Prayer service in honor of Catherine the Great (Catherine II) of Russia by the Jewish community of Mogilev.

One of the most interesting, industrious and powerful personages to grace the pages of history during the eighteenth century is Catherine II, Empress of all the Russias. Historians have not always been kind to her memory, and all too often one reads accounts of her private life, ignoring her many achievements. Catherine was born Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst on April 21, 1729 in Stettin, then Germany, now Poland. Her father, Prince Christian Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst, a minor princeling among the fragmented principalities in Germany, had married the much younger Princess Johanna of Holstein-Gottorp. Little Sophia was nicknamed Feke or Figchen. Little is known about her early life, except that which Catherine related in her unfinished autobiography years later.

Figchen's mother, Joanna, was the sister of Karl August, who had been engaged to Elizabeth I of Russia before she took the throne. Karl August died suddenly and unexpectantly in Petersburg in 1727. Elizabeth kept a fondness for him and his family long after his death. In the early 1740's Elizabeth was searching for a wife for her nephew and heir, Peter. Fidgen was the right age and a sentimental choice for the romantic Empress of Russia. Figchen and her mother were summoned by Elizabeth to Russia late in 1743. The potential match of the young German princess and the heir to the Russian throne was actively promoted by her mother and the Prussian King, Frederick, who saw the alliance as a way to further Prussian interests at the court of St. Petersburg. He eyed Figchen carefully at a banquet in her honor in Berlin before she left for Russia. He always claimed he saw greatness in her, even when Sophia was a child.

Crossing the border into Russia she went from Riga to St. Petersburg and on to Moscow, finally meeting Elizabeth on February 9, 1744. Elizabeth was enchanted with her. Figchen immediately began to study Russian and Orthodoxy, with the end result of abandoning Lutheranism for the Russian Church, being re-christened Yekaterina - Catherine. Her husband-to-be was a great disappointment to everyone. He was sickly, mean spirited and ill-equipped mentally or physically to rule a vast empire like Russia. He was also unable to consummate his marriage to Catherine. Elizabeth didn't understand the fault was Peter's and pressured the couple to produce a son - thus securing the dynasty. When it was clear this wasn't going to happen, Elizabeth permitted an affair between Catherine and a handsome Russian officer, Serge Saltykov. Catherine conceived and bore a son, Paul, who was accepted by Peter as his own. Immediately after his birth, little Paul was carried off to Elizabeth's quarters and the Empress raised him as her own.

Catherine and Peter hated one another. On the death of Elizabeth on December 25, 1761, Peter ascended the throne as Peter III. He quickly showed his mania for all things Prussian by forming an alliance with Prussia that was to Russia's detriment. Peter ordered the proud Imperial guard regiments to dispose of their uniforms from the days of Peter the Great in exchange for tight-fitting uniforms in the Prussian style. He followed this with the imposition of new, brutal military rules on the same Prussian model, which turned the armed forces against him. Hatred of Peter grew quickly among all classes and the country accepted with relief the coup-d'etat of Catherine, who deposed her husband on June 28, 1762.

Catherine quickly began to make changes in government and society based on the convictions she had assimilated during her study of French philosophes of the Enlightenment and the authors of ancient Rome. She was deeply disappointed by the difficulty of imposing foreign precepts - even if they were rational ones - of government on Russia. It became easier and easier to abandon her principals. Catherine slipped deeper and deeper into autocracy - all the while maintaining the facade of an enlightened ruler. The ruin of the Orthodox church, which had begun under Peter the Great, was continued under Catherine, who seized its wealth and turned its prelates and priests into state employees.

She built marvelous new monuments across Russia and transformed St. Petersburg into a truly European city of Imperial pretensions. The arts, music and education where patronized by her, and Catherine pumped millions of rubles into the creation of the Hermitage collection, which today is the delight of Russia and the world. No other Russian monarch appreciated beauty as much as Catherine, she set the stage for the emergence of a national Russian culture that would emerge as something unique and wonderful in the 19th century.

Re-marriage was out of the question and she probably never took a husband again; although it has been rumored that she and a later lover, Potemkin, were secretly married in the Church of St. Samson in Petersburg. Much has been made of Catherine's libido. She has entered history with a mixed reputation due to the young men who entered her life in it's later years. Had she been a man, no one would have spoken of it, and many of the most famous tales about her are untrue. She dealt with the issue of her affairs head-on and justified it to herself as the need of an autocrat for companionship and diversion.

Catherine's achievements were many. She left Russia much stronger, more prosperous and beautiful than she had found it. That she failed in much she had set out to do had less to do with her and more to do with human nature. Catherine was unable to transform Russia through her will alone. Since she was unwilling to use terror or force to transform society, she chose a more patient path, hoping to gradually raise the level of culture by legislation, education, and example. She single-handedly grafted onto Russian rootstock the bud-wood of western culture, which was taken and remolded two generations later into something marvellous.

שיר בעברית ובגרמנית. נדפס משמאל לימין. בצילום. השיר נדפס על ידי פ' קאן, בתוך: היסטארישע שריפטן, 1935 ,I, עמ' 753 ואילך. לדעתו המחבר והמתרגם לגרמנית הוא 'משכיל' משקלוב, והשיר נדפס בבית דפוס של נוצרי באיזור הבלטי. לעומת זאת, בורודיאנסקי סבור שהמחבר הוא נ"ה וייזל, המתרגם לגרמנית משה מנדלסזון ומקום הדפוס - ברלין. עיין: ח' באראדיאנסקי, די לויבלידער לכבוד קאטערינע II און זייערע מחברים, היסטארישע שריפטן, 1937 ,II, עמ' 535-531.