Catherine the Great and the British: A Pot-Pourri of Essays
From the day she ascended the Russian throne under suspicious circumstances in 1762, Catherine the Great has held an abiding fascination for the British. The more sensational and lurid aspects of her life and reign, frequently the dominant feature of the many biographies and reports of her activities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, persisted in the scholarly literature of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Anthony Cross is pleased to report that “the battle to do her justice and to re-appraise objectively her claims to the title of ‘the Great’ is being won—and not only from the distaff side—on both the popular and the academic fronts in the West and, at last, in post-Soviet Russia” (70). Professor Cross has already made a lasting contribution to our understanding of Anglo-Russian cultural relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including By the Banks of the Thames (1980), By the Banks of the Neva (1997), and Peter the Great through British Eyes (2000). On this occasion he has served up what is whimsically described as a “pot-pourri” of essays, nearly all of which have been previously published in one form or another, but which are linked around the theme of British (plus a few Irish) perceptions of Catherine, both contemporary and historical.
In a selection of these essays Cross presents the sources of the prevailing negative view of Catherine in Britain. Horace Walpole’s long vendetta against Catherine “Slayczar” began immediately upon her accession to the throne and had much to do with the negative views of her reign in late eighteenth-century Britain. But it was the second Russo-Turkish conflict of 1787-91 that brought Catherine to the forefront of British attention, resulting in “numerous and savage attacks on her policies, and almost without fail, on her alleged moral laxity” (33). Even among those British who knew her first hand, such as the British Ambassador James Harris, she was viewed in less than virtuous terms. In addition to noting Catherine’s obvious strengths of character and judgment, in 1777 Harris reported that “she possesses, in a high degree, the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex,—love of flattery, and its inseparable companion, vanity; an inattention to unpleasant but salutary advice; and a propensity to voluptuousness, which leads her to excesses that would debase a female character in any sphere of life” (8-9). Cross supplies a wonderful essay on British caricatures of Catherine (with several instructive illustrations), nearly all of which reinforced the more unpleasant impressions of her person and animosity towards her policies. Of special interest are the early female biographers of Catherine, Mary Hays, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft with whom she collaborated in promoting women’s rights, and the Irish author Anna Jameson. Strangely, perhaps, neither Hays nor Jameson was particularly enamoured with Catherine as a role model and both attacked her licentiousness and hypocrisy. Cross is particularly good at delineating the highly critical French influences at work in these female assessments.
The view of Catherine as a ruthlessly ambitious ruler who was a libertine in her private life must be weighed against her reputation as an enlightened monarch. Cross supplies a helpful review of the Empress’ literary activities—journalism, drama, opera, poetry, translation, and the famous Nakaz—all of which fostered the image of an intellectual, au courrant with the latest progressive ideas, and concerned to promote the well-being of her subjects. The reader will also find an excellent short account of the British influences on Catherine’s project of prison reform and short essays on the influence of English gardens on her ventures into landscaping, the myth of her visit to Ireland, whether or not she could read English, and what she may have known about the sport of cricket. Ultimately, what emerges from this delightful book is a story about a two-way flow of interest and influence. On the one side is the British fascination with Catherine personally, the circumstances of her succession, the culture and politics of Russia under her reign, and her attempts at modernization; on the other side there is Catherine’s interest in British law, prison reform, educational practice, and other elements of British culture. For scholars interested in reassessing the life and reign of Catherine the Great, Cross has supplied in Catherine the Great and the British a useful and entertaining series of studies that assist in setting in a critical light the conventional perceptions of the empress in Britain.
