Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

65 AAE 20: 331, Langeron writes in 1824 of his disgust that the family had not yet built GAP the monument he deserved. Karpova pp 355–64. RGVIA 1287.12.126.23–4 A. Samoilov to Alexander I. GAOO 4.2.672.2, Alexander I rescript to build GAP monument 1825. But, as soon as Paul was murdered by his Guards officers in 1801 and his son Alexander succeeded promising to govern ‘like my beloved grandmother Catherine the Second’, GAP was rehabilitated and a monument commissioned in Kherson. The sculptor I. P. Martos was commissioned, but work was soon stopped by one of the frequent rows between Potemkin’s heirs about money – it was to cost the vast sum of 170,000 roubles – and did not start again until 1826. The colossal bronze Classical monument, finally unveiled in 1837, depicted Potemkin in Roman armour and robes with a huge sword and plumed helmet, on top of a pedestal reached by steps and guarded by the figures of Mars, Hercules, Apollo and Neptune. But during the Revolution Kherson changed hands back and forth and it was the Petluraists who tore down Martos’s Roman GAP to avenge the liquidation of the Zaporogian Sech. They tossed it into the yards of the local museum. The Nazis later either stole it or destroyed it.

66 AAE 20: 331, Langeron, ‘Evénements 1791’. ZOOID 9: 390–3.

67 ZOOID 5 (1863): 1006, I. Andreevsky. Milgov letter from Kherson 12 October 1859 published in St Petersburg journal Vedomosti no 918 January 1860.

68 ZOOID 9: 390–3, N. Murzakevich 30 August 1874.

69 Father Anatoly, priest of St Catherine’s Church. Author’s visit to Kherson July–August 1998.

70 B. A. Lavrenev, Potemkin’s Second Burial.

71 ZOOID 9: 390–3, Soldatsky. L. G. Boguslavsky to E. V. Anisimov 15 July 1786, Kherson.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

In the case of a character about whom such a malicious mythology developed, even during his lifetime, a word on sources is helpful. I have been very fortunate to find much new and unpublished material in the various archives. Of the Russian archives, large amounts were published in the last century in SIRIO and ZOOID, as well as in historical journals such as RA and RS and collections of documents such as Dubrovin’s Bumagi Potemkina (SBVIM). Then there are the published Vorontsov archives that remain a key source. All contain materials ignored or forgotten. For example, SIRIO contains documents such as Richelieu’s ‘Voyage en Allemagne’ and Catherine’s own account of Potemkin’s ball, which have been relatively neglected in the West. Overall these are invaluable and usually accurate, though I have checked the originals wherever possible.

V. S. Lopatin’s newly published collection of the Catherine–Potemkin correspondence is a massive work of scholarship and research, the fruit of twenty years’ labour, and I have used it liberally. This is now indispensable to any student of this epoch. Even these over 1,000 letters are unlikely to be complete and there are more notes between the two of them still be catalogued. Lopatin’s collection of letters between Suvorov and Potemkin and his account of their relationship are equally obligatory reading, for his research has successfully reinterpreted their relationship. That said, Lopatin’s accounts sometimes lean towards the romantic – he accepts for example that Catherine was the mother of Elisaveta Temkina and gave birth to her in Moscow in 1775; and that Catherine visited Chizhova on her return from Mogilev. His datings of the letters are always sensitive and plausible, but there are occasions, such as the letters referring to Cagliostro, where Western research proves that the timing must be much later. In my awe of, and gratitude for, Lopatin’s monumental work, I have humbly corrected these assertions or at least suggested doubt.