How Catherine the Great Came to Power

Biography of Catherine the Great, from early life until her takeover in Saint Petersburg.

0:00 Intro
7:25 Sophie in Moscow
10:43 Catherine in Moscow
14:23 Rise of Peter
19:30 Hemorrhoids or Homicide?

1. Peter III Biography (1728–1762)
2. Elizabeth, empress of Russia. Britannica.
3. Aleksey Petrovich, Count Bestuzhev-Ryumin. Britannica.
4. Catherine the Great: a short history. Isabel de Madariaga. 1990
5. Catherine The Great: Portrait of a Woman. Robert K. Massie. 2012
6. The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
7. Catherine the Great. Simon Dixon. 2001
8. Catherine the Great Selected Letters. Kahn and Rubin-Detlev
9. Catherine the Great. Virginia Rounding.
10. National Geographic Icons of Power Catherine the Great
11. Catherine the Great Life and Legend. John T. Alexander
12. The Telegraph “Politics, passion – and no horsing around....”
13. Instruction of Catherine the Great. Britannica

Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images.

[williamcfox]

“Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?” said an old man of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkonski...“There’s one thing I don’t understand, ” he continued. “Who will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to rule....”
-Tolstoy, War and Peace.

[SeekHistory]

Great video mate, keep up the good work...

[ultimateruffles]

Thanks again for getting me through my watch. You're my favorite history channel to listen to, really happy to see you uploading again!

[RisenChudJr]

Ah man, drawing the "minor German states" outline must have been a real pain. Great work as always.

[mylesmwalkerjr]

Thank you for this video, I've been interested in Russia's Monarchy after I was fascinated with the Alaskan Purchase.

[ellasmith]

This is great! Love this episode. A piece of history that not many are taught!

[Mkoivuka]

Holy cow that corset at 4:55. Poor Anna. Did she even breathe?

[beccamoran]

This is a fantastic video! Thank you so much for making such great content. I look forward to more! 🙂

[spencerculby]

Really enjoying these recent videos! Keep up the good work!

[flopojazz]

Great video! You're my favorite youtube creator

[ben]

Very interesting, keep up the great videos!

[WhoElseButMeNumbaOne]

William the Great!

Cheers for a great video ❤️

[ethanielclyne]

This was an amazing video, shame it got so few views

[conradnelson]

That is a long convoluted explanation with a lot of similar names everybody’s name Catherine and Peter. I will need to go back and watch it again maybe a couple times. But I think it’s a pretty thorough job.👍

[Highlow]

Very informative and interesting video as always. But one suggestion. I notice that you have a lot of black backgrounds and 'glitchy' transitions. With how low the YouTube bitrate is that causes a lot of compression artifacting. Maybe you could upload your videos in 4K (even if the video itself only is 1080p) so that the bitrate is higher.

[barraman.]

Very nice video. Now I hope I can get some book in Russian about her to make my learning process more interesting :)

[laustudie]

Catherina: We need lebensraum, we need to conquer Russia.
Russians: But you are already our empress.
Catherina: Ah screw it we will take poland than.
Poland :(

[larmax]

10:40 pretty sure that's pronounced "Yekaterina"

[spoogerification]

She was a kraut but famously the first kings of Russia were invited over from Scandinavia.

[Rotebuehl]

The empress was born in Anhalt-Zerbst, NOT in Prussia!!!
Goddammit, always these imprecisions!!!