Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm King Lambert and I'm Sarah Downey, and today's topic
Speaker 1: is the lovers of Catherine the Great. We already talked
Speaker 1: about her husband in previous episodes. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember. He's the one she deposed and then sort
Speaker 1: of had killed rings a bell and he was pretty awful,
Speaker 1: and yet her son had him dug up and buried
Speaker 1: next to her. Spending eternity next to someone you despise
Speaker 1: has to be its own kind of hell. So who
Speaker 1: would she rather be next to? We're going to be
Speaker 1: taking a look at a whole list of fellows in fact,
Speaker 1: and the first is Sergei salty Covin. We mentioned him
Speaker 1: in a previous episode in this three part Catherine the
Speaker 1: Great series. It was possibly by him that she had
Speaker 1: her son, although possibly also by her husband and the
Speaker 1: circumstances of the time. She was in a desperately unhappy marriage.
Speaker 1: Her sex life with her husband was practically non existent,
Speaker 1: and she needed to produce an air so this relationship
Speaker 1: was encouraged, and Saltykov was charming and a bad bad boy.
Speaker 1: He was handsome and he was very slick, so in
Speaker 1: other words, he seemed like a good idea, and these
Speaker 1: honeyed words were hard to resist for our young, sad Katherine.
Speaker 1: She's vulnerable and the people at court wanted her to
Speaker 1: get pregnant, so they're kind of nudging her into this
Speaker 1: relationship with Saltikov. But she made the mistake of falling
Speaker 1: in love with him, and he soon grew tired of
Speaker 1: her one night, stood her up for a date and
Speaker 1: that was the end of that. A hard lesson to learn.
Speaker 1: Fortunately for Katherine, there is another fellow to follow in
Speaker 1: his footsteps. That's Stannis Way to Ski and Stennis Way
Speaker 1: is a very good dancer, which is lucky for him
Speaker 1: because that's what ketch his Catherine's eye. At the time
Speaker 1: of their affair, she was twenty six, and he described
Speaker 1: her as having a mouth which seemed to invite kisses
Speaker 1: and a merry disposition if you want a little idea
Speaker 1: of who Catherine was in her youth. And he was
Speaker 1: a virgin, so he's the exact opposite of the darnly
Speaker 1: Saltykov because in him she could find both sex and
Speaker 1: emotional fulfillment. So moving on, up as far as the
Speaker 1: equality of her men. But it was a very secret affair,
Speaker 1: and that's until her husband finally found out. At first
Speaker 1: he was angry. He didn't want his wife to be
Speaker 1: having an affair, but then he decides that Katiski is fun.
Speaker 1: He's a pretty nice guy, and maybe hey, they should
Speaker 1: go on double dates or something, which doesn't sound fun
Speaker 1: to anyone else involved, except for the sort of crazy
Speaker 1: emperor when I think he was just mad at first
Speaker 1: about the secrecy, and once he found out it was
Speaker 1: an affair, it's like, oh, well, I'm having an affair.
Speaker 1: This is fine. Let's all four of us hang out
Speaker 1: and party all night. No wanted to do that, but
Speaker 1: I mean, he's you know, he is who he is,
Speaker 1: so you have to. He probably invited some puppets to
Speaker 1: of the know him well. And a lot of these
Speaker 1: details we should mention come from Virginia Roundings biography of
Speaker 1: Catherine the Great, which is pretty fantastic. So by point
Speaker 1: of toy Ski, she had her daughter Anna Petrovna, who
Speaker 1: is the one who died, but their love was doomed
Speaker 1: by circumstance during his absence on a diplomatic absence. Her
Speaker 1: coup took place, and when she took the throne, she
Speaker 1: told him not to return because now was not the
Speaker 1: time for love in her life. This was time to
Speaker 1: rule and to get down to business. She wrote to
Speaker 1: him a quote, I very much like goodbye. The world
Speaker 1: is full of strange situations, which is a pretty good
Speaker 1: breakup line as far as breakup lines go. She looks
Speaker 1: out for him, though she doesn't just toss them off,
Speaker 1: and when Augustus the third of Poland dies, Katherine make
Speaker 1: sure that her former lover is elected as the new king,
Speaker 1: although this doesn't end up being the best deal for
Speaker 1: him because she partitions Poland and he abdicates in seventeen
Speaker 1: but still it's the thought that counts Catherine, and a
Speaker 1: little detail on him. He instituted salons in Poland like
Speaker 1: the Parisians had, only his recalled Thursday dinners, and we're
Speaker 1: full of Polish luminaries and intelligent discussions, very finer things
Speaker 1: club definitely so well. Catherine is settling into the role
Speaker 1: of being the Empress. She doesn't have a lover for
Speaker 1: a little bit, but that doesn't last for that long.
