She was betrothed to Grand Duke Peter Feodorovich soon after. The Grand Duke had no love for his fiancé but she did not order him about and try to change him. June 28, 1744 was the day of Sophie’s conversion from Lutheran to the Greek Orthodox religion. Also she had to be dechristened and rechristened Catherine Alexeyevna On August 21, 1745 Grand Duke Peter married Sophie, now his wife. Grand Duchess Catherine was a virgin wife. Nine months had passed and she still had not born Russia a child. She remained a virgin wife for eight years of her marriage. The Czarina was greatly upset by this. During this time Catherine was having an affair with the handsome Serge Saltykov. She became pregnant by him and he cleverly devised a plan that got the Grand Duke to sleep with her. So Peter was claimed the father of this unborn baby. On September 20, 1754 Paul Petrovich was born. December 9, 1754 was the birth of Anna but she died two years later. On December 25, 1761 the Czarina Elizabeth died. Peter III, Catherine’s husband took the throne. By now Peter had his own mistress, Elizabeth Vorontzova, who had taken the rights of the wife and made them her own. Catherine knew her life was in peril and to make matters worse she was pregnant and it was not Peter’s child. To have her child a friend started a fire in his own home so that the Czar and his mistress would run out to watch it. This was all put into action at the first sign of labor pains. The child was named Alexis Bobrinski the illegitimate child of Catherine and Gregory Orlov. In fact, Peter III was an awful ruler he admired and idoled the Prussian king. Peter acted as if he was a Prussian general and commanded a toy troop around. He was bossy, pushy and criticized anything and everything that was Russian. The army was sick of his antics and his foolishness. The Orlov brothers were in high authority in the army. The Orlov brothers plotted to overthrow Peter III and put Catherine on the throne. Also the Orlov brother’s hoped that with her husband out of the way that she would agree to marry him.
On June 28, 1762 Peter III was overthrown and Catherine was proclaimed Empress. For the next month things went relatively well for the Czarina but on July 6, Alex Orlov assassinated Peter. When word got to Catherine she was deeply distraught. For she knew that the blame would be placed upon her, so as to remove a threat to be re-overthrown by Peter. During this time Stanislas Poniatowski, Catherine’s lover before Gregory Orlov, had corresponded with her through letters and devoted his love and devotion to her. He was not aware that Catherine had replaced him with Gregory. She had no affection toward him. To keep him from harming her reputation and placing her in potential danger she had him elected as King of Poland. He did not wish to go but he would obey the Czarina’s request. To regain the people’s love she had herself vaccinated against smallpox. (To keep from getting smallpox you must have the small pox injected into you.) When the people heard of her braver, for she was to first to attempt it in Russia. Catherine then engaged Russia with war against Turkey; they had many victories at Kagul, Chesme, and the Crimea. During time her lover’s for a time were: Alexander Vassilchikov, Gregory Potemkin, Simon Zorich, Rimsky Korsakov, Alexander Lanskoy, Alexander Ermolov, Alexander Mamonov, and Plato Zubov. A grand total of 11 lover’s in her life. On September 29,1773 the Czarina chose a wife for her son, Paul, she was Wilhelmina of Hesse, who becomes Natalie. A brief three years later while giving birth Natalie and the child die. The Grand Paul was grief-stricken with the death of his beloved wife, so Catherine was disposed to find him wife quickly, seven months after her death to be exact. Sophia Dorothea Von Wurttemberg name is changed to Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna. They had ten children together: future Czar Alexander I (1777-1825), the future Viceroy of Poland Constantine (1779-1831), Alexandra (1783-1801), Helen (1784-1803), Maria (1786-1859), future Queen of Wurttemberg Catherine (1788-1819), Olga (1792-1795), future Queen of the Netherlands Anne (1795-1869), future Czar Nicholas I (1796-1855), and Michael (1798-1849). Even though Paul was the son of Serge Saltykov, he firmly believed that he was the son of Peter and the rightful heir of the throne of Russian, and not his mother. He and his new wife plotted and conversed with the wrong sort of people. When the Czarina grew weary of this she devised a plan that they be sent on a voyage of Europe. It took Etienne Maurice Falconet twelve years to finish his sculpture of Peter the Great (not Catherine’s husband) and of Catherine. It had taken the artist twelve years to accomplish it, receiving a lot of frustration and non-interest in his project. He finished his sculpture on August 7, 1782. He had been ridiculed and harassed on the sculpture. He left before the unveiling of his sculpture for he did not want to here to ridicule and dejection of the people. The statue had Peter the Great and Catherine the Great (the name Catherine the Great was given to her out of the peoples love and her great military actions) stood face to face, just the two of them. The inscription said:
“To Peter the First, Catherine the Second.” In the years of 1781-1796 Russia only had a few political skirmishes over boundaries and where countries fought between each other.
On November 6, 1796 Catherine the Great died. While Catherine lived she helped to revolutionize and modernize Russia. She did achieve this goal but living conditions for serfs and peasants stayed the same. Catherine brought Russia out of debt that the former Empress Elizabeth placed Russia in. Catherine was an intelligent and had political knowledge. She was a foreign girl destined to be the Czarina. She dreamed of Russia and strived to be as Russian as possibly. Catherine mastered the Russian language she converted for Lutheran to Greek Orthodox against her father’s wishes. She became the greatest Empress of Russia and credit to her name she was Catherine the Great.
