Catherine II, Empress of all the Russias, was the archetypal Enlightenment monarch. She reigned for more than 30 years, and during that time, as politician, diplomat, commander-in-chief, educator, builder, picture-collector, lover, mother, playwright, writer of fairy stories, autobiographer and indefatigable correspondent, she reformed and developed her largely unenlightened and backward country. Yet this woman, who at the age of 33, after 17 years of unhappy marriage, placed her deposed and murdered husband's crown on her own head, had begun life as an insignificant German princess. Catherine is interesting today not only as one of the most effective sovereigns of the late eighteenth century, but also as a determined career woman and head of government who dominated a vast empire as easily as she did her lovers and her court.
