Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

NOTES

PROLOGUE: DEATH ON THE STEPPES

1 V. S. Popov’s reports to Catherine II on GAP’s illness are the main source for this account of his demise unless otherwise ascribed: RGVIA 52.2.94.3–26 and RA (1878) 1 pp 20–5. G. Derzhavin, The Waterfall, in H. G. Segal, The Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia vol 2 p 302.

2 RGADA 5.85.1.124–5, L 153 / SIRIO 27: 217, CtG to GAP 30 September 1782.

3 Prince de Ligne, Letters and Reflections, ed Baroness de Staël vol 2 p 6, Prince de Ligne to Comte de Ségur 1 August 1788.

4 M. M. Ivanov’s print, Hermitage E: 22158. Commissioned by V. S. Popov and Countess A. V. Branicka. Oddly, though Popov was apparently awaiting the Turkish plenipotentiaries in Jassy and was not at the death scene, he is pictured there, doubtless on his own orders. Ivanov was GAP’s house artist and travelled in his entourage. See Chapter 23. This is not the only print of GAP’s death: see also Death of G. A. Potemkin, an engraving by G. I. Skourodytov showing only head and torso of the dead Prince, arms crossed over his chest.

5 James Harris, Diaries and Correspondence p 281, Sir James Harris to Viscount Stormont 21 July/1 August 1780.

6 Author’s visit to Moldova 1998.

7 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 97, Prince de Ligne to Prince Kaunitz November 1788.

8 SIRIO 23 (1878): 571, CtG to Baron F. M. Grimm August 1792. K. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 141.

9 AKV 13: 216–22, A. A. Bezborodko to P. V. Zavadovsky 5 December 1791, Jassy.

10 RGADA 5.85.1.429. L 470, CtG to GAP 3 October 1791.

11 RGADA 5.85.2.304. L 470, CtG to GAP.

12 RGVIA 52.2.22.191. L 470, CtG to GAP October 1791.

13 C. F. P. Masson, Secret Memoirs p 109.

14 The author’s visit to Moldova 1998.

15 RA 1867 A. N. Samoilov, ‘Zhizn i deyania Generala Feld Marshal Knyazya Grigoriya Alexandrovicha Potemkina-Tavricheskogo’ col 1558.

16 Samoilov col 1558.

17 L. N. Engelhardt, Zapiski 1868 p 96.

18 Samoilov col 1558.

19 AKV 13: 216–22, Bezborodko to Zavadovsky 5 December 1791, Jassy.

20 Derzhavin, The Waterfall, in Segal vol 2 p 299.

21 BM 33540 f 296, Jeremy Bentham to Prince P. Dashkov 19/30 July 1786.

22 Masson p 110.

23 Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 6, Prince de Ligne to Comte de Ségur 1 August 1788.

24 Louis Philippe, Comte de Ségur, Mémoires et souvenirs et anecdotes 1859 pp 348–9. Littlepage quoted in Curtis Carroll Davis, The King’s Chevalier p 148.

25 A. S. Pushkin, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniya vol 12 p 177.

26 Lord Byron, Don Juan VII: 41.

27 Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun Souvenirs vol 1 p 324.

28 ZOOID 9 (1875): 461–4.

29 Derzhavin, The Waterfall, in Segal vol 2 p 299.

30 Comte de Stedingk, Un Ambassadeur à la cour de Catherine II, ed Comtesse Brevern de la Gardie, p 186, Stedynk to Gustavus III 28 October 1791.

31 AKV 7: 37 Count Fyodor Rostopchin to Count S. R. Vorontsov 7^th October 1791, Jassy.

32 A. Soldatsky, The Secret of the Prince, ZOOID 9, 360–3.

33 RGVIA 52.2.94.30, V. S. Popov to CtG, Jassy.

34 SIRIO 23: 561, CtG to Grimm.

35 A. V. Khrapovitsky, Dnevnik p 377.

36 Masson p 113.

37 SIRIO 23: 561, CtG to Grimm.

38 Bakunin quoted in Wladimir Weidle, Russia: Absent and Present p 49.

39 Khrapovitsky pp 377–87.

On the history of GAP. The priggish morality and dynastic self-preservation of the Romanovs in the nineteenth century suppressed a real rehabilitation of GAP: the testimonies of contemporaries about his marriage with Catherine could only be published AFTER the 1905 Revolution when the regime was forced to relax its autocracy. The cult of Suvorov, after his campaign against the French and throughout the 19th century and again during the Great Patriotic War, played its role in distorting GAP’s histories. Until Stalin’s death, Soviet histories regarded Potemkin with a mixture of class hatred and Communist primness. His main role in Soviet history was to demonstrate the folly of Imperial whim and to serve as bungling noble fool who ‘often hampered’ the actions of the hero, Suvorov. See the Bolshaia Sovietskaya Encyclopedia volume 46 p 545, published in 1940. Later editions of Istorii SSSR (such as the 1949 edition by Y. I. Belan) follow this line even more since Stalin had made Suvorov an official hero during the war. (One Stalinist historian took a slightly different line, placing Potemkin as a people’s leader like Peter the Great: ‘Potemkin’s name,’ wrote the author of Istoriia SSR volume 1 pages 702/3, S drevneiskykh vremen do kontsa XVIII v., published in Moscow 1939, ‘hated by the aristocrats because of his arbitrariness, became popular among the soldiers, although less than Suvorov’ – naturally. But this was published before WW 2.) Only in the Fifties did historians such as E. I. Druzhinina begin to analyse his career properly. The main researches by authors like V. S. Lopatin and O. I. Yeliseeva have appeared since the downfall of Communism and have returned him to his rightful place.

In the West, from Potemkin’s death right up to today, there has been an endless stream of romantic histories of Catherine and her lover though naturally the outstanding modern Russian specialists such as Marc Raeff, Isabel de Madariaga, J. T. Alexander, and W. Bruce Lincoln have appreciated his special role. Vincent Cronin’s biography of Catherine gives a fair portrait of him while Henri Troyat’s emphasizes his personality. However, the legends of Potemkin are so colourful and strange that they have also affected academic historians. The tendency to treat Potemkin as part-joke, part-legend, about whom the usual rules of history are ignored, shows no sign of abating even in the 1990s. Take two of the most admired modern historians. The quotation is from Professor T. C. W. Blanning, Professor of Modern European History, Cambridge, distinguished authority on Joseph II and the Enlightened Despots, who refers to Potemkin’s bedroom performance in Joseph II Profiles in Power p 176. Norman Davies, Professor of History, School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University of London, repeats the legend of the Potemkin Villages as if it was an undisputed historical fact in Europe: A History p 658.

CHAPTER 1: THE PROVINCIAL BOY

1 RS (1872) 5 p 463: Istoricheskiye rasskazy i anekdoty zapisannyye so slov imenityh lyudey, P. F. Karabanovym (Karabanov).

2 Sergei Alexandrovich Medvedev, a descendant of Mikhail Potemkin who lives in Petersburg, is the source for this information – the issues 1998–2000 ‘About the Potemkin Family’, Nobleman’s Assembly.

3 RGADA 286.413.638–48. Istochnik (1995) no 1 pp 16–25.

4 Prince Emmanuel Golitsyn, Récit du voyage du Pierre Potemkin: la Russie du xvii siècle dans ses rapports avec l’Europe Occidentale pp xxviii, xxix, xxx, xxxi, 255, 305, 370, 262–3, 253. Ironically Prince Emmanuel Golitsyn was the son of Prince Mikhail and Princess Praskovia Andreevna (née Shuvalova), who was allegedly Prince G. A. Potemkin’s last mistress. See Chapter 33.

5 RA 1867 Samoilov col 558; RGADA 286.1.253.691, Spisok voennym chinam 1-oy poloviny 18go stoletiya in Senatski Arkhiv (1895) vol 7.

6 Henri Troyat, Pushkin pp 16–17.

7 RP 5.22 p 221. Local legend: Victor M. Zheludov, ‘Zhivoie dyhanie istorii’

8 Local legend: Zheludov. Author’s visit to Chizhova 1998.

9 RP 5.22 p 221 Karabanov RS 1872 5. p 463 RGADA 286.413.638–48. Istochnik (1995) no 1 pp 16–25. E. Golitsyn pp xxviii, xxix, xxxi, pp. 255, 305, 270, 262, 263, 253.

10 William Coxe, Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark p 343.

11 Masson pp 303.

12 Engelhardt 1863 p 3.

13 F. F. Wiegel, Zapiski Filipa Filipovich Vigela 1864–6 vol 1 pp 21–2.

14 Martha Elena married Colonel Vasily A. Engelhardt; Pelageya married Peter E. Vysotsky; Daria married Alexander A. Likachev; Nadezhda died without marrying aged nineteen in 1757; and Maria married Nikolai B. Samoilov.

15 Isabel de Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History pp 14–15.

16 I. I. Orlovsky, In the Motherland of His Highness pp 1–20. Local research in Chizhova by author 1998.

17 Masson pp 303.

18 L. Zayev, ‘Motherland of Prince Potemkin’, IV (1899) no 2 pp 169–200. Orlovsky p 4. S. N. Shubinsky, Historical Essays and Stories p 144.

19 Margravine of Anspach (Lady Craven), Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople p 142, 21 February 1786, St Petersburg. Madariaga, CtG: A Short History pp 13–20. E. V. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 43–4 and 75–83. Shcherbatov quoted in Anisimov pp 77–8.

20 Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great pp 79–80.

21 Anspach, Journey p 142, 21 February 1786 St Petersburg. Madariaga, CtG: A Short History pp 13–20. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 43–4 and 75–83. Shcherbatov quoted in Anisimov pp 77–8.

22 Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 43.

23 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 pp 192–3. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 43–4 and 75–83.

24 Reginald Pole Carew, ‘Manners and Customs’, Cornwall County Archive, Antony, CO/R/2/3. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 65, Ligne to Coigny.

25 Masson p 318. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 43–4 and 75–83. Catherine quoted in Anisimov p 76. Shcherbatov quoted in Anisimov p 77.

26 John LeDonne, Ruling Russia p 189. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 75–9.

27 Local research in Chizhova by the author 1998.

28 Anspach, Journey p 154, 9 March 1786. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 69, Ligne to Coigny letter IX, 1787.

29 RS (1875) vols 12–14. M. I. Semevsky, Prince G. A. Potemkin-Tavrichesky p 487. Karabanov p 46.

30 Semevsky, GAPT pp 486–8. Karabanov p 463. RA (1882) no 2 pp 91–5, papers of Count A. N. Samoilov. Metropolitan Platon to Count A. N. Samoilov 26 February 1792; p 93, GAP to Metropolitan Platon; Priest Antip Matveev to P. V. Lopukhin.

31 RGADA 286.413.638–48. Istochnik (1995) no 1 pp 16–25.

32 V. I. Ustinov, ‘Moguchiy velikoross’, VIZ (1991) no 12 p 701.

33 D. I. von Vizin, Sobraniye sochineniya vol 2 pp 87–93.

34 N. F. Shahmagonov, Hrani Gospod’ Potemkina pp 8–9.

35 Semevsky, GAPT pp 486–8. Shahmagonov pp 8–9. B. I. Krasnobaev, Russian Culture in the Second Part of the Eighteenth Century and at the Start of the Nineteenth p 143.

36 Anspach, Journey p 133, 18 February 1786.

37 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 p 192.

38 Memoirs of CtG 1955 p 60. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 216–17.

39 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 186. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 168–9 and 176–7.

40 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 124, 150. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 168–9.

41 Pushkin, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniya 8: part one, 1948, s 2 p 42. Gosti s’ekhalis na Dachu.

42 Marquis de Custine quoted in Weidle p 39. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 26–7 and 144.

43 L. W. B. Brockliss, ‘Concluding Remarks: The Anatomy of the Minister-Favourite’, in J. H. Elliott and L. W. B. Brockliss (eds), The World of the Favourite pp 278–303.

44 Shahmagonov pp 8–9.

45 Adam Czartoryski, Memoirs p 87. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 24.

46 Princess Dashkova, Memoirs vol 1 p 318.

47 J. Cook, Voyages and Travels through the Russian Empire vol 1 p 42.

48 Masson p 206. A. S. Pushkin, The Captain’s Daughter p 190.

49 D. Thiébault, Mes souvenirs de vingt ans séjour à Berlin vol 2 p 78. Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Athens Penguin Classics edn, pp 245–87. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Penguin Classics edn, pp 375–8, 382–4, 400–87, 544–78, 583–604. Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlon and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History p 303.

50 Semevsky, GAPT pp 488–9. Krasnobaev, p 223.

51 AAE (Quai d’Orsay) 20: 60, Comte de Langeron.

52 SIRIO 72: 209–10, Count Solms to FtG 27 July 1772.

53 Czartoryski p 87. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 24.

54 Mémoires du roi Stanislas-Auguste (SA) vol 1 pp 136–7. CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 240–50.

CHAPTER 2: THE GUARDSMAN AND THE GRAND DUCHESS: CATHERINE’S COUP

1 This account of Catherine’s life up to the coup is based on Catherine’s own Memoirs, Anisimov’s Empress Elisabeth, pp 230–45, Madariaga’s Russia pp 1–30 and J. T. Alexander Catherine the Great: Life and Legend pp 17–60.

2 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 87.

3 Alexander, CtG pp 32–3.

4 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 182, 101.

5 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 114–15, 141. See Chancellor A. Bestuzhev’s instructions to Grand Duke Peter on his rudeness and silliness quoted in Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 234–5. Alexander, CtG pp 42–3.

6 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 118.

7 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 196, 200, 161.

8 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 225.

9 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 211.

10 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 301. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 242–3.

11 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 240. Madariaga, Russia pp 15–37. Alexander, CtG pp 1–4, 55–60.

12 SA, Mémoires vol 1 p 42.

13 Derek McKay and H. M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers 1648–1815 pp 181–92. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 109–16 and 244–5. Adam Zamoyski, The Last King of Poland pp 54–66.

14 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 288.

15 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 307–9.

16 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 310.

17 PRO SPF 91/82, Charles, Lord Cathcart 29 December 1769, St Petersburg.

18 Anspach, Journey p 145, 29 February 1786.

19 Sabatier, French diplomat, in 1772, quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 124.

20 Baroness Elisabeth Dimsdale, English Lady at the Court of Catherine the Great, ed Anthony Cross p 54, 27 August 1781.

21 Sir Horace Walpole, 14 November 1775, quoted in Anthony Cross, By the Banks of the Thames.

22 Durand de Distroff, French chargé d’affaires, quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 129.

23 Semevsky, GAPT pp 488–9. Krasnobaev, p 223. Madariaga, Russia pp 15–17.

24 CtG, Memoirs 1955 ‘Last Thoughts of HIM Elisabeth Petrovna’ pp 329–38 is the major source for this account of the death of the Empress Elisabeth. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 245–8. Also Philip Longworth, The Three Empresses pp 228–9, Robert Coughlan, Elisabeth and Catherine pp 172–4.

25 Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 241, 242–3, 245–8. Catherine II’s letter to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams quoting from Count Stanislas Poniatowski’s letter to herself is cited in Anisimov, pp 240–1. General Lieven is quoted in CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 267.

26 CtG, ‘Last Thoughts of HIM Elisabeth Petrovna’ pp 329–38. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 26–7.

27 M. Semevsky, ‘Shest mesyatsev iz russkoy istorii XVIII veka. Ocherk tsarstvovaniya Imperatora Petra III 1761–2’, OZ vol 173 p 161. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth pp 242–3, 245–8. FtG quoted in David Fraser, Frederick the Great p 457/8.

28 Dashkova p 45.

29 CtG, ‘Last Thoughts of HIM Elisabeth Petrovna’ p 331.

30 CtG, ‘Last Thoughts of HIM Elisabeth Petrovna’ pp 329–38.

31 PSZ xv no 11, 445, 21 February 1762; PSZ xv no 11, 444, 18 February 1762; PSZ xv no 11, 481, 21 March 1762; PSZ xv no 11, 538, 18 May 1762.

32 RA (1907) 11, pp 130–2.

33 Krasnobaev, pp 488–9.

34 PSZ xv no 11, 445, 21 February 1762; PSZ xv no 11, 444, 18 February 1762; PSZ xv no 11, 481, 21 March 1762; PSZ xv, no 11, 538, 18 May 1762.

35 Soloviev vol 13 p 73, quoted in Madariaga, Russia p 25.

36 Dashkova pp 78–9.

37 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 341–9; CtG to Stanislas Poniatowski 2 August 1762.

38 General Baron von Ungern-Sternberg in Masson p 137.

39 The main sources for this account of the coup are Catherine’s own Memoirs particularly her letter to Stanislas Poniatowski dated 2 August 1762 and also published in SA, Mémoires, vol 1 p 377. CtG, Memoirs, also in CtG, Sochineniya imperatritsy Ekaterina II ed A. N. Pypin, vol 12 p 547. See also Dashkova pp 74–80. SIRIO 12 (1873): 2–4, Robert Keith to Mr Grenville, 1 July/12 July 1762, St Petersburg. Madariaga, Russia pp 21–37. Alexander, CtG pp 5–16.

40 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 341–2.

41 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 343, CtG to SA.

42 RA (1867) 4 pp 482–6. CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 343, CtG to SA 2 August 1762.

43 Prince M. M. Shcherbatov, On the Corruption of Morals in Russia p 229.

44 Dashkova p 74.

45 Dashkova pp 45–6.

46 A. F. von der Asseburg, Denkwürdigkeiten pp 316–17.

47 David L. Ransel, The Politics of Catherinian Russia: The Panin Party pp 11–20, 65.

48 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 341–9, CtG to Poniatowski 2 August 1762.

49 Dashkova p 74.

50 Dashkova pp 78–80.

51 Reginald Pole Carew, Russian anecdotes in the Antony Archive CO/R/3/92, unpublished. These anecdotes are clearly based on the Englishman’s conversations with the eminent Russians he met during his long stay in 1781: he spent the most time with GAP, riding round in his carriage visiting his estates and factories. He probably heard these stories of the coup from GAP himself. The story of GAP riding on Catherine’s carriages with Vasily Bibikov places GAP during these hours for the first time.

52 Pole Carew, Russian anecdotes, Antony Archive CO/R/3/62.

53 RA (1867) 4 pp 482–6, Horse-Guards in June 1762.

54 CtG to S. Poniatowski 2 August 1762, CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 343.

55 Dashkova p 80.

56 Dashkova pp 80–1.

57 Alexander, CtG pp 10–11. Madariaga, Russia p 31.

CHAPTER 3: THE EMPRESS’S RECKLESS SUITOR

1 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 pp 348–9.

2 Jean-Henri Castera, The Life of Catherine II vol 2 p 269. One of the first biographies of CtG published in 1798, there is much debate on how much was added by its translator Tooke and its sources. Samoilov cols 597–8. Engelhardt 1868 p 42.

3 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 pp 348–9.

4 Anonymous, Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 16–17. This translation of Cerenville, and adaption of Helbig tells the legends current about GAP during his lifetime. (It is not a fake autobiography of GAP.)

5 Ustinov pp 70–8.

6 R. Nisbet Bain, Peter III p 160, quoted in Alexander, CtG p 11.

7 Asseburg p 315. Ustinov pp 70–8.

8 V. A. Bilbasov, Istoriya Ekateriny II vol 2 p 74.

9 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 341–9, letter to S. Poniatowski 2 August 1762.

10 Dashkova pp 80–107.

11 SIRIO 7: 108–20. SIRIO 42: 475, 480.

12 RA (1867) 4 pp 482–6.

13 Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 245.

14 O. A. Ivanov, ‘Tayna Pisma Alexyey Orlova iz Ropshi’, Moskovskiy zhurnal (1995) no 9 p 15. Ivanov has cast serious doubts on the famous ‘third letter’ from A. G. Orlov to CtG confessing to the killing of Peter III in a drunken brawl and implicating Prince Fyodor Bariatinsky. Also CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 350.

15 Moskovskiy zhurnal (1995) no 9 p 18. AKV 21: 89. CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 351.

16 Dashkova p 107. Countess V. N. Golovina, Souvenirs p 37.

17 Alexander, CtG p 15.

18 S. M. Soloviev, Istoriy rossii s drevneyshikh vremyon vol 13 pp 114–15.

19 P. Morane, Paul I pp 57–8. Also Arthur M. Wilson, Diderot, quoted in Alexander, CtG p 14. GAP later himself told the Comte de Ségur that Dsahkova overreached herself with her haughtiness and irritated CtG (Ségur 1825–7 vol 2 p 228).

20 RGADA 268.890.291–4 Geroldmeysterskaya contora (Heraldic Office).

21 RA (1867) 4 pp 482–6. Information about Horse-Guards in June 1762. See also I. Annenkov, History of the Cavalry Guards Regiment. Alexander, CtG p 64.

22 Thiébault vol 2 p 78. RA (1907) 11 pp 130–1, legend about Prince Potemkin-Tavrichevsky. Krasnobaev, p 489. For Potemkin’s talent for mimicry, see SIRIO 26 (1879): 315. Marchese de Parelo, Despatches. Derzhavin, The Waterfall, in Segal vol 2 p 302. Samoilov cols 597–8. Engelhardt 1868 p 42.

23 Sochineniya vol 12 pp 546–63, CtG to S. Poniatowski 9 August, 12 September, 27 December 1762. (See also Memoirs 1955).

24 SIRIO 7: 162. Alexander, CtG pp 67–8. Madariaga, CtG: A Short History, pp 137–8. Madariaga, Russia pp 559–60.

25 Ransel, Politics p 79.

26 SIRIO 7: 206.

27 CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 p 559, CtG to S. Poniatowski.

28 Ransel, Politics pp 111–15.

29 AKV 31: 260–72, Mikhail L. Vorontsov to Alexander R. Vorontsov 8 December 1763 and 9 March 1764.

30 Masson pp. 331–2.

31 Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 86.

32 AXC 798 f527, S. Poniatowski to CtG 2 November 1763. SA, Mémoires p 33.

33 Madariaga, Russia pp 33–7, 187–204. Alexander, CtG pp 61–76. Ransel, Politics pp 104–11. Zamoyski, Last King of Poland pp 61–100.

34 Baron de Breteuil quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 pp 96–7. Bilbasov, Istoriya vol 2 p 281.

35 Ransel, Politics pp 116–27. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 pp 96–7.

36 Legend, for example, recounted in Great Moscow Guide p 318.

37 Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 200. Anisimov quotes the story of S. S. Uvarov that A. G. Razumovsky responded to Catherine’s desire to avoid marriage to G. G. Orlov.

38 Henry Troyat, Catherine the Great p 175.

39 BM Add MS 15,875, Sir George (later Earl) Macartney to Lady Holland February 1766.

40 Philip Mansel, Le Charmeur d’Europe p 141.

41 G. Casanova, History of my Life vol 10, ch 7 p 141.

42 Mansel, Charmeur p 96.

43 Casanova, vol 10 ch 7 p 14.

44 Chevalier de Corberon, Un Diplomat français à la cour de Catherine II vol 2 p 95, 13 January 1777.

45 Macartney to Lady Holland (see note 39).

46 Prince de Ligne, Fragments vol 1 pp 101–2.

47 O. I. Yeliseeva, Perepiska Ekateriny II i G. A. Potemkina perioda vtoroy russko-turetskoy voyny 1787–91 p 23, CtG to P. V. Zavadovsky.

48 RA (1877), vol 1 p 468 Count A. I. Ribeaupierre, Zapiski grafa Ribopera.

49 V. O. Kliuchevsky, Empress Catherine p 307.

50 Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 45, Ligne to CtG

51 CtG’s remarks to V. Popov in N. Shilder, Imperator Aleksandr I vol 1 pp 279–80.

52 Comte Roger de Damas, Mémoires p 99.

53 Shcherbatov p 237.

CHAPTER 4: CYCLOPS

1 Pushkin Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniya vol 12 p 177, GAP to S. Sheshkovsky. See also Georg von Helbig, ‘Russkiye izbranniye i sluchainye liudi’, RS 56 (10) 1887 p 24.

2 CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 355–7, CtG Frank Confession to GAP 1774. GARF 728.1.425.1–5. Also CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9.

3 CtG’s correspondence with F. M. Grimm and others is to be found in SIRIO 23.

4 SIRIO 23. See above.

5 Casanova vol 10 ch 7 p 139.

6 Castera vol 2 pp 370–5.

7 Castera vol 2 p 401. Philip Mansel, Pillars of Monarchy p 31.

8 Casanova vol 10 ch 7 pp 101–5.

9 CtG, Memoirs 1955 Autobiographical Fragments pp 358–9, The Masked Ball.

10 Joseph II und Graf Ludwig Cobenzl, ed A. Beer and J. Fiedler (B&F), vol 1 p 16, Cobenzl to Joseph II 5 May 1780. Coxe vol 2 p 97.

11 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 194.

12 John Parkinson, A Tour of Russia, Siberia and the Crimea p 211.

13 Quoted from T. Livanova, Russkaya muzkal’naya kultura XVIII veka vol 2 p 406, in Madariaga, Russia p 329.

14 Shcherbatov p 237.

15 SIRIO 19 (1876): 297, Sir Robert Gunning to Earl of Suffolk 28 July/8 August 1772.

16 Ransel, Politics p 76. SIRIO 12: 202–3, Sir George Macartney to Earl of Sandwich 18 March 1765.

17 Krasnobaev p 490.

18 K. L. Blum, Ein russischer Staatsman, Countess Sievers to Count Ya. Sievers 17 April 1774, quoted in A. G. Brückner, Potemkin p 26.

