395 pages, E.P.
Dutton Books, ISBN-13: 978-0525078135
Like
most biographies of the ever-fascinating Catherine, Catherine the Great by Henri Troyat is a bouncy-but-sloppy retelling
with a cracking first half but a formless second – and, like most such
biographies, it stresses the infinite variety of Catherine-the-woman while
failing to provide much in the way of historical grounding. Troyat writes well
of a woman who had a natural appetite for absolutism: she subjugated serfs,
jailed dissidents, lost her head over younger lovers who were hired to service
her lust, encouraged obscene consumption in imitation of Versailles (although
she detested the French), deplored the ineluctable rise of republicanism and
the concept of human rights, stole her son’s children and raised them as she
saw fit, frustrated native Russian talents in preference to ill-fitting European
transplants, neglected her country’s infrastructure (except for establishing
some institutions of learning), and generally ruled in such a way that her
death began the undoing of all she had worked for 34 years – that is to say,
she did little to strengthen its non-parasitic systems or institutions; she
merely enforced her will.
As
always, the raw, unlikely story of the making-of-an-Empress is irresistible: minor
German Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, unattractive
but very bright, was promoted by her pushy mama (and by the King of Prussia) as
a fiancée for Grand Duke Peter, nephew and heir of decadent Empress Elizabeth
of Russia – and though Peter was an impotent half-wit (fixated on toy soldiers,
dirty jokes, and Prussia), little outsider Sophie grabbed the main chance with
a will, transforming herself into the most virtuously Russian Orthodox of
princesses and enduring eight years of virgin marriage before taking lovers (LOTS
of lovers), so that, by the time her unpredictable mentor/enemy Elizabeth
finally died, cagey Grand Duchess Catherine was ready to parlay her popularity
into an overthrow of loathsome, now-dangerous Peter III. Troyat tells this tale
vigorously enough, with the usual reliance on Catherine’s own wry, juicy
memoirs, but also with a dismayingly large doses of sloppy prose and pure clichés:
“beside herself with joy”; “green with envy”; “she melted on the spot”; “method
in her madness”; and so on in like fashion.
Reforms,
Crimean conquests, shrewd diplomacy, suppression of rebellions…Troyat covers it
all, but haphazardly, with constant resort to over-simplifications (such as Catherine’s
switch from Voltaire-inspired liberalism to old-fashioned Russian repression),
dubious generalizations (about “Russian irrationality”, for instance; I mean,
just what is that, anyway?), and ungainly gush (“She was mad for reform. She
had a passionate desire to knead the thick dough of Russia”. Blech). Typically, when the complex
Polish annexation comes up, we get minimal historical background while the
passions of Catherine’s Polish puppet-king/lover are paperback-pulped ad
infinitum: “He wanted to come back to the woman whom he had never stopped
loving, back to the taste of her lips, the sweetness of her voice, the movement
of her hips”. And Troyat is ever eager to get back to the boudoir, as infatuation-prone
Catherine (a healthy creature with “nothing of the hysteric or nymphomaniac
about her”) goes through “fresh young bodies”, some of them procured for her by
lover/adviser Potemkin, the only bedmate who also had “a strong mind that could
send the ball back to her”. I mean, is this a biography or the treatment for a
soap opera?
Ultimately,
Catherine was a woman of her times and indisputably proved to be a most able
successor to Peter the Great inasmuch as she made Russia a major player on the
European stage and greatly expanded the territory under her control. The
personalities involved herein make for a highly entertaining read. But, after all
of that, one is not entirely sure just what made her “Great”, unless it was the
military conquests ordered by her (and which are given rather hasty treatment
by Troyat). Maybe other hereditary monarchs were as bad as Peter III and she
merely shone by comparison. Maybe all hereditary monarch had to do in those
days to be considered “Great” was not let the country go to hell in a
handbasket. It must be said that, in comparison with other rulers of Russia,
both past and present, she was not the worst, so I guess she’s got that going
for her?
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