Catherine the Great was born neither a Catherine nor with any prospects of greatness. As Sophie Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst she was a minor German princess with modest expectations, but when the Empress Elizabeth of Russia chose her to be the consort of her nephew and heir, the Grand Duke Peter, Sophie’s and Russia’s fates were transformed.
In 1744 the 15-year-old Sophie arrived in her new country, converted to Orthodoxy, changed her name to Catherine and set about becoming history’s ultimate self-made woman. She was to rule Russia for 34 years and turn it into a global power. She overhauled Russia’s economy, foreign policy, legal system and education; she expanded its boundaries and encouraged its arts and sciences. In the meantime she corresponded with the French philosophes and became the most talked-about woman in the world. Voltaire called her ‘the brightest star of the North’ and envied the scholar who in 100 years would come to write her biography, not least because she had, in Denis Diderot’s words, ‘the soul of Brutus and the heart of Cleopatra’.
Voltaire’s envy was well placed: Catherine has proved irresistible to subsequent biographers and now the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh is presenting another; this time, though, it is a visual Life.
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