Speaker 1: She says to herself that she needs a young man
Speaker 1: in her life. And it keeps her healthy. So in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty one we have Gregory or Love and we
Speaker 1: also mentioned him in a previous podcast. He was the
Speaker 1: father of her son, Alexei, and he and his brothers
Speaker 1: were involved in that mysterious death of her husband too,
Speaker 1: so we know he's definitely one of Catherine's right hand men.
Speaker 1: And he helped save Russia from plague, so you can
Speaker 1: imagine he was a very busy man. They were together
Speaker 1: for a eleven years, they're practically married, and then rather
Speaker 1: suddenly it was over. For one thing, he was very
Speaker 1: powerful in her court and there were people who would
Speaker 1: do anything to take him down, and she was also
Speaker 1: told that he cheated on her, so she replaced him
Speaker 1: in her life for a time in seventeen seventy two
Speaker 1: with the completely underwhelming Alexander Vassilchikov total rebound. He was
Speaker 1: not worth it. Of course, after eleven years with Orlov,
Speaker 1: a breakup is more like a divorce, and Katherine still
Speaker 1: loves him, and an observer writes that she finds it
Speaker 1: hard to do without him. She experiences an emptiness and
Speaker 1: not having someone to whom she can open her heart
Speaker 1: on everything, and she also describes him as this, If
Speaker 1: you ever see him, you will see, without doubt, the
Speaker 1: most handsome man you have ever seen in your life.
Speaker 1: So there you go, Katherine. The pretty ones are always
Speaker 1: hard to say goodbye to. She tried to part with
Speaker 1: him on very generous terms, as far as lands and
Speaker 1: money and family statusco but it was quite the matic breakup.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of back and forth and maybe
Speaker 1: he's coming back or he's not a little bit of
Speaker 1: a power imbalance that She kept warm feelings for him
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life and a great deal
Speaker 1: of respect. He remained involved in the government, and he
Speaker 1: also helped found the Free Economic Society, and she was
Speaker 1: inconsolable upon his death in seventeen eighty three. She didn't
Speaker 1: eat for days, even though the years leading up to
Speaker 1: it she was prepared for it. He'd become deranged and
Speaker 1: feeble minded. He'd been ill for a while. That already
Speaker 1: broke her heart. But even then side ned about Orlov
Speaker 1: before we move on completely from him. He's the source
Speaker 1: of the famous or Lov diamond, which he bought to
Speaker 1: please Catherine, and it has muddled origins, like all of
Speaker 1: the best jewel stories. Do did it come from? An
Speaker 1: idol in a Brahmin temple perhaps, or maybe the possession
Speaker 1: of the assassinated King of Persia. Nobody knows exactly, but
Speaker 1: it's one of the Roman of Crown jewels, so it
Speaker 1: has a very illustrious history. So let's go back to Vasilchikov,
Speaker 1: or rather let's go past him, because after that she
Speaker 1: needed someone special and someone who would open up her
Speaker 1: heart like or lofted, and that brings us to Gregory
Speaker 1: pat Chompkin, the most famous of Catherine's loves. And that's
Speaker 1: because although his time as her lover was fairly short,
Speaker 1: he became the most powerful man in the government. They
Speaker 1: were basically co rulers, and after the passion was gone,
Speaker 1: the respect and the friendship remained. So he was born
Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty nine and he studied theology at the
Speaker 1: University of Moscow before spending some time in the Guard.
Speaker 1: So that's mainly what we know about his early life.
Speaker 1: It's this monkish existence followed by military style service. And
Speaker 1: he becomes Catherine's lover in seventeen seventy four, and even
Speaker 1: though their relationship only goes on for two years, it's
Speaker 1: this very deeply felt one. It an up and down relationship.
