Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

"Yes, he was. Potemkin is arguably the most famous of Russia’s pre-revolutionary statesmen, apart from the rulers. He also enjoys the honour, or notoriety, of having become part of the language because a lot of people have heard about so-called ‘Potemkin villages.’ These were imagined settlements along Catherine’s road to Crimea, serving as predecessors to today’s fakes. In fact, these villages never existed. They were invented by French diplomats who aspired to draw Turkey into a war with Russian Empire. They wanted to convince everyone that there was nothing built in the south of Russia except Potemkin villages—to give an incentive for the Turks to start hostilities. The Ottoman Empire paid a huge price for believing that. Of course, Potemkin produced many performances during Catherine’s famous trip to the south, to show what he had already achieved and planned to achieve there. Such practices were widespread in court life. If we study the court of Louis XIV, who was a model ruler for Catherine, we can see how important all these staged performances were. In a way Potemkin represented his vision. If there were dressed-up peasants, he didn’t plan to deceive the audience, which knew very well that these were theatrical decorations. It was very, very expensive for the Treasury. He spent a lot of money on these performances. But Catherine was shrewd and knew him very well. She easily forgave him excessive expenses, but would never allow him to deceive her. This book tells us the true story about that. It is a wonderful biography of both lovers. It dwells on the question of their secret marriage, which might have taken place—we’ll never know. Montefiore seems to be all but certain that they were secretly married. Simon Dixon is nearly certain. I’m slightly less certain but it is highly probable, at the very least, that it was the case. And it was an incredible love. Catherine had a lot of lovers throughout her life and Montefiore is specific about her relations with each of them. But very seldom did she allow them to play a serious political or administrative role in the running of the country. “She changed her lovers, but she was not promiscuous” Montefiore discusses the gender bias around the stories of all her lovers. Nobody ever sees it as something to wonder at when male rulers exchange their lovers for new, younger ones. But when it happens to a female ruler it is seen as an act of terrible immorality and deviation. Catherine had about a dozen lovers—maybe there were a couple more—but they followed one after another. She changed her lovers, but she was not promiscuous—at least by modern standards. All of her affairs were conceptualised as love. She was very much under the spell of sentimental literature. Potemkin was the greatest and the strongest of those loves. And Montefiore has worked in the archives, unearthing their exciting correspondence. He gives a vivid portrait of a strange, eccentric man who lived like a sultan but was, at the same time, fervently religious, who contemplated becoming a monk and was an administrative genius. Potemkin’s managerial and administrative skills, arguably, have been unmatched in Russian history. Montefiore quotes a couple of ambassadors to Russia who had personally met Napoleon and George Washington . Both of them said that Potemkin was the most impressive personality that they’d ever seen. The book confirms that perception. It tells the story of this incredible personality and his incredible love, which continued after Catherine and Potemkin ceased to be lovers and lasted until Potemkin’s death in 1791—five years before Catherine, although he was 10 years her junior. They both had other partners, but their intimacy realised itself in their political cooperation. Potemkin had a great plan of resurrecting Greece and reconquering Constantinople—the notorious ‘Greek Project’. A lot of scholars believed before that it was just a sham. But Montefiore shows that it was a real plan to reorient Russia from the Baltics to the southern borders. For all this, I think it is an exciting book about one of the most important people of 18th century Russia."

"We move to the age of Enlightenment: a very nice, well-written book by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and it’s called Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin ( Editor’s note : this book has been updated and is now called Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair ). So what do we have? We’ve had the reforms of Peter the Great, cutting his ‘window on to Europe’, then we had – and the 18th century is a crucial one – Russia meeting the Enlightenment. Catherine the Great comes to power, and that’s where the biggest revolution I think takes place, from the point of view of civilising the country. She has a great court, of which Voltaire was a part, as well as Potemkin, and this is a wonderful book about these times and days: highly entertaining, informative, pleasant and it’s a very important period, it’s when Russia became a great power. The book is a biography of Prince Potemkin, one of the great characters of the Enlightenment altogether, internationally recognised. You meet all the most interesting people of that era: from the Austrian Emperor Josef, to the Prince de Ligne – they’re all characters in this book and this is already not Muscovite Russia, it’s something transformed. He was one of Catherine’s Praetorian Guard, I think, and he became a favourite. Actually he was a husband of Catherine. They most likely married secretly, and he became a minister and the man who ruled Russia together with her: who expanded Russia all the way East – Ukraine, Crimea – and built 140 cities I think, and made Russia great and glorious and the Russia we know already. The 19th century with its great literature –Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol – it all comes out of these liberal days, liberal in a certain way, of Potemkin, Catherine, Voltaire, and the Enlightenment, so definitely worth reading. The book is about a great cocktail of Russia and the Enlightenment, with Catherine the Great as the bartender, mixing."