History Now

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Today I’m going to give you the briefest histories of a capable female ruler who would, under the eye of the American public today, would not get the feminist vote of approval and would probably have more scandal stories out about her than even Sarah Palin, the current Vice Presidential nominee and yet did not ride the coat tails of her husband into power.

After Peter the Great (who ruled for 30 years and brought
Russia into the foreground of world affairs) died, the country went through 40 years in which it experienced seven different tsars (‘tsar’ supposedly has a purely male connotation): Four women, a pre-teen boy, an infant, and an insane man. The first six rulers were, for lack of a better word, progressive idiots.

It appeared that the stability and greatness of
Russia formed under Peter the Great would fall into ruin less than half a century after it had been achieved because if there was one problem with Peter’s system, it was that it only worked under the rule of a strong leader.

Then, the fourth woman in as many decades took the throne: Catherine II (1762-1796), whom was then and is still now known as Catherine the Great. I’m not afraid to say that out of all the “Greats” throughout history, she, like her very distant relative Peter, is one of the few that earned the title. Unlike modern day politicians, Catherine freely and openly adopted the ideas of what would not be known as conservative and liberal ideals and created a hybrid that would take Russia into a Golden Age, and she did it all without once worrying about public opinion.

Like many eastern European leaders of the time, Catherine looked to the west for inspiration. The relatively new French ideas of social justice and the nobility of the human race intrigued her, and influenced many of her policies. However, she also believed, and rightly so, that her country must be ruled in what was then traditional Russian ideas of absolutism and the utter rule over an enserfed and subhuman population.

While to modern day non-thinkers, this might seem like a contradiction and hypocrisy, the social system worked under Catherine and the country stabilized. She advocated the abolition of capital punishment and torture while completely reconstructing the local governmental social structure, first introducing the idea of independently operated “states” governed by their own body whom were in turn governed by Catherine (a governmental system, I’m sure you are all familiar with). Catherine also advocated the necessity of a large standing army and deplored the idea of standing idly by while her country was threatened by political enemies.

Perhaps the clearest picture one can get of Catherine (for there is so much history that I couldn’t possibly describe it all to you in the form of a single entry blog) can be derived from her first two acts as tsar, which were: 1) She had her husband assassinated for being corrupt and weak, and 2) she lowered the salt tax for those of “lower income”.

[Tomorrow: Marie de Medici]

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