Well, I did say in my previous post that I was finished reviewing untold volumes about Catherine the Great, and would now move on to Grigory Potemkin, the man who was her principle lover, generalissimo, de facto co-ruler and most likely her morganatic husband, so here we are. And after this, I'm going to have a few actual political discussion articles (which I said I was going to try to do fewer of this year) regarding the elephant in the room (or a few of the elephants from the herd in the room, I should say) of China's current status and the world's response to China's 2019 Christmas gift to the world.
And so, let's get right down to it.
Where's the Rest of the Book?
The first thing I noticed about this book when it arrived on my porch by DHL was its size. For a man who was described by his peers as "gigantic" (p. 54), who is regarded by historians as larger than life, and who was apparently known for his prodigious size in more ways than one according to Catherine herself (the word "elephantine" appears frequently in the Empress's descriptions of what she refers to as his "Glorious Weapon (Westenfield; History.com staff)"), the book itself is rather diminutive, especially compared with some of the encyclopedic tomes I've read about the Empress Catherine. Considering that it was Potemkin, more than Catherine, who built what is usually styled "Catherinian Russia," I wondered at this. It turns out that there simply is less known of his life than of Catherine's, largely owing to the fact that while Potemkin kept the letters he got from Catherine (much to Catherine's chagrin) and re-read them any time he was feeling sentimental (which was often), Catherine burned most of Potemkin's letters to her for fear they, and the state secrets therein, would fall into the wrong hands.
Beginning With Familiar Territory
While most of the biographies I read of Catherine begin by describing her origins in Germany, I expected this biography of her husband(?) to begin with his birth. It did not. Instead, the book opens with a chapter describing the world into which Potemkin was born. This chapter, written in 1938, is the chapter that killed the horse Robert Massie was still beating nearly a century afterward with its descriptions of the inhuman brutality of Russian serfdom (a status far worse than the lot of serfs in most of Feudal Europe, which the author describes as "the worst type of slavery in modern history (p. 24)"), and the contradictions between the flamboyant opulence of Russian nobility with the squalor of the serfs; the sumptuousness of the public facade the court put forward with the backwardness of the rest of the country (p. 13). These are themes common to every book I have read about Russia in that century, and author George Soloveytchik wants the reader to know even before the star of the show is introduced, "this is the stage."
Of course, the author in this chapter falls into the same trap every historian studying the time seems to fall into; that is, diverging from "let me tell you about 18th century Russia" into "let me tell you about Catherine," and going on to describe events which do not happen until after Potemkin's death before the reader has even been told of his birth. I suppose this can be forgiven, because in addition to successfully avoiding this trap for the rest of the book, the author manages to segue back to Potemkin rather well with the final paragraph of the chapter.
The outstanding figure of her reign, however, was Potemkin... As lover, statesman, proconsul, administrator, diplomat, builder, and colonizer, he had no equal... Not the least interesting thing about Potemkin, who had so much in common with the Empress, and who like herself was a typical representative of his age-with all its faults and all its virtues-is the fact that he was Catherine's husband. (p. 26)
Forget the Boy; Meet the Man
Regarding Grigory Alexandrovich's early life, Soloveytchik gives us only a quick montage of scenes that foreshadow his later life. Two pages (27 & 28) describe Potemkin's grandfather (a confrontational diplomat with an opinion of his own country's status that would put contemporary China's "Wolf Warrior Diplomats" to shame) and his father (a rather lackluster military officer who married his second wife by failing to mention his first was still alive and beat both of them fiercely even by the standards of the day). Another three pages encompass all the years from Potemkin's birth as the child of rural gentry so poor they barely qualified as aristocrats in anything more than name, until his days as a young officer in the horse-guards, wherein he made the acquaintance of five ne'er-do-well brothers named Orlov (and anyone who knows a speck about Catherinian Russia knows the story from there). By page 32, the reader is being introduced to Potemkin's legendary first meeting with Catherine on the eve of her coup, when he strode out from the ranks of the horse-guards to hand her a piece of his uniform (a sword-knot) that she was missing from hers. This struck me as a bit of a rush, considering the chapter is entitled "Youth and Early Beginnings" and I'd been reading of his grandfather on page 27.
Here, of course, is where the book zeroes in on the quintessence of what history remembers of Grigory Potemkin, the aspect of the man that would define not only him, but through him, Russia for another 30 years, and would alter the course of European history by being the primary reason for everything this military and political genius did for the rest of his life: the fact that from the moment he met her, Sergeant Major Potemkin was hopelessly, passionately, irredeemably in love with the woman he was helping place on the throne, the woman who would come to be called "Catherine the Great." Some men give their mistresses chocolates, some give jewelry, some give perfume or clothes. Potemkin though?
He would give his an empire.
He Said, She Said
The two chapters jump rather quickly over eight years. These are the years in which Potemkin, still a rather minor functionary at the time, was under Catherine's wing being trained (albeit from a distance) for a position later. Though it is doubtful, given that she was still attached to Grigory Orlov during these years, that even Catherine was fully aware of just what that position would be. These were momentous years for Catherine, but Soloveytchik seems aware that his readers are more concerned with the man whose name is actually in the title, and for Potemkin, there was not much to say about these years.
He rose through the ranks (slowly), accumulated connections and influence (slowly), learned the internal workings of Russia's political machine (slowly), and pined endlessly for a woman he never stopped loving. Given that he was, even at this time, a member of her select inner circle of friends, this meant he had to see her on the arm of his former patron (and current rival), Orlov. These had to have been torturous years, and the author shows that later (p. 54) by giving us a rather rough translation of a poem he wrote to Catherine while lamenting her unattainability.
