Robert Massie: "Catherine the Great"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-09/robert-massie-catherine-great
Portrait of Grand Dutchess Ekatrina Alekseyevna, later Catherine II, c. 1745 by Georg Christoph Grooth (1716-49)
Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia/ The Bridgeman Art Library)
Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia for more than three decades in the late 18th century was not Russian. She was born in Germany and raised as a Lutheran. Her family had only a minor claim to nobility, but through a series of strategic moves, managed to arrange for her marriage into the Russian royal family. Seventeen years later, she seized the throne. Pulitzer prize winning writer Robert Massie details the remarkable story of Catherine the Great: cut throat palace intrigues before and after she became Empress, her interest in the Enlightenment, and her efforts to put Russia front and center on the European stage. Please join us for a conversation with Robert Massie on Catherine the Great.
Guests
Robert Massie
Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
I have not yet read Catherine the Great, but I did read Massies' book on the Romanovs. Excellent book. Serves as a reminder about what revolutions can do once they are started the misunderstandings created and the great misfortunes visited upon both common people and the wealthy. It is often not pretty, or deserved.
I'm looking forward to picking this up.
A major part of her legacy was to bring Germans to Russia to work the farms of Russia. Please comment
Wow cold Diane on the cutoff. I for one was looking forward to hearing about Catherine's art and her glass room.
"She" Catherine the Great was 14 when she immigrated -not a year too soon.
What's quite interesting is that even though her mother supported her with royal connections and traveled to Russia herself [wikipedia confusion], eventually her mother was expelled from Russia [for mere gossip/..spying?] and therefore Catherine was truely "inde" [independent], no parental strings of entanglement, with "door mat" Peter as a segway. But with her known! intelligence and grace... plus her "traditional eduction" in her ancestral world, followed by her post-puberty immigration and indeed esteemed invitation, she really didn't need to look back. Peter on the other hand should have been catapolted back to Germany, he might have had a better life there.
If we can [and must] quantify perfection within history, we can therefore derive quantification of error when dealing with persons of high quality who gene'Ally effect all peoples of/in geo-cultural respectability.
This Western tale of Royal accomplishment has a reflection in the far east [pacific] in Chung Ho or "Gung Ho", his parents were killed and he was neutered! but still he conquered vast territory.
Having this global cultural and political geo-history/data we can quantify blueprints/{social}policy soft-ware for a world without error, and yet ideal immigration specific policy for greatest leadership and geo-cultural comPATibility with what America needs [to manifest faith+fully] and what the old world interprets from our [own] actions and geo-cultural positions. "the hand of god" put her TO WORK, in a distant location away from her happy childhood. If America uses such pragmatic quality "Normal"Youth exchanges -annyt, OUR LEADERSHIP will then shine as bright. But the Baltic v.s. the Rocky Mt's is a much more urgent and potentially greater paradigm and the world is indeed watching, and "conniving corporals" are only threatening when error is clouded. The spark is tiny, the potential great, and error unthinkable, see?
Yes, that glass room, I'm sure it was quite "hot" in there.
That caller was fascinating.
Massie's book is just plain awful: full of the most varied errors. Miserably "researched," ineptly writtten--not a single original idea in the whole mess--he's lost it at 84, IF he ever had it! He cannot even read Russian, as his biblio shows. That should tell you a lot. He thinks he shielding readers from salacious stories abouther sexuality, unaware that these have been all over the nternet (which he knows nothings of) for at least two DECADES!! He was abysmal on Chrlie
rose a few weeks back (all 12 minutes). My review with chpter and verse will appear in
Slavic
Review (a quarterly) i few months. I predict other reviews by professionals who read
Russian and inow
russian history will be equally negateiv. He has no credib ility among professional
Russian historians. His book is simply disgra e. The hype is nauseating!
She was really an outstanding person! Btw here is some additional information about her: http://www.bestessay.com/essays/catherine-the-great.php