Born Princess Sophie Friederike of Anhalt-Zerbst in Stettin in 1729, Catherine the Great ruled as all-supreme Empress of Russia from December 25, 1761, until her death in 1796.
She was the foremost female political figure of her era and and followed in the footsteps of Peter the Great – leading Russia out of isolation into a western super power.
Originally a lower-ranking royal of Pomerania, in modern day Poland, the young Sophie Friederike was unhappily wed at 15 to the Russian Tsarevich Peter, and spent many years in the court of Russian Empress Elizaveta, where eventually she gave birth to an heir, named Paul.
After Elizaveta’s death, Catherine’s husband succeeded the throne as Peter III but he was widely regarded as a dangerous and unstable ruler, obsessed with the army, and he planned to dispose of his talented consort.
Faced with arrest, the young Empress roused her allies and led a successful revolt to depose her husband, who died in suspicious circumstances, and she assumed the throne in her own right as Catherine II.
Catherine the Great, pictured, was the foremost female political leader of her generation and one of the most powerful women in history
Her rule was marked by an aggressive expansion in territory, making the country a modern-day superpower, alongside the first stages of industrialisation.
She introduced vaccination against smallpox in Russia and fought off aggression from the Ottoman Empire, as well as several pretenders to her throne.
Always generous in patronage towards artists and writers, Catherine the Great’s reign was known as ‘the golden age of Russia’ and saw patronage.
However, as a woman in power, she faced epic levels of misogyny – including rumours surrounding her sexual appetite.
One false rumour spread after her death was that she died while having intimate relations with a horse.
After her death, she was succeeded by her son Tsar Paul who, never able to match his mother’s capability, introduced a Salic law banning women from inheriting the Russian throne.
