Terrible Tsarinas

In reality, in spite of the shifting winds in war and politics,

things were not going so badly for Russia. These disturbing

events ruffled the surface of the water, but deeper down, a strong

current was flowing right along, maintained by the usual paper-

pushing in the state offices, the harvests at the agricultural es-

tates, the output of the factories, artisans’ workshops and public

building sites, and the comings and goings of boats in the ports

and caravans in the steppes, bringing their cargos of exotic goods.

This quiet agitation went on, like an anthill, in spite of the tumult

at the top; and Elizabeth interpreted it as a sign of the extraordi-

nary vitality of her people. Come what may, she thought, Russia

is so vast, so rich in good land and courageous men that it can

never perish. If one could cure it of its subservience to Prussian

models, the game would be half-won already. For her part, she

could take pride in having, in just a few years’ time, removed most

of the Germans who had run the Administration. Whenever her

advisers had suggested a foreigner for an important position, her

invariable answer was, “Don’t we have a Russian to put there?”

This systematic preference quickly became known to her subjects

and led to the arrival of new statesmen and military men, eager to

devote themselves to the service of the empire.

While bringing new blood into the hierarchy of civil ser-

vants, the empress had also set about boosting the country’s econ-

omy by removing the internal customs system, instituting banks

of credit like those in other European states, encouraging the

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Terrible Tsarinas

colonization of the uncultivated plains of the southwest, creating

the first secondary schools here and there, and founding the uni-

versity in Moscow (to succeed the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy in

that city) and the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Thus

she maintained, against all the winds and tides, the trend of open-

ing to the Western culture that Peter the Great had so urgently

fostered, and without too much sacrificing the land’s traditions

that were so cherished by the old nobility. While she recognized

the defects of serfdom, she by no means planned to give up this

secular practice. Let unrepentant utopians dream of a paradise

where rich and poor, muzhiks and landowners, illiterate and eru-

dite, blind and clear-sighted, young and old, minstrels and freaks

would all have the same chance in life — she was too conscious of

the harsh Russian reality to subscribe to such a mirage. On the

other hand, whenever she found, within reach, an opportunity to

extend the geographical limits of Russia, she became possessed,

like a gambler at a betting table.

At the end of 1761, just when she was starting to doubt the

abilities of her military chiefs, the fortress of Kolberg (in Pomera-

nia) fell into the hands of the Russians. The attack was led by Ru-

miantsev, with a promising new general at his side — one Alexan-

der Suvorov. This unhoped-for victory proved the empress right

in holding out against the skeptics and the defeatists.

However, she hardly had the strength to enjoy the moment.

She had just spent a few weeks resting at Peterhof, but it had not

brought her any relief. Returning to the capital, the satisfaction

brought by her country’s military victory was soon effaced by the

turmoil around her. She was haunted by the thought of death and

caught up in rumors of dynastic intrigues, the grand duchess’s

love scandals and the grand duke’s stupid, stubborn obsession

with the triumph of Prussia. Shut up in her room, she suffered

most of all from her legs, whose wounds bled in spite of every

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Another Catherine!

remedy. Moreover, she was becoming prone to hemorrhages and

crises of hysteria, which left her dazed for hours. Now, she would

receive her ministers sitting up in bed, her hair capped with a lace

bonnet. Sometimes, to cheer herself up, she would call in the

mimes from an Italian troupe that she had invited to St. Peters-

burg; she would watch their pranks and think back to the time

when such buffoons used to make her laugh.

As soon as she felt a little more puckish, she asked to have

some of her most beautiful dresses brought in and, after pondering

a bit, chose one; at the risk of splitting the seams, she had her

chambermaids dress her, entrusted her coiffure to the hairdresser

with instructions to give her the latest Parisian fashion, and an-

nounced her intention to appear at the next court ball. Then,

planted in front of a mirror, she lost heart at the sight of her wrin-

kles, her sagging eyelids, her triple chin and the blotches on her

cheeks; she had herself undressed, went back to bed, and resigned

herself to ending her life in solitude, lethargy and memories.

Greeting the rare courtiers who came to visit her, she read in their

eyes a suspicious curiosity, the cold impatience of the lookout on

a watchtower. They may have had an affectionate look on their

faces, but they weren’t coming to wish her well — they wanted to