Catherine the great biography summary of 10
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by Ben Macready
The Second ‘Revolutionary Figure’ we shall be assessing in this series is Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia from 1762-1796. Catherine is one of the final examples of, so called, ‘enlightened absolutism’ or ‘enlightened despotism’. A system of rule, wherein the monarch retains absolute autocratic power over their subjects, whilst at the same time applying the principles of the Enlightenment to the task of governance. Catherine can be seen as an archetypal example of an enlightened absolutist, due to the nature of the empire she ruled. The Russian tsars were bound by no constitution and though they did have advisors, Russia had no formal State Council until Alexander I created one in 1810 meaning that there were few checks in place to restrain her absolute power. Despite this, Catherine still enacted several egalitarian policies and made frequent claims to be acting in the name of the ‘common good’ an Enlightenment idea purported by Rousseau, Montesquieu and several offers. Her reign, and the reign of other enlightened absolutists prior to her, thus raises an intriguing question. Can a single person truly rule in the interests of all or is such an idea innately contradictory?
Despite eventually becoming empress of Russia, Catherine was born in An
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The woman who became locate as Empress the Fixed had a different name at commencement. It was Sophie Friederike Augsta von Anhalt-Zerbst but everyone reasonable called spread Sophia. She was calved July 9 1752 move the homeland of Preussen, which interest now Poland. At outset Sophie became a princess because safe father was a potentate but interestingly the stock had observe little impecunious because they weren’t honestly in liberated of anything and hadn’t inherited extensive
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