19 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 17.

20 Samoilov cols 597–8.

21 Saint-Jean, Lebensbeschreibung des Gregor Alexandrowitsch Potemkin des Tauriers, translator’s preface, and chs 1–12; Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 pp 114, 146. Semevsky, GAPT p 490.

22 RGADA 18.202.2–3. Bishop Porphiry, ‘Information’, ZOOID 13: 187–8. Semevesky, GAPT pp 490–1.

23 Porphiry pp 187–8.

24 Samoilov cols 602–3.

25 Byron, Don Juan, Canto IX: 84.

26 Saint-Jean ch 1–12. RS (1872) 5 p 466, Family information about Prince Potemkin. Semevsky, GAPT p 493.

27 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 20; Krasnobaev p 490.

28 Castera vol 2 p 270. Semevsky, GAPT p 493.

29 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin, p 20.

30 CtG’s Frank Confession pp 355–6. Semevsky, GAPT p 492–3 GARF 728.1.425.1–5. CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9, CtG to GAP March 1774. SIRIO 26 (1879): 309–10. The Sardinian envoy Marquis de Parelo claims that GAP went to an occult hierophant to try to save his eye.

31 Samoilov cols 602–3.

32 RS (1872) 5 p 466, Family information about Prince Potemkin. RGADA 1.85.1.343, L 11, CII to GAP. Catherine here in early 1774 tells GAP that G. Orlov always spoke well of him.

33 Bilbasov, Istoriya vol 2 pp 519–21.

34 RS (1872) 5 p 466, family information about of Prince Potemkin. Saint-Jean chs 1–12. Semevsky, GAPT p 493.

35 Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 38.

36 Krasnobaev p 491. Saint-Jean chs 1–12. Countess Elisabeth Razumov Skaya was later placed in a monastery by her father following her secret marriage to Count Peter Apraxin. GAP interceded on her behalf with K. G. Razumovsky. Semevsky, GAPT pp 492–3.

37 Earl of Buckinghamshire, Despatches and Correspondence vol 2 p 232.

38 Soloviev vol 14 pp 48–9 quoted in Madariaga, Russia, pp 139–50.

39 Alexander, CtG pp 103–15; Madariaga, Russia pp 139–50.

40 Kazan University 17.262.3–2300, 25–2708/56–5705.

41 This account of the Commission is based on Madariaga, Russia pp 139–83, and Alexander, CtG pp 100–2, 112–20.

42 RGADA 268.890.291–4, Geroldmeysterskaya contora (Heraldic Office).

CHAPTER 5: THE WAR HERO

1 RGADA 5.85.1.210, L 5, GAP to CII 24 May 1769. At the flat of Prince Prozorovsky.

2 N. F. Dubrovin, Pugachev and his Henchmen vol 2 p 403, CII to Count Z. G. Chernyshev 23 June 1769.

3 Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes vol 58 p 39, CII to Voltaire 4/15 August 1769.

4 Christopher Duffy, Russia’s Military Way to the West pp 130–6.

5 SIRIO 54 (1886): 161.

6 RS (1895) 83 pp 199–200, Comte de Langeron, quoted in Duffy, Russia’s Military Way p 125.

7 Frederick the Great, Oeuvres vol 23 p 89, quoted in Giles MacDonogh, Frederick the Great p 299.

8 Duffy, Russia’s Military Way pp 130–6. Russian official salaries are from LeDonne, Ruling Russia pp 363–4.

9 AAE 20: 1, 88. Hereafter, the Comte de Langeron’s ‘Journal de campagnes faites au service de Russie par comte de Langeron Général en chef’, and his other essays in the Quai d’Orsay, Archives des Affaires Etrangères are referred to as an AAE volume number.

10 Duffy, Russia’s Military Way p 135.

11 RGADA 268.890.291–4, Geroldmeysterskaya contora (Heraldic Office).

12 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin, p 25.

13 Quoted in P. B. Bartenev, ‘Biografi generalissimov i general-feld-marshalov Rossiyskoy Imperatorskoy armii’, Voenno-istorichesheskiy sbornik (1911) vol 4 p 14.

14 Langeron, AAE 20: 14, Russian army and the Turkish army.

15 Langeron, AAE 20: 14–15.

16 Wiegel vol 1 p 80 (1864–6).

17 Masson 1859 p 149, quoted in Duffy, Russia’s Military Way p 169.

18 RGADA 11.1.267.127 (reverse), GAP to P. A. Rumiantsev.

19 SeA, St Petersburg (1826) p 164, Rumiantsev to CII 14 November 1775, Moscow.

20 CHOIDR 1865 book 2, part 2 pp 2–3.

21 SeA (1826) pp 164–71, Rumiantsev to CII 14 November 1775, Moscow.

22 Semevsky, GAPT p 494.

23 Lord Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries pp 394–5.

24 Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 8, Prince de Ligne to Comte de Ségur 1 August 1788, and vol 2 pp 10, 11, 12–13, September 1788. GAP on Turkish tactics from the Comte de Ségur Memoirs 1960 pp 268–9.

25 SeA (1826) pp 164–71, Rumiantsev to CII 14 November 1775, Moscow. RGADA 1.43.11.1–1, GAP to CII 21 August 1770.

26 Semevsky, GAPT p 494.

27 SeA (1826) pp 164–71, Rumiantsev to CII 14 November 1775, Moscow. RGADA 268.890.291–4. Geroldmeysterskaya contora (Heraldic Office).

28 Kinross p 400.

29 Baron de Tott quoted in Kinross p 401.

30 Voltaire vol 58 p 96, CII to Voltaire 16/27 September 1770, St Petersburg.

31 Voltaire vol 58 p 91, Voltaire to CII 14 September 1770, Ferney; p 102, Voltaire to CII 25 October 1770, Ferney.

32 CHOIDR (1865) book 2 pp 111–13, Rumiantsev to CtG 1771.

33 KFZ January–April 1771.

34 Semevsky, GAPT p 496. RGADA 1.85.1.209, L 10, CII to GAP ud. Usually dated in February 1774, this may date from 1771/2, which might also fit. If so, it was now that Catherine came to visit Potemkin and waited outside his room for two hours, behaviour that might suggest that they were on the verge of beginning a relationship. It would be ‘crazy’ enough behaviour for an Orlov ally to warn her that these were dangerous antics for an empress.

35 Starina i Novizna (1879) vol 1 p 283, G. G. Orlov to P. A. Rumiantsev.

36 SeA (1826) pp 164–71, Rumiantsev to CII 14 November 1775, Moscow.

37 Samoilov col 1002. GAP’s letters to Zaporogian Ataman 15 April and 25 May 1772 quoted from A. Skalkovsky, The History of the New Sech or the Last Zaporogian Kosh vol 3 pp 127–9.

38 AKV 32: 74. AKV 8: 1–38, S. R. Vorontsov to F. Rostopchin 18/29 October 1796.

39 Alexander, CtG pp 160–1. Madariaga, Russia pp 211–13.

40 Madariaga, Russia pp 213–14. Alexander, CtG pp 154–61. Voltaire vol 58 p 102, Voltaire to CII 25 October 1770, Ferney.

41 SIRIO 13: 258–61.

42 Madariaga, Russia p 259. Alexander, CtG p 165.

43 Ribbing to Swedish Chancellery President 13 July 1772. Svenska Riksarkivet (Sra) Collection Muscovitica 356 no 29, quoted in Ransel, Politics p 293.

44 GARF 728.425.1–5. CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9, Frank Confession, CtG to GAP, 21 February 1774. CtG, Memoirs 1955 pp 355–7.

45 RGADA 5.85.1.370, L 8, CII to GAP ud, February 1774. Again, the letter mentioned earlier on his first return from the army in 1771 would also fit for this visit in 1772.

46 Samoilov cols 1004–16.

47 Madariaga, Russia pp 258–9. Alexander, CtG pp 135–7.

48 CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9, CtG to GAP, Frank Confession.

49 SIRIO 13: 270–2. SIRIO 19: 325.

50 RGADA 5.85.1.370, L 8, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

51 AKV 32: 165, S. R. Vorontsov to A. R. Vorontsov 9 February 1774.

52 AKV 32: 165, S. R. Vorontosov to A. R. Vorontsov 11 June 1773.

53 RS (1889) 9 pp 481–517, notes of Prince Yury Vladimirovich Dolgoruky. Dolgoruky’s memoirs contain elements of fantasy. For attitudes to GAP in army see Lopatin’s essay in Perepiska pp 500–502 and M. V. Muromtsev to A. I. Bibikov from Silistria in A. A. Bibikov, Zapiski o zhiznoi i sluzhbe Alexandra Ilicha Bibikova.

54 Voltaire vol 58 p 231, CII to Voltaire 19/30 June 1773.

55 SeA (1826) pp 164–71, Rumiantsev to CtG 14 November 1775, Moscow.

56 RGADA 5.85.1.119, L 7, CII to GAP 4 December 1773.

57 RS, notes of Dolgoruky. See note 53.

58 RS, notes of Dolgoruky. See note 53.

59 Quoted in J. T. Alexander, Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: The Imperial Russian Government and Pugachev’s Revolt p 85 as RGADA 6.527.32, Platon Liubasy to N. N. Bantysh-Kamenskiy 18 December 1773.

CHAPTER 6: THE HAPPIEST MAN ALIVE

1 Samoilov col 1016.

2 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 356, Frank Confession, CII to GAP.

3 Saint-Jean pp 1–10.

4 Michael B. Petrovich, ‘Catherine II and a Fake Peter III in Montenegro’ p 169. Also Madariaga, Russia p 210.

5 General information in this account of the Pugachev Rebellion is based, unless references are given, on A. S. Pushkin’s Istoriya Pugacheva, his novella The Captain’s Daughter and J. T. Alexander’s two books on the subject – Emperor of the Cossacks: Pugachev and the Frontier Jacquerie of 1773–75, and Autocratic Politics pp 1–10. Also Madariaga, Russia pp 239–55.

6 Pushkin, Captain’s Daughter p 245.

7 Alexander, Autocratic Politics pp 175–6.

8 Ransel, Politics pp 241–50. SIRIO 19: 399–400.

9 Ransel, Politics pp 241–50. Alexander, CtG pp 166–7. Madariaga, Russia pp 261–2. SIRIO 19: 325–7, Sir Thomas Gunning to Suffolk 27 September/8 October 1772, and SIRIO 19: 401, 4/25 February 1774.

10 Supposedly CtG to Madame Geoffrin. Much published since but the original letter is unknown.

11 Ségur, Mémoires 1827 vol 3 p 37, CtG to Ségur 1785.

12 Quoted in Alexander, CtG p 173.

13 Alexander, CtG pp 166–7. Madariaga, Russia pp 260–1.

14 Robert B. Asprey, Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma p 600.

15 Engelhardt 1868 pp 42–3. Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 27. Saint-Jean pp 1–12.

16 GARF 728.1.425.1–5, CtG to GAP March 1774. CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9.

17 Masson p 108.

18 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 27.

19 Engelhardt 1868 pp 42–3.

20 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 27.

21 GARF 728.1.425.1–5. CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9, CtG to GAP March 1774.

22 KFZ 4 February 1774.

23 RGADA 1.85.1.277, L 7, CII to GAP ud, February 1774. The basic source for the letters between CII and GAP is V. S. Lopatin’s Perepiska but in various cases, the author has also used the originals. Hence references give both the place of document and its page in Lopatin’s Perepiska as ‘L’ plus page number.

24 RGADA 5.85.1.342, L 7, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

25 RGADA 1.85.1.208, L 8, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

26 RGADA 5.85.1.370, L 8, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

27 RGADA 5.1/1.1.213, L 14, CII to GAP ud, February/March 1774.

28 RGADA 5.85.1.292, L 56, CII to GAP ud.

29 RGADA 5.85.1.370, L 8, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

30 RGADA 5.85.1.370, L 8, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

31 RGADA 5.85.1.137, L 10, CII to GAP ud, February 1774.

32 Alexander Vassilchikov to French chargé d’affaires, quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 145.

33 RA (1873) 2 pp 123–5. A. P. Barsukov, Knyaz Grigory Grigorevich Orlov p 127. Count Solms to FtG 25 March 1774.

34 SPBII 238.276a.7426.1/1, L 11, GAP to CII 27 February 1774.

35 RGADA 1263.1.7713.3, L 13, CII to GAP 28 February 1774.

36 SIRIO 19 (1876): 405.

37 RA (1873) no 2 pp 123–5, Count Solms to FtG 7 and 18 March 1774.

38 Frederick the Great, Politische Correspondenz 1879–1939 35 p 215 30 March 1774.

39 RA (1873) 2 p 125. Barsukov, Orlov. Count Solms to FtG 7 March 1774.

40 RS (1873) 8.9 p 342, General-Count P. I. Panin to Prince A. B. Kurakin 7 March 1774.

41 RA (1873) 2 p 125. Barsukov, Orlov. Count Solms to FtG 7 March 1774.

42 Brückner, Potemkin pp 26–7, quoting from Blum, Ein russischer Staatsman, Countess Sievers to Count Sievers 31 March 1774.

43 Countess E. M. Rumiantseva, Pisma k ee muzhu grafu P. A. Rumiantsevu-Zadunayskomu 1762–1779 pp 179–81. See also: RA (1866) p 396 for General A. I. Bibakov’s enthusiastic reaction to GAP’s rise.

44 SIRIO 27: 52.

CHAPTER 7: LOVE

1 The descriptions of GAP are based on G. Lampi’s unfinished portrait in the Hermitage. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 145. Stedingk p 98, J. J. Jennings to Fronce 17 March NS 1791. Also see the print of GAP as captain of the Chevaliers-Gardes, painter unknown. Thanks to V. S. Lopatin.

2 SIRIO 19 (1876) 405.

3 RA (1873) 2 pp 123 and 125, Count Solms to FII 4 and 7 March 1774.

4 Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 145.

5 Comte de Ségur, Memoirs, ed Gerard Shelley p 186.

6 Nathaniel Wraxall, Some of the Northern Parts of Europe p 201.

7 AAE 11: 297, 1773.

8 RGADA 5.85.1.145, L 54. RGADA 5.85.1.352, L130.

9 RGADA 5.85.1.133, L 15.

10 RGADA 1.1/1.54.44, L 61.

11 RGADA 1.1/1.54.105, L 62.

12 Blum quoted in Brückner, Potemkin pp 25–6. Countess Sievers to Count Sievers 28 April 1774.

13 RGADA 5.85.1.252, L 48.

14 Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Pamietniki czasow moich p 80.

15 RA (1877) 1 p 479 Ribeaupierre. SIRIO 23 (1878): 84, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 2/4 March 1778.

16 CII’s rules for the Little Hermitage: Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 153.

17 SIRIO 23 (1878): 7, CII to Grimm 30 August 1774.

18 RGADA 5.85.1.382, L 59.

19 SIRIO 23 (1878): 3, CII to Grimm 19 June 1774.

20 RGADA 1.1/1.54.4, L 14.

21 SIRIO 23 (1878): 4, CII to Grimm 3 August 1774.

22 RGADA 5.85.1.150, L 94.

23 RGADA 1.1/1.54.42, L 18.

24 RGADA 1.1/1.54.6, L 24.

25 RGADA 1.85.1.209, L 10.

26 K. K. Rotikov Drugoy Peterburg pp 103–4.

27 RGADA 5.85.1.326, L 60.

28 RGADA 1.1/1.54.7, L 18. GAP’s song to CtG, ‘As soon as I beheld you’, contains the line: ‘Thy lovely eyes captivated me’. Masson p 108.

29 RGADA 5.85.1.343, L 11.

30 RGADA 1.1/1.54.16, L 15.

31 RGADA 5.85.1.253, L 44.

32 RGADA 1.1/1.54.12, L 23.

33 RGADA 5.85.1.343, L 11.

34 RGADA 5.85.1.133, L 15.

35 RGADA 5.85.1.343, L 12.

36 RGADA 5.85.1.150, L 94.

37 RGADA 5.85.1.347, L 57.

38 RGADA 5.85.1.144, L 64.

39 RGADA 1.1/1.1.213, L 14.

40 RGADA 1.1/1.54.27, L 32.

41 RGADA 5.85.1.226, L 37.

42 RGADA 5.85.1.172, L 87.

43 RGADA 5.85.1.160, L53.

44 RGADA 1.1/1.54.3, L 87.

45 RGADA 5.85.1.226, L 37.

46 RGADA 1.1/1.54.11, L 27.

47 RGADA 5.85.1.313, L 59.

48 RGADA 10.1/1.54.19, L 16. SIRIO 13: 398.

49 RGADA 5.85.1.255, L 17.

50 RGADA 1.1/1.54.14, L 93.

51 RGADA 1.1/1.54.17, L 26.

52 GARF 728.1.425.1–5. CtG, Sochineniya vol 12 pp 697–9, CII to GAP.

CHAPTER 8: POWER

1 Unless specified, for the sources of general information about the Pugachev Rebellion, see Chapter 6, note 5. Masson p 108.

2 RGADA 5.85.1.213, L 14.

3 RGADA 1.1/1.1.213, L 14.

4 RGADA 1.85.1.209, L 10.

5 RGADA 1.85.1.343, L 11–12.

6 RGVIA 52.1.72.336.

7 Rumiantseva pp 179–80, Countess E. M. Rumiantseva to Count P. A. Rumiantsev.

8 Castera vol 2 p 401. Rumiantseva pp 179–80.

9 Brückner, Potemkin p 26 Count Sievers 17 April 1774.

10 RA (1873) 2 p 125, Solms to FII 7 March 1774. Mansel, Pillars of Monarchy pp 31, 93.

11 RGADA 5.85.1.207, L 14.

12 Rumiantseva pp 180–1.

13 Rumiantseva pp 179–80.

14 RGVIA 52.1.72.336.

15 RGADA 5.85.1.15, L 16.

16 RGADA 5.85.1.410, L 22.

17 RA (1873) p 126, Solms to FII 18 March 1774. Rumiantseva p 183, 8 April 1774.

18 Khrapovitsky 30 May 1786. Rumiantseva p 183, 18 April 1774.

19 Durand de Distroff quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 146.

20 Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône p 146.

21 RGADA 1.1/1.54.64, L 27.

22 SIRIO 5: 413, Sir Robert Gunning to Suffolk.

23 RGADA 5.85.1.12, L 29. Dubrovin, Pugachev vol 3 pp 47–9.

24 Madariaga, Russia p 249.

25 RGADA 5.85.1.299, L 30.

26 SIRIO 19: 406, Gunning to Suffolk 10/21 June 1774.

27 E. P. Karnovich, Zamechatelnyye bogatstva chastnykh v Rossii pp 265–7.

28 RGADA 1.1/1.54.25, L 25.

29 AKV 10: 110, S. R. Vorontsov 12/24 July 1801, London. The procurement of these medals was given priority by Catherine and ministers. For example, CII herself wrote to Gustavus III of Sweden about GAP’s Order of Seraphim (see SIRIO (1914) 145: 96), and on 12 March 1774 Nikita Panin ordered the Russian Ambassador to Poland, Otto-Magnus Stackelberg, to ask King Stanislas-Augustus to give GAP the White Eagle (see SIRIO (1911) 135: 68).

30 RGADA 1.1/1.54.22, L 30. SIRIO 19: 406, Gunning to Suffolk.

31 RGADA 5.85.1.143, L 31.

32 GARF 728.1.416.40, L 34. AGS: 1 part 1 p 452, St Petersburg.

33 Alexander CtG pp 176–8. Madariaga, Russia pp 249–51. Russkiy Biographicheskiy Slovar vol 14 (1904), Count P. S. Potemkin.

34 AGS: 1 p 454.

35 E. S. Shumigorsky, Imperator Pavel i zhizn i tsartsvovaniye p 23. G. Derzhavin, Sochineniya vol 5 Zapiski p 498.

36 SIRIO 6: 74–6, 22 July 1774.

37 RGADA 5.85.1.3/3.

38 XVIII Century book 1 (1868) p 112.

39 SIRIO 6: 88–9, Count N. I. Panin to Count P. I. Panin ud.

40 SIRIO 6: 74–6, N. I. Panin to P. I. Panin 22 June 1774. SIRIO 6: 86–9, N. I. Panin to P. I. Panin. RGADA 1274 Paniny-Bludovy op 1.3.3383, GAP to P. I. Panin.

41 SIRIO 13: 421, 29 July 1774. SIRIO 13: 427–8. SIRIO 6: 81, 29 July 1774.

42 Dubrovin, Pugachev vol 3 p 254.

43 RS (1870) October p 410.

44 Pugachevshchina (iz arkhiva P. I. Panina) p 39, GAP to P. I. Panin 4 October 1774.

45 Alexander, Autocratic Politics p 195.

46 V. V. Mavrodin, Krestyanskaya voyna v Rossiya vol 3 p 403. Madariaga, Russia pp 265–6. Alexander, Autocratic Politics.

47 SIRIO 13: 446–7.

48 Alexander, Autocratic Politics pp 184–6.

49 SIRIO 6: 117, P. I. Panin to CII.

50 Mavrodin vol 3 p 434.

51 Madariaga, Russia p 266.

52 RGADA 5.85.3.80, CII to GAP 13 October 1774.

53 Madariaga, Russia p 268. Philip Longworth, The Cossacks p 222.

54 CII to P. S. Potemkin 27 September 1774, quoted in Alexander, Autocratic Politics p 197.

55 RGADA 5.85.1.164, L 50. RGADA 5.85.1.189, L 50. RGADA 5.85.1.228, L 50. GARF 728.416.41, L 52. Alexander, Autocratic Politics p 203. Lettres d’amour de Catherine II à Potemkine, ed Georges Ourrard pp 123, 128.

56 Mavrodin vol 3 p 42. SIRIO 23: 11, CII to Grimm 21 December 1774.

57 Dimsdale September 1781. Bolotov vol 3 p 192, quoted in Alexander, Autocratic Politics p 211.

58 RGADA 5.85.1.254, L 34.

CHAPTER 9: MARRIAGE: MADAME POTEMKIN

1 RGADA 1.1/1.54.114, L 31, CII to GAP ud, Tsarskoe Selo.

2 KFZ p 281, 8 June 1774.

3 This account of the marriage is based on the KFZ of 8 June 1774; on the research of V. S. Lopatin, Ekaterina II i G. A. Potemkin, lichnaya perepiska pp 31–3 and 513–15, and O. I. Yeliseeva, Perepiska Ekateriny II i G. A. Potemkina p 28; and on P. B. Bartenev, ‘On Catherine and Potemkin’s Marriage: A Book of Notes of the Russkiy Arkhiv’, RA (1906) 2 p 613, which uses the accounts of Count D. N. Bludov on Countess A. V. Branicka, Prince and Princess M. S. and E. K. Vorontsov (see Epilogue); Count A. G. Stroganov on Princess E. K. Vorontsova; the Notes of Prince F. N. Golitsyn; Count A. A. Bobrinsky on Count A. N. Samoilov; and Count V. P. Orlov-Davydov on Count A. N. Samoilov.

4 Author’s visit to St Petersburg 1998.

5 Coxe vol 2 p 88.

6 RA (1906) 2 p 613. Bartenev’s account: this story was told by Count A. A. Bobrinsky, Samoilov’s grandson.

7 Castera vol 3 p 90.

8 RP 2.1 p 8.

9 See note 3 above.

10 RGADA 5.85.1.362, L 72. RGADA 1.1/1.54.30, L 74.

11 RGADA 5.85.1.271, L 32, CII to GAP.

12 RGADA 5.85.1.238, L 49.

13 RGADA 1.1/1.54.42, L 18, CII to GAP ud.

14 M. Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity 1770–1861 pp 17–18.

15 RGADA 5.85.1.267, L 94.

16 Castera vol 3 p 90.

17 Comte de Ségur 21 December 1787, quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 89. In vol 2 of his Mémoires (1826), Ségur wrote that it was generally accepted that there had been a secret marriage, ‘a secret of another kind and more indissoluble bound them to each other’. When he passed through Vienna on his way home, he discussed this mystery with Joseph II.

18 Louis XVI and the Comte de Vergennes: correspondence ed J. Hardman and M. Price p 162. Louis XVI to comte de Vergennes ud, received 5 October 1774.

19 PRO FO vol 15 Robert Keith 19 October 1782, quoted in Harold Temperley Frederick the Great and Kaiser Joseph p 224.

20 PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP106/67 no 33, Sir Charles Whitworth to Lord Grenville 1 July 1791.

21 Prince de Ligne, Mélanges militaires, littéraires et sentimentaires vol 24 p 181, Prince de Ligne to Prince Kaunitz 15 December 1788, Jassy.

