un-fun act of honoring his treaty.
But Frederick was a crafty fellow. He pondered the problem and did what he seems to have usually done, and asked himself,
“How can I kill a whole bunch of birds with one stone?”
Because he really wanted a couple of things:
First, he didn’t want to have to send troops to fight some Russian war.
Second, he wanted the Ottomans to owe him,
in case he ever needed to use them against the Austrians or the Russians.
And then there was this thorny issue of that big gap in his territory, making it much harder to defend.
So, he proposed a solution.
rather than Russia continuing to kick the Turks around and taking large portions of their territory,
what if they took a big piece of Poland instead?
And then, to maintain the balance of power, Austria could go in and take the most populous parts of Poland.
And him? Oh, he would just take this wee bitty bit over there.
A bit that happens to be the most strategically important for him, and provided him more ports on the Baltic.
So, his solution was proposed and basically everybody was like, “uhh, sure, that works”.
And so, with plenty of urging from the surrounding Russian soldiers,
they got Catherine’s puppet in Poland to call the Polish version of a parliament to ratify the agreement.
Of course, not enough members showed up to actually ratify the thing
but that wouldn’t be a problem.
The first thing those who did show up decided to do was change the rules.
And thus, huge segments of Poland became Russian, Austrian and Prussian overnight.
From then on, any time Poland did anything Russia didn’t like, Russia would just send the troops in.
Then, Prussia would suggest that they all just take another bite out of Poland,
until finally, near the end of Catherine’s rule,
everyone just agreed to do away with the nuisance that was the ever in revolt state of Poland.
But as Catherine’s life came to its close,
and the last chapter in the reign of Catherine the Great was being penned,
all thoughts were on one thing:
the succession.
And here perhaps, for all of Catherine’s triumphs, was her greatest failing.
The place where her own weaknesses and insecurities show through.
The tragedy of her reign was that she left behind no one to carry on her legacy.
After her, Russia would never again have a truly great emperor.
Her son would grow up to be like the husband Catherine had despised.
When he was born, little Paul had been whisked away by the then-empress Elizabeth.
For eight years, Elizabeth had had maids and servants raise the boy
boy and when he was at last returned to Catherine there was a distance between them that could never be bridged.
The young man expected the warmth and affection that he’d never received during those years apart from his mother,
and while Catherine tried, Paul would always be jealous of the men in Catherine’s life,
as she seemed to focus more of her energy on them than on him.
And this was compounded by Catherine’s own paranoia.
She saw her son not as an assistant and an heir, but as a potential rival,
as the one person who might have a more legitimate claim on throne than she.
So, she kept him away from the halls of government.
Away from any responsibility, from being an actor in the affairs of state.
And slowly, he took to idolizing the father who might not have been his father.
He would play with soldiers and march his soldiers around, like Peter had.
Catherine and her closest advisors eventually decided this had to stop.
And so, they sought a wife for him, hoping that being married might make him grow up.
But his first marriage ended in deep tragedy.
His wife died in the birth of their first son, and their son died with her.
And, as he was going through her papers,
Paul discovered that she’d been carrying on an affair with his closest friend.
He was laid low with grief, but he was convinced to marry again for the sake of the state.
His new wife was perfect for him.
She supported him, eased his anxiety.
Together they toured Europe,
where for the first time he was treated like a ruling member of some great state.
And in these few months, you can see this possibility,
this glimmer of hope in the letters the rulers of Europe wrote to one another upon meeting this young man,
that he might be something more than his father.
Was he perfect?
No, but they all remark on him being capable, intelligent and,
when his wife was at his side, able to let go of the anxiety and the paranoia that plagued him.
But, when he returned from Europe and asked to be part of the cabinet,
Catherine again dismissed him, telling him that his trip made him put on airs.
He asked to fight in the army, and she said no.
On every front, she still kept him from having any of the responsibility of state
And so, he sank back down into his anxiety, and his paranoia.
And as he grew older, rumors abounded that Catherine was going to disinherit him for one of his own sons.
Now, whether she actually did or not is one of those historical questions that will never really have an answer.
Some say that she left instructions in her will to pass the empire to her grandson,
but that Paul had had that will destroyed before anyone could discover it.
Others say that she died before she made up her mind on the issue.
But Catherine, forgetting some of the pains of her own childhood,
let her insecurities prevent her from giving her son the training or the care that he needed to rule.
In the end, his paranoia became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and he would be assassinated not long into his reign.
And the last days for Catherine saw some other steps backwards as well.
The Pugachev rebellion had convinced her to step back from granting rights to the serfs,
something that she had considered doing in her younger days.
And now, the French Revolution made her doubt all of the Enlightenment ideas that she had so loved,
and that in some ways had helped her carry her country so far.
She banned private printing presses,
and made all works be approved by a censorship office.
She even stopped the circulation of books by some of the very men she had corresponded with in her youth.
And so, in the end, on the 17th of November, 1796,
Catherine died of a stroke, leaving behind her a Russia that was larger, stronger and more developed than ever before.
She had championed health, maternal rights and education.
She had expanded the country on every border, from Poland to Georgia to Alaska.
She patronized the arts, built great palaces and wonders like the Hermitage.
Under her, the army had gone from a second-rate power scoffed at in the halls of Europe to something feared the world round.
She issued the first Russian banknote, and brought the Enlightenment to Russia.
And though she began to step back from that Enlightenment, and left Russia with a dynasty incapable of completing her legacy,
it cannot be said that she was anything but The Great.