Speaker 1: In the early days, Catherine wrote him a letter that said,
Speaker 1: in order for me to make sense when you were
Speaker 1: with me, I have to close my eyes, or else
Speaker 1: I might really say what I have always found laughable,
Speaker 1: that my gaze is captivated by you, an expression that
Speaker 1: I used to think was stupid, improbable and unnatural, but
Speaker 1: which I now see might be possible. This is something
Speaker 1: different for Catherine. Yeah, she was infatuated with him from
Speaker 1: the start, and they write each other constantly. You can
Speaker 1: imagine how that would be today, maybe just leaving little
Speaker 1: notes of emails and notes for each other. But it's
Speaker 1: not all smooth sailing, because they're both so passionate and
Speaker 1: they're both very demanding. He's jealous, she's terrified that he'll
Speaker 1: get bored with her, and neither one wants to believe
Speaker 1: that the other one could possibly love them as much
Speaker 1: as they do, so nothing is ever enough. And in
Speaker 1: other words, it was a bit of a roller coaster,
Speaker 1: and those, of course get tie ring. Her letters are
Speaker 1: full of anxiety. She repeatedly refers to herself as ill, mad, weak,
Speaker 1: and most tellingly wrote, oh how awful it is to
Speaker 1: love extraordinarily, But Telkins demands go beyond the bounds of
Speaker 1: what you expect from someone in a relationship with you.
Speaker 1: He wants political positions that proclaim his status. And it's
Speaker 1: not just an ego thing. He's very politically minded. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that Catherine loved about him.
Speaker 1: They can have really good conversations there and even match
Speaker 1: with each other. But he ascends the ranks very very
Speaker 1: quickly and very impressively. And of course a lot of
Speaker 1: people think this is just because he's Catherine's new boy toy,
Speaker 1: but he was, of course, but he was also a
Speaker 1: very talented and political man. He's good at political matters,
Speaker 1: he's good at military matters. He suited for his ascension.
Speaker 1: And we've got a good quote from of all people, Stalin,
Speaker 1: who said, what was the genius of Catherine the Great?
Speaker 1: Her greatness lay in the choice Prince Petchumpkin and other
Speaker 1: such talented officials to run the state. So relationship with
Speaker 1: Chumpkin has the stolen seal of approval. And here's just
Speaker 1: a little rundown of some of some of the honors.
Speaker 1: Some of the honors he receives, the Order of Saint Alexander,
Speaker 1: Nevsky in Poland. He receives the Order of the White Eagle,
Speaker 1: Katherine's counsel. He's the General in chief of the College
Speaker 1: of War, he's the commander in chief of the Cossacks
Speaker 1: and Cavalry. He's a count. He's got command of the
Speaker 1: Petersburg troops. He's a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: And he gets a lot of money and even some peasants.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna get you some peasants for your birthday.
Speaker 1: There feeling a little feudal this year, I guess. And
Speaker 1: a few of his accomplishments. He built a fleet in
Speaker 1: the Black Sea, he built the harbor of Sebastopol, he
Speaker 1: helped the next Crimea. He did a lot in his
Speaker 1: in his time and government, and when he died in
Speaker 1: sevente you can imagine how that shook her world. But
Speaker 1: we do have a few lingering questions of her relationship
Speaker 1: that always come up, the main one of which is
Speaker 1: where they secretly married, And some people say yes, And
Speaker 1: in their letters they often refer to each other as
Speaker 1: husband and wife. So it's entirely possible that they had
Speaker 1: some sort of ceremony, and it probably wasn't a legal one,
Speaker 1: though if if they did have one, it may have
Speaker 1: been a way of expressing their deep commitment to each other,
Speaker 1: a commitment that would last, and actually one that would
Speaker 1: last after their physical relationship was over. And another question
Speaker 1: that always comes up, did she become pregnant by a
Speaker 1: punkin and Rounding says no. She became very ill during
Speaker 1: their romance and disappeared for a bit from the public eye.
Speaker 1: But Catherine blamed it on eating twenty peaches in an afternoon,
Speaker 1: a fact we put on our Twitter at Miston History
Speaker 1: if you didn't see it, and we're Georgia girls, and
Speaker 1: even we can't eat twenty peaches in one Afternoon's terrible idea,
Speaker 1: and it's just too bizarre of a fact to be
Speaker 1: made up. No one make up something that's so potentially horrified.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with a peach explanation and we haven't.
Speaker 1: Excerpt from another letter that Catherine wrote again that gives
Speaker 1: you a good idea of the state of their relationship.
Speaker 1: I need not to see you for about three days,
Speaker 1: if that is possible, to give my mind time to
Speaker 1: calm down and for me to come to my senses,
Speaker 1: or you will soon grow bored with me, and how
Speaker 1: could it be otherwise? I am very very angry with
Speaker 1: myself today and scolded myself and tried in every way
Speaker 1: to be more sensible. And these, of course, are the
Speaker 1: words of a woman who's losing her head, falling head
Speaker 1: over heels, scared of her lack of control, and an
Speaker 1: empress cannot afford to be a fool for love. So
Speaker 1: Catherine obviously needs a different kind of relationship, something that
Speaker 1: it's just a little easier honor. And that brings us
Speaker 1: to Peter Zavadovski. And in many of our podcasts we
Speaker 1: have talked about infidelity. If you're a long time listener,
Speaker 1: you know that, and we've been accused of being too
Speaker 1: narrow minded about that. We dispute the claim. In some
Speaker 1: cases it isn't really infidelity, of both parties are aware
Speaker 1: of the other's extramarital sexual activities and accept and encourage them.