22 RGADA 1.1/1.54.42, L 18.

23 RGADA 5.85.1.359, L 37, CII to GAP ud.

24 BM Egerton MSS 2706 Sir Robert Gunning to Earl of Suffolk 19 August 1774. Also SIRIO 19 (1876).

25 Bartenev, ‘On Catherine’, p 616.

26 RGADA 1.1/1.54.103, L 67. RGADA 5.85.1.41, L 68. RGADA 5.85.1.166, L 68. GARF 728.1.416.22, L 69, CII to GAP.

27 SIRIO 23: 13, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm.

28 RGADA 1.1/1.54.119, L 80, CII to GAP. GARF 728.1.416.27, L 80.

29 The best accounts of Princess Tarakanova are the despatches of Sir William Hamilton to the Earl of Rochford on 4 January NS 1775 and 30 May NS 1775 BM Egerton MSS 2636 ff 104, 108, 110 and 124, quoted in Brian Fothergill, Sir William Hamilton, Envoy Extraordinary pp 157–62. See also Gunning–Suffolk correspondence on Tarakanova in SIRIO 19: 460–2, June 1775, Moscow.

30 SIRIO 1: 105. RP 4: 1 p 109.

31 Russkaya beseda 1858 vol 6 p 73. SIRIO 19: 461, Suffolk to Gunning 26 May 1775.

32 SIRIO 19: 461, Suffolk to Gunning 26 May 1775. RGADA 1.1/1.54.66, L 67, CII to GAP. RGADA 1.1/1.54.97, L 70, CII to GAP. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 2 pp 104–14; Count Alexei Orlov to GAP, RA (1875) 2 no 5 p 6. SIRIO 1: 105 and 169–96. Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 201. SIRIO 19: 466–7, Gunning to Suffolk 19/30 June 1775, Moscow.

33 RP 4: 1 p 109. SIRIO 1: 170–93.

34 RGADA 5.85.1.259.

35 AKV 8: 1–38, S. R. Vorontsov to F. Rostopchin 18/29 November 1796.

36 Bolotov vol 3 pp 208–13.

37 RGADA 1.1/1.54.137, L 76.

38 SIRIO 19 (1876): 470, Gunning to Suffolk 13/24 July 1775, Moscow. SIRIO 23: 4, CII to Grimm 3 August 1774, St Petersburg.

39 RGADA 5.85.1.362, L 72.

40 Bolotov vol 3 pp 207–24; A. Travin, Zapiski, Pskov 1894 pp 25–129; G. Vinsky, Moe Vremya, p 147, all quoted in Dimitri Shvidkovsky, Empress and Architect pp 192–3. SIRIO 27 (1880): 47, CII to Madame Bielke 24 July 1775.

41 Louis XVI – Comte de Vergennes correspondance p 162, Louis XVI to Comte de Vergennes ud, received 5 October 1774.

42 On the theory that Temkina was Catherine’s daughter: see T. V. Alexeeva, Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky i russkaya kultura na rubezhe 18–19 vekov and also V. S. Lopatin, Perepiska 638–9. The portrait of Elisaveta Grigorevna Temkina by V. L. Borovikovsky (1798) hangs in the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow. Plain and ungainly, she does bear some resemblance to GAP’s old mother Daria. But she was not an heir of GAP’s, and this author has not found one reference to her in any of GAP’s correspondence. No one mentions her at all until much later. Since GAP as far as we know had no other reputed children, it is possible he was infertile. Another theory is that Temkina was the daughter of another Potemkin, such as Pavel or Mikhail but then why her patronymic? Temkina later married I. X. Kalageorgi, a Greek in Russian service, who served as governor of GAP’s first city, Kherson. On attitudes to illegitimate children: Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 201. Also GAP’s nephew Vasily Engelhardt, who never married, fathered five bastards with various mistresses and all were legitimized as noblemen and Engelhardts.

43 SIRIO 19 (1876): 463–4, Suffolk to Gunning 30 June 1775, St James’s. SIRIO 19: 476–9, Suffolk to Gunning 1 September 1775; George III to CII 1 September 1775.

44 SIRIO 19 (1876): 476, Suffolk to Gunning 1 September 1775, St James’s. SIRIO 19: 476–501, Suffolk to Gunning 8 September 1775. SIRIO 19: 489, Gunning to Suffolk 20 September/1 October 1775, Moscow. SIRIO 19: 500–2, CII to George III 23 September 1775, Moscow.

45 RGADA 5.85.1.343, L 11, CII to GAP ud.

46 RGADA 1.1/1.54.3, L 85. RGADA 5.84.1.149, L 86. RGADA 5.85.1.172, L 87, CII to GAP.

47 SIRIO 19 (1876): 506, Gunning to Suffolk 5/16 October 1775, Moscow.

48 RGADA 1.1/1.54.30, L 74. GARF 728.1.417.1, L 66. RGADA 5.85.1.166, L 68.

49 RGADA 5.85.1.265, L 95, GAP to CII ud.

50 Castera vol 2 pp 314–15; Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 2 p 148.

51 GARF 728.1.416.49, L 69, CII to GAP ud. RGADA 5.85.1.159, L 75, CII to GAP ud.

52 RGADA 5.85.1.161, L 76, CII to GAP ud.

53 RGADA 5.85.1.161, L 76, CII to GAP. RGADA 11.1.946.595, V. A. Engelhardt to GAP 5 July 1775.

CHAPTER 10: HEARTBREAK AND UNDERSTANDING

1 RGADA 5.85.1.369, L 94.

2 SIRIO 19 (1876): 509, Sir Robert Gunning to Earl of Suffolk 1/12 January 1776, St Petersburg.

3 SIRIO 19 (1876): 511, Richard Oakes to William Eden 16/27 February 1776, St Petersburg.

4 SIRIO 19 (1876): 511, Oakes to Eden (16/27 February and 26 February/8 March 1776, St Petersburg. Corberon p 164, 27 January 1776; p 190, 11 February 1776; p 194, 30 March 1776.

5 RGADA 85.1.267, L 94, CII to GAP ud.

6 RGADA 5.85.1.412, L 91, CII to GAP ud.

7 RGADA 5.85.2.305, L 95.

8 RGADA 5.85.1.413, L 91. RGADA 5.85.1.419, L 91. RGADA 5.85.1.412, L 91. RGADA 5.85.1.412, L 92. RGADA 5.85.1.363, L 93. RGADA 5.85.1.366, L 93. RGADA 5.85.1.369, L 94. RGADA 5.85.1.267, L 95.

9 RGADA 5.85.1.412, L 91, CII to GAP. RGADA 5.85.1.384, L 91, CII to GAP.

10 RGADA 5.85.1.364, L 92, CII to GAP.

11 RGADA 5.85.1.413, L 91. RGADA 5.85.1.419, L 91. RGADA 5.85.1.412, L 91. RGADA 5.85.1.412, L 92. RGADA 5.85.1.363, L 93. RGADA 5.85.1.366, L 93. RGADA 5.85.1.369, L 94. RGADA 5.85.1.267, L 95.

12 RGADA 5.85.3.87, L 96, CII to GAP. RA (1878) 1 p 18, CII to Prince D. M. Golitsyn 13 January 1776. Corberon p 188, 22 March 1776.

13 Corberon p 190 24 March 1776.

14 B&F vol 1 p 18, Count Louis Cobenzl to JII 5 May 1780.

15 RS (1895) 83 p 31, CII to Count O. M. Stackelberg 2/13 May 1776, 12/23 May. V. A. Bilbasov, ‘Prisoedineniye Kurlyandii k Rossii’, RS (1895) 83 pp 30–4. Also Prussian envoys informed FII about Courland issue in despatches of 23 April and 8 September 1776 and 4 May 1781. RGIA 1640.1.32, FII to GAP 29 May NS 1776, Potsdam, unpublished.

16 RGVIA 271.1.28.6, 2 September 1775, and 271.1.28.7, 6 October 1775, Prince Henry of Prussia to GAP unpublished. Also RGIA 1640.1.32, FII to GAP 29 May NS 1776, Potsdam, unpublished. Corberon p 210, 9 April 1776.

17 RGADA 1.1/1.54.67, L 98, CII to GAP.

18 This account of the death of Grand Duchess Natalia is based on KFZ April–May 1776, Corberon pp 229–50, Madariaga, Russia pp 344–6, and Alexander, CtG pp 228–31, as well as the stated letters between CII and GAP and others.

19 RGADA 5.85.1.307, L 98.

20 KFZ 9 to 15 April 1776. SIRIO 42: 346, CII to Kozmin.

21 Corberon p 229, 26 April 1776.

22 Corberon pp 230–1. SIRIO 27: 78–9. SIRIO 19: 519, Oakes to Eden 15/26 April 1776.

23 Dimsdale p 46, 22 August 1781. Alexander, CtG p 229.

24 Corberon p 244, 5 May 1776.

25 SIRIO 19 (1876): 520, Oakes to Eden 15/26 April, 3/14 May, 10/21 May and 14/25 June. Corberon p 244, 5 May 1776.

26 A. A. Vassilchikov, Semeystvo Razumovskikh vol 1 p 363, Count Kirill Razumovsky to M. V. Kovalinsky.

27 Corberon p 248, 7 May 1776; p 246, 6 May 1776; p 259, 21 May 1776.

28 RGADA 5.85.1.235, L 100. GARF 728.1.416.1, L 102. CII to GAP.

29 RGADA 5.85.1.345–6, L 103.

30 RGADA 5.85.1.235–6. GARF 728.1.416.1, L 102. RGADA 5.85.1.345–6, L 103. RGADA 1.1/1.43.119, L 104. Moskovskiye Vedomosti 16 August 1776, quoted in Alexander, CtG p 207.

31 RGADA 1.1/1.43.119, L 104. RGADA 5.85.1.14, L 106. The Empress Elisabeth gave A. G. Razumovsky the Anichkov Palace in 1756: Anisimov, Empress Elisabeth p 202. It was named Anichkov after the Colonel Anichkov who built the bridge that stands beside it.

32 SIRIO 19 (1876): 519, Oakes to Eden 1/12 July 1776, St Petersburg. Rumiantseva p 204, Rumiantseva to P. A. Rumiantsev.

33 RGADA 5.85.1.385, L 106, CII to GAP ud. RGADA 5.85.3.91, L 106, CII to GAP. Karnovich p 266. Samoilov col 1205. Harris p 528 may be the origin of the figure of nine million roubles: it certainly sounds very high and is probably inaccurate, but given the variety of gifts and the haphazard generosity with which they were offered it is impossible to verify. It is possible that the figure could originate in Potemkin’s boasting about his wealth to Harris. The figures for the souls and the Krichev estate are however verifiable, using the Samuel Bentham papers, Samoilov’s papers, and others sources: see Chapter 20. Samoilov, as one of GAP’s circle and an heir of the estate, is trustworthy.

34 SIRIO 19 (1876): 521, Oakes to Eden 26 July/6 August 1776, St Petersburg.

35 Brockliss pp 279–303.

36 Castera vol 2 p 308.

CHAPTER 11: HER FAVOURITES

1 Russkiy istoricheskiy zhurnal 5 (1918): 244–57, quoted in Alexander, CtG pp 342–52. Pisma imp. Ekateriny II k gr. P. V. Zavadovskomu 1775–1777 ed I. A. Barskov, letters 7, 22, 30, 33, 35, 39, CII to P. V. Zavadovsky.

2 AKV 12: 9–10, Zavadovsky to S. R. Vorontsov.

3 Russkiy istoricheskiy zhurnal 5 (1918): 244–57, quoted in Alexander, CtG pp 342–52. Pisma CII – Zavadovsky (Barskov) letters 7, 22, 30, 33, 35, 39, CII to Zavadovsky.

4 Parkinson p 76.

5 Russkiy istoricheskiy zhurnal. Pisma CII – Zavadovsky (Barskov) and Alexander CtG, pp 342–52 letters 27, 62, CII to Zavadovsky. RGADA 5.85.1.296, L 114. RGADA 1.1/1.54.96, L 114, CII to GAP.

6 Masson p 105.

7 AKV 24: 156, Zavadovsky to S. R. Vorontsov.

8 CtG, Memoirs 1955 p 355 Frank Confession to GAP.

9 GARF 728.1.416.51, L 115.

10 AKV 12: 16–19, Zavadovsky to S. R. Vorontsov.

11 Alexander, CtG p 213.

12 RGADA 1.1/1.54.69, L 116.

13 GARF 728.1.416.51, L 115.

14 RGADA 1.1/1.54.69, L 116.

15 Harris p 149, Sir James Harris (H) to William Eden February 2/13 1778; H to Earl of Suffolk 2/13 February 1778. Where page number for ‘Harris’ is not given, date refers to ‘Diaries and Correspondence of Sir James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury.’

16 Harris p 170, H to William Fraser 16/27 May 1778.

17 Harris p 172, H to Suffolk 22 May/2 June 1778; p 173, H to Suffolk 29 May/9 June 1778.

18 KFZ 8 May 1778. RGADA 5.85.1.141, L 124.

19 SIRIO 23: 89, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 16 May 1778.

20 GIM OPI 197.1.152, L 124.

21 Madariaga, Russia p 354.

22 Harris, H to Suffolk 20/31 December 1778.

23 RGADA 5.85.1.59, L 125, CII to GAP ud.

24 Starina i Novizna (1901) 4 ed P. M. Maykov pp 23–4, Zavadovsky to Count P. A. Rumiantsev.

25 RA (1881) 3 pp 402–3, CII to Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov.

26 RGADA 5.85.1.59, L 125, CII to GAP. KFZ 1 June, 28 June 1778. RA (1881) 3 pp 402–3, CII to Korsakov. RP 5.1 p 119. Harris p 174, H to Suffolk 8/19 June 1778.

27 Harris pp 179, 180, H to Suffolk 28 August/8 September, 14/25 September, 10/21 August, 20/31 December 1778. Harris p 195, 29 January/9 February 1779.

28 Harris p 179, H to Suffolk 14/25 September 1778.

29 Harris p 224, H to Viscount Weymouth 9/20 September 1779.

30 RA (1911) 6 pp 190–4, Corberon. RGADA 10.3.467.3, CII to Korsakov 10 October 1779; Harris to Weymouth 11/22 October 1779.

31 RGADA 5.85.1.370, L 8, and RGADA 1.1/1.54.63, L 8, CII to GAP ud, but dated by Lopartin as before 14 and 18 February 1774 respectively. François Ribadeau Dumas, Cagliostro pp 13–83, and W. R. H. Trowbridge, Cagliostro: The Splendour and Misery of a Master of Magic pp 1–154.

32 Pole Carew CO/R/3/195, unpublished. Harris pp 434–40, H to Weymouth 11/22 October 1779, H to Charles James Fox 9/20 May 1782. Also Dimsdale p 57, 27 August 1781. AKV 13: 163/4, A. A. Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov 5 July 1789.

33 Harris, H to Weymouth 11/22 October 1779.

34 Harris p 366, H to Viscount Stormont 14/25 May 1781.

35 Shcherbatov pp 245, 241, 119. Alexander, CtG pp 201–26, and Madariaga, Russia pp 343–58.

36 Parkinson p 49. George Macartney’s ‘Commentary on Russia in 1786’, Macartney Papers, Osborne Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University, quoted in Alexander, CtG p 215.

37 Ligne, Fragments 1, 275.

38 Corberon vol 2 pp 137–8. Ségur, Mémoires vol 3 18. RGADA 1.85.1.209, L 10, CII to GAP 1774. Khrapovitsky p 13. It was said that Semyon Fyodorovich Uvarov, another Guards officer, enjoyed a short affair with Catherine just before her relationship with Yermolov after Lanskoy’s death and that he became a favourite of Prince Potemkin, who enjoyed his playing of the bandore, an ancient stringed instrument, and his skill at dancing the prisiadka. He received no reward other than a respectable career in the Guards. His son S. S. Uvarov became minister of education under Nicholas I and an enemy of A. S. Pushkin. See Serena Vitale, Pushkin’s Button p 143.

39 SIRIO 27 (1880): 130–1, GAP ukase about the post of aide-de-camp to the Empress 16 June 1776.

40 Saint-Jean ch 6 pp 40–8.

41 AVPRI 2.2/8a.20.94, L 124 GAP to CII and CII to GAP 27 May 1777.

42 GIM OPI 197.1.1.152, L 124, CII to GAP ud.

43 RGADA 5.85.1.334, L 124, CII to GAP ud.

44 Saint-Jean ch 2 pp 12–21.

45 Corberon vol 2 p 154, 19 June 1776.

46 Harris pp 430, 528, H to Stormont 25 March/5 April 1782.

47 Engelhardt 1868 p 49.

48 Khrapovitsky p 254 – A. D.-Mamonov ‘prison’ 1789 RS (1876) 15 p 16, Garnovsky V. S. to Popov December 1786.

49 Engelhardt 1868 p 46.

50 RS (1876) 16 p 406, CII to N. I. Saltykov July 1789, quoted in Garnovsky to V. S. Popov.

51 AGAD 172: 79, GAP to SA 25 September 1779, St Petersburg, unpublished. RGADA 11.914. A. D. Lanskoy to GAP 3 April 1784. RGADA 11.914, Lanskoy to GAP 29 September 1783. RGADA 11.914 Lanskoy to GAP ud.

52 Count J. E. von der Goertz, Mémoire sur la Russie section 3 p 43. In Ségur’s Mémoires (1826) vol 2 p 344, Count Mamonov, who was Catherine’s favourite in the late 1780s, told Ségur that Catherine would be angry if he ‘meddled’ in government business.

53 Damas p 97.

54 Harris p 210, H to Weymouth 7/18 August 1779.

55 Harris p 366, H to Stormont 7/18 May 1781.

56 Saint-Jean ch 2 pp 12–21. B&F vol 1 p 17, Cobenzl to JII 5 May 1780.

57 Harris to Weymouth 11/22 October 1779.

CHAPTER 12 HIS NIECES

1 RGADA 11.1.9496.595, V. A. Engelhardt to GAP 5 July 1775. RGADA 5.85.1.161, L 76, CII to GAP.

2 RA (1877) 1 p 479, Ribeaupierre.

3 AKV 11: 361, S. R. Vorontsov to Count Kochubey ud, 1802.

4 Wiegel, Zapiski p 43.

5 Wiegel, Zapiski p 43/4.

6 Ségur, Mémoires 1826 vol 2 p 225.

7 RGADA 1.1/1.43.118, L 116, CII to GAP ud.

8 RS (1875) March 5190520, CII to GAP ud.

9 Correspondence between GAP and Varvara Engelhardt 1777 and 1779 in Semevsky, Prince G. A. Potemkin-Tavrichesky pp 512–22. Harris p 180, H to Earl of Suffolk 14/25 September 1778. See also N. Y. Bolotina, Ties of Relationship between Prince G. A. Potemkin and the Family of the Princes Golitsyn, at Conference of Golitsyn Studies, edited in Bolshiye vyazemy. Also Varvara Golitsyna in Russkiy Biographicheskiy Slovar (1916) vol 5 and her entries in RP. On Daria Potemkina: RP5.221.

10 Kukiel pp 17–18.

11 Harris p 224, H to Viscount Weymouth 9/20 September 1779. PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP103/63, Alleyne Fitzherbert Lord St Helens to Charles James Fox 26 April 1783.

12 B&F vol 1 p 139. Cobenzl to JII 19 March 1781.

13 Marquis d’Aragon, Un Paladin au XVIII siècle. Le Prince Charles de Nassau-Siegen p 133, Nassau-Siegen (N-S) to wife February 1787. Vigée Lebrun vol 1 pp 192–4.

14 Prince Yury Dolgoruky’s memoirs quoted in RP 1:1 p 30.

15 RGADA 1.1/1.54.26, L 116.

16 Corberon vol 2 p 371, 24 September 1780; p 377, 27 September 1780; p 384, 2 October 1780. B&F vol 1 p 13, Cobenzl to JII 13 December 1780.

17 Harris pp 181, 185, H to Suffolk 21 September/2 October and 5/16 October 1778.

18 RGADA 11.858.6, 3 June 1785; RGADA 11.858.5, 8 April 1784; RGADA 11.858.4, 29 March 1784; RGADA 11.858.3, 14 March 1784; all Tatiana Engelhardt to GAP, all unpublished. Corberon vol 2 p 363, 17 September 1780. RP 1:1 p 10 and 4:2 p 206.

19 RGADA 11.858.4, Tatiana Engelhardt to GAP 29 March 1784, unpublished.

20 RGADA 11.914, A. D. Lanskoy to GAP.

21 Many of these incest stories were simply the legends of enemies. The Habsburgs however did marry their nieces on several occasions – with papal dispensation. For example, Philip II of Spain’s fourth wife was his niece. See also Derek Beales, Joseph II p 20. The Regent, the Duc d’Orléans, story is unproven but is told in Christine Pevitt, The Man Who Would Be King: The Life of Philippe d’Orléans, Regent of France p 249. The Augustus the Strong story was widely believed; it is unproven, though in the moral quagmire of his court it was quite possible: Nancy Mitford, Frederick the Great p 35 and David Fraser, Frederick the Great, p 22, p 42. The Voltaire correspondence, including the letters to Madame Denis, was edited by Théodore Besterman.

22 RS (1875) 12 pp 681, 682, 683, 684, letters of unknown woman to GAP. (Also: RGADA–11).

CHAPTER 13: DUCHESSES, DIPLOMATS AND CHARLATANS

1 SIRIO 23 (1878): 571, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm August 1792.

2 This account of the Duchess of Kingston is based on the following: Isobel Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment, pp 1–10, 526. Corberon vol 2 p 179, 22 September 1777. RGVIA 52.33.539, Samuel Bentham to his father. 17 May 1780, St Petersburg. RGADA 39.33.539, 8 April 1780. BM 120.33555, 8 April 1780. Elizabeth Mavor, Virgin Mistress: The Life of the Duchess of Kingston pp 157, 175, 184. Anthony Cross, ‘Duchess of Kingston in Russia’ p 390. Anthony Cross, By the Banks of the Neva pp 363–7. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 95. T. H. White, The Age of Scandal pp 147–9. Prince Felix Yusupov, Lost Splendour pp 6–9.

3 Author’s visit to the Hermitage 1998.

4 ‘The Northern Hero: The Life of Major S—le The Celebrated Swindler’, British Library 1493 r35, 1786. James George Semple in The Dictionary of National Biography (1903). Castera vol 2 pp 399, 445. Mavor p 184. Cross, ‘Duchess’ pp 394–5.

5 Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 114.

6 Corberon vol 2 p 227, 10 May 1779.

7 Rumiantseva pp 197–9, Countess E. M. Rumiantseva to Count P. A. Rumiantsev 2 February 1776.

8 Prince de Ligne quoted in Mansel, Charmeur p 9; Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 71, letter 11, Ligne to Coigny.

9 The father of the Vizier who met James Keith was a bellman in Kirkcaldy named James Miller. Philip Mansel, Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire p 202. MacDonogh, FtG pp 193–4. Fraser, FtG p 248. Harris p 181, H to Earl of Suffolk 21 September/2 October 1778; p 184, H to Suffolk 5/16 October 1778.

10 Isabel de Madariaga, The Travels of General Francisco de Miranda p 9.

11 Harris p 321, H to Viscount Stormont 13/24 December 1780.

12 Rumiantseva pp 197–9, Rumiantseva to Rumiantsev 2 February 1776.

13 Harris pp 136–7, Suffolk to H 9 January 1778; p 140, H to Suffolk 26 January/6 February 1778; p 170, H to William Fraser 16/27 May 1778. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 11. Castera vol 2 p 282.

14 SIRIO 19 (1876): 407, Sir Robert Gunning to Suffolk 7/18 March 1774, St Petersburg. SA, Mémoires vol 2 p 233, 1774. A. R. Barsukov, Proekty voennykh reform p 113, quoted in Ransel, Politics p 251.

15 RGADA 5.85.1.141, L 124.

16 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 48–9.

17 RGADA 5.167.1, Prince Henry of Prussia to Potemkin 25 October 1778, unpublished.

18 Isabel de Madariaga Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality p 3.

19 Harris p 210, H to Viscount Weymouth 7/18 August 1779.

20 Harris p 212, H to Weymouth 9/20 September 1779.

21 Harris p 146, H to Suffolk 30 January/10 February 1778.

22 Harris p 212, H to Weymouth 9/20 September 1779.

23 Goertz section 3 p 41, Goertz to FtG, Memorandum.

24 Harris p 210, H to Weymouth 7/18 August 1779, p 214, 9/20 September 1779.

25 RGVIA 271.1.66.1, H to GAP ud. unpublished RGADA 11.923.11, H to GAP unpublished. Harris p 268, H to his father 26 May 1780. RGADA 11.923.2, H to GAP, unpublished.

26 Harris p 216, H to Weymouth 9/20 September 1779.

27 Corberon vol 2 p 313. P. Fauchille, La Diplomatique française et la Ligue des Neutres p 316, quoted in Isabel de Madariaga, ‘The Use of British Secret Service Funds at St Petersburg 1777–1782’p 466; Malmesbury PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers 91/103 no 59, 9/20 September 1779; H to Gertrude Harris ud, Papers of Lord Malmesbury, Merton College Oxford, quoted in Madariaga, ‘British Secret Service Funds’ p 467.

28 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 50. Castera vol 2 p 442. RGADA 11.858.6, Tatiana Engelhardt to GAP 3 June 1785, unpublished. Pole Carew CO/R/3/203, unpublished. Harris p 338, H to Stormont 16/27 February 1781.

