Parents: Samuel Skowronski and Elisabeth Moritz
Date of Birth: 15 April 1684
House: Skowronski
Spouse: Peter I, emperor of Russia
Spouse: Peter I, emperor of Russia
Predecessor: Peter I
Reign: 1725 – 1727
Summary: Catherine set a good example in Russia for female rule, but like many of the other female rulers, she did so in an extraordinarily bad way. She was born with the name Marta, a Polish peasant girl and Roman Catholic, and raised by a Lutheran pastor in Latvia. She served as a housemaid and she was never taught to read or write. In fear that her beauty would overtake his son, the pastor married her off to a Swedish dragoon, Johan Cruse, but the pair remained together for only a week in 1702. Soon after, the pastor and his family, including Marta, moved to Moscow. She eventually became a part of Prince Alexander Menshikov's household, the best friend of Peter the Great of Russia. Menshikov and Marta formed an alliance and Peter met Marta in 1703. Shortly after, Marta became the emperor's mistress. Marta converted to Russian Orthodoxy in 1705 and took the name Catherine Alexeyevna. She rarely left Peter's side after that. Peter and Catherine married secretly in 1707. Of their twelve children, only two lived to adulthood, Yelizaveta and Anna. The two were very much in love and lived in a small log cabin in St. Petersburg despite the status of the emperor. In 1711, tradition states that Catherine saved Peter and the Russian Empire when she suggested bribing the enemy with her and the other women's jewelry. The ploy worked and Peter lived to fight another day. Peter married Catherine again officially in February 1712. Catherine became the tsarina of Russia and eventually became empress. A strange twist came in 1724 when Peter the Great named Catherine his co-ruler. He died the next year without having named a successor. Catherine, fearing an aristocratic takeover, arranged a coup with Menshikov. She was popularly proclaimed Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias by the Russian military.
Menshikov, Peter Tlstoy, and the Supreme Privy Council did most of the ruling during Catherine's short reign. It is unlikely Catherine planned to rule directly or for a prolonged period of time, but that she wished to act as a transitional monarch while a new monarch, one that would favor the new meritocracy, was found. What happened, though, was that Catherine established a new order in Russia. She was the first female ruler of the empire that was only found a decade earlier. Her successors, including her daughter, Elizabeth, and Catherine II would dominate Russian politics for the eighteenth century. As empress, Catherine downsized the military to cut spending. The resulting tax relief gave her a reputation of just and fair rule. Russia joined the Habsburg league in 1726 to defend her son-in-law, the Duke of Holstein, against incursions by Great Britain. She died only two years after becoming empress. The cause of her death was probably abscess of the lungs, and she was buried in St. Petersburg. She was succeeded by her step-grandson, Peter II, the son of Alexei, the eldest surviving son of Peter the Great by his first wife, Eudoxia.
Date of Death: 17 May 1727
Successor: Peter II
Other Monarch Deaths:
Sima Yan, emperor of China (290)
Go-Fushimi, emperor of Japan (1336)
Louis VI, duke of Bavaria and Elector of Brandenburg (1365)
Charles, raja of Sarawak (1917)
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