Numerous myths surround Catherine the Great; the good, the bad and the ugly. However, even more so are the stories about her sex life. One of the most popular is that she died while having sex with a horse; this article delves in, removing fact from fiction and sharing about the very different life Catherine the Great carved out for herself.
The longest reigning Empress of Russia did fantastic work in her time, as she’s known for building more than 100 new towns, taking over 200,000 miles of land, and actively encouraging the development of arts and sciences. She was such a leader who didn’t neglect any aspect of her nation as she was at the forefront of uplifting women, encouraging vaccination, conversing with philosophers, and going as far as writing the first children’s literature from Russia.
With this potent misogyny and jealousy being the order of such a patriarchal society, all sorts of rumours were peddled to taint her image successfully.
She was born Princess Sophie of Prussia, and at 16 in 1745, she got into an arranged marriage to Tsar Peter of Holstein-Gottorp. After her marriage, she changed her name to Yekaterina. Peter had so many flaws as he was an alcoholic and mentally unstable. Despite producing three children with questionable fatherhood, the union was an epic fail, and Catherine began having an affair.
She overthrew her husband in a coup with the help of the military, and soon enough, Peter died. There’s no evidence to prove that Catherine had a hand in his death. With her son, Paul, too young to rule, Catherine ruled in his stead for three decades before her death.
Catherine was involved in 12 romantic relationships in her lifetime. Most of them were men younger than her who formed loyal political alliances. She only went into relationships with noble men that promised to be politically rewarding. She was also a very generous lover, giving them political titles, palaces, land and people. She even went as far as rewarding Stanislaw Poniatowski by making him the king of Poland.
By far, her best lover was Grigory Potemkin, a minor noble whose service in the Turkish Military stood out. Catherine thought of him as her equal, and they both achieved exploits together. When he died at age 57, it threw her off balance, and she never loved anyone else as much as Grigory.
Catherine the Great suffered a stroke at 67 and died the next day.