29 This account of Cagliostro in Petersburg and of eighteenth-century occultism is based on the following sources: SIRIO 23 (1878), CII to Grimm 9 July 1781. RS 12 pp 50–83. V. Zotov, ‘Cagliostro: His Life and visit to Russia’. Dumas pp 65–73. Trowbridge pp 142–7 and on eighteenth-century charlatans and occult healers pp 74–110. RGADA 5.85.1.179, L 8, CII to GAP ud. RGADA 5.85.1.280, L 19, GAP to CII and CII’s reply ud. RGADA 1.1/1.54.18, CII to GAP ud. Corberon vol 1 p 195 and vol 2 pp 395–6. Madariaga, Politics & Culture in Eighteenth Century Russia: Collected Essays, pp 150–67.

30 RGADA 5.85.1.179, L 8, CII to GAP ud. RGADA 5.85.1.280, L 19, GAP to CII and CII’s reply ud. RGADA 1.1/1.54.18, CII to GAP ud.

31 RGADA 5.85.1.179, L 8, CII to GAP ud. RGADA 5.85.1.280, L 19, GAP to CII and CII’s reply ud. RGADA 1.1/1.54.18, CII to GAP ud.

32 RS 12 pp 50–83. Zotov. SIRIO 23 (1878), CII to Grimm 9 July 1781.

33 Harris pp 239–40, H to Stormont 15/26 February 1780.

34 Harris p 240, H to Stormont 15/26 February 1780.

35 Harris p 225, H to Weymouth 23 October/5 November 1779; pp 225–6, 9/20 September 1779. Harris p 229, H to Weymouth 23 October/5 November 1779.

36 Harris p 252, H to Stormont 31 March/11 April 1780. Also Malmesbury PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP91/106 no 161, quoted in Madariaga, ‘British Secret Service Funds’ p 466. Memoirs de Torcy vol 2 p 99. Corberon vol 1 p 370, Corberon to Vergennes 24 September 1779. Fauchille p 293.

37 Harris p 255, H to Stormont 7/18 April 1780.

38 Harris p 275, H to Stormont 15/26 June 1780. Potemkin by J. E. Cerenville, La Vie de Prince Potemkine p 73 n 1. Madariaga, ‘British Secret Service Funds’ p 472. Goertz section 3 p 41, Goertz to FtG. Harris p 405, H to Stormont 13/24 March 1781. FO 65/1 no 170, H to Stormont 29 December/9 January 1781.

39 Corberon vol 1 p 370, 23 September 1780.

40 Harris p 256, H to Stormont 15/26 May 1780. PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP91/104 unnumbered, H to Stormont 15/26 February 1780; SP91/104 no 19, Stormont to H 11 April 1780; SP91/105 no 42, H to Stormont 14 July 1780.

41 SIRIO 19 (1876): 506, Gunning to Suffolk 5/16 October 1775, Moscow. SIRIO 23: 136, CII to Grimm 7 May 1779. Stephen K. Batalden, Catherine II’s Greek Prelate: Eugenios Voulgaris in Russia 1771–1806 pp 33, 39, 43, 41. RGADA 16.689.1. ZOOID 1 (1844) pp 206–11 S. Sofanov, ‘Ostatki Grecheskikh Legionov v Rossii’. PSZ 14.366. CII appointed Voulgaris archbishop of Kherson and Slaviansk 9 September 1775. Voulgaris was succeeded on 6 August 1779 by another of GAP’s Greek clergymen, Archbishop Nikiforos Theotokis. See Gregory L. Bruess, Religion, Identity and Empire pp 85–6. Also GPB 227.1.25 ch 1, CII on Greek Gymnasium 19 November 1774, quoted in Batalden. Harris p 203, H to Weymouth 24 May/4 June 1779. Goertz section 1 p 24.

42 Harris p 203, H to Weymouth 24 May/4 June 1779.

43 Corberon vol 2 p 226.

CHAPTER 14: BYZANTIUM

1 This description of the Ottoman Empire is based on Baron de Tott, Memoirs, especially vol 1; the unpublished reports, anonymous and by N. Pisani, Y. Bulgakov and others from Istanbul, on the Sublime Porte and Ottoman politics in the Potemkin Chancellery Archive in RGVIA 52, for example N. Pisani to Y. Bulgakov RGVIA 52.11.53.11. These are filled with vivid descriptions of the ebb and flow of Ottoman politics and all are unpublished. Also Kinross esp. pp 112, 362–406 and Mansel, Constantinople esp. pp 57–132 which is the best modern account.

2 Anspach, Journey p 199, Lady Craven to Margave of Anspach 11 May 1786, Constantinople. De Tott vol 1 p 137. Kinross pp 137–47 and p 171 De Tott vol 1 p 96. Mansel, Constantinople pp 60–1.

3 RGVIA 52.11.53.31, N. Pisani to Y. Bulgakov 1/12 May 1787.

4 De Tott vol 3 p 101. Mansel, Constantinople p 203.

5 Sir Robert Keith, British Ambassador to Vienna, quoted in M. S. Anderson, The Eastern Question p 22.

6 Gerhard F. Kramer and Roderick E. McGrew, ‘Potemkin, the Porte and the Road to Tsargrad’ pp 267, 210B, Colonel Barozzi to GAP January 1790.

7 Harris p 203, H to Viscount Weymouth 24 May/4 June 1779. Corberon vol 2 p 226.

8 RGADA 5.85.1.1, L 189, GAP to CII.

9 Isabel de Madariaga, Politics and Culture in Eighteenth Century Russia: Collected Essays pp 20, 21. Metropolian Zosimus quoted in D. Stremoukhoff, ‘Moscow the Third Rome: Sources of the Doctrine’, Speculum (1953) 28 p 112 cited, Madariaga, Politics and Culture pp 20/21.

10 RGADA 11.941.4, Prince Alexander Mavrocordato to GAP 10 July 1791, Elisabethgrad. Coxe vol 2 p 461. RA 3 (1879) p 19. Ypselotate kai Eklamprotate Prinkips in T. Georgikon ta D’vivilia en eroika to metro, St Petersburg 1786, and GAP to Voulgaris, both quoted in Batalden pp 71–2. Also ZOOID 9 (1875) 281–2. GAP was cultivating three leading Greek bishops who all served as propagandists for his Byzantine–Russian project. Nikiforos Theotokis wrote Greek paeans to Grand Duke Constantine, hailing him as the future Byzantine emperor. When GAP moved Theotokis to be archbishop of Astrakhan and Stavropol, he was succeeded on 28 November 1786 by Ambrosius. See Bruess pp 85–6, 117, 128, 170.

11 AKV 13: 223–8, Count A. A. Bezborodko to Count P. V. Zavadovsky 17 November 1791, Jassy. O. I. Yeliseeva, ‘The Balkan Question in G. A. Potemkin’s Projects of Foreign Policy’, in The Century of Catherine II: Russia and the Balkans pp 63–8. AVPRI 5.591.1.99–113 the reverse. AVPRI 5.591.1.105–6 the reverse. SIRIO 26: 93, 399, 369–70, A. A. Bezborodko, ‘Picture or Short Note on Russia’s Wars with Tartars, Begun in the Middle of the Tenth Century and Uninterruptedly Lasting for Almost Eight Hundred Years’ ud, 1776. SIRIO 26 (1879): p 385, ‘Memorial Brigadra Alexandra Andreevicha Bezborodka po delem politicheskim’. Batalden pp 96–7. O. I. Veliseeva, GA Potemkin’s Geopolitical Projects, Associates of Catherine the Great pp 26–31. O. P. Markova, ‘O proiskhozhdenii tak nazyvayemogo Grecheskogo Proekta’. Hugh Ragsdale (ed), Imperial Russian Foreign Policy pp 75–103.

12 Ségur, Mémoires vol 2 p 393. Masson p 203. RP 2.1.9. Mikhail Garnovsky to Vasily Popov August 1787, quoted in Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône pp 30–3. Goertz p 45.

13 AKV 13: 84–7, Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov 29 July 1785.

14 Harris p 281, H to Sir Joseph Yorke, 14/25 July 1780.

15 B&F vol 1 p 6, Prince Wenzel von Kaunitz to Count Cobenzl 14 April 1780, Vienna.

16 A. A. Bezborodko, Pisma A. A. Bezborodka p 57, Bezborodko to P. A. Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky 4 February 1780. RA (1872) p 992, CII to D. M. Golitsyn, Vienna.

17 RGADA 5.85.1.30, L 137. RGADA 5.85.1.309, L 138. RGADA 5.85.1.204, L 138. RGADA 5.85.1.10, L 139. RGADA 5.85.1.203, L 138. All CII to GAP.

CHAPTER 15: THE HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR

1 Josef II und Katharina von Russland. Ihr Briefwechsel ed Alfred Ritter von Arneth, letter III, CII to JII 19 May 1780.

2 Maria Theresa und Josef II. Ihre Correspondenz ed Alfred Ritter von Arneth, vol 3 p 246, JII to Maria Theresa 2 June NS 1780, Mogilev. SIRIO 27: 182, CII to GAP 11pm 23 May 1780, Shklov.

3 B&F vol 1 p 1, JII to Count Cobenzl 13 April 1780, Vienna.

4 This profile of Joseph II is based on the following: Mansel, Charmeur p 80. Ligne, Fragments vol 1 310. Ligne, Mélanges vol 20 p 79. Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 34, Ligne to CII 12 February 1790. SIRIO 23: 440, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 19 April 1788. Edward Crankshaw, Maria Theresa pp 254–68. Andrew Wheatcroft, The Habsburgs pp 226, 232, 236. T. C. W. Blanning, Joseph II pp 47–67, 151–5. Beales, pp 31–89, 306–37, 431–8.

5 Maria Theresa – JII (Arneth) vol 3 p 246, JII to Maria Theresa 2 June 1780.

6 Engelhardt 1997 pp 26–30. SIRIO 23: 175–82, CII to Grimm.

7 Engelhardt 1997 pp 27–30.

8 Jerzy Lojek, Stanislas Poniatowski: Pamietniki synowca Stanislawa Augusta przekl, Instytut Wydawniczy PAX 1979 p 58.

9 Lp 709. V. M. Zheludov articles, including ‘Tsarski Kolodets’ [The Tsarina’s well]’, all Rayonnay Gazeta of Dukhovshchina Region of Smolensk Oblast. RGADA 5.85.1.83, L 140, CII to GAP.

10 Maria Theresa – JII (Arneth) vol 3 pp 250 and 260, JII to Maria Theresa 8 and 19 June 1780.

11 Dimsdale p 70, 7 September NS 1781, Tsarskoe Selo.

12 Maria Theresa – JII (Arneth) vol 3 p 270, JII to Maria Theresa 4 July 1780, St Petersburg. SIRIO 23 (1878): 183, CII to Grimm 24 July 1780, Peterhof.

13 Corberon vol 2 p 287, 18 August 1780. Harris, H to Viscount Stormont 2/13 October 1780.

14 Harris, H to Stormont 2/13 October 1780. Fraser, FtG, p 561.

15 RGADA 52.3.2.1, Prince Henry of Prussia to GAP 2 August 1780, Rheinsburg, unpublished. Harris p 285, H to Stormont 28 August/8 September 1780.

16 Sources for Ligne: see next two notes.

17 The main sources for the portrait of the Prince de Ligne are Mansel, Charmeur as well as Ligne’s own Mélanges, Fragments and Letters, and the unpublished letters from him to GAP in RGADA and RGVIA which are cited later. Francisco de Miranda, Archivo del General Miranda p 294, 26 March 1787, Kiev. Corberon vol 2 pp 274–5, 8 August 1780. Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 71 letter 11, Ligne to Coigny 8 August 1780. Mansel, Charmeur pp 21, 29, 65, 93. SIRIO 23 (1878): 185, CII to Grimm 7 September 1780. B & F vol 1 p 53, Cobenzl to JII 17 September NS 1780. Harris p 287, H to Stormont 22 September/3 October 1780.

18 B&F vol 1 p 91, Cobenzl to JII 13 December 1780.

19 RGADA 11.893.9, Ligne to GAP 6 December NS 1780, Vienna, unpublished. B& F vol 1 p 113, Cobenzl to JII 4 February 1781.

20 GARF 728.1.416.42, L 144, CII to GAP ud.

21 Harris p 321, H to Stormont 13/24 December 1780.

22 Harris p 314, H to Stormont 13/24 December 1780; pp 380–1, H to Stormont 14/25 July 1781. SIRIO 23 (1878): 431, CII to Grimm 30 November 1787. Harris p 275, H to Stormont 15/26 June, 6/17 October, 24 November/5 December 13/24 December 1780. Madariaga, Russia pp 385–7. AKV 13: 75–83, A. A. Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov July 1785. PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP106/67, William Fawkener to Lord Grenville 18 June 1791, unpublished. Harris pp 431–2, Charles James Fox to H and H to Fox 19/30 April 1782; pp 342–50, H to Stormont 13/24 March 1781, H to Stormont 30 April/11 May 1781. William Coxe, Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon vol 3 p 448 (the £2 million stores on Minorca), quoted in Madariaga, Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality p 297.

23 GARF 728.1.416.47, L 145, and RGADA 5.85.1.104, L 146, CII to GAP.

24 Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah – Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power pp 1–2.

25 Pole Carew CO/R/3/95, May 1781, unpublished. On Persian expedition: AAE Mémoires et Documents Russie vol 10 pp 113–224 esp. 139 and 191, including account of Hablitz and Comte de Ségur to Comte de Vergennes 15 October 1786. Passe Turco-Tatar Present Soviétique (1986): Michel Lesure, L’Expedition d’Astrabad 1781–2: Est-il Encore un Secret d’Etat? 3 September 1780 Order of Prince Potemkin to College of Admiralty – Opisanie del Arkhiva Morskago ministerstva za vremya s poloviny XVIII-go do nachala XIX stoletiya, St Petersburg 1877–82 vol 3 p 629 no 724/111, cited in Lesure. On the Armenian question: GAP wanted to create an ‘Armenian Project’ to run parallel with his ‘Greek Project’ and throughout his career he pursued the idea, promoting Armenian clergymen just as he did Greek ones. Bruess, pp196–7. For more on this, see Chapters 17, 18, 19.

26 B&F vol 1 pp 154–8, Cobenzl to JII 23 May 1781; p 207, Cobenzl to JII 26 August 1781. JII–CII (Arneth) letter XXXII, JII to CII, and letter LXXXIV, CII to JII.

27 B&F vol 1 p 141, Cobenzl to JII 5 April 1781. Harris p 367, H to Stormont 8/19 June and 25 June/6 July 1781.

28 B&F vol 1 p 197, JII to Cobenzl 19 August 1781; p 207, Cobenzl to JII 26 August 1781. PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP 65/3 no 94, Harris to Stormont 25 June/6 July 1781.

29 RGADA 5.85.1.490, L 146, CII to GAP. Harris p 382, H to Stormont 14/25 July 1781.

CHAPTER 16: THREE MARRIAGES AND A CROWN

1 JII–CII (Arneth) letter XLIX, CII to JII 7/18 December 1781. B&F vol 1 p 170, Count Cobenzl to JII 5 July 1781.

2 Harris p 391, H to Viscount Stormont 10/21 and 17/28 September 1781; pp 399–408, 21 October/1 November 1781; p 394, 21 September/2 October 1781. B&F vol 1 p 209, Cobenzl to JII 26 August 1781.

3 B&F vol 1 p 226 12 September 1781; p 291, 18 January 1782; vol 2 p 75, 1 November 1786, all Cobenzl to JII. Wiegel quoted in RP 3.1 p 10.

4 RGADA 5.85.1.401, L 148, CII to GAP.

5 Casanova vol 10 ch 8 pp 190–7.

6 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 189.

7 RGADA 11.867.12, Grand Hetman Branicki to GAP 9 April NS 1775, Warsaw. RGADA 11.867.1–60, unpublished. The correspondence of Branicki with GAP is a study of the Russo-Polish relationship between 1775 and 1791. I have used it to illustrate the relationship between uncle and nephew and GAP’s Polish policies, but its window into Polish relations is much too detailed for this book, though future scholars will find it invaluable. As early as 1775, it was accepted at the Court that GAP was protecting Branicki and fostering his power as his Polish party. For example, see SIRIO (1911) 135.68, Vice-Chancellor Ivan Osterman to O. M. Stackelberg 7 December 1775, Moscow.

8 Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 291.

9 Dimsdale 27 August 1781.

10 There is a legend that the marriage of Nadezhda Engelhardt and Shepelev was the latter’s reward for killing Prince Peter M. Golitsyn in a duel in 1775. Shepilev is supposed to have killed Golitsyn at Potemkin’s request because Golitsyn was flirting with Catherine. There is no evidence for any of this: Golitsyn was actually killed by a man named Lavrov and not by Shepelev at all. The marriage did not take place for another five years – a long time for Shepilev to wait for his reward. In any case, a vindictive duel was not Potemkin’s style. See Catherine’s letter to GAP on the duel, RGADA 1.1/1.54.130, L 79, probably in October/November 1775.

11 B&F vol 1 p 291, 18 January 1782; vol 2 p 75, 1 November 1786; vol 1 p 93, 13 December 1780, all Cobenzl to JII.

12 RGADA 11.901.5, P. M. Skavronsky to GAP 20 June 1784, Vienna. RGADA 11.901.19, Skavronsky to GAP 4/15 June 1785, Naples, unpublished.

13 Vigée Lebrun vol 1 pp 192–4.

14 RGADA 11.857.8, Countess A. V. Branicka to GAP ud, unpublished.

15 RGADA 11.857.40, Branicka to GAP ud, unpublished.

16 Wiegel 1 (1891) p 43.

17 Harris p 391, H to Stormont 7/18 September 1781.

18 B&F vol 1 p 282, Cobenzl to JII 18 January 1782. Harris p 412, H to Stormont 9/20 November 1781; p 408, 21 October/1 November 1781.

19 Arneth, Joseph II u. Leopold von Toscana vol 1 pp 114–24, 5 June 1782. B&F vol 1 p 301, JII to Cobenzl 19 February 1782. Roderick E. McGrew Paul I p 129. SIRIO 23: 145 and SIRIO 23: 157–9, CII to Paul 25 April and 7 June 1782. D. M. Griffiths, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Northern System’ p 565. Ransel, Politics p 211. SIRIO 9: 64. B&F vol 1 p 342, JII to Cobenzl 13 November 1782.

20 B&F vol 1 pp 262, 318, Cobenzl to JII 4 December 1781 and 18 July 1782.

21 RGADA 7.2.2607, GAP to CII, CII to Prince Viazemsky etc.

22 SIRIO 23: 621, CII to Grimm 6 April 1795.

23 B&F vol 1 p 318, 18 July 1782.

24 RGADA 5.85.1.121, L 150, CII to GAP 3 June 1782. Also RGVIA 271.1.31.1106, M. S. Potemkin to GAP 1 June 1782, unpublished.

25 Harris p 447, H to Charles James Fox 10/21 June 1782.

26 JII–CII (Arneth) p 136, JII to CII and CII to JII 12 July and 5/26 July 1782.

27 JII–CII (Arneth) p 169, letter XXIV, JII to CII 13 November 1782; letter LXV, CII to JII 10 September 1782. B&F vol 1 p 344, Cobenzl to JII 4 December 1782. Harris, H to Lord Grantham 23 December/3 January 1783.

28 B&F vol 1 p 344, Cobenzl to JII 4 December 1782.

29 Ségur, Mémoires 1827 vol 2 pp 401, 382–3. Castera vol 3 p 307.

30 AVPRI 5.585.294, L 317, GAP to CII 29 September 1788.

31 RGADA 5.85.1.557, L 256, CII to GAP 23 November 1787.

32 RGADA 5.85.1.88, L 154, CII to GAP.

CHAPTER 17: POTEMKIN’S PARADISE: THE CRIMEA

1 This account of the Crimean Khanate and its annexation uses Baron de Tott’s Memoirs esp. vol 2; N. F. Dubrovin (ed) Prisoyedineniye Kryma k Rossii (reskripty, pisma, relatsii, doneseniya) vol 2 and N. F. Dubrovin (ed), Bumagi knyaza Grigoriya Alexandrovicha Potemkina-Tavricheskogo 1774–88 SBVIM vol 1 and 6; Alan W. Fisher’s two works The Crimean Tartars and The Russian Annexation of the Crimea. Also Alexander, CtG pp 246–55, and Madariaga, Russia pp 386–91.

2 Fisher, Crimean Tartars, pp 7–69.

3 De Tott, Memoirs vol 2 p 98. Fisher, Russian Annexation pp 6–21.

4 SIRIO 8.227, CII to Voltaire.

5 Fisher, Russian Annexation p 95.

6 Among the Christians from the Crimea, there were Greeks and Armenians. The Greeks were settled in Taganrog and Mariupol, alongside ‘Albanese’ who had fought for the Russians in the First Turkish War. There were huge problems and the Russians, particularly GAP, must take the blame for the shambles that followed. There were complaints and near mutinies. The Archbishops Voulgaris and Theotokis acted as the Greeks’ spokesmen to GAP, who sorted out the problems and arranged benefits and favoured status. He learned from this first experience of settlement and became involved in the smallest details during the 1780s. The Armenians received their own towns, Gregoripol and Nakhichevan, and many also settled in Astrakhan, where GAP appointed Joseph Argutinsky as their archbishop. See Chapters 18 and 19. See also Bruess pp 122–7, RGADA 16.689.2.1.29 for GAP granting Taganrog benefits. RGADA 5.85.1.35, L 151, GAP to CII. He was also sending orders to I. A. Hannibal in Kherson to prepare in case of war: ZOOID 11: pp 324–6, N. N. Murzakevich, The materials for a history of the principal town of a province – Kherson GAP to I. A. Hannibal 11 August 1782.

7 RGADA 5.85.1.122, L 152, CII to GAP 19 September 1782.

8 RGADA 5.85.2.15, L 152, CII to GAP 30 September 1782.

9 RGADA 5.85.1.88, L 154, CII to GAP.

10 RGADA 5.85.1.126, L 154, CII to GAP 18 October 1782.

11 Dubrovin, Prisoyedineniye Kryma vol 2 pp 98, 318–19, 322, 550, 558, 752–3, Prince Prozorovsky to GAP; GAP to Prozorovsky; Count P. A. Rumiantsev to GAP; General Alexander Suvorov to GAP. Charter to Greeks PSZ 21 May 1779 14879; Charter to the Armenians PSZ 14 November 1779 14942. ZOOID 2 (1848–50): 660. ZOOID 1: 197–204. IV (1860) pp 359–62. Fisher, Russian Annexation pp 131–4. Marc Raeff, ‘The Style of Russia’s Imperial Policy and Prince Potemkin’ pp 10–11.

12 Harris p 483, H to Lord Grantham 8/19 November 1782.

13 RGADA 11.893.6 Prince de Ligne to GAP 23 May 1787?, unpublished. See also Semple in Dictionary of National Biography (1903).

14 Harris p 372, H to Viscount Stormont 25 June/6 July 1781.

15 Harris p 481, H to Grantham 4/15 November 1782. SIRIO 23 (1878): 274–5, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 20 April 1783.

16 AVPRI 5.5/1.591.1.106, L 154, GAP to CII.

17 Harris p 498, H to Grantham 20/31 January 1783. PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP 65/8 no 47, H to Grantham 2/13 December 1782, quoted in Isabel de Madariaga, ‘The Secret Austro-Russian Treaty’ p 135.

18 Catherine II’s rescripts to GAP on the Crimea: RGADA 5.85.3.158–60, 14 December 1782. RGADA 5.85.165, 14 January 1783. RGADA 5.85.3.167–9, 7 February 1783. RGADA 5.85.3.175–80, 8 April 1783.

19 Harris p 487, H to Grantham 6/17 December 1782.

20 Harris p 492, H to Grantham 27 December 1782/7 January 1783.

21 Harris pp 380–1, H to Stormont 14/25 July 1781. SIRIO 23 (1878): 431, CII to Grimm 30 November 1787. Harris p 275, H to Stormont 15/26 June, 6/17 October, 24 November/5 December, 13/24 December 1780. Madariaga, Russia pp 385–7. AKV 13: 75–83 A. A. Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov July 1785. PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP106/67, William Fawkener to Lord Grenville 18 June 1791, unpublished. Harris pp 431–2, Charles James Fox to H and H to Fox 19/30 April 1782; pp 342–50, H to Stormont 13/24 March, 30 April/11 May 1781.

22 RA (1888) 3 pp 364–7, On Clothes and Arms of Soldiers, GAP to CII. Masson vol 1 p 103. RGADA 5.85.3.81, CII ukase to GAP on transformation of Dragoon and Hussar regiments and irregular forces 15 December 1774. SBVIM vol 1 pp 74–88; pp 74–88; p 13, GAP to College of War 16 November 1774; p 38; p 10, GAP order to Kazan Cuirassier Regiment 27 October 1774. See also RS 7 pp 722–7; RA (1888) 2 pp 364–7; and RS (1908) 136 p 101. Senator Nikolai Yakovlevich Tregubov, Zapiski. A. Begunova, Way through the Centuries pp 86–7. These reforms were continued through the 1780s – see SIRIO 27 (1880): p 348, CII ukase to GAP 14 January 1785. It is worth noting that the British Army abolished this ‘fancy dress’ – powder, pomatum ex cetera – only in the nineteenth century, long after GAP had done so in Russia.

