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Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

The Empress had been told that the outbreaks of plague in the south were somehow due to Potemkin’s negligence. She was sensitive on the subject, after Moscow’s Plague-Riot of 1770. There were allegations that Italian settlers arriving to farm the southern steppes had died because there were no houses for them. Both the allegations were false – he had worked especially hard to limit the plague, and had succeeded. It must have been depressing to achieve so much and travel so far only to find he had to fight his corner on his return. The plot, according to Bezborodko, was hatched by the Navy Minister, Ivan Chernyshev, who had most reason to resent Serenissimus’ success because Grand Admiral Potemkin was building his own Black Sea fleet outside the remit of the Navy College. Princess Dashkova, back from her travels, and even Lanskoy were somehow involved too. These accusations led to a row between the partners and a coldness descended over these two proud statesmen.⁵¹

Potemkin stopped calling on Catherine. Lev Engelhardt, another cousin from Smolensk who had just joined the Prince’s staff as an adjutant, left a graphic account of this time. Usually the road, known as Millionaya (Millionaire’s Row), in front of Potemkin’s house adjoining the Winter Palace was so crowded with carriages and petitioners that it was impossible to pass. But now, at the height of his success, it was deserted. His enemies rejoiced.

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On 2 February 1784, Serenissimus woke up late as usual. His valet had placed a little envelope with the imperial seal beside his bed. The Empress, who had been up since seven, had typically ordered that the Prince should not be woken. Potemkin read the letter and called for his secretary, Vasily Popov. ‘Read!’, he said. Popov ran into the anteroom, where adjutant Engelhardt was on duty: ‘Go and congratulate the Prince. He’s promoted to field-marshal.’ Engelhardt went into the bedroom and congratulated his master. The Prince–Field-Marshal jumped out of bed, threw on a greatcoat, wrapped his pink silk scarf round his neck and went off to see the Empress. He was also raised to President of the College of War. Furthermore, on his recommendation, the Empress created the province of Tauris, the Classical name for the Crimea, and added it to Potemkin’s vast viceroyalty of New Russia. Within two hours, his apartments were full. Millionaya was blocked by carriages again. The courtiers who had been coldest grovelled the lowest.⁵² On 10 February, Catherine dined as Potemkin’s guest in one of his nieces’ houses.

The Prince impulsively decided he wanted to see Constantinople, so he asked Bulgakov: ‘What if I come as a guest to you from the Crimea by ship? Seriously I want to know if it is possible.’ Potemkin’s request was not merely romantic impulse – though much of it was his desire to see the city of Caesars. He knew now what he wanted to do, how much he wanted to build in the south, and for that he needed time and peace. He surely wanted to go to Tsargrad to negotiate this peace with the Sultan himself. Ambassador Bulgakov must have dreaded the very prospect. On 15 March, he replied from Istanbul that it would be exceedingly complicated. ‘They think’, he explained, ‘that you are our Grand Vizier.’⁵³ Potemkin never saw Constantinople – but his destiny was in the south. From now on, he planned ‘to pass the first four or five months of each year in his provinces’.⁵⁴ In mid-March, the Prince left St Petersburg again. There were cities to build, fleets to float, kingdoms to found.

Skip Notes

*1 One token of Harris’s favour with Catherine and Potemkin can still be seen in London in the form of a gorgeous bauble. When Harris left, she presented him with a chandelier created in Potemkin’s glass factories. Harris’s descendant, the 6th Earl of Malmesbury, recently gave this to the Skinner’s Company of the City of London where it now hangs in the Outer Hall.

*2 Potemkin the Orthodox revelled in possessing the very place, the ancient town of Khersoneses in the Crimea, where Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev, had been baptized in 988, the moment when Christianity reached the land of Rus.

*3 The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabak were still fighting to escape the Moslem control of the Republic of Azerbaijan and join the Republic of Armenia during a vicious war in the early 1990s.