Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

By 1 September 1775, Suffolk was complaining that ‘the increasing frenzy of His Majesty’s unhappy and deluded people on the other side of the Atlantic’ meant that Russian assistance was needed immediately. Specifically, Britain wanted ‘20,000 disciplined infantry completely equipped and ready to embark as soon as the Baltic navigation opens in the spring’. When Panin showed no interest, Gunning approached Potemkin, who was intrigued. Ultimately Catherine refused, writing George III a polite letter and wishing him luck.⁴³

Poor Gunning had to write home a few weeks later: ‘I can scarcely entertain any hopes at present…could not His Majesty make use of Hanoverians?’⁴⁴ Finally, the desperate British hired the army of that mercenary state of Hesse. The Americans with their united ideals and irregular tactics defeated the rigidly drilled, demoralized British, but one wonders if the hardy, brutal and homogeneous Russians, backed by Cossacks, could have beaten them. The tantalizing possibilities of this stretch out all the way to the Cold War and beyond.

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Catherine and Potemkin’s relationship was so all-consuming that it was beginning to burn them both. ‘We would be happier’, said Catherine, ‘if we loved each other less.’⁴⁵ The sexual cauldron of the first eighteen months could not be sustained, but there was evidence too that the tensions of his role as official favourite were taking a toll on their affair. The teacher–pupil relationship that Catherine so enjoyed was becoming irksome if not intolerable to a man as masterful, confident and able as Potemkin. Even the marriage could not change the realities of court politics and his complete dependence on her whim. Yet she loved his wildness – the very thing that made him want to escape. Was he withdrawing from her or did he just need space to breathe?

She tried desperately to restore their happiness. ‘It’s time to live in harmony. Don’t torment me,’ she wrote. When he was outraged at his subordinate position, the Empress promised: ‘I will never order you to do anything, you fool, because I don’t deserve such coldness…I swore to give only caress for caress. I want cuddles and loving cuddles, the best sort. Stupid coldness and stupid spleen will only produce anger and vexation in return. It’s difficult for you to say “my dear” or “my honey”. Is it possible that your heart is silent? My heart does not keep silent.’⁴⁶ Catherine was cut to the quick by his increasing harshness: was her consort falling out of love with her?

She did all she could to please him: during autumn 1775, when she was about to embark on a trip out of Moscow, reported Gunning, ‘it had been forgotten that the succeeding Wednesday was Count Potemkin’s nameday, the recollection of which determined her to postpone her intended excursion…to admit of the Count’s receiving the compliments of the nobility’. Gunning added that the Empress had also given him a present of 100,000 roubles - and appointed a Greek archbishop for Potemkin’s southern provinces on his recommendation. This was Potemkin at his most demanding: typical of him to change an empress’s timetable, receive a prince’s ransom of a present – and not forget to achieve a political appointment.⁴⁷

Sometimes, Catherine complained that he humiliated her in front of the Court: ‘My dear Lord, Grigory Alexandrovich, I wish Your Excellency happiness. This evening, you had better lose at cards because you absolutely forgot me and left me alone as if I was a gatepost.’ But Potemkin knew how to play her, replying with a line of Arabesque symbols – possibly a sexual code in their secret language, adding: ‘That’s the answer…’.⁴⁸ But what was the answer? How could she keep her consort and yet make him happy?

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The couple developed their own way of communicating their feelings – his obscure and passionate, hers understanding and accommodating – the epistolary duet:

Potemkin

Catherine

My precious soul

I know

You know that I am

Absolutely yours

I know, I know

And I have only you

It is true.

I will remain faithful

To you until death

I don’t doubt you.

And I need your

Support

I believe it.

For this reason, and

Because of my wish,

Serving you and applying

My abilities is most

Pleasant to me.

That was proved long

Ago.

Doing some-

Thing for me

With gladness, but

What?

You’ll never regret

It and you’ll see

Only benefits.

My soul is glad but

unclear. Tell me more

clearly.⁴⁹

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