23 Harris p 498, H to Grantham 20/31 January 1783.

24 P. V. Zavadovsky, Pisma Zavadovskago k Rumiantsevu p 255, P. V. Zavadovsky to P. A. Rumiantsev.

25 RGVIA 271.1.31.14, M. S. Potemkin to GAP ud.

26 RGADA 5.85.1.440, L 162, CII to GAP. RGADA 1.1.43.61, L 163, GAP to CII 22 April 1783.

27 RGADA 5.85.1.449, L 165, CII to GAP May 1783.

28 M. S. Vorontsov’s Family Archive p 265 no 38, GAP order to General Count A. B. de Balmain 31 May 1783; p 265 no 40, GAP order to Lt-Gen A. S. Suvorov 10 June 1783; p 266 no 42 and 43 and 54, GAP orders to de Balmain 14 and 23 June 1783; p 277 no 77, GAP order to de Balmain; p 279 no 83, GAP order to Lt-Col Rakhmanov.

29 AVPRI 123.123/2.71.127, GAP to de Balmain. RGADA 1.1/1.43.76–7. RGADA 5.85.1.450, CII to GAP. RGADA 1.1/1.43.78, GAP to CII. RGADA 5.85.1.456, CII to GAP. RGADA 5.85.1.459, CII to GAP. RGADA 1.1/1.43.80, L 165–73, GAP to CII. RGVIA 52.2.37.63, GAP to Bezborodko. Harris p 504, Grantham to H 22 February 1783.

30 Louis XVI–Comte de Vergennes pp 131–4.

31 A. S. Pishchevich, Zhizn A. S. Pishchevicha p 128. See also Duffy, Russia’s Military Way p 181. M. S. Vorontsov Family Archive, p 282 nos 91 and 93, GAP to Suvorov 11 and 13 September 1783; p 282 no 92, GAP to Khan Shagin Giray 13 September 1783.

32 RGADA 5.85.1.461, CII to GAP. RGADA 5.85.1.504.

33 A. Petrushevsky, Generalissimo Knyazi Suvorov vol 1 p 226.

34 RGADA 11.1/1.43.86–7, L 175, GAP to CII 10 July 1783, Karasubazaar. RGADA 1.1/1.43.67–8, L 176, GAP to CII 16 July 1783, Karasubazaar. RGADA 1.1/1.43.69–71, L 179, GAP to CII 29 July 1783, Karasubazaar. RGADA 1.1/1.43.74–5, L 179, GAP to CII 29 July 1783, Karasubazaar.

35 John Anthony Guldenstaedt, quoted in Coxe Travels vol 2 p 413.

36 RGVIA 52.1/194.20.6.58 (Georgian text p 26), King Hercules/Heracles/Erakle to GAP 21 December 1782. RGVIA 52 1/194/20/6/34, King Hercules to GAP 31 December 1782. RGVIA 52.2.31, GAP to CII 5 August 1783. RGVIA 52.1.28.23, CII to GAP 23 August 1783. RGVIA 52.1.28.25, CII to GAP 30 September 1783. John F. Baddeley, Russian Conquest of the Caucasus pp 20–1. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation pp 58–9.

37 RGADA 1.1/1.43.64, L 180, GAP to CII.

38 As above in note 24. Also RGVIA 52.2.29.33, GAP to CII 13 October 1783 and RGVIA 52.2.29.56, GAP to CII 22 June 1784.

39 RGADA 5.85.3.175–80, CII rescript to GAP on line of action after the Empress’s decision on annexation of Crimea with Taman and Kuban 8 April 1783.

40 AKV 13: 53–4, Bezborodko to P. V. Bakunin 31 May 1784.

41 RGADA 5.85.1.507, L 181, CII to GAP. On the ‘Armenian Project’, see Bruess pp 196–8.

42 RGADA 5.85.513. SIRIO 27: 279, CII to GAP.

43 RGADA 5.85.1.508. SIRIO 27: 276–80, CII to GAP.

44 RGADA 5.85.4.1.524, CII to GAP.

45 M. S. Vorontsov Family Archive, p 279 no 84, GAP order to Lt-Gen Suvorov 12 August 1783.

46 RA (1905) 2 p 349, Yakov Bulgakov to GAP 1 October 1783, Constantinople. RGADA 5.85.4.1.521, CII to GAP. RGADA 5.85.4.1.521, L 185, CII to GAP 26 September 1783.

47 JII–CII (Arneth) letter XCIV, JII to CII 12 November 1783, Vienna.

48 RGADA 11.924.2. General I. A. Igelstrom to GAP February 1784, Karasubazaar, unpublished.

49 S. N. Glinka, Zapiski pp 10–11.

50 RGADA 5.85.4.1.524, L 186, CII to GAP. RGADA 1.1/1.43.4, L 187, GAP to CII 22 October 1783, Chernigov.

51 AKV 13:45–6, Bezborodko to Simon Vorontsov 7 February 1784. For GAP fighting disease in the south (while also ordering new warships), see ZOOID 11:335, GAP to Colonel Gaks 16 July 1783; p 341, GAP to Gaks 6 October 1783; pp 342–4, GAP to Gaks 14, 22 October 1783 and GAP to M. V. Muromtsev 9 November 1783.

52 Engelhardt 1997 pp 39–41.

53 RA (1905) 2 p 352, GAP to Bulgakov. RA (1866) 11–12 p 1574.

54 AKV 13: 47–8, Bezborodko to Simon Vorontsov 15 March 1784.

CHAPTER 18: EMPEROR OF THE SOUTH

1 Damas pp 89–90. This chapter owes a great debt to E. I. Druzhinina, Severnoye Prichonomorye 1775–1800, especially on population figures and settlement.

2 Memoir of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 66–7.

3 Roger P. Bartlett, Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia 1762–1804 p 109. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 181, Prince de Ligne to Prince Kaunitz 15 December 1788, Jassy.

4 Wiegel 1 pp 29–30. Raeff, Imperial Manner pp 234–5. Raeff’s essay is highly perceptive on GAP’s style and talent as southern ruler.

5 ZOOID 11: pp 506–8; E. A. Zagorovsky, Organization of the Administration in New Russia under Potemkin 1774–1 pp 1–33. Another major figure in his chancellery was Baron von Bühler, the brother of the chief minister of Saxony, who served as his senior foreign policy adviser in the late 1780s.

6 RS (1876) 15 pp 33–8, July 1787. M. Garnovsky, Zapiski Mikhaila Garnovskago.

7 Samoilov cols 1234–5.

8 RGADA 5.85.1.38, L 73, CII to GAP. Manifesto on Liquidation of Zaporogian Sech. SBVIM vol 1 pp 46–52, 3 August 1775.

9 AVPRI 2.2/8.20.55, L 99, GAP to CII 21 April 1776. Skalkovsky, New Sech part 3 A. pp 148, 158–63. Letters of Potemkin to Hetman P. I. Kalnikshevsky on 21 June 1774 and then threatening letter to same on 8 December 1774, quoted in Skalkovsky.

10 SBVIM vol 1 pp 74–88, 20–1, proposal on Don 18 February 1775; pp 20–1, report to Senate 14 May 1775. Kolomenskoy pp 33–4. PSZ xx nos 14,251, 15 February 1775. PSZ xx no 14,464, 9 May 1775. SIRIO 27: 37.

11 RGVIA 52.1.54.3.21–30, GAP correspondence with S. D. Efremov and wife Melaniya Karpovna.

12 RGADA 5.85.1.68, L 110, GAP to CII and her reply, GAP to CII and again her reply. RGADA 5.85.1.68, L 110.

13 SBVIM vol 6 p 54.

14 SBVIM vol 1 pp 74–88, 36–7, GAP to General P. A. Tekeli 18 June 1775.

15 William H. McNeill, Europe’s Steppe Frontier 1500–1800 pp 200–2. RGADA 5.85.1.464, L 81, CII to GAP. SBVIM vol 1 pp 65–7, 8 September 1775. Druzhenina pp 64–5.

16 RGADA 1.1/1.54.83, L 125. RGADA 5.85.3.109. SIRIO 27: 50–1.

17 RGADA 5.85.1.25, L 127, CII to GAP. Zavadovsky pp 23–4, Count P. V. Zavadovsky to Count P. A. Rumiantsev. The debate about the placing of Kherson: SBVIM p 110, CII ukase to GAP; p 112, GAP to CII 25 July 1778. RGVIA 143.1.6–7, ud, 1777. GAP costs the founding of Kherson at 460, 103 roubles.

18 Samoilov cols 1215–18. Catherine also sent workers: RGADA 5.85.3.109, CII to GAP on workers for building Admiralty 31 May 1778. Reports of I. A. Hannibal to GAP: RGVIA 1.194.54.10.52, 11 November 1779. Also ZOOID 11: pp 324–6. Murzakevich, GAP to Hannibal 1 March 1781 and 11 August 1782. Druzhinina pp 64–83.

19 Samoilov cols 1215–18.

20 M. S. Bentham, Life of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham pp 17–18, 10 August 1780.

21 Cornwall Archive, Antony CAD/50 Pole Carew Papers 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, unpublished.

22 RGADA 11.900.1, Reginald Pole Carew to GAP 24 October 1781, Kherson, unpublished.

23 Cornwall Archive, Antony CAD/50, Pole Carew Papers 25–7, unpublished.

24 RGADA 11.900.1, Pole Carew to GAP 24 October 1781, Kherson, unpublished.

25 M. Antoine, Essai Historique sur le commerce et la navigation de la Mer Noire p 112.

26 ZOOID 8: 210, GAP to CII.

27 ZOOID 13: 162, M. Antoine to GAP 11 January 1786.

28 ZOOID 11: 342, GAP to Colonel Gaks 22 October 1783. ZOOID 11: 354, GAP to Colonel N. I. Korsakov 1 February 1784. ZOOID 11: 343, GAP to M. V. Muromtsev.

29 RGVIA 271.1.35 pp 4–5.

30 RGVIA 52.2.11.102 pp 22–3, GAP to Ivan Starov 26 May 1790.

31 ZOOID 11: 341, GAP to Gaks 6 October 1783. CII watched Kherson carefully: for her approval and supply of new funding see SIRIO 27 (1880): 292, CII to GAP 22 January 1784.

32 ZOOID 11: 335, GAP to Gaks 14, 22 October 1783 and GAP to Muromtsev 9 November 1783.

33 Antoine p 228. It is a mark of GAP’s scale of ambition in trading that he hoped to establish commerce with Ethiopia through the Red Sea. O. Markova, O neutralnay sisteme i franko-russkikh otnosheniyakh. Vtoraya Polovina xviii v. p 47. Also: Druzhinina ch xxx.

34 RGADA 11.946.152, Dr G. Behr to GAP, 1787, unpublished.

35 RGADA 5.85.1.124–5, CII to GAP 30 September 1782.

36 Harris p 477, H to Lord Grantham 25 October/5 November 1782.

37 RGADA 5.85.1.88, L 154, CII to GAP.

38 RGADA 1.1/1.43.84–5, L 165, GAP to CII. RGADA 1.1/1.43 pp 76–7, GAP to CII. RGADA 1.1/1.43.78, L 168, GAP to CII. All from Kherson, May 1783.

39 Vassilchikov vol 1 pp 370–1, Count Kirill Razumovsky 22 June 1782.

40 Anspach, Journey p 157, 12 March 1786.

41 P. I. Sumarokov, Travelling through all the Crimea and Bessarabia pp 21–4. Maria Guthrie, A Tour performed in the years 1795–6 through the Taurida or Crimea letter IX p 32.

42 RGADA 1355.1.2064.

43 Author’s visit to Kherson 1998. Kherson Art Museum and Father Anatoly, priest of St Catherine’s Church.

44 RGADA 1.1/1.43.80–3, L 172, GAP to CII June 1783, Kherson.

45 RGADA 1.1/1.43.80–3, L 172, GAP to CII June 1783, Kherson.

46 AVPRI 2.2/8a.21.32.

47 RGADA 1.1/1.43.69–71, GAP to CII July 1783, Karasubazaar.

48 Guthrie letter 27 p 91.

49 ZOOID 12: 308, GAP to Korsakov.

50 RGVIA 52.1.1.160.3 p 57, Korsakov to GAP, report on plan of building works in Tavrichesky Regioin 14 February 1786. Also 160.2.160–2, Korsakov to GAP.

51 Miranda pp 229–30, 1 January 1787.

52 Guthrie letter 27 p 91.

53 RGADA 1.1/1.43.80–3, L 172, GAP to CII June 1783, Kherson.

54 RGADA 1.1/1.43.66, L 181, GAP to CII.

55 ZOOID 12: 265, GAP to A. B. de Balmain 1783.

56 ZOOID 12: 281, 272, GAP to I. A. Igelstrom 16 August 1783.

57 Miranda p 227, 28 December 1786.

58 ZOOID 23 (1901): 41–3.

59 SIRIO 27: 300. Fisher, Russian Annexation pp 142–3. ‘Ocherk voennoy sluzhby krymskikh tatar s 1783 po 1889 god’, ITUAK 30 (1899) pp 1–2. Fisher, Crimean Tartars p 87. Druzhinina pp 64–7, 69, 161–2.

60 Miranda p 225, 25 December 1786.

61 GIM OPI 197.2.43, GAP: On Taurida Province.

62 Author’s visit to Simferopol 1998.

63 RGADA 1.1/1.43.69, L 178, GAP to CII July 1783, Karasubazaar. Colonel Nikolai Korsakov was killed at the siege of Ochakov by his own sword when he fell down a slope. He is buried, like GAP himself, at St Catherine’s in Kherson. His grave is still there though it was probably dug up by the Bolsheviks.

64 RGADA 16.799.1.39–40, L 209.

65 RGADA 16.798.114, CII ukase to GAP about Ekaterinoslav 22 January 1784. RGADA 16.798.180, CII to GAP approving plan of Ekaterinoslav 13 October 1786. Druzhinina p 176.

66 Miranda p 234, 8 January 1787.

67 RGADA 16.689.2.95 and 98, N. Chertkov to GAP 24 December 1781.

68 Druzhinina p 89.

69 George Soloveytchik, Potemkin p 191.

70 RGADA 16.799.1.39–40, L 209. Ségur, Mémoires vol 3 p 173, says GAP talked about St Peter’s when CII visited the site in 1787, but it was not in the actual plans or in letters to CII. It was clearly propagated by hostile foreigners.

71 RGADA 16.799.2.149, L 219.

72 RGADA 16.799.1.1, L 199, GAP to CII. RGVIA 52.1.72.179, L 202, GAP to CII.

73 B&F vol 2 p 86, Count Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

74 RGADA 11.946.270, Charles Castelli to GAP 21 March 1787, Milan, unpublished.

75 ZOOID 9: 276, I. M. Sinelnikov to V. S. Popov 19 April 1784. ZOOID 4: 376, GAP to Sinelnikov 15 January 1786. ZOOID 4: 377, GAP to V. V. Kahovsky. ZOOID 4: 375, GAP to Sinelnikov 14 March 1787. ZOOID 2: 742–3, GAP to Sinelnikov 28 September 1784.

76 RGADA 16.799.1.35–6, GAP to CII October 1786 ud.

77 RGADA 16.799.1.35, L 210, GAP to CII. RGADA 5.85.1.498, L 203, GAP to CII ud.

78 RGADA 16.696.1.179, 30 January 1792.

79 RGADA 11.950.5.234. RGVIA 52.2.103.50–1. RGADA 52.2.11.102.22–3 (Starov’s plans). RGADA 16.696.1.163–4 and 180–18.

80 Bartlett p 133. A. Fadyev, Vospominaniya 1790–1867 vol 1 p 42.

81 Dimitri Shvidkovsky, The Empress and the Architect: British Architecture and Gardens at the Court of Catherine the Great pp 250–1.

82 Author’s visit to Dniepropetrovsk 1998.

83 John Dornberg, Brezhnev p 69.

84 ZOOID 13: 184–7, GAP to M. L. Faleev 1791. ZOOID 13: 182–3, Faleev to GAP probably 1791.

85 P. M. Vyborny, Nikolaev p 6.

86 Sumarokov, Travelling p 7. Guthrie letters 1–2 pp 6–8.

87 SBVIM vol 7 p 371. José de Ribas: RP 2.1 p 34. AAE 20: 24, Langeron.

88 IRLI 265.2.2115.1–2, L 169, GAP to CII, Kherson. RGADA 5.85.1.502, L 173, CII to GAP, Tsarskoe Selo. AVPRI 2.2/8a.21.42, L 185, GAP to CII, Nezhin. Evgeny Anisimov quoted in Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great p 88.

89 Author’s visit to Kherson 1998.

90 Miranda p 204, 22 November 1786. SIRIO 27 (1880): 369, CII to GAP on money for the navy 26 June 1786.

91 Anspach, Journey p 159, 12 March 1786.

92 JII–CII (Arneth) p 353, JII to Count Lacy 19/30 May 1787.

93 PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP106/67, William Fawkener to Lord Grenville 18 June 1791 and Estimate of Russian Black Sea Fleet by British Ambassador Charles Whitworth 11 January 1787, unpublished. M. S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, pp 144–5. SIRIO 27 (1880): 354–5, CII ukase to GAP placing Black Sea Fleet under his own independent command 13 August 1785.

94 PSZ 10: 520/1, 24 April 1777.

95 Michael Jenkins, Arakcheev, Grand Vizier of the Russian Empire, pp 171–203.

96 RGADA 16.588.1.12. RGADA 16.799.1.141–2 and 95. SBVIM vol 7 p 85. GAP to Maj-Gen and Gov of Azov Chertkov 14 June 1776 and pp 94 to General Meder 27 August 1776. GAP took special care with Armenians – see L. Mellikset-Bekov, From the Materials for the History of the Armenians in the South of Russia p 14, GAP (via Popov) to Kahovsky on settlement of Armenians. Bruess pp 195–7. Druzhinina pp 176, 150–4, 164–5.

97 CAD/51. Pole Carew Papers, unpublished. On 25 June 1781, Potemkin arranged for thousands of noble and state serfs to be transferred to the new lands, if they wished. ‘These lands,’ wrote Pole Carew about New Russia, ‘are reserved for the transporting of 20,000 peasants of the Crown from the parts of the Empire where they are too numerous.’

98 ZOOID 8: 212, GAP to CII 10 August 1785. ZOOID 8 contains many of GAP’s reports to CII and orders on settlers, e.g. ZOOID 8: 209, 9 July 1776 on settlement of Albanians in Kerch and Yenikale. Raskolniki: GAP cultivated the Old Believers, let them worship as they wished. ZOOID 9 (1875): 284. GAP to Metropolitan Gabriel of St Petersburg. 26 August 1785. See settlement of Raskolniki report of Ekaterinoslav Governor Sinelnikov to GAP, ZOOID 9: p 270. 2 April 1785.

99 PSZ 22: 280, 14 January 1785. GAP’s governors sent officials to recruit women, for example ZOOID 10, August 1784. Kahovsky writing to Popov about a report to GAP, says he has sent an official to Little Russia ‘where he found wives for all the bachelors.’ It is hard to gauge the success of GAP’s female recruiting campaign but in January 1785, we know that 4,425 recruits’ women were sent south to join their husbands in their hard frontier lives.

100 ZOOID 8: 212, GAP to CII 10 August 1785. ‘Let me transfer clerks whom the Synod returns for a settlement in this territory,’ he requested CII in 1785. ‘The clerks will be like military settlers and it will be doubly advantageous as they will be both ploughmen and militia.’ Four thousand unemployed priests settled. Also: Bartlett, p 125.

101 PSZ 20: 14870 and 15006. GAP to M. V. Muromtsev 31 August 1775, SBVIM vol 7 p 54. In a potentially revolutionary move, Potemkin ruled that landowners could not reclaim serfs if they settled in his provinces – more evidence, if any were needed, of his semi-imperial right to do whatever he thought right, even if it broke the rules of noble-dominated Russian society. This did not make him popular with the aristocracy.

102 RGADA 11.869.114, Prince A. A. Viazemsky to GAP 5 August 1786. See also RGADA 448.4402.374. Initially, 26,000 serfs were moved to Azov and Ekaterinoslav Provinces. Further peasants – probably 24,000 in all – were allowed to put their names down for transfer. Another 26,000 landowners’ peasants went. 30,307 state peasants also settled in the north Caucasus, according to a letter from Viazemsky to GAP in 1786.

103 V. Zuev, ‘Travel Notes 1782–3’, Istoricheskiy i geographicheskiy mesyazeslov p 144.

104 SIRIO 27: 275. PSZ 22: 438–40. 16239, 13 August 1785. SBVIM vol 7 pp 119–24. GAP ruled that a nobleman could receive an allotment of land, provided he settled not less than fifteen families for every 1500 desyatins during the first ten years. Catherine gave him unique powers to decide what taxes, if any, they should pay. For example: Druzhinina p 63. RGADA 248.4402.374–5. This shows how GAP and CII worked together in the settlement of the south. On 16 October 1785, GAP suggested that landowners and peasants settling in the south should not have to pay landtax or polltax. The Senate agreed (same reference p382/3) on 25 November 1785 but CII (p 384) left the details to be decided by GAP.

105 RGADA 11.946.273 and 275. Mikhail Kantakusin (Prince Cantacuzino) to GAP, 6 February 1787 and 25 January 1787, St Petersburg unpublished. Some of these recruiters were merchants, others were Phanariot princes like Cantacuzino or noblemen like the Duc de Crillon.

106 A. Skalkovsky, Chronological Review of New Russia (1730–1823) part I pp 146–7.

107 RGADA 11.946.32. Panaio and Alexiano to GAP 11 December 1784, Sebastopol, unpublished. Count Demetrio Mocenigo sent at least five groups of Greeks and Corsicans, over 1,010 people between August 1782 and July 1783. Druzhinina, Severnoye prichernomoye p 159. See Bruess p 115.

108 ZOOID 11: 330–1 GAP to Count Ivan Osterman 25 March 1783.

109 RGADA 11.895.25. GAP to Baron Sutherland ud, 1787, unpublished.

110 ZOOID 9 (1875): 265, Sinelnikov to Popov. RGADA 16.962.14. V. M. Kabuzan Narodonaseleniye rossii v XVIII – pervoy polovine XIX veka p 154.

111 ZOOID 11: 331, GAP to Gaks, 26 May 1783.

112 RGADA 11.946.278. Mikhail Kantakusin (Cantacuzino) to GAP 30 May 1785, Mogilev, unpublished. Bartlett p 126.

113 Edward Crankshaw p 313.

114 Y. Gessen, Istoriya Evreyskogo naroda v Rossii, and same author Zakon i zhizn kak sozdavalis ogranichitelnyye zony o zhitelsteve v Rossi pp 16–18 quoted in Madaringa Russia p 505. This survey of the Jews under CII and GAP owes much to D. Z. Feldman, Svetleyshiy Knyaz GA Potemkin i Rossiyskiye Evrei pp 186–92; David E. Fishman, Russia’s First Modern Jews The Jews of Shklov pp 46–59 and pp 91–3; John Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews, Origins of the Jewish Question in Russia 1772–1825 pp 35–80, particularly on GAP pp 37, 95, 125, and Louis Greenberg, The Jews in Russia, vol 1 pp 23–4.

115 RGADA 16.696.1.179, Register of Peoples in Ekaterinoslav 30 January 1792. 45,000 Jews gained by Russia in the First Partition: Klier p 19.

116 GAP came to know his circle of Jewish merchants and rabbis through his Krichev estate in Belorussia and through the court maintained nearby at Shklov by Semyon Zorich, Catherine’s former lover. Joshua Zeitlin was the Jew closest to GAP but the other leading Jewish courtier was Natan Nota ben Hayim, known in Russian as Natan Shklover (Nathan of Shklov) or Nota Khaimovich Notkin who like Zeitlin was in contact with the philosophes of the Jewish enlightenment such as Moses Mendelssohn in Berlin. Zeitlin and Notkin helped Potemkin build roads, towns and raise armies and fleets – and it is likely that Zeitlin was behind the Prince’s idea to create a Jewish regiment (see Chapter 26.) Notkin, a far less religious Jewish figure than Zeitlin, was the first in the long line of secular Jewish merchant princes who were increasingly Russified and unJewish. Indeed Zeitlin’s wealthy son-in-law Abraham Perets, who continued to be patronised by GAP’s heirs, became such a society figure in St Petersburg in the early nineteenth century that he converted to Orthodoxy. Even so his close friendship with Alexander I’s reforming minister Mikhail Speransky shocked Russian society and damaged the minister – which only goes to show the extraordinary nature of GAP’s friendship with rebbe Zeitlin a few years earlier. Other of GAP’s favoured Jews included Karl Hablitz, the botanist who served on the Persian expedition, and Nikolai Stiglitz who bought 2,000 souls on ex-Zaporogian land from Prince A. A. Viazemsky at GAP’s request. Stiglitz, descended from German Jews, founded a merchant dynasty that lasted into the nineteenth century. (Maybe, the settlement of Jews on Cossack land was a further contributing factor to their anti-semitism.) These Jews played a special role in building GAP’s southern projects. Indeed Notkin specially suggested settling ‘Jews on fertile steppes to breed sheep…and founding factories’ – a precursor of the Jewish collective farms founded in that area by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and the idea during the Second World War to found a Jewish homeland in the Crimea. An example of GAP protecting the Jews was the false currency scandal in 1783 involving the Jews of Shklov. Finally, it seems from the archives on Baron Richard Sutherland, the British banker, that Potemkin supported Zeitlin over the Baron, quite a mark of favour in that famous Anglophile. Klier p 95; Greenberg pp 23/24; Derzhavin, Zapiski p 133. Feldman pp 186–92. Fishman pp 46–59 and 91–3. This page for the delegation to Catherine. This page for the memories of Zeitlin and GAP together by the former’s great-grandson Shai Hurvitz quoted from Seger hayai (Book of My Life) by Shai Hurvitz, Hashiloah 40 (1922) p 3. ZOOID 12: 295 6 March 1784, Zeitlin appointed by GAP as manager of the monetary unit of the Kaffa mint. On Catherine’s decree on zhids and evrei: PSZ: XXII. 16146. For relationship between GAP, Sutherland and Zeitlin, see GARF 9, RGVIA 52 and RGADA 11, especially RGADA 11.895.3–5, Sutherland to GAP 10 August 1783 and 13 September 1783. RGADA 11.895.7 Sutherland to GAP 2 March 1784. All unpublished. See also Chapter 29 note 43.

