Not for nothing did the poet Derzhavin refer to Tsar Paul’s accession as an act of conquest: armed soldiers were everywhere.

the time that shocked courtiers arrived at the Winter Palace on the morning after Catherine’s death, ‘the change was so great that it looked like nothing other than an enemy invasion’.2 All the empress’s ‘brilliance’ seemed to have vanished into thin air as her successor staged the first of the military parades that were to dominate life at his Court. ‘No one knew what to do,’ admitted Platon Zubov’s dwarf amanuensis, Ivan Yakubovsky: ‘The mind could not grasp that this time had come.’1 It did not take them long to realise, however, that in an intensely personal monarchy such as the Russian empire, the accession of a new ruler could immediately signal a radical reversal of regime. Finding it impossible to imagine anyone else in her place, the Court was stunned by her unexpected demise. Most of her subjects could remember no other monarch. Catherine the Great Kindle Edition by Simon Dixon (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 43 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle 11.99 Read with Our Free App Hardcover 151.00 1 Used from 150.09 8 New from 140. Catherine's life and reign are a prism through which the culture and politics of her age are viewed. To quickly assess the difficulty of the text, read a short excerpt: It shows how Catherine conceived of her power and how she represented it to her subjects, as well as how she wielded this power. She promoted radical political ideas while emphasizing moderation in government. What reading level is Catherine the Great book? Admired for her achievements and satirized for her personal life, Catherine the Great was one of the most celebrated monarchs in history, turning eighteenth-century Russia into arguably the largest and most powerful state since the fall of the Roman Empire.

Catherine the great by simon dixon