It was July 9th: The accession of Catherine II the Great

On July 9, 1762, three regiments of the Russian Imperial Guard revolted against Tsar Peter III and swore an oath of allegiance to his wife, Catherine, "for the defense of the Orthodox faith and for the glory of Russia." The revolt was led by Grigory Orlov, the future empress's own lover. Peter III abdicated the very next day. A week later, he died in his retreat at Ropsha, likely strangled by Alexei Orlov during a drunken brawl. Catherine sent word to foreign chancelleries that the former tsar had succumbed to hemorrhoidal colic. Thus began one of the longest and most decisive reigns in Russian history: thirty-four years of absolute power that would transform a modest German princess into one of the most powerful sovereigns of Enlightenment Europe.

From a Prussian princess to the throne of the tsars

Nothing, initially, predestined Sophie Friederike Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst to reign over the vast Russian Empire. Born on May 2, 1729, in Stettin, Pomerania, into a German princely family of modest origins, she was chosen by Empress Elizabeth of Russia as a wife for her nephew and heir, Peter, the future Peter III, precisely because of her political discretion and her family's lack of dangerous ambitions. Converted to Orthodoxy in 1744 and renamed Catherine, she married Peter in 1745. The marriage was a personal disaster: Peter, unstable and hostile to everything Russian, made no secret of his contempt for a wife whom he threatened to have imprisoned. Catherine, for her part, used these years to educate herself with extraordinary voracity, reading Tacitus, Montesquieu, Machiavelli, and Voltaire, and building a network of loyal followers within the Imperial Guard. When Peter III ascended the throne upon Elizabeth's death in January 1762, he quickly alienated the two pillars of Russian power. He withdrew Russia from the coalition against Prussia at the very moment the Russian army was besieging Berlin, returning all the conquered territories to Frederick II without compensation. He then turned on the Orthodox Church, forcing priests to shave their beards and dress like Protestant pastors, and confiscating clergy property. The discontent of both the army and the clergy was immense. Catherine seized the opportunity.

An immense reign, between Enlightenment and despotism

Proclaimed Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias, Catherine II ruled with an energy and intelligence that commanded the admiration of her contemporaries. She corresponded with Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert, and Montesquieu, purchased Diderot's library on a life annuity, and was dubbed by Voltaire the "Semiramis of the North." These philosophers considered her an "enlightened despot," on par with Frederick II of Prussia or Joseph II of Austria. A despot she undoubtedly was; enlightened, that is less certain: under her reign, serfdom was not only maintained but reinforced, and extended to Ukraine in 1785. On the international stage, she established herself as the dominant power in Eastern Europe. With Frederick II and Maria Theresa of Austria, she orchestrated three successive partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795, effectively erasing the country from the map. She wrested Crimea and vast territories north of the Black Sea from the Ottoman Empire, creating new cities like Odessa, Kherson, and Taganrog under the impetus of her favorite, Potemkin. By her death in 1796, Russia's territory had expanded by more than 500,000 km². Catherine II had transformed a still largely semi-eastern empire into a leading European power, at the cost of unwavering absolutism and a deliberate brutality that the phrase attributed to Germaine de Staël ironically summarizes: "Russia is a despotism tempered by strangulation."