Without giving too much of a reprise, I will say I was impressed with the book's ability to keep the story grounded through Potemkin's eyes, rather than getting side-tracked into just another biography of Catherine (who was intriguing, but as you can see from my recent work, there's plenty already written about her). And of course, the section of the book detailing the two years at the height of Catherine and Potemkin's fiery, tempestuous love affair that seemed to be a neverending toggle switch between fighting and pouncing on each other like rabbits in rut, reads very much the same as the corresponding segment of any biography of Catherine. The only difference is that Soloveytchik gives us the road toward the end of these through Potemkin's eyes, and makes it clear that the later "favorites parade" was Potemkin's idea.
He had been in love with her almost since the first moment he saw her. But now, after two years of the closest proximity, of a mental and physical intimacy beyond which it was impossible to go, he found that their passion was wearing them out... [there] was a serious danger that one day Catherine the Empress might triumph over Catherine the woman and dismiss him altogether. (p. 102)
Finally, the whole change must be brought about in such a way that Catherine should feel convinced that she was acting on her own initiative... he remembered only too well to what an extent Catherine the Empress had resented Orlov's disregard of her female susceptibilities, and he was not going to risk provoking her that way. (p. 103)
It is at the end of this act, after Potemkin has established an arrangement wherein he essentially remains control of her heart and mind but yields her bed to someone else (and opening his to others) so he can focus on building the Russian Empire, where Soloveytchik proves that he's more skilled at cutting through layers of nonsense and simply telling things as they are than the authors of most such biographies.
The new peculiar basis on which they soon placed their relationship... gave each party physical freedom but preserved for both the mutual affection and the political collaboration... Nothing was changed in their association except its purely sexual aspect. (p. 110, emphasis mine)
Again, the author delivers Potemkin's view of this arrangement in terms Potemkin himself might well have nodded at.
While the passion for the woman Catherine had died, the adoration of the Empress Catherine remained the same or even grew, and he loved her glory more than anything in the world. (p. 111)
This is the best summary of Grigory Potemkin's attitude that I've ever seen. Someone else could could fulfill the role of the Empress's nocturnal plaything. He'd replace that side of her just as quickly with a harem of giggling little bedroom pets of his own. But Catherine remained his goddess, his symbol, his muse, his inspiration, the subject of his poetry, and his reason to fight, to build, to destroy the Ottoman Empire (he hoped) and build another upon its ashes. In Grigory Potemkin's mind, nothing he did was "for Russia." It was all for the glory of "Catherine's Empire," and Soloveytchik explains this without making it sound paradoxical or complicated.
Perhaps it just took a Russian to explain it.
The Other Side of the Story
It's after this point, when Catherine and Potemkin's lives, while still connected, begin to diverge geographically, that the book begins to cover new territory. This phase of life was when Potemkin was at his best, operating as the de-facto co-Emperor (or at least Regent Consort) of Russia. The wars against Turkey (which Potemkin fought in personally, as cavalry commander in one and commander-in-chief in another), the annexation of Crimea, and the settling of "New Russia" are all told through Potemkin's eyes. At the risk of repeating myself, I was impressed at the author's ability to remember he was writing a biography of Grigory Potemkin, and not the "Potemkin Expansion Pack" to a biography of Catherine the Great.
There is even an entire chapter devoted to one of Potemkin's very few unsuccessful projects: the attempt to forge a mutual defense alliance with England (p. 153 - 159). The author is not able to hide his disappointment as he speculates how differently history would have unfolded if he'd been successful (p. 152). For my part, given that the timing of this alliance would have meant Russian Cossack cavalry would have aided British troops in the Revolutionary War, I have to shudder at the implications (which indeed was one of the prime reasons the British ambassador sought it so fervently (p. 151)), but I digress. Suffice it to say that this look into Potemkin's own work as the "First Man of the Empire" covers projects he tackled and difficulties he faced which, having little to do with Catherine, are omitted from biographies of the Empress. This book succeeds in painting Potemkin as more than just "the male half of Catherine the Great," notwithstanding how honored Potemkin himself might have been by such a title.
So Who Should Read It?
Essentially, anyone who has familiarized themselves with Catherine II and now wants to know who this peculiar one-eyed man was to whom she owed so much of her empire's glory, will find this book useful. I find only two very minor complaints with it, and they are the ones I've already made (namely, that it is too short and glosses too quickly over the titular figure's childhood). The author does not, as so many other authors do, presuppose that his reader is familiar with 18th century Russia or with Catherine II, and as the author is Russian, there's no hint of the Russophobic bias that permeates Troyat or Grey's biographies of Catherine, nor the Social Justice Warrior mentality of "let me drop the subject and bitch about America for a dozen pages or so" which rears its head so many times in Massie's work.
It's short enough that it doesn't require much commitment (I read it in a week and a half in my limited spare time substitute teaching in a SPED class), and it succeeds in making the reader, if not an expert, at least an "informed party" regarding its titular subject. In light of those two facts, I find little reason for a student of 18th century Russian history not to read it.
Works Cited
History.com Staff. "History's Greatest Love Affair: Catherine the Great and Gregory Potemkin." History.com. Publication date unlisted. Web, 24 Oct, 2020.
https://www.history.co.uk/article/historys-greatest-love-affair-catherine-the-great-and-grigory-potemkin
Westenfield, Adrienne. "The Real Story Behind Catherine the Great's Mythologized Sex Life." Esquire. 21 Oct, 2019. Web. 24 Oct, 2020.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a29505224/catherine-the-great-hbo-helen-mirren-sex-life-grigory-potemkin-husband-true-story/