117 ZOOID 17: 163–88, P. A. Ivanov. ‘The Management of Jewish immigration into New Russia region’. Also ZOOID 11: p 330, GAP to Count Osterman 25 March 1783. GAP approves of Jewish immigration to Kherson, possibly not from Poland and Belorussia but from the Mediterranean via the Duc de Crillon’s Corsicans and Italians. Engelhardt p 42.

118 Miranda p 219. 30 December 1786.

119 Fishman pp 46–59 and pp 91–3. For Zeitlin’s retirement to Ustye p 58/9 and also Notes 37–41. Note 41: Fishman believes ‘Zeitlin’s role model in constructing his court may have been Potemkin.’ Zeitlin, born in 1742, lived on in luxurious retirement until 1821. The active role of leader of the Jewish community fell to Notkin and Perets.

CHAPTER 19: BRITISH BLACKAMOORS AND CHECHEN WARNING

1 AKV 16: 202–4, S. R. Vorontsov 11/22 August 1786, London. AKV 11: 177–9, S. R. Vorontsov to Count N. P. Panin 6/18 May 1801, Southampton. AKV 13: 101–2, A. A. Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov 28 October 1785, St Petersburg.

2 BM 33540 ff 64–5, SB to JB 1784, Kremenchuk.

3 Bartlett pp 127–8, D. Gray to Sir Robert Ainslie 24 June 1784.

4 ZOOID 12: 324, GAP to V. V. Kahovsky.

5 M. S. Vorontsov’s Family Archive, Orders of H. E. Prince GAPT regarding Tauris Region ud, July? 1785: pp 324–5 no 194, GAP to Kahovsky.

6 ZOOID 15 (1889): 607–8, GAP to Sinelnikov 1 July 1784.

7 ITUAK 8 (1889) p 10, GAP to Kahovsky 16 August 1787.

8 RGVIA 52.1.2.461.40, GAP to Kahovsky 25 May 1787.

9 ZOOID 11: part 2 pp 673–4, GAP to M. L. Faleev.

10 RGADA 16.788.1.149, GAP’s printed address to nobility and inhabitants of Tavrichesky Region, containing appeal to cultivate agriculture and description of benefits from this.

11 RGVIA 52.1.2.496.44–5, GAP to Kahovsky 20 January 1787. M. S. Vorontsov’s Family Archive, p 220 no 180, Orders of H. E. Prince GAPT regarding Foundation of Tavrichesky Region 1781–6, GAP to Kahovsky.

12 RGVIA 52.1.461.1.13, GAP to Professors V. Livanov and M. Prokopovich 5 January 1787. RGVIA 52.1.461.1.14 GAP to K. Hablitz same date. SIRIO 27 (1880): 357, CII to GAP on Professors Livanov and Prokopovich recently back from England 1 September 1785.

13 PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP106/67, William Fawkener to Lord Grenville 18 June 1791, unpublished.

14 AKV 13: 59–60, Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov 20 August 1784. Sirin Bey, one of the local Crimean officials, got 27,000 desyatins, more than Bezborodko’s 18,000. Popov received 57,876 desyatins (28,000 on the peninsula itself), while Bezborodko was so thrilled with his ‘very nice country estate near Karasubazaar’ that he boasted, in Petersburg, it would be royal in scale. (Potemkin set up ‘an English farm’ on it.) Druzhinina pp 119–20.

15 RGVIA 52.1.2.461.1.64.

16 Venetia Murray, High Society in the Regency Period pp 145–7.

17 RGADA 11.939.2, Lady Craven to GAP 5 April 1786, Sebastopol, unpublished. Cross, By the Banks of the Neva p 358.

18 Filosofskaya i politicheskaya perepiska Imperatritsky Ekateriny II s Doctorom Zimmermanom p 47, CII to Dr Zimmerman 10/21 January 1786. GAP’s request for silk experts in Crimea. AAE 10: 206, Observations sur l’état actuel de la Crimée, Comte de Ségur to Comte de Vergennes, unpublished.

19 M. S. Vorontsov’s Family Archive, Orders of H. E. Prince GAPT regarding Foundation of Tavrichesky Region p 313 no 159, 3 December 1784.

20 ZOOID 15 (1889): 678–80. E. A. Zagorovsky, Potemkin’s Economic Policy in New Russia (reprinted in KNDKO vol 2, 1926) p 6. Shterich and mining engineer Gayskop were ordered to seek bituminous cola in 1790 around Lugansk and North Donetz. A nobleman named Falkenberger was employed by Tauris Region for his specialist knowledge on mining. RGADA 16.689.1.50. See also RGADA 11.869.134, A. A. Viazemsky to GAP on mining prospects in Crimea and Caucasus 12 September 1783.

21 RGADA 16.799.1.35, GAP to CII.

22 AAE 10: 206, Observations sur l’état actuel de la Crimée, Ségur to Vergennes, unpublished.

23 Guthrie letter LXI p 195. In another example of his sponsoring new industries, GAP aided and established a Greek artisan named Pavel Aslan in Taganrog in 1780 because he knew the secret of making a special form of brocade. SIRIO 27: 257–8. Druzhinina, Severnoye prichernomorye p 84. Bruess, pp 130–1.

24 RGADA 16.799.1.35, L 210, GAP to CII. RGADA 5.85.1.498, L 203, GAP to CII ud.

25 RGADA 11.946.201, Joseph Banq to GAP 14 October 1781, Astrakhan. RGADA 11.946.207, Banq to GAP 16 April 1782, Astrakhan. RGADA 11.946.208, Banq to GAP 10 May 1783, Kherson. RGADA 11.946.203, Banq to GAP 31 October 1783, Soudak. RGADA 11.946.204, Banq to GAP 14 January 1784. RGADA 11.946.220, Banq to GAP, Karasubazaar 26 April 1785. RGADA 11.946.226, Banq to GAP 15 January 1787, Soudak. All unpublished.

26 ZOOID 9 (1875): p 254.

27 RGVIA 271.1.33.1, Banq to GAP 25 September 1783, Soudak, unpublished.

28 Tavricheskiy Gubernskiye Vedomosti 5. GAOO 150.1.23.10, GAP to Kahovsky re Banq. RGADA 11.946.226, Banq to GAP 15 January 1787, Soudak. Banq’s replacement was the Frenchman Jacob Fabre. unpublished.

29 AAE 10: 206, Observations sur l’état actuel de la Crimée, Ségur to Vergennes. Guthrie letter XL p 130.

30 ZOOID 4: 369, GAP to Faleev 13 October 1789, Akkerman (Belgrade-on-Dniester).

31 PSZ 20: 520–1, 24 April 1777.

32 PSZ 21: 784, 22 December 1782.

33 Bartlett p 120. RGADA 11.869.73, 5 August 1786 Viazemsky offers GAP 30,307 settlers (male and female) for Caucasus (or possibly Ekaterinoslav). P. S. Potemkin governed the region from 1 July 1783. Russkiy Biographicheskiy Slovar vol 14 (1904).

34 On Chechen religion: author’s visit to Grozny, Chechnya 1994. Marie Bennigsen Broxup (ed) The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance towards the Moslem World: see ‘Circassian Resistance to Russia’ by Paul B. Henze p 75. Baddeley pp 40–50. Russkiy Biographicheskiy Slovar vol 14 on Count P. S. Potemkin. When GAP ordered Colonel Pieri to use the Astrakhan Regiment to eliminate Mansour, Pieri and 600 of his men were ambushed and slaughtered. See also Ségur on the Chechens and the Caucasian war in his Mémoires (1826) vol 2.

35 Anspach, Journey p 155, 9 March 1786, Kherson. Miranda p 247, 27 January 1787.

36 Author’s visits to Crimea, St Petersburg and Dniepropetrovsk 1998. J. C. Loudon (ed), Encyclopaedia of Gardening p 52. RGADA 11.950.5.234, William Gould to GAP, unpublished. Dornberg p 69.

37 Author’s visit to Karasubazaar/Alupka in Crimea 1998. Anna Abramova Galichenka, Alupka Museum. Miranda p 234, 9 January 1787.

38 Kruchkov p 164. Author’s visit to Nikolaev 1998. RGVIA 52.2.2.22–33, GAP to Starov 26 May 1790.

39 PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers SP106/67, Fawkener to Grenville 18 June 1791, St Petersburg, unpublished.

40 The first population figures are from Kabuzan p 164. The second are from Druzhinina, pp 150–5, 160–5, and 200. Druzhinina is the most authoritative historian of Potemkin’s southern settlements. The quotation is from McNeill p 200. McNeill also quotes Kabuzan’s statistics.

41 Ségur, Memoirs 1859 vol 2 p 43.

42 McNeill p 202.

43 ITUAK (1919) no 56 pp 127–30. G. Vernadsky, Prince G. A. Potemkin’s poetry dedicated to the foundations of Ekaterinoslav.

CHAPTER 20: ANGLOMANIA: THE BENTHAMS IN RUSSIA AND THE EMPEROR OF GARDENS

1 Jeremy Bentham, Collected Works ed Sir J. Bowring vol 10 p 171, George Wilson to JB 26 February 1787.

2 I. R. Christie, The Benthams in Russia pp 1–10.

3 BM 33558 f3, SB to? 1 August 1780. M. S. Bentham pp 67–8. Some of these documents from the Bentham archive in the British Museum are fully or partly unpublished, though others or sections of them appear in one or more of the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, Sir Samuel Bentham’s biography (by his widow), and the outstanding articles and books by I. R. Christie, such as his work The Benthams in Russia. Therefore, though this author has returned to the original papers in the BM, only the Bentham documents found in the Russian archives, RGADA or RGVIA, are labelled unpublished. This account owes much to I. R. Christie.

4 BM 33555 f65, SB to JB 7 January 1783.

5 BM 33539 f60, S. Pleshichev to JB 21 June 1780.

6 BM 33539 ff289–94, SB to JB 16 June 1782, Irkutsk.

7 BM 33539 f39, SB to JB? 8 April 1780.

8 BM 33564 f31, SB’s diary 1783–4.

9 BM 33558 f100, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 1 June 1783; f77, SB to JB ud; ff 102–4, SB to Field-Marshal Prince A. M. Golitsyn 23 March 1783; ff 108–9, SB to Countess Sophia Matushkina and, f 114, she to him 2/13 May 1783. BM 33540 f7, SB to JB? 20 January 1784.

10 BM 33540 f6, SB to JB 20 January 1784; ff 17–18, SB to JB 22 January OS 1784. BM 33540 f 7–12, SB to JB 20/31 January–2 February 1784 and 6/17–9/20 March 1784.

11 BM 33564 f30, SB’s undated diary, March 1784.

12 Jeremy Bentham, Correspondence p 279, SB to JB 10/21 June–20 June/1 July 1784.

13 BM 33540 f88, SB to? 18 July 1784. M. S. Bentham pp 74–7, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 18 July 1784.

14 Christie, Benthams in Russia pp 122–6. Druzhinina, Severnoye prichernomorye p 148.

15 BM 33540 ff 87–9, SB to Jeremiah Bentham? 18 July 1784, Krichev.

16 CO/R/3/93 Cornwall Archives, Antony, Reginald Pole Carew 4/15 June 1781. CO/R/3/10.1, Pole Carew’s plans for GAP’s estates on the Dnieper, including the island of Chartyz, where he wanted to build some sort of town or settlement, are in GAP’s archives: RGADA 11.900.3/4/5, Pole Carew to GAP 30 March 1782 and 13/24 August 1781. All of these, in Russia and Cornwall, are unpublished. Pole Carew’s experiences in Russia are fascinating and ought to be published.

17 BM 33540 ff87–9, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 18 July 1784, Krichev.

18 M. S. Bentham p 77, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 18 July 1784.

19 Christie, Benthams in Russia pp 127–8. BM 33540 f216, SB to JB.

20 BM 33558 f383, A. Beaty to Thomas Watton. 18 February/1 March 1786.

21 BM 33540 f99, SB to JB 26 August–6 September 1784.

22 BM 33540 f108, GAP to SB 17 August 1784, Tsarskoe Selo.

23 BM 33540 f108, GAP to SB 10 September 1784, St Petersburg.

24 RGADA 11.946.183, SB to GAP 3 March 1786.

25 BM 33540 f237, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 6 January 1786.

26 BM 33540 ff 380–2, JB to Jeremiah Bentham 2/14 June 1787.

27 BM 33540 ff87–9, SB to Jeremiah Bentham? 18 July 1784, Krichev.

28 BM 33540, GAP to SB 10 September 1785, St Petersburg.

29 M. S. Bentham p 79.

30 Christie, Benthams in Russia p 132.

31 RGADA 11.946.132–4, SB to GAP 18 July 1784, Krichev, unpublished.

32 Ségur, Memoirs 1960 p 71.

33 BM 33540 f70–78, SB to JB 10/12 June–20/1 July 1784.

34 BM 33540 f147, 30 March/10 April 1785.

35 BM 33540, SB to JB June 1784.

36 BM 33540 f68, SB to JB 19 June 1784, Kremenchuk.

37 BM 33540 f94, SB to JB 18 July 1784.

38 BM 33540 f235, Jeremiah Bentham 2 November 1784.

39 BM 33540 f306, Marquess of Lansdowne to Jeremiah Bentham 1 September 1788.

40 RGADA 11.946.141–2, JB to GAP 27 August 1785. RGADA 11.946.186–210. JB to GAP February 1785. These are partly unpublished.

41 BM 33540 ff151–2, SB to JB 27 March 1785.

42 BM 33540 f160, Robert Hynam to JB 10 May 1785.

43 BM 33540 f258, JB to? 9 May/28 April 1786.

44 SIRIO 23: 157.

45 Dimsdale p 51, 7 September NS 1781.

46 Cross, By the Banks of the Neva, pp 267–70, 274–6, 284. This account of GAP’s gardeners owes much to Anthony Cross, By the Banks of the Neva. The delightful story of the roast beef is from Coxe’s Travels (5th edn), quoted by Cross at p 410 n 163.

47 RGIA 1146.1.33, unpublished. See note 49.

48 Anna Abramova Galichenka, Alupka Museum. Author’s visit to Crimea 1998.

49 RGIA 1146.1.33, unpublished. On Gould’s movements and projects in Astrakhan, Ukraine, Nikolaev and Crimea, see Cross, By the Banks of the Neva p 275. Call must have been Martin Miller Call, one of the three gardeners recruited by CtG from the Duke of Northumberland. Call only left for Russia in 1792 and worked in the Taurida Garden. Cross, By the Banks of the Neva p 285. Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun was one of the many who likened Potemkin’s ‘magnificence’ to the Arabian Nights and acclaimed ‘the power and grandeur of his imagination’. Vigée Lebrun pp 23–4.

50 RGADA 11.891.1, Prince Belozelsky to GAP 9/20 July 1780, unpublished.

51 RGADA 11.923.8, H to GAP 15 June 1784, London, unpublished.

52 RGADA 11.923.5, H to GAP 4 June 1784, unpublished. RGVIA 52.2.89.91, Lord Carysfort to GAP 12 July 1789, London. unpublished. Sir Joshua Reynolds to GAP 4 August 1789, quoted in ‘Sir Joshua and the Empress Catherine’ by Frederick W. Hilles pp 270–3 in Eighteenth Century Studies in Honor of Donald F. Hyde. Cross, By the Banks of the Neva pp 321–3.

53 Author’s visit to Hermitage Museum, W. Europe Dept, Maria P. Garnova, 1998.

54 B&F vol 1 p 115, Count Cobenzl to JII 4 February 1781; p 265, Cobenzl to JII 4 December 1781; p 278, JII to Cobenzl 27 December 1781. Brompton’s most famous painting is his dreamy portrayal of the two young Grand Dukes, Alexander and Constantine – it was, as Anthony Cross writes in his By the Banks of the Neva p 310, ‘the realisation of her “Greek Project” with her little grandsons in the starring roles of a future Alexander the Great and a Constantine the Great’. (The Bromptons named one of their children Alexander Constantine.) One of his paintings of the Empress must have been sent to Vienna, but its destiny is unknown.

55 RGADA 11.946.119–23, Richard Brompton to GAP 21 June 1782, Tsarskoe Selo, unpublished.

56 Cross, By the Banks of the Neva pp 309–10. Bentham quoted in Cross p 310.

57 Ségur, Mémoires (1826) vol 2 p 341. Also Lincolnshire Archives Office, Lincoln, Yarborough Collection, Worsley MS no 24 f205 quoted in Cross, By the Banks of the Neva pp 357–8. Worsley was one of the English gentlemen who now included Petersburg in their Grand Tours. He met Lady Craven, Prince Pavel Dashkov and the Benthams. In Ségur’s story, Potemkin and Catherine were closeted for one hour, but Worsley says two.

58 BM 33540 f168, Landsdowne to JB ud.

59 BM 33540 ff196, 199, 201, 219, 226, 232, 240, 256, JB’s trip to Krichev September 1785–January 1786.

60 BM 33540 f163, 18/29 June 1785.

61 Miranda pp 234–5, 9 January 1787. Druzhinina, Severnoye prichernomorye p 136n. Christie, Benthams in Russia p 148.

62 BM 33540 f163, SB to JB 10 June 1785.

63 BM 33540 ff318–21, JB to Christian Trompovsky 18/29 December 1786.

64 BM 33540 f339, JB to SB February 1787.

65 BM 33540 f432, JB to Charles Whitworth ud.

66 BM 33540 f31, 19/30 December 1786.

67 BM 33540 f151, JB to Jeremiah Bentham 27 March 1785.

68 BM 33540 f64, SB to Reginald Pole Carew 18 June 1784, Kremenchuk.

69 Christie, Benthams in Russia pp 166.

70 E. P. Zakalinskaya, Votchinye khozyaystva Mogilevskoy gubernii vo vtoroy polovinye XVIII veka pp 37, 41–3. See I. R. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham and the Western Colony at Krichev’ p 140–50.

71 BM 33558 ff422–3, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 14/25 February 1788, Elisabethgrad.

72 Jeremy Bentham, Correspondence vol 3 p 443, JB to Jeremiah Bentham 28 April/9 May 1785.

73 BM 33540 f296, JB to Prince Dashkov 19 July 1786.

74 Soloveytchik, Potemkin.

75 Jeremy Bentham, Correspondence vol 3 pp 599–611, Diary of JB’s Departure.

76 Zakalinskaya pp 37, 41–3. Christie, Benthams in Russia p 206. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham at Krichev’ p 197.

77 Lincolnshire Archives Office, Lincoln, Yarborough Collection, Worsley MS 24 pp 182–4. Sir Richard Worsley also met Lady Craven and was, like Samuel Bentham, friends with Prince Pavel Dashkov. Cross, By the Banks of the Neva pp 357–8.

78 BM 33540 f88, SB to JB 18 July 1784.

CHAPTER 21: THE WHITE NEGRO

1 SIRIO 23 (1878): 319, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 14 September 1784. Masson p 107. Alexander, CtG pp 216–19, and Madariaga, Russia pp 354–6.

2 Parkinson pp 45–9. Dashkova pp 215, 229–30. RA (1886) no 3 pp 244–5, Iz zapisok doctora Veikarta. Masson p 107.

3 SIRIO 26: 280–1, A. A. Bezborodko to GAP 29 June 1784.

4 SIRIO 23 (1878): 244, CII to Grimm 29 June 1782, and SIRIO 23: 316–17, 7/18 June 1784.

5 SIRIO 23: 316–17, CII to Grimm 25 June 1784.

6 SIRIO 23: 344.

7 AKV 21: letter 6 p 464, E. Poliasky to Simon Vorontsov 18 August 1784. SIRIO 23: 317–18, CII to Grimm 9/18 September 1784. AKV 31, Alexander Vorontsov to Simon Vorontsov 21 July 1784, Riga.

8 B&F vol 1 p 17, Count Cobenzl to JII 5 May NS 1780.

9 Harris p 366, H to Viscount Stormont 14/25 May 1781.

10 Harris, H to Stormont 21 July/1 August 1780.

11 RGADA 1.1/1.54.45, L 203, CII to GAP. RGADA 5.85.1.498, L 204, GAP to CII.

12 RGADA 1.1/1.43.63, L 204.

13 Engelhardt 1868 p 49.

14 Saint-Jean ch 6 pp 40–8.

15 SIRIO 23: CII to Grimm 31 August 1781. It was at this time that Catherine is said to have had the short affair with Semyon Fyodorovich Uvarov, the Guards officer who entertained GAP by playing his bandore and dancing the prisiadka. However, if true, this short interlude led to nothing and Uvarov returned to his respectable career in the Guards. For an example of this story, see Vitale p 143.

16 Dashkova vol 1 p 218.

17 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 89–90.

18 Dashkova vol 1 pp 341–2.

19 Author’s visit to Anichkov Palace 1998, guided by Ina Lokotnikova. Engelhardt 1997 pp 39–40.

20 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 89–90. Engelhardt 1868 pp 50–1.

21 B&F vol 2 p 37, Cobenzl to JII 14 May 1785. V. I. Levashov’s friendly letters to GAP, dating from 1774, are in RGADA 2.1.946.2–3 and RGVIA 52.2.59.6.

22 B&F vol 2 p 37, Cobenzl to JII 14 May 1785.

23 Damas p 97.

24 SIRIO 42: 123, CII November 1790.

25 Dimsdale 27 September OS 1781. Anspach, Journey p 134, 18 February 1786.

26 Golovina p 6.

27 Masson p 93. Dimsdale p 51, 27 August 1781. This description of Tsarskoe Selo draws on Shvidkovsky pp 41–106.

28 SIRIO 23: 89, CII to Grimm 16 May 1778.

29 Shvidkovsky p 191.

30 Dimsdale p 72, 25 September OS 1781; p 62, 27 August 1781.

31 Damas p 95.

32 BM 33539 f39, SB 8 April 1780, St Petersburg.

33 Dimsdale, p 51, 27 August 1781.

34 SIRIO 23. 438, CII to Grimm 22 February 1788.

35 Damas p 97.

36 Harris p 304, H to Stormont 13/24 December 1780.

37 M. Garnovsky, Zapiski: RS (1876) 15, 16, 17; see 15 p 699, January 1788. Mikhail Garnovsky sent these reports to V. S. Popov, who digested the news and passed it on to GAP.

38 RGADA 5.85.2.88, L 274, CII to GAP 8 March 1788.

39 Pushkin, Polnoye Sobranige Sochineniya vol 11 p 16.

40 Engelhardt 1868 p 29. Anonymous, c 1787, General Observations Regarding the Present State of the Russian Empire p 29. Harris p 413, H to Stormont 16/27 November 1781.

41 SIRIO 23 (1878), CII to Grimm 30 June 1785, Peterhof.

42 Garnovsky, RS (1876) 15 p 226, 3 February 1789.

43 Garnovsky, RS (1876) 16 p 9.

44 Dashkova vol 1 pp 291–5.

45 Ségur, Mémoires 1827 vol 3 p 46, CII on the ‘eye of the master’. Masson p 79.

46 Ségur, Memoirs 1827 vol 2 p 359.

47 SIRIO 23 (1878): p 353, CII to Grimm June 1785. SIRIO 23: 353, CII to Grimm 1 June 1785.

48 Ségur, Memoirs 1827 vol 2 pp 393, 419.

49 B&F vol 2 p 75, Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

50 Ségur, Memoirs 1827 p 418.

51 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 98–103.

52 Khrapovitsky 30 May 1786.

53 Ségur, Memoirs 1827 vol 2 pp 418–19.

54 GARF 728.1.416.54, L 206, CII to GAP (after 28 June 1786?). KFZ 17–28 June 1786.

55 B&F vol 2 p 75, Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

56 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 103–4.

