Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

I must also thank Professor J. T. Alexander for answering my questions and Professor Evgeny Anisimov, who was so helpful during my time in Petersburg. The advice of George F. Jewsbury on Potemkin’s military performance was most enlightening. Thanks to Professor Derek Beales, who helped greatly with Josephist matters especially the mystery of the Circassian slavegirls. I should mention that he and Professor Tim Blanning, both of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, were the supervisors whose compelling teaching of Enlightened Despotism, while I was an undergraduate, laid the foundations for this book. I want to stress my debt too to three recent works that I have used widely – Lopatin’s Ekaterina i Potemkin Lichnaya Perepiska, the aforementioned book by Isabel de Madariaga, and J. T. Alexander’s Catherine the Great.

—

I would like the thank the following without whom this could not have been written: His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, for his kind help in connection with his work for the restoration of St Petersburg and the Pushkin Bicentenary. Sergei Degtiarev-Foster, that champion of Russian history who made many things possible from Moscow to Odessa, and Ion Florescu who made the Rumanian-Moldovian expedition such a success. Thanks also to Lord Rothschild, Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky and Geraldine Norman, chairman, president and director of Hermitage Development Trust, who are creating the permanent exhibition of Catherine the Great’s treasures, including the famous Lampi portrait of Potemkin, at Somerset House in London.

I owe a debt to Lord Brabourne for reading the entire book and, for reading parts of it, to Dr Amanda Foreman, Flora Fraser, and especially to Andrew Roberts for his detailed advice and encouragement. William Hanham read the sections on art, Professor John Klier read the Jewish sections, and Adam Zamoyski read those on Poland.

In Moscow, I thank the Directors and staff of the RGADA and RGVIA archives; Natasha Bolotina, with her special knowledge on Potemkin, her mother Svetlana Romanovna, Igor Fedyukin, Dmitri Feldman, and Julia Tourchaninova and Ernst Goussinski, Professors of Education, all helped immensely. Galina Moiseenko, one of the brightest scholars of the History Department of the Russian State Humanities University, was excellent at selecting and finding documents and her historical analysis and precision were flawless.

Thanks to the following. In St Petersburg, I thank my friend Professor Zoia Belyakova, who made everything possible, and Dr Sergei Kuznetzov, Head of Historical Research of the Stroganov Palace Department of the State Russian Museum, and the staff of the RGIA. I am grateful to Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum (again), to Vladimir Gesev, Director of the Russian State Museum of the Mikhailovsky Palace; Liudmilla Kurenkova, Assistant to the Director of the Russian State Museum, A. N. Gusanov of the Pavlovsk Palace State Museum; Dr Elana V. Karpova, Head of the XVIII–early XXth Century Sculpture Department of the State Russian Museum, Maria P. Garnova of the Hermitage’s Western Europe Department, and G. Komelova, also of the Hermitage. Ina Lokotnikova showed me the Anichkov Palace and L. I. Diyachenko was kind enough to give me a private tour, using her exhaustive knowledge, of the Taurida Palace. Thanks to Leonid Bogdanov for taking the cover-photograph of Potemkin.

In Smolensk: Anastasia Tikhonova, Researcher for the Smolensk Historical Museum, Elena Samolubova, and Vladimir Golitchev, Deputy Head of the Smolensk Regional Department of Education, responsible for Science. In Chizhova, the schoolteacher and expert on local folklore, Victor Zheludov and fellow staff at the school in Petrishchevo, the village nearest to Chizhova, with thanks for the Potemkin feast they kindly laid on.

For the south Ukrainian journey, I thank Vitaly Sergeychik of the UKMAR shipping company and Misha Sherokov. In Odessa: Natalia Kotova, Professor Semyon J. Apartov, Professor of International Studies, Odessa State University. At the Odessa Regional Museum of History – Leonila A. Leschinskaya, Director, Vera V. Solodova, Vice-Director, and, especially, to the knowledgeable, charming master of the archives themselves, Adolf Nikolaevich Malikh, chief of the Felikieteriya section, who helped me so much. The Director of the Odessa Museum of Merchant Fleet of the Ukraine, Peter P. Klishevsky and the photographer there, Sergei D. Bereninich. In Ochakov: the Mayor, Yury M. Ishenko. In Kherson: Father Anatoly of St Catherine’s Church. At Dniepropetrovsk: Olga Pitsik, and the staffs of the museums in Nikolaev and Simpferopol; Anastas Victorevich of the Sabastopol Naval Museum. But above all, at the Alupka Palace, Anna Abramovna Galitchenko, author of Alupka A Palace inside a Park, proved a font of knowledge.