Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

At 10 a.m. on Sunday, 30 July 1767, Catherine, in a coach drawn by eight horses and followed by sixteen carriages of courtiers, was escorted from Moscow’s Golovin Palace to the Kremlin by Grigory Orlov and a squadron of Horse-Guards, probably including Potemkin. Grand Duke Paul followed. At the Cathedral of the Assumption, she dismounted for a service of blessing. She was followed by the Procurator-General Viazemsky and all the delegates – Russians and exotics – who marched behind, two by two, like the passengers on Noah’s Ark. The non-Christian delegates waited outside the church. Then all walked in the same order to the Great Kremlin Palace to be received by their Empress in imperial mantle and crown, standing before the throne, accompanied by Grand Duke Paul, courtiers and bishops. On her right were displayed copies of her Great Instruction. The next morning in the Kremlin’s Faceted Palace, the Empress’s Instruction was read and the Commission opened in a ceremony based on the English opening of Parliament, with its similar speech from the throne.³⁹

Potemkin escorted the Empress when she attended some of the Commission’s sessions. He would have read the Instruction: his vast library later contained every work Catherine used – Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois, all thirty-five volumes of Diderot’s Encyclopaedia (in French) and tomes of Voltaire. But he did not take the floor.⁴⁰ The Commission itself did not succeed in codifying the laws, but instead became a talking shop. It did succeed in collecting useful information for Catherine’s future legislation. The Commission also coined the sobriquet ‘Catherine the Great’, which she refused. Her stay reminded Catherine how much she disliked Moscow so she returned to Petersburg, where she re-convened the Commission in February 1768. The coming of war finally gave her the excuse to end its ponderous deliberations.⁴¹

On 22 September 1768 Potemkin was promoted from Kammerjunker to receive the ceremonial key of a Kamerherr – chamberlain⁴² of the Court. Unusually he was still to remain in the military, where he was promoted to captain of Horse-Guards. Then, two months later, he was removed from the army and attached to the Court full time on Catherine’s specific orders. For once, Potemkin did not want to be at Court at all. On 25 September 1768, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia. Potemkin saw his chance.

Skip Notes

*1 This did not stop one diplomat claiming he had ‘procured a glass eye in Paris’.

*2 Brother of the Empress Elisabeth’s favourite, he was appointed Hetman of the Ukraine in his early twenties. This meant that he was the governor of the nominally semi-independent Cossack borderlands throughout Elisabeth’s reign. Razumovsky backed Catherine’s coup, then requested that she make the Hetmanate hereditary in his family. She refused, abolished the Hetmanate, replacing it with a College of Little Russia, and made him a field-marshal instead.

5

  THE WAR HERO

Attacked and out-numbered by the enemy, he was the hero of the victory…

Field-Marshal Count Peter Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky on General Potemkin during the First Russo–Turkish War

‘Your Majesty, The exceptional devotion of Your Majesty for the common good has made our Motherland dear to us,’ wrote Potemkin to the Empress on 24 May 1769. The chivalry in this first surviving letter is framed to state his personal passion for her as explicitly as possible.

It is the duty of the subject to demand obedience to Your wishes from everyone. For my part, I have carried out my duties just as Your Majesty wishes.

I have recognized the fine deeds that Your Majesty has done for our Motherland, I have tried to understand your laws and be a good citizen. However, your mercy towards my person fills me with zeal for the person of Your Majesty. The only way I can express my gratitude to Your Majesty is to shed my blood for Your glory. This war provides an excellent opportunity for this and I cannot live in idleness.

Allow me now, Merciful Sovereign, to appeal at Your Majesty’s feet and request Your Majesty to send me to Prince Prozorovsky’s corps in the Army at the front in whatever rank Your Majesty wishes but without inscribing me in the list of military service for ever, but just for the duration of the war.

I, Merciful Sovereign, have tried to be qualified for Your service; I am especially inclined to cavalry which, I’m not afraid to say, I know in every detail. As regards the military art, I learned the main rule by heart: the best way to achieve great success is fervent service to the Sovereign and scorn for one’s life…You can see my zeal…You’ll never regret your choice.

Subject slave of Your Imperial Majesty,

Grigory Potemkin.¹