page_title: Russian Empire
section_title: Catherine the Great (1762–1796)
hierarchical_section_title: Russian Empire / History / Eighteenth century / Catherine the Great (1762–1796)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Abgebildete Person: Kaiserin Katharina II. v. Russland, Tochter v. C.A. Anhalt-Zerb
context_page_description: The Russian Empire was an empire that extended across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917. The third-largest empire in history, at its greatest extent stretching over three continents, Europe, Asia, and North America, the Russian Empire was surpassed in size only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south.
  The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762. Its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent, the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, ruled from 1762 until the end of the empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east.
context_section_description: Catherine the Great was a German princess who married Peter III, the German heir to the Russian crown. After the death of Empress Elizabeth, she came to power when she conducted a coup d'état against her unpopular husband. She contributed to the resurgence of the Russian nobility that began after the death of Peter the Great. State service was abolished, and Catherine delighted the nobles further by turning over to them most state functions in the provinces. She also removed the tax on beards, instituted by Peter the Great.
  Catherine the Great extended Russian political control over the lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Her actions included the support of the Targowica Confederation. But the cost of her campaigns added to the burden of the oppressive social system, which required serfs to spend almost all of their time laboring on their owners' land. A major peasant uprising took place in 1773, after Catherine legalised the selling of serfs separate from land. Inspired by Cossack named Yemelyan Pugachev, and proclaiming "Hang all the landlords!", the rebels threatened to take Moscow before they were ruthlessly suppressed. Instead of imposing the traditional punishment of drawing and quartering, Catherine issued secret instructions that the executioners should carry the death sentences quickly and with a minimum of suffering, as part of her effort to introduce compassion into the law. She also ordered the public trial of Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova, a high nobleman, on charges of torture and murder of serfs. These gestures of compassion garnered Catherine much positive attention from Europe in the Enlightenment age. But the specter of revolution and disorder continued to haunt her and her successors. Indeed,  her son Paul introduced a number of increasingly erratic decrees in his short reign aimed directly against the spread of French culture as a response to the revolution. 
  In order to ensure continued support from the nobility, which was essential to the survival of her government, Catherine was obliged to strengthen their authority and power at the expense of the serfs and other lower classes. Nevertheless, Catherine realized that serfdom must be ended, going so far in her Nakaz ("Instruction") to say that serfs were "just as good as we are" – a comment the nobility received with disgust.  Catherine successfully waged war against the Ottoman Empire and advanced Russia's southern boundary to the Black Sea. Then, by plotting with the rulers of Austria and Prussia, she incorporated territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. Russia had signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti to protect them against any new invasion of their Persian suzerains. As part of this and her own political aspirations, Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they had invaded eastern Georgia; victorious, she established Russian rule over it and expelled the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. By the time of her death in 1796, Catherine's expansionist policy had developed Russia as a major European power. This continued with Alexander I's wresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Principality of Moldavia, ceded by the Ottomans in 1812.
caption: Empress Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an enlightened absolutist, she played a key role in the Russian Enlightenment.
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