Speaker 1: But in others it is a case of simmering anger
Speaker 1: and jealousy, and especially of powerlessness, because often in the
Speaker 1: tales we've told, one of the people involved is a
Speaker 1: royal and as carte blanche, and you might lose your
Speaker 1: head if your husband thinks you slept with someone else,
Speaker 1: and he himself would like to sleep with someone else.
Speaker 1: And well, and if you're a guy sleeping with Lola Montez,
Speaker 1: as we learned, all bets are all the first. This
Speaker 1: is a dangerous game to play, but in the case
Speaker 1: of Zavadovsky, this is a fairly welcome introduction of a
Speaker 1: third party into a relationship. Yeah, because clearly the relationship
Speaker 1: between Chompkin and Catherine wasn't sustainable. They couldn't keep this up.
Speaker 1: He still wants to be top dog, though he's not
Speaker 1: going to be cast aside. He's going to maintain some
Speaker 1: sort of position and in his government. So a way
Speaker 1: to diffuse the situation, a way for them to still
Speaker 1: function as friends and confidence is to bring somebody else in.
Speaker 1: And Zavadovski wasn't as high maintenance as the Champkin, but
Speaker 1: he also wasn't cut out for this position of male mistress.
Speaker 1: He was a bit bewildered in his new role, wasn't
Speaker 1: quite sure how to handle it, and a sort of
Speaker 1: diplomacy it required. Of course, he's both a subject and
Speaker 1: a lover, which is a strange power dynamic. He kind
Speaker 1: of lost it after a while. He wasn't He wasn't
Speaker 1: ready for this. Katherine doesn't have the patients to deal
Speaker 1: with that. I know. I really love this note she
Speaker 1: wrote him. It starts off one, stay with me to
Speaker 1: believe it when I say something. Three, do not quarrel
Speaker 1: hourly about trifles, So showing him. But most important, Tompkin
Speaker 1: realizes that this situation works out well for him, Like
Speaker 1: I was saying, it's a way to diffuse the situation
Speaker 1: and maintain his power. So he allies as well. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep Katherine stocked. He was the procure and first
Speaker 1: he brings her semyon Zorik, who ends up trying to
Speaker 1: get rid of the Chumpkin, which never works. Katherine will
Speaker 1: always like him better than you, dude in question. Then
Speaker 1: Ivan Rimsky Korsakov, who is hot, young, and all male,
Speaker 1: as she describes him, is the most ridiculous quote I
Speaker 1: think I've ever read in a podcast. There are plenty.
Speaker 1: He was also described by an outsider as silly, and
Speaker 1: he must have been because he cheated on Katherine and
Speaker 1: then went blabbing about it all over town. So the
Speaker 1: Chumpkin help put a stop to that one right away.
Speaker 1: But finally we come to Alexandra A Lanskoy and this
Speaker 1: one Katherine picks out herself because it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: Chompkin has a really great record. Yes, he did not
Speaker 1: work out. He doesn't know her taste at all, So
Speaker 1: unlike Rimsky Korsakov, this guy is a good man. He
Speaker 1: loves her, he respects her, he makes her happy, and
Speaker 1: they simply enjoy each other's company. It's sort of taking
Speaker 1: things down and watch for her. He doesn't disrupt her
Speaker 1: life in any way. Instead, he adds to it and
Speaker 1: he entertains her. He's he's kind to her, and she
Speaker 1: hopes that she'll grow old with him. But in June
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty four, he fell ill and it progressed very suddenly.
Speaker 1: Within a week he was dead. Katherine was devastated and
Speaker 1: inconsolable for months and wrote, I do not know what
Speaker 1: will become of me. But in seventeen eighty five she
Speaker 1: has another distraction year Maloff, another boy who has been
Speaker 1: found by the Champkin, who also tries to get rid
Speaker 1: of Chompkin and does not succeed. None of them will,
Speaker 1: And in seventeen eighty six the Champkin brings her another man,
Speaker 1: Mom and Off Mom and Off is also young and
Speaker 1: good looking, like a lot of Catherine's later lovers, and
Speaker 1: she says that he has a most excellent heart with
Speaker 1: a great store of honesty. He has wit enough for
Speaker 1: four and he mainly sounds like a whiney little breath.
