Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

43 RGADA 11.895.3–5, Baron Richard Sutherland to GAP 10 August and 13 September 1783. RGADA 11.895.7, Baron Sutherland to GAP 2 March 1784. All unpublished. Presumably Sutherland was paid something because he calmed down until the next year, when he fell foul of Zeitlin: ‘I am extremely mortified to learn that I’m losing the protection and confidence with which Your Highness has deigned to honour me, through the report of my business with Monsieur Zeitlin.’ Sutherland claimed he was the ‘victim of his own goodwill’ and grovelled for Potemkin to forgive whatever he had done. One suspects that GAP is one of the few Russian statesmen who would fall out with a British baron on behalf of a Jewish merchant. (see Ch 19) RGVIA 52.2.35.33, Ferguson Tepper to GAP 11 January 1788 Warsaw. Sutherland was soon back in favour, but every delay in paying him hit the Scotsman’s bankers in Warsaw, Ferguson Tepper, who were soon begging GAP directly to give Sutherland the money to pay them 77,912 roubles. For the way GAP’s Chancellery functioned as both a state and a personal office, see RGVIA 271.1.53.1, Abbé Michel Ossowski to GAP 30 July NS 1789, unpublished. Here a Pole discusses both GAP’s Polish estates and the supply of timber and masts for shipbuilding in Kherson.

44 RGVIA 52.2.35.4, Sutherland to GAP 6 October 1788. RGADA 11.895.13, Sutherland to GAP 22 October 1788, unpublished.

45 RA (1873) 2 p 1687, GAP to Bezborodko.

46 Khrapovitsky 24 December 1789.

47 Gerhard F. Kramer and Roderick E. McGrew, ‘Potemkin, the Porte and the Road to Tsargrad: The Shumla Negotiations 1789–90’ pp 467–87. This work quotes from the Barozzi Diaries in Austrian Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv Russland II Berichte 202A to 206B

48 RGIA 468.1.2.3904, list of jewels sent down to Jassy for Turkish negotiations, unpublished.

49 RGVIA 52.2.79.1, GAP to Barozzi February 1790. ZOOID 8 (1872): 194–5, GAP to Grand Vizier and Barozzi 16/27 February 1790. ZOOID 8: 198–9, GAP to Barozzi, the offer of the mosque in Moscow.

50 RGADA 5.85.2.216, L 397, CII to GAP 6 February 1790.

51 Blanning, JII 1, pp 189, 198. SIRIO 54: 111, Richelieu, ‘Journal de mon voyage’. RGVIA 52.2.47.8, GAP to Prince Kaunitz 31 January 1790, unpublished. Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 34, Ligne to CII 12 February 1790. Joseph had been urging GAP to negotiate peace as his condition worsened. His correspondence with GAP (all unpublished): RGVIA 271.1.43.3, JII to GAP 7 October NS 1789, Vienna. RGVIA 52.2.47.41, JII to GAP 22 October NS 1789, Vienna (six-page letter). RGVIA 52.2.47.6, GAP to Kaunitz 11/22 December 1789, Jassy, and also RGVIA 52.2.47.4, GAP to Kaunitz 7 November 1789, Bender.

52 RGVIA 52.2.46.9, Leopold King of Hungary to GAP 30 March 1790, and GAP to King of Hungary ud. Also RGVIA 52.2.46.6, GAP to Leopold ud. The correspondence between GAP and the Austrians Leopold and Kaunitz is unpublished. GAP was said to have been outraged by Leopold’s nervous letters, stamping on them furiously, and swearing at the Habsburgs, who soon heard about the names he had called them. Sir N. William Wraxall, Historical Memoirs of my own Time p 171.

53 RGVIA 52.2.65.1, Duke of Leeds to GAP 31 March NS 1790. RGVIA 52.2.65.2, GAP to Leeds 30 May 1790, unpublished. Cross, By the Banks of the Neva pp 361–3. John Howard (1726–90) was buried near Kherson, and Tsar Alexander I erected a pyramid over his tomb. The Soviets continued to revere this friend of humanity. In 1998, when the author visited Kherson, there were still tours and pamphlets offered to tourists to encourage visits to Howard’s tomb.

54 RGADA 5.85.2.212, L 385, CII to GAP 3 December 1789.

55 RGVIA 52.2.46.4, GAP to Leopold King of Hungary 25 May 1790, unpublished.

56 AVPRI 5.5/1.589.214–16, GAP to CII ud, November/December 1789.

57 RGADA 5.85.2.208–9, L 385, CII to GAP 2 December 1789.

58 Engelhardt 1997 p 82.

59 RGADA 1.1/1.43.24–6, L 414, GAP to CII May 1790. The actual order is quoted in SIMPIK KV vol 2 p 30, 31 March 1790: ‘To all ranks of the army, I order you to wear only regular uniform without any differentiation. The generals should not have eagles on their tunics…’.

60 AVPRI 5.585.142, L 397, GAP to CII February 1790, Jassy.

61 AVPRI 5.585.128.31, L 389, GAP to CII December 1789.

62 RGADA 5.85.2.225–6, L 407, CII to GAP 19 March 1790, and RGADA 5.85.2.224, L 408, CII to GAP 30 March 1790.

63 AVPRI 5.585.323, L 394, GAP to CII 23 January 1790, Jassy. RGADA 5.85.2.208, L 387, CII to GAP 2 December 1789. AVPRI 5.585.128–131, L 388–9, GAP to CII December 1789. The orders to his Cossack officers Chepega and Golovaty about the formation of the new Host intensify in late 1789, spring 1790, for example SIMPIK KV vol 2 p 24, GAP to Golovaty 4 October 1789; p 32, 14 April 1790, Jassy.

64 RGVIA 52.2.37.207, GAP to Bezborodko.

65 RA (1842) 7–8 pp 17–18. AKV 5: 402, M. N. Radischev to Count A. R. Vorontsov 17 May 1791.

66 RGADA 1.1/1.43.107, L 441, GAP to CII 3 December 1790.