57 Khrapovitsky p 13.

58 RGADA 1.1/1.43.1–16, L 206, GAP to CII (July 1786?).

59 Khrapovitsky p 13.

60 B&F vol 2 p 75, Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

61 RGADA 11.902, Count A. D. Mamonov to GAP ud.

62 Ségur, Memoirs 1827 vol 2 p 420.

63 Garnovsky, RS (1876) 15 pp 15–16, December 1786; p 474, October 1787. Damas p 109.

64 Davis p 148.

65 Corberon vol 2 p 365, 19 September 1780.

66 Miranda p 204, 22 November 1786.

67 Saint-Jean ch 6 p 40.

CHAPTER 22: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF GRIGORY ALEXANDROVICH

1 IV (1889) vol 37: 683–4, G. P. Alexeev.

2 Thiébault vol 2 p 78.

3 RA (1877) 1 p 479 Ribeaupierre.

4 RGADA f11.

5 Castera vol 3 p 296.

6 SIRIO 23 (1878): 300, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 5 April 1784.

7 M. Fournier-Sarloveze, Artistes Oubliés, pp 95–6.

8 Ségur quoted in Castera vol 2 p 333.

9 Masson p 110.

10 Davis p 148. SIRIO 54 (1886): 148–9, Duc de Richelieu, ‘Journal de mon voyage en Allemagne’.

11 Ségur quoted in Castera vol 3 p 333.

12 SIRIO 54 (1886): 148–9, Richelieu, ‘Mon voyage’.

13 Ségur quoted in Castera vol 2 p 333.

14 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) pp 210–11.

15 Ligne’s famous description of GAP is taken from Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 6, Prince de Ligne to the Comte de Ségur August 1788, Ochakov. This is the source for Ligne quotations in this chapter unless otherwise stated. SIRIO 53 (1886): p 147–8, Richelieu, ‘Mon voyage’

16 Davis p 148.

17 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 252.

18 Anspach, Journey p 137, 18 February 1786.

19 RGIA 1146.1.33.

20 SIRIO 33 (1881): 239, Grimm to CII, 10/21 September 1786, Paris.

21 RGADA 11.889.2, Prince Lubomirsky to GAP, 15 August 1787.

22 B&F vol 2 p 194, JII to Count Cobenzl 12 September 1787; p 55, Cobenzl to JII October 1785. RGADA 11.928.8, Cobenzl to GAP 26 March 1786.

23 RGVIA 52.2.61.7, Prince F. M. Golitsyn, Russian Ambassador to Vienna, to GAP 26 August/6 September 1781.

24 Miranda p 272, 6 and 7 March 1787.

25 RGADA 85.1.488, L 204, CII to GAP. SIRIO 23 (1878): 333, 372, 374, CII to Grimm 15 April 1785 and 17 February 1786. And 17 June 1786, Pella.

26 Damas p 109. SIRIO 26 (1879): 315, Marquis de Parelo.

27 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 pp 358–9. List of Potemkin’s Wardrobe at his Death. CHOIDR (1891) book IV pp 15–53. Spisok domov i dvizhimogo imushchestva G. A. Potemkina-Tavricheskogo, kuplennogo u naslednikov ego imperatritsyey Ekateranoy II. Also SIRIO 54 (1886): p 148–9, Richelieu, ‘Mon voyage’

28 Brockliss, ‘Concluding Remarks’, in Elliott and Brockliss pp 298–9.

29 Harris p 338, H to Viscount Stormont 16/27 February 1781.

30 Brockliss, ‘Concluding Remarks’, in Elliott and Brockliss p 282.

31 Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 153.

32 SIRIO 23: 84, CII to Grimm 2–4 March 1778.

33 SIRIO 23: 73, CII to Grimm 22 December 1777, St Petersburg.

34 Anspach, Journey p 137.

35 Wiegel vol 1 p 291 J. H. Plumb Sir Robert Walpole: The Making of a Statesman p 124. Frederick K. Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison, Manic–Depressive Illness pp 332–67 esp. pp 342–56. See also Kay Redfield Jamison, The Unquiet Mind.

36 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) pp 210–11.

37 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 212.

38 Moskvityanin zhurnal (1852) no 2 January book 2 p 88.

39 Thiébault vol 2 p 78.

40 SIRIO 26 (1879): 35, Parelo.

41 Engelhardt 1997 p 68.

42 Moskvityanin zhurnal (1852) no 2 January book 2 p 92.

43 Castera vol 3 p 128.

44 Miranda p 238, 13 January 1787.

45 RGADA 5.169.1, Prince Charles of Courland 2 March 1787, Cracow. RGADA 11.925.15, Princess Dashkova to GAP ud. RGADA 11.946.229, Professor Bataille to GAP ud, 1784. RGADA 5.17.1–10, Frederick-William of Württemberg to GAP 7/8 September 1784. RGADA 5.166.8, SA to GAP 7 May 1787. RGADA 11.896.1, Ernest of Hesse to GAP ud, 1780. All unpublished. B&F vol 1 p 464, JII to Cobenzl 13 May 1784.

46 RGADA 11.918.1, G. Golovchin to GAP 22 August 1784 (Naryshkin marriage). RGADA 11.937.3, Count de Sayn and Wittgenstein to GAP (out of favour with CtG) 1 August 1780. RGADA 11.946.430–4, Elias Abaise Prince de Palestine (?) to GAP August 1780. RGVIA 52.2.89.145 and 146, Princess Bariatinskaya to GAP 2 September 1790 and 11 March 1791, Turin. RGADA 11.946.303 and 315, Nicolas Carpoff to GAP 27 May and 25 September 1786, Kherson. All unpublished.

47 RGADA 11.946.43–4, Elias Abaise Prince de Palestine (?) to GAP August 1780 and ud, unpublished.

48 Ribeaupierre p 479.

49 SBVIM vol 7 p 399, GAP to Rear-Admiral Count Mark Voinovich 9 October 1789.

50 Niemcewicz pp 79–80.

51 Niemcewicz p 79.

52 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 75, Ligne to JII April 1788, Elisabethgrad.

53 RGADA 11.867.11, K. Branicki to GAP ud, unpublished.

54 RGADA 11.946.385, Alexis Deuza to GAP 24 August 1784, Ozerki, unpublished.

55 RGADA 11.902a, Register of GAP’s Debts.

56 RGADA 11.946.378, C. D. Duval to GAP February 1784, unpublished.

57 RGADA 52.2.35.7, Pierre Tepper of Warsaw to GAP 25 September 1788, unpublished.

58 Karnovich pp 265–9. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 155.

59 BM 33540 f6, SB to JB 20 January 1784.

60 SIRIO 54 (1886): 148–9, Richelieu, ‘Mon voyage’

61 Miranda pp 229–30, 1 January 1787.

62 Derzhavin vol 6 p 444.

63 BM 33540 f64, SB to Reginald Pole Carew 18 June 1784.

64 RGVIA f5 op 194 book 409, order to Brzokovsky 28 January 1787. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 1 p 157.

65 RS 11 pp 722–3.

66 SIRIO 27: 238–9. ZOOID 11: 346–7.

67 Wiegel 1864 p 30.

68 Wiegel 1864 p 30.

69 Anspach, Journey p 137, 18 February 1786.

70 Shcherbatov p 245.

71 Saint-Jean ch 6 p 40.

72 Pole Carew CO/R/3/95, unpublished. He liked to visit his British friends for dinner too and sometimes take their roast beef home with him – see Chapter 20.

73 RGADA 11.881.1, Sacken to GAP re Ballez the cook 3/14 October 1778, unpublished.

74 Pole Carew CO/R/3/95, unpublished.

75 BM 33540 f65, SB to JB ud.

76 RGADA 11.901.9, Count Skavronsky to GAP 20 June 1784, unpublished.

77 Marc Raeff, ‘In the Imperial Manner’, in Marc Raeff (ed), Catherine the Great: A Profile pp 197–246. SIRIO 26 (1879): 309–10, Parelo.

78 Engelhardt 1868 p 89. Weidle p 152.

79 RGADA 11.864.36–77. RGADA 11.864.1.29. RGADA 11.864.1.16. RGADA 11.864.1.13. RGADA 11.864.1.12. RGADA 11.864.2.86. RGADA 11.864.2.73. RGADA 11.864.2.68. Some extracts of these letters from unknown women were published in RS (1875) 7. Most are unpublished.

80 Ribeaupierre p 476.

81 Samoilov col 1574.

82 Wiegel 1864 p 30.

83 Ségur, p 361. B&F vol 1 p 484, Cobenzl to JII 3 November 1784. Count IV Sologub married Natalia Naryshkina on 28 May 1781, according to KFZ.

84 RGVIA Potemkin Chancellery 52.2.35.33, Ferguson Tepper to GAP 11 January 1788, Warsaw, and GAP to Messrs Boesner 21 September 1788, Brody near Ochakov, unpublished. B&F vol 1 p 484, Cobenzl to JII 3 November 1784.

85 RGADA 5.85.2.31, L 217, CII to GAP 1 July 1787.

86 B&F vol 2 p 75, Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

87 Reshetilovsky Archive (V. S. Popov’s Archive) Prince GAPT’s own private papers p 403.

88 Harris p 447, H to Charles James Fox 10/21 June 1782; p 281, H to Stormont 2 July/1 August 1780.

89 Harris p 281, H to Stormont 21 July/1 August 1780.

90 SIRIO 54 (1886): 147–8, Richelieu, ‘Mon voyage’

91 Harris p 200, H to Weymouth 24 May/4 June 1779. SIRIO 26 (1879): 309–16. The Marquis de Parelo also admired GAP’s memory.

92 Cross, On the Banks of the Neva p 356. Sir John Sinclair quoted in Cross. SIRIO 26 (1879): 309–16. The Marquis de Parelo thought ‘knowing men’ was the ‘greatest gift in a great minister’ like GAP.

93 AKV 9: 86, Simon R. Vorontsov to Alexander R. Vorontsov 4/15 November 1786.

94 Miranda p 234, 8 January 1787.

95 Damas p 89–90.

96 SIRIO 42: 173, CII to Sénac de Meilhan 11 June 1791.

97 SIRIO 20 (1878): 605, CII to Grimm 27 August 1794.

98 RGADA 11.946.210 JB to GAP 25 February 1785.

99 ZOOID 4: 470, J. Grahov, Potemkin’s Military Printing house.

100 Pole Carew CO/R/3/95, unpublished.

101 RGADA 5.85.2.1, L 189, GAP to CII (early 1784).

102 Kazan State University 17: 262: 3–2300, 25–2708, 56–5700, 52–60. N. Y. Bolotina, ‘The Private Library of Prince GAP-T’.

103 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 359.

104 AAE 20: 330–5, Langeron, ‘Evénements dans la campagne de 1791’.

105 Harris p 239, H to Stormont 15/26 February 1780. Pushkin, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniya vol 12 p 171. GAP believed in sharpening his political skill and moral courage by living among his enemies – see his advice to his great-nephew N. N. Raevsky, quoted at the start of Chapter 31.

106 Engelhardt 1868 p 42.

107 Pushkin, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniya vol 12 p 156. Madariaga, Politics and Culture p 167.

108 AVPRI 5.585.168, L 266.

109 AVPRI 5.585.128–31, L 388, GAP to CII December 1789. RGADA 5.85.2.272–4, L 390, CII to GAP.

110 Ségur, 1826 vol 1 p 539.

111 Edvard Radzinsky, Rasputin p 501. Radzinsky is describing Rasputin and not GAP. Though the Prince was an aesthete of high culture and a nobleman, while Rasputin was an uneducated Siberian peasant, they did share this quintessentially Russian characteristic. Potemkin was after all raised among the peasants of Chizhova and carried some of their ideas and habits with him to Court. They were both the closest advisers of Russian empresses yet they had precisely the opposite effect on history. While GAP vastly strengthened the Empress and Empire, and left great works behind him, Rasputin undermined, tainted, and contributed to the destruction of, his Empress and Empire, and left nothing behind him.

112 Pushkin, Polnoye Sobraniye Sochineniya 12 p 811.

113 Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire pp 42–3, 126–7, 133. Hoyle’s Games, new rev edn by C. Jones, London 1796, quoted in John Masters, Casanova pp 46–7.

114 Moskvityanin zhurnal (1852) January book 2 pp 3–22, 97–8.

115 Castera vol 2 p 279.

116 RS (1875) 7 p 681, anonymous woman to GAP.

117 RGIA 1.146.1.33, unpublished.

CHAPTER 23: THE MAGICAL THEATRE

1 RGADA 5.85.2.229, L 348, CII to GAP 13 May 1789, Tsarskoe Selo.

2 Miranda pp 204–19, 22 November–28 December 1786.

3 Miranda p 219, 30 December 1786.

4 Duc de Cars, Mémoires du duc de Cars vol 1 pp 268–79.

5 Davis p 88. In this chapter, the source for the portrait of Prince de Nassau-Siegen is Aragon; and for Francisco de Miranda his diary (references given); Isabel de Madariaga, The Travels of General Francisco de Miranda in Russia; Benjamin Keen and Mark Wasserman, A History of Latin America pp 154–8; and Adam Zamoyski, Holy Madness pp 136–43, 152–3. The epigram on Nassau and his wife’s expectations in marriage belongs to Zamoyski, Last King of Poland, p 260.

6 Miranda pp 220–4, 31 December 1786–3 January 1787.

7 B&F vol 2 p 75, Count Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

8 Miranda pp 224–7, 25–29 December 1786 and 5 January 1787.

9 Anspach, Journey p 144, Lady Craven to Anspach 29 February 1786, Moscow.

10 Miranda pp 225–38, 25 December 1786–15 January 1787.

11 Aragon p 115, Prince Charles de Nassau-Siegen (N-S) to wife January 1787.

12 Miranda p 242, 8 January 1787. M. M. Ivanov later painted GAP’s deathscene.

13 B&F vol 2 p 86, Cobenzl to JII 1 November 1786.

14 Miranda p 241, 16 January 1787.

15 Miranda p 244, 20 January 1787.

16 Engelhardt 1997 p 53.

17 SIRIO 23 (1878): p 392, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 19 January 1787, Krichev.

18 Jeremy Bentham, Collected Works p 525 (Bowring vol 10 pp 168–71), JB to George Wilson 9/20 February 1787.

19 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 218.

20 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 65, Prince de Ligne to Coigny. Ligne did not join the voyage until Kiev.

21 Khrapovitsky 17 January 1787.

22 Jeremy Bentham 19/30 January 1787, quoted in Christie, Benthams in Russia p 177.

23 SIRIO 23 (1878): 393, CtG to Grimm 23 January 1787, Novgorod Severskiy.

24 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 222.

25 Urszula Mniszech, Listy pani mniszchowej zony marszalka w. koronnego, in, Rocznik towarzystwa historyczno literackiego p 192.

26 GIM OPI 1.139.32, L 214, GAP to CII 7 January 1787, Simferopol.

27 Aragon p 121, N-S to wife 13/24 January 1787.

28 Miranda pp 245–53, 23 January/7 February 1787.

29 Davis pp 148–9.

30 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 p 4.

31 Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 260. Davis pp 27, 119, 213.

32 Miranda pp 294–5, 26 March 1787. Ségur, 1890 vol 1 pp 422–3, quoted in Mansel, p 106.

33 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 17–19.

34 Ligne, Mélanges vol 21 p 9 and Letters (Staël) p 33, Ligne to Coigny. Ségur, (Shelley) p 224.

35 Miranda pp 255, 257, 7 and 12 February 1787.

36 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 p 17. Aragon p 138, N-S to wife. Miranda p 257, 14 February 1787.

37 Aragon p 138, N-S to wife. Stephen Sayre quoted in Joseph O. Baylen and Dorothy Woodward, ‘Francisco Miranda and Russia: Diplomacy 1787–88’, Historian xiii (1950) 52–68.

38 B&F vol 2 p 134, Cobenzl to JII 25 April 1787, Kiev.

39 Miranda p 261, 20 February 1787; p 269, 28 February 1787.

40 Saint-Jean pp 63–75.

41 Miranda p 279, 14 March 1787; p 262, 18 February 1787; pp 263–4, 19 February 1787; p 291, 22 March 1787.

42 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) pp 227–9. SIRIO 23: 399, CII to Grimm 4 April 1787.

43 RGADA 11.867.1–60, Grand Hetman K. Branicki to GAP, unpublished.

44 Miranda pp 220–4, 31 December 1786–3 January 1787.

45 Miranda p 271, 4 March 1787.

46 Edward Rulikowski, ‘Smila’

47 Prince K. F. Lubomirski was one of GAP’s top timber contractors – GAP made deals with Lubomirski and some of the Potockis in 1783. AVPRI 2.2/8a.21.39.

48 AVPRI 5.585.157, L 257, GAP to CII 25 December 1787. J. M. Soloviev, Istoriya padeniya polshi, p 198, and Khrapovitsky p 16, 16/17 March 1787.

49 RGADA 52.2.71.1–93. RGVIA 52.2.35.9–35. RGVIA 52.2.56.2. RGVIA 52.2.74. RGVIA 52.2.39. These documents cover GAP’s interminable correspondence with his Polish homme d’affaires Count Moczinski; the Russian Ambassador to Warsaw, Count O. M. Stackelberg; and Prince K. G. Lubomirski and his family, about the Smila and Meschiricz transactions. Some of the Lubomirskis challenged Prince K. F. Lubomirski’s ownership of, and therefore right to sell, these estates. Finally, in 1790, GAP offered his Dubrovna estate (which was next to Krichev, near Orsha on the Dnieper) as a further payment to the Lubomirskis to settle the disagreements. Also RGADA 5.166.8–14. Correspondence between SA and GAP on Smila and his estates: GAP recruited the King to aid his litigation as well as Branicki and other magnates in the Polish Sejm. These are all unpublished and form a fascinating picture of GAP’s labyrinthine affairs and of the relationship between Russia and Poland – but are beyond the scope of this book. See Chapter 29, notes 93 and 97.

50 SIRIO 23: 393, 8 February 1787. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 34, Ligne to Coigny. Miranda p 259, 15 February 1787.

51 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 34, Ligne to Coigny letter 1.

52 Aragon p 126, N-S to wife February 1787, Kiev.

53 Ségur, Mémoires 1855 vol 2 p 27.

54 Kukiel p 18.

55 Aragon p 131, N-S to wife February 1787, Kiev.

56 Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 295. Mniszech p 199.

57 Miranda, pp 265–6, 22 February 1787.

58 Aragon p 134, N-S to wife. Madariaga, Russia p 370. Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 294.

59 SA to Kicinski 21 March 1787, BP 38 p 59 quoted in Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 294.

60 Aragon p 134, N-S to wife March 1787. X. Liske, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Kaniower Zusammenkunft (1787) und ihr Vorläufer, cited in Madariaga, Russia p 370.

61 Davis p 148.

62 Miranda p 261, 21 February 1787; p 265, 22 February 1787; p 278, 11 March 1787.

63 Miranda p 305, 11 April 1787; p 309, 21 April 1787.

64 B&F vol 2 p 120, Cobenzl to JII 9 April 1787. Miranda p 300, 1 April 1787.

CHAPTER 24: CLEOPATRA

1 This account of the cruise is based mainly on the descriptions of the Comte de Ségur, Prince de Nassau-Siegen and the Prince de Ligne, as well as on Madariaga, Russia pp 393–5, and Alexander, CtG pp 256–7. References are given below.

2 Aragon pp 141–4, N-S to wife. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 37, Prince de Ligne to Coigny. Ségur, Mémoires (Shelley) pp 230–1. Also Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 3 p 30. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 2 p 233. Ségur calls Catherine ‘Cleopatra of the North’.

3 This description of the Kaniev meeting is based on the following unpublished materials: RGADA 5.166.14, SA to GAP 16/17 February 1787. RGADA 5.166.9, SA to GAP 7 May 1787. There are numerous letters between these two from 1774 to 1791 which are immensely informative about their relationship and that of Russia and Poland. This work only uses a small fraction of this unpublished correspondence. Also SIRIO 26: 284. SIRIO 23: 407–8. RGADA 5.85.2.24, L 215, CII to GAP 25 April 1787. RGADA 5.85.2.23, L 215, CII to GAP 25 April 1787. RGADA 5.85.2.22, L 215. Khrapovitsky p 33, 26 April 1787. SA to Kicinski 8 May 1787, Kalinka. Ostatnie Lata, vol 2 p 42, quoted in Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 297. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 40, Ligne to Coigny. Ligne quoted in Mansel, Charmeur p 111. Ségur, 1859 vol 2 p 39.

4 RGADA 5.166.14, SA to GAP, 16–17 February 1787, unpublished.

5 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 3 pp 30–46. Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 297. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 82. Aragon p 144, N-S to wife May 1787. SIRIO 23: 408, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 26 April 1787.

6 SIRIO 26, 284. SIRIO 23: 407–8. RGADA 5.85.2.24, L 215, CII to GAP 25 April 1787. RGADA 5.85.2.23, L 215, CII to GAP 25 April 1787. RGADA 5.85.2.22, L 215. Khrapovitsky p 33, 26 April 1787. SA to Kicinski 8 May 1787, Kalinka. Ostatnie Lata, vol 2 p 42, quoted in Zamoyski, Last King of Poland p 297. Ligne Letters (Staël) p 40, Ligne to Coigny. Ligne quoted in Mansel, Charmeur p 111. RGADA 5.166.9, SA to GAP 7 May 1787, unpublished. There are many letters from SA to GAP at this time in this font. SA promises to help GAP protect his estates in Poland. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 p 39.

7 RGVIA 271.1.43.1, JII to GAP 25 November 1786, Vienna. This unpublished archive contains much of GAP’s correspondence with JII, his successor Leopold and their Chancellor Prince Kaunitz. B&F vol 2 p 117, Count Cobenzl to JII 25 February 1787. JII–CII (Arneth), Briefe Joseph II an den Feldmarschall Grafen Lacey, p 277, JII to Kaunitz 19 August and 12 September 1786, and JII to CII 15 February 1787.

8 SIRIO 23: 408, CII to Grimm 3 May 1787. B&F vol 2 p 141, Cobenzl to JII 11 May 1787. Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) pp 232–3. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 40, Ligne to Coigny.

9 BM 33540 ff365–6, SB to JB 16 May 1787, Kremenchuk. M. S. Bentham p 82. Christie, Benthams in Russia pp 186–7.

10 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 40, Ligne to Coigny. Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 234. JII–CII (Arneth) p 356, JII to Lacey 19 May 1787, Kaidak. B&F vol 2 p 140, Cobenzl to JII 6 May 1787, Kaniev.

11 JII–CII (Arneth) p 356, JII to Lacey 19 May 1787, Kaidak. SIRIO 23: 410, CII to Grimm 15 May 1787, Kherson.

12 Khrapovitsky pp 30, 29, 15–20. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 4–8.

13 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 46–7. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 4–8. Dniepropetrovsk State Historical Museum, author’s visit 1998.

14 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 118. Ségur, Mémoires vol 3 p 220.

15 JII–CII (Arneth) p 355, JII to Lacey 19 May 1787, Kherson; p 358, 30 May 1787, Aibar, Crimea. Khrapovitsky pp 35, 36, 15 May 1787.

16 SIRIO 23 (1878): 410, CII to Grimm 15 May 1787. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 p 47. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 42, Ligne to Coigny.

17 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 47–8.

18 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 54–5.

19 Aragon p 154, N-S to wife May 1787. JII–CII (Arneth) p 358, JII to Lacey 30 May 1787.

20 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) pp 238–9.

21 B&F vol 2 pp 147–50, Cobenzl to Kaunitz 3 June 1787, Sebastopol. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 54–5.

22 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 54–5.

23 Author’s visit to Crimea 1998. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 54–5. Aragon p 155, N-S to wife JII–CII (Arneth) p 361, JII to Lacey 1 June 1787.

24 JII–CII (Arneth) p 361, JII to Lacey 1 June 1787. Aragon pp 155–8, N-S to wife. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 44, Ligne to Coigny. SIRIO 23 (1878): 411, CII to Grimm 21 May 1787, Bakhchisaray. B&F vol 2 p 148, Cobenzl to Kaunitz 3 June 1787, Sebastopol. RA (1865) p 622, L 216 CII to GAP 28 May 1787, St Petersburg.

25 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 11.

26 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 4–7. Aragon pp 158–61, N-S to wife 1 June 1787, Sebastopol. B&F vol 2 pp 150, Cobenzl to Kaunitz 3 June 1787. JII–CII (Arneth) p 363, JII to Lacey 3 June 1878; p 292; JII to Kaunitz 3 June 1787. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 66–7.

27 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 4–8. SIRIO 23 (1878): 412, CII to Grimm 23 May 1787. JII–CII (Arneth) p 363, JII to Lacey 3 June 1787; p 292, JII to Kaunitz 3 June 1787. B&F vol 2 pp 150–1, Cobenzl to Kaunitz 3 June 1787.

28 B&F vol 2 pp 150–1, Cobenzl to Kaunitz 3 June 1787. JII–CII (Arneth) p 364, JII to Lacey 5 June 1787.

29 RGVIA 52.2.53.31, N. Pisani to Ya. Bulgakov 1/12 May 1787, unpublished. The reports of the professional Ottoman diplomatic dynasty, the Pisanis, via Bulgakov to GAP, are invaluable evidence of how Istanbul was already in a state of war-fever. RGVIA 52.2.53.80, N. Pisani to Bulgakov 1 June 1787. Here again Pisani reported that recruits were already marching through Istanbul to prepare for war. This is significant evidence since most histories blame the entire war on GAP’s mishandling and provocations to the Sublime Porte. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 52–3. Aragon pp 158–61, N-S to wife 1 June 1787.

30 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 50, Ligne to Coigny. Mansel, Charmeur p 113. Aragon p 173, N-S to wife.