Speaker 1: I don't think she had great judgment on this one.
Speaker 1: Apparently he had cheated on her as well, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to end his affair with Katherine, but it ended
Speaker 1: badly because instead of you know, manning up and doing
Speaker 1: it in a gentlemanly sort of way, he blamed her
Speaker 1: for everything. Not all man perhaps No. So she is
Speaker 1: out of the game for a little bit until a
Speaker 1: twenty two year old catches her eye in nine. She
Speaker 1: was sixty at the time, and his name was plot
Speaker 1: on zoo Ball. And somehow this twenty two year old
Speaker 1: ends up more powerful than Tompkin, who comes back and
Speaker 1: tries to overthrow him re establish his own position. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's sneaky, and he's greedy, and just in general he
Speaker 1: sounds completely awful. Her taste really goes down and beIN
Speaker 1: he's wonderful, and everyone around her is just shaking their
Speaker 1: heads and going no, no, no. And we mentioned his
Speaker 1: wandering eye, but somehow he ends up with the title
Speaker 1: of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, so apparently they're
Speaker 1: just handing those out at the time. But at least
Speaker 1: Catherine's son Paul did one good thing after her death.
Speaker 1: He told soup Off to get out of Russia, although
Speaker 1: later Zuboff came back and helped assassinate him either. Yea,
Speaker 1: So Catherine has this incredibly promiscuous reputation, but history kind
Speaker 1: of shows she has just a series of monogamous relationships,
Speaker 1: one after each other. They're a lot, but hey, and
Speaker 1: her personality in her life just haven't been represented accurately
Speaker 1: in history. She's been besmirched. She was a woman of
Speaker 1: great depth, a complicated ruler, and a woman who loved fiercely.
Speaker 1: I rather like her. But as for her most famous lover,
Speaker 1: Sarah take it away. It brings us to the horse,
Speaker 1: of course, and if you haven't heard the horse story,
Speaker 1: it goes like this, Katherine has this special hoist devise
Speaker 1: to help her have sex with a horse, and it breaks,
Speaker 1: and the horse falls on her in the middle of things,
Speaker 1: and she dies. So we've talked about some pretty weird
Speaker 1: people on this podcast or in our past podcast episode
Speaker 1: seriously their unusual sexual proclivities and thinking, Caligula, this is you.
Speaker 1: But this is not that kind of episode. As we've learned,
Speaker 1: Catherine was in love with love and also with sex,
Speaker 1: and this quality in a woman never goes remarked upon.
Speaker 1: Even today. You can listen to stuff Mom never told
Speaker 1: you for a lot more on that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But long before Catherine died, she was frequently the subject
Speaker 1: of lewd jokes because of her personal life. It's the
Speaker 1: easiest way to attack someone who's politically powerful by zeroing
Speaker 1: in on their personal life instead of their policies. Well,
Speaker 1: especially when it is a sixty year old empress withfend
Speaker 1: And this reputation as a woman of lustful inclinations happened
Speaker 1: to coincide with a courtiers tale in sixteen forty seven
Speaker 1: of Russians being particularly preoccupied with sodomy, especially of the
Speaker 1: equine variety. There is absolutely no basis for this, but
Speaker 1: a story like that just takes off on its own.
Speaker 1: Kavine was a horsewoman, after all, and there are also
Speaker 1: some rumors about her lover at Lunkoy, who is the
Speaker 1: nice lover, He's the one we kind of line, yes,
Speaker 1: in the lineup. He's the one we think you should pick.
Speaker 1: But there was a story that he odeed on aphrodisiacs,
Speaker 1: and he kept on talking about horses and weird stories
Speaker 1: about horses, and people started thinking, Uh, this is Catherine's lover.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's something strange with her going on too exactly,
Speaker 1: it all gets tangled up together, and there you have
Speaker 1: at the birth of a piece of gosson that would
Speaker 1: indoor for hundreds of years. So watch him now, I will,
Speaker 1: but not before I make a few recommendations. First, if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about Catherine and all of
Speaker 1: our musings about her, you should try following us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Myston History or checking out our Facebook fan page.
Speaker 1: If you have something to add to this discussion yourself,
Speaker 1: maybe your own opinion about the horse, you can email
Speaker 1: us at History Podcasts at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little more about gossip,
Speaker 1: we have a really good article on it, how Gossip Works,
Speaker 1: and you can find it by searching on our homepage
Speaker 1: at www dot how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
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