CHAPTER 25: THE AMAZONS

1 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 64, Prince de Ligne to Coigny, Kaffa. Note on Amazon Company, Moskvityanin zhurnal (1844) no 1 pp 266–8, note by G. Dusi based on Elena Sardanova’s memories. Herodotus, The Histories pp 306–8. See also Neal Ascherson, Black Sea pp 111–14.

2 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 88–90.

3 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 42, Ligne to Coigny.

4 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 245.

5 Guthrie letter LXV pp 204–6.

6 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 60, Ligne to Coigny. JII–CII (Arneth) p 363, JII to Lacey 5 and 7 June 1787. B&F vol 2 p 163, Count Cobenzl to Prince Kaunitz 13 June 1787. Aragon pp 173–4, N-S to wife.

7 JII–CII (Arneth) p 364, JII to Lacey 7 June 1787. Aragon p 174, N-S to wife. Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 236.

8 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 242; or Mémoires 1859 vol 2 pp 67–8.

9 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 242. JII–CII (Arneth) p 364, JII to Lacey 8 June 1787, Staricrim. ZOOID 13: 268. General V. V. Kahovsky to V. S. Popov 11 June 1787, Karasubazaar; Lt Tsiruli to Kahovsky 7 June 1787. There seem to be two girls. While Lt Tsiruli’s second mission sounds like a quest for sexual procurement, the purchase of the six-year-old child must surely be an educational experiment, though the two are not necessarily exclusive. Tsiruli was off to the mountains while a contemporary print, Purchase of a Tartar Maiden, shows Joseph buying the child from ‘a slave-trader’. There is a reference to the Circassian girl in Zinzendorf’s diary on the day of Joseph II’s death. The Emperor wrote to Countess Chanclos to ensure that the girl received her 1,000 Gulden pension. A footnote in the diary by Hans Wagner says she was Elisabeth Gulesy, a Circassian bought by Joseph on his Crimean trip. Countess Chanclos brought her up, Kaunitz then took over guardianship and she married Amandus Lacdemer, the majordomo of a Count Karoly, in 1798. I am indebted to Professor Derek Beales for these references. Wien von Maria Theresa bis zur Franzosenzeit, Aus den Tagebüchern des Grafen Karl v. Zinzendorf (ed Hans Wagner) Vienna 1972, p 40, 20 February 1790. Also Österreich zur Zeit Kaiser Josephs II mit Regent Kaiserin Maria Theresias, Kaiser und Landesfürst, Niedero-Sterreichische Landesaustellung (Lower Austrian Exhibition catalogue) Stift Melk, 29 March–2 November 1980, p 439, item 551, Linz, Stadtarchiv.

10 RGADA 5.85.2.39, L 216, CII to GAP 9 June 1787. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 2 p 90. JII–CII (Arneth) p 373, JII to Lacey 12 July 1787, Berislav. SIRIO 27: 410–13, 447. KFZ 8 June 1787. RGADA 5.85.2.31, L 217, CII to GAP (‘Your kitten’).

11 ‘Potemkin Villages’ and ‘Helbig’ in the Modern Encyclopaedia of Russian and Slavic History, Academy International Press 1982 by Joseph L. Wieczynski p 134. Georg von Helbig, ‘Potemkin der Taurier’, Minerva ein Journal historischen und politischen Inhalts herausgegeben von J. W. Archehotlz (Hamburg 1797–1800). Russische Günstlinge (Tübingen 1809). Potemkin: Ein interessanter Beitrang zur Regier ungeschichte Katarina der Zweiten (Halle/Liepzig 1804). These were republished in different forms such as (in French) Vie de Pr Potemkin by J. E. de Cerenville (1808) and Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin (London 1812 and 1813).

12 Vassilchikov vol 1 pp 370–1, 22 June 1782.

13 Anspach, Journey p 160, 3 April 1786.

14 Khrapovitsky p 17, 4 April 1787.

15 ZOOID 12: 303, 309, 320, GAP to Kahovsky 1784, 1785.

16 JII–CII (Arneth) p 356, JII to Lacey 19 May 1787, Kaidak. SIRIO 23: 410, CII to Grimm 15 May 1787, Kherson.

17 Miranda p 244, 20 January 1787.

18 Anspach, Journey p 160, 3 April 1786.

19 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 65, Ligne to Coigny.

20 Anspach, Journey p 170, 8 April 1786.

21 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 232.

22 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 137. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 vol 3 pp 6–8, 111–13, 120–5. B&F vol 2 pp 172, Cobenzl to Kaunitz 22 June 1787.

23 Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 232.

24 Moskvityanin zhurnal (1842) no 2 pp 475–88. Oral chronicle of CII’s stay in Tula, collected by N. Andreev. Miranda p 324, 9 May 1787.

25 Aragon p 117, N-S to wife 3 January 1787, Kherson.

26 JII–CII (Arneth) p 364, JII to Lacey 8 June 1787, Starikrim.

27 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 65, Ligne to Coigny, Tula. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 3, ‘Rélation de ma campagne de 1788 contre les Turcs’.

28 RGADA 2.111.13–14, 14–15, CII to Moscow commander P. D. Eropkin 12 and 20 May 1787. SIRIO 27: 411, CII to Grand Duke Alexander 28 May 1787. RGADA 10.2.38.1–2, CII to Count L. A. Bruce 14 May 1787.

29 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 11. Miranda p 204, 22 November 1786.

30 IRLI 265.2.2115.5–6, L 219, GAP to CII 17 July 1787, Kremenchuk. RGADA 5.85.1.543, L 220, CII to GAP 27 July 1787.

31 RS (1876) 15 pp 33–8, Garnovsky July 1787.

32 B&F vol 2 p 192, Cobenzl to JII 9 August 1787.

33 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 5, 11, 14, quoted in Mansel, Charmeur p 116.

34 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 117–18. Honoré de Balzac was one of the many who referred to the ‘Potemkin Villages’: see Graham Robb, Balzac p 383.

35 AKV 14: 242–3, Arkadiy Ivanovich Markov to A. R. Vorontsov 17 February 1787, St Petersburg.

36 RGVIA 52.11.53.31, N. Pisani to Bulgakov 1/12 May 1787, unpublished. This description of the coming of war also uses Madariaga, Russia pp 394–7, and Alexander, CtG pp 262–5.

37 Sobstvennoruchnyye bumagi Knyaza Potemkina, RA (1865) pp 740–1, CII to GAP 16/27 October 1786, and GAP to Bulgakov 13/24 December 1786. Ragsdale pp 75–103.

38 AKV 14: 242, Markov to A. R. Vorontsov 17 February 1787, St Petersburg. B&F vol 2 p 188, Cobenzl to JII 9 August 1787, St Petersburg.

39 ZOOID 8: 201, GAP to Bulgakov March 1787.

40 RGVIA 52.2.1.9, GAP to Bulgakov.

41 ZOOID 8: 203, GAP to A. A. Bezborodko 14 August 1787.

42 RGVIA 52.2.53.59, N. Pisani to Bulgakov 15/26 May 1787. RGVIA 52.2.53.80, N. Pisani to Bulgakov 1 June 1787. RGVIA 52.2.53.31, N. Pisani to Bulgakov 1/12 May 1787. All these despatches are unpublished. The latter lists the activities of the diplomats of England to encourage the war against Russia and the Porte’s policy of using diversions by the Caucasian peoples, including the Daghestanis, Chechens and Lesghis, to attack Russia.

43 RGVIA 52.2.53.130, N. Pisani to Bulgakov ud. This clearly dates from the summer of 1787. RGVIA 52.2.53.31, N. Pisani to Bulgakov 1/12 May 1787. Both unpublished. ZOOID 8: 203, GAP to Bezborodko. As he received these reports, one senses Potemkin fretting in his letters to Bezborodko. ‘I ask you so much to win some time,’ he wrote to him on 14 August 1787 when it was too late.

44 RGADA 1.1/1.47.5–9, L 223, CII to GAP 24 August 1787.

45 RGADA 5.85.2.43–8, L 233, CII to GAP 24 September 1787.

46 MIRF ch 15 p 51, M. I. Voinovich to GAP 25 August 1787. AVPRI 5.585.149, L 223, GAP to CII 22 August 1787. RGADA 11.267.38–41, GAP to P. A. Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky 22 August 1787.

47 AVPRI 5.585.343, L 226, GAP to CII 28 August 1787.

48 RGADA 1.1/1.47.13–14, L 226, CII to GAP 6 September 1787.

49 AVPRI 5.585.317, L 229, GAP to CII 16 September 1787, Kremenchuk.

50 AVPRI 5.585.143, L 231, GAP to CII 19 September 1787.

51 Robert Slater, Rabin: Warrior for Peace (London 1996) p 142. Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: Revolution from Above 1928–1941 (New York 1990) p 625. Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parellel Lives (London 1991) pp 805–6. The newer Russian accounts, Stalin by Edvard Radzinsky (London 1996) pp 445–7, and Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy by Dmitri Volkogonov (New York 1991) pp 405–7, show that Stalin managed to function in those days more than hitherto realized. Macdonogh pp 278–80, 157. Hughes p 30.

52 AVPRI 5.585.152, L 232, GAP to CII 24 September 1787, Kremenchuk; p 314, L 232, GAP to CII 24 September 1787. SBVIM issue IV pp 150–1, GAP to Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky 24 September 1787.

CHAPTER 26: JEWISH COSSACKS AND AMERICAN ADMIRALS: POTEMKIN’S WAR

1 In Chapters 26–34, the description of the course of the Second Russo-Turkish War is based on the following works. The main source is A. N. Petrov, Vtoraya turetskaya voyna v tsarstvovaniye imperatritsy Ekateriny II 1787–91. Others are V. S. Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov; A. V. Suvorov, Pisma ed V. S. Lopatin; A. Petrushevsky, Generalissimo Knyazi Suvorov; D. F. Maslovsky, Zapiski po istorii voiennogo iskusstva v Rossii; ZOOID 8, 4, 11. D. F. Maslovsky (ed), Pisma i Bumagi A. V. Suvorova, G. A. Potemkina, i P. A. Rumiantseva 1787–1789. Kinburn Ochakovskaya operatsiya, SBVIM; N. F. Dubrovin (ed), Istoriya voyny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze; Bumagi Knyaza Grigoriya Alexandrovicha Potemkina-Tavricheskogo, ed N. F. Dubrovin, SBVIM; RS 1875 June, RS 1876 July and RA 1877, GAP’s letters to A. V. Suvorov; I. R. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dnieper Flotilla’, and I. R. Christie, The Benthams in Russia; MIRF. In English and French, this account draws on Christopher Duffy, Russia’s Military Way to the West; Alexandre, Comte de Langeron’s accounts of the campaigns of the war 1787–91 in AAE vol 20; Roger, Comte de Damas, Mémoires; the Prince de Ligne’s Mélanges and Letters (Staël); and the Duc de Richelieu’s ‘Journal de mon voyage en Allemagne’. Langeron’s papers have not yet been published in full. Langeron’s and Ligne’s accounts have been used widely against GAP. They are useful but clearly prejudiced. Langeron’s account is balanced by his final tribute to GAP, while the unpublished letters between Ligne and GAP, used here for the first time, reveal much more about his motives. The rarely used Richelieu and Damas give a much more just account of GAP at war. If the reference is to a specific document, the reference is noted, but general information on the course of the war, mainly derived from Petrov, is not referenced. RGADA 5.85.2.43–8, L 233, CII to GAP 24 September 1787. RGADA 5.85.2.49, L 235, 25 September. RGADA 5.85.2.52–4, L 238, 2 October 1787.

2 AVPRI 5.585.365–7, L 358, GAP to CII 2 October 1787, Kremenchuk.

3 RGADA 5.85.2.56, L 240, CII to GAP 9 October 1787.

4 RS (1875) May vol 8 pp 21–33, letters of GAP to A. V. Suvorov 1787–8, 5 October 1787.

5 Byron, Don Juan Canto VII: 55.

6 Duffy, Russia’s Military Way pp 185–7.

7 AAE 20: 20, Langeron, ‘Armées Russes and Turques’. Damas pp 34–5. Engelhardt 1868 p 183. Duffy, Russia’s Military Way pp 192–3.

8 AAE 20: 95–7, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes de 1787, 1788, 1789’.

9 RS (1875) May vol 8 p 21, GAP to Suvorov 5 October 1787; p 28, 1 January 1788.

10 AVPRI 5.585.190, GAP to CII 1 November 1787.

11 RS (1875) May vol 8 pp 21–33, letters of GAP to Suvorov 5 November 1787.

12 Aragon p 189, N-S to wife (Paul’s wish to join army and take wife). RGADA 5.85.2.43–8, CII to GAP 24 September 1787. RGADA 5.181.7, Grand Duke Paul Petrovich to GAP June 1788, Pavlovsk. RGADA 5.181.11 Grand Duke Paul Petrovich to GAP 26 September 1789, Gatchina. RGADA 5.182.2–3 and 181.1, 6, Grand Duchess Maria to GAP, Pavlovsk and Gatchina. Ségur, Memoirs (Shelley) p 265. Damas pp 100–7. RS (1876) 15 p 484, Garnovsky November 1787. SIRIO 42: 191, CII to Grand Duke Paul Petrovich 1791.

13 B&F vol 2 p 231, JII to Count Cobenzl 11 December 1787, Vienna.

14 RGVIA 52.2.52.10, JII to Prince de Ligne 25 November 1787, Vienna, unpublished.

15 Ligne, Mélanges vol 7 p 152, Ligne to Comte de Ségur 1 December 1787, Elisabethgrad.

16 AVPRI 5.585.312, L 254, GAP to CII 12 November 1787, Elisabethgrad.

17 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 15.

18 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 72, Ligne to JII December 1787, Elisabethgrad.

19 Pishkevich p 128.

20 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 11–15.

21 Damas pp 23–5.

22 Ligne, Mélanges vol 21 pp 296–7.

23 AAE 20: 64, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes de 1787, 1788, 1789’.

24 RGVIA 52.2.64.4, Ségur to GAP 7 January 1788, St Petersburg, unpublished.

25 Damas p 25.

26 RGVIA 52.2.48.1, GAP to Cobenzl 15 October 1787, Elisabethgrad, unpublished.

27 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 17. RGVIA 52.2.52.3, GAP to Ligne ud, unpublished.

28 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 18. AVPRI 5.585.179–80, L 282, GAP to CII; and RS (1873) November pp 727–8, L 283, 5 May 1788, Elisabethgrad.

29 Count Fyodor Rostopchin, La Verité sur l’incendie de Moscou, p 27. Aragon p 180. Waliszewski, Autour d’un trône vol 2 p 78. See also GAP on General V. S. Tamara’s Mediterranean missions: RGVIA 52.2.47.11,’m GAP to Prince Kaunitz October 1790, unpublished.

30 SIMPIK KV vol 2 p 9, GAP to Ataman Sidor Bely 2 January 1788, Elisabethgrad. AVPRI 2.2/8a.21.96, L 261, GAP to CII 3 January 1788, Elisabethgrad. SIRIO 27 (1880): 494, CII thanks GAP for founding Cossack forces 20 May 1788, pp 486–7, CII rescript to GAP agreeing to his proposal to complete Cossack forces with coachmen and bourgeois 20 April 1788. GAP’s passion for Cossacks: AKV 13: 227, A. A. Bezborodko to S. R. Vorontsov 17 November 1791. SIRIO 27 (1880): 332–3 CII’s rescript to GAP on precautions to be taken on arranging the return of Nekrazovsky and Zaporogian Cossacks 15 April 1784. Both CII and GAP were initially cautious but GAP ultimately persuaded the Empress. See also Longworth, Cossacks p 229.

31 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 74, Ligne to JII December 1787. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 41, Ligne to JII 2 March 1788; p 57, Ligne to JII 6 April 1788; vol 21 pp 180–1, ‘Mémoire sur les Juifs’. D. Z. Feldman, Svetleyshiy Knyaz GA Potemkin i Rossiyskiye Evrei, p 186–192. N. A. Engelhardt, Ekaterinskiy kolloss. IV (1908) April p 55–57. Dudakov, S. Y., Istoriya odnogo mipha: Ocherki russkoy literatury XIX–XX, Moscow 1993 p 29–31. Both cited by Feldman. For Napoleon’s Jewish cavalry officer: Berek Joselewicz, see Cecil Roth and Geoffrey Wigoder, New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, London 1975.

32 BM 33540 f408, N. S. Mordvinov 21 September 1787; f442, SB to William Pitt.

33 BM 33540 f453, SB to Pleshichev 7 January 1788, Kherson.

34 Mordvinov to GAP 31 August 1787, quoted in I. R. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dnieper Flotilla’ p 176. BM 33540 f487, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 12/27 October 1787; ff365–6, SB to JB 16 May 1787, Kremenchuk; f391, SB to JB ud, 1787; f397, SB to JB 2/13 September 1787, Kherson.

35 MIRF 15: 99, 104, 123, quoted in I. R. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dnieper Flotilla’ pp 175–8 and Christie, Benthams in Russia, pp 218–221.

36 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 20–1.

37 Blanning, JII p 176. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 44–6, February 1788, Elisabethgrad. AVPRI 5.585.160, GAP to CII 3 January 1788, Elisabethgrad. RGADA 5.85.2.81–4, L 260, CII to GAP 11 January 1788.

38 AVPRI 5.585.175, L 262, GAP to CII 15 January 1788, Elisabethgrad.

39 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 44–6, Ligne to JII February 1788, Elisabethgrad.

40 RGVIA 52.11.69, Count Joseph de Witte to GAP 13 May 1788, Podolsky-Kamenets. RGADA 11.921.1 and 11.921.9, Witte to GAP 6–8 October 1787, unpublished.

41 RGVIA 52.2.52.5, GAP to Ligne 3 April 1788; and RGVIA 52.2.52.6, 2/13 May 1788, unpublished.

42 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 49, Ligne to JII February 1788, Elisabethgrad.

43 AVPRI 5.585.168–73, L 265, GAP to CII; and RGADA 5.85.2.88, L 274, CII to GAP 8 March 1788.

44 RGADA 5.85.2.97, L 284, CII to GAP 7 May 1788, Tsarskoe Selo.

45 AVPRI 5.585.160, GAP to CII 3 January 1788, Elisabethgrad.

46 AVPRI 5.585.168–73, L 265, GAP to CII.

47 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 148. Ligne, Letters (Staël) pp 78–9, May 1788.

48 BM 33540 f395, SB to JB 30 August–2 September 1787.

49 BM 33558 f424, SB to Henry Fanshawe 2/13 September 1787, Kremenchuk.

50 BM 33540 f487, SB to JB 12/23 October 1788.

51 MIRF 15: 86, quoted in I. R. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dnieper Flotilla’, pp 175–8, and Christie, Benthams in Russia, pp 218–21.

52 AVPRI 2.2/8a.21.94, L 248, GAP to CII 1 November 1787.

53 BM 33540 f487, SB to Jeremiah Bentham.

54 MIRF 15: 60–90, quoted in I. R. Christie, ‘Samuel Bentham and the Russian Dnieper Flotilla’, pp 175–8, and Christie, Benthams in Russia, pp 218–21.

55 Ligne, Mélanges vol 7 p 158, Ligne to Ségur 8 May 1787.

56 AAE 20: 71, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes’.

57 Damas p 32.

58 RGVIA 52.2.82.1, GAP to N-S 26 March 1788, Elisabethgrad, unpublished.

59 Damas pp 32–3.

60 Aragon p 203, N-S to wife 18 March 1788.

61 SIRIO 23 (1878): 446, CII to Grimm 25 April 1788. The general sources for John Paul Jones, apart from Russian archives and the unpublished correspondence with GAP, are three biographies: John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography by Samuel Eliot Morison; The Life of Rear-Admiral John Paul Jones by George R. Preedy; and The Life of John Paul Jones by James Otis.

62 RGVIA 52.2.56.1, GAP to Baron Simolin 5/16 March 1788, unpublished.

63 RGVIA 52.2.82.1, GAP to N-S 26 March 1788, Elisabethgrad, unpublished.

64 MIRF 15: 98, 188, GAP to Mordvinov 29 February 1788 quoted in Christie, Benthams in Russia pp 218–21.

65 BM 33540 f488, SB to JB 12/23 October 1788.

66 RGVIA 52.2.64.8, Ségur to GAP 2/13 May 1788, unpublished.

67 Aragon p 223, N-S to wife 4 June 1788.

68 Damas pp 31–2.

69 Aragon p 225, N-S to wife.

70 Tott vol 3 p 24. Damas pp 44–5. Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 88, Ligne to JII August 1788.

71 Tott vol 3 p 24. Anspach, Journey p 191, Lady Craven to Anspach 25 April 1786, Constantinople.

72 SIRIO 27: 480, CII to GAP 27 May 1788.

73 BM 33540 f488, SB to JB 12/23 October 1788.

74 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 20.

75 RGVIA 52.2.82.1 GAP to N-S 2 April 1788 ud. RGVIA 52.2.82.4, GAP to N-S ud. Both unpublished.

76 J. P. Jones to José de Ribas 11/22 June 1788, quoted in Morison pp 374–8.

77 RGVIA 52.2.82.13, GAP to N-S, unpublished.

78 RGVIA 52.2.82.12, GAP to N-S 10 June 1788, unpublished.

79 Colonel Henry Fanshawe quoted in Christie, ‘SB and the Flotilla’ p 191.

80 Morison pp 379–81.

81 BM 33540 f489, SB to Jeremiah Bentham 12/23 October 1788.

82 BM 33554 ff90–1, Fanshawe 18 June 1788.

83 Damas p 45.

84 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 21.

85 Aragon p 238, N-S to wife 28 and 29 June 1788. RS (1875) June p 160, GAP to Suvorov.

86 Aragon p 236, N-S to wife 25 June 1788.

87 RGVIA fVUA 2388.13, L 296, GAP to CII June 1788.

88 M. S. Bentham p 89, quoted in Christie ‘SB and the Flotilla’. BM 33540 f490, GAP to SB.

89 Aragon p 250, N-S to wife.

90 SIRIO 23 (1878): 446, CII to Grimm 31 May 1787.

91 RGADA 5.85.2.124, L 305, CII to GAP 19 July 1788, St Petersburg. It is said that Tatiana Engelhardt’s husband Mikhail Potemkin, who was in St Petersburg as General-Kreigskommissar or inspector-general of the army from 1783, and Mamonov joined forces in 1788 to counter the arguments of A. R. Vorontsov, Zavadovsky and Orlov-Chesmensky about GAP’s conduct of the war. See ‘M. S. Potemkin’ in Russkiy Biographicheskiy Slovar vol 14 (1904).

92 RGADA 5.85.2.121, L 302, CII to GAP 17 July 1788.

93 AVPRI 5.585.260, L 304, GAP to CII 18 July 1788, Ochakov.

94 RGADA 5.85.2.115, L 299, CII to GAP 3 July 1788.

95 BM 33554 d92–3 June 1788.

96 RS (1889) no 9 p 510, Prince Y. V. Dolgoruky. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 95, Ligne to JII 12 July 1788. RGADA 5.85.2.119, L 301, CII to GAP 13 July 1788, St Petersburg.

CHAPTER 27: CRY HAVOC: THE STORMING OF OCHAKOV

1 For the main sources for this account of the Second Turkish War, see Chapter 26, note I. BM 33554 ff93–4, Henry Fanshawe July 1788, unpublished.

2 B&F vol 2 p 170, JII to Count Cobenzl 16 June 1787, Kherson.

3 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 21–3, 2 July 1788, Ochakov.

4 Aragon p 255, N-S to wife.

5 RS (1895) 9 p 175. Ligne, Mélanges vol 7 p 194, Prince de Ligne to Comte de Ségur 1 October 1788, Ochakov.

6 BM 33540 f489, SB to JB ud.

7 Petrushevsky vol 1 p 327.

8 Damas pp 58–9. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 123, Ligne to JII 11 August 1788.

9 RS (1895) September pp 175–6, Roman Maximovich Tsebrikov, Vokrug ochakova 1788 god (dnevnikochevidtsa). RS (1875) May p 38, GAP to A. V. Suvorov 27 July 1788.

10 Damas pp 56–9. Aragon pp 256–8, N-S to wife. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 129, Ligne to JII 20 August 1788; p 176, Ligne to Cobenzl. An unpublished letter from GAP to Nassau-Siegen dated from July/August 1788 was recently placed on the market by Maggs Brothers of London in their Catalogue 1275 of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents, lot 149. The undated letter, handwritten by GAP in French, recounts that Admiral Mark Voinovich is covering the Capitan-Pasha’s approach from the Black Sea so that Nassau-Siegen can water his men in Kinburn during the day and ‘at night return to the current position’. It is typical of GAP’s sympathetic attitude to his men that he specifies that they should be allowed time on land. Its price was £1,200.

11 Damas pp 56–7. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 129, Ligne to JII 20 August 1788, Ochakov.

12 RGADA 5.85.2.136–7, L 311, CII to GAP 31 August 1788.

13 Samoilov col 1260.

14 RS (1875) May pp 21–33, GAP to Suvorov April 1788.

15 Ligne, Letters (Staël) p 87, Ligne to JII August 1788.

16 RGVIA 52.7.1.13, GAP to Count Rzewowski, 7 November 1788, Quartier-Genéral Ochakov, unpublished. AVPRI 5.585.278, L 320, GAP to CII 17 October 1788. ZOOID 4: 363, GAP to M. L. Faleev 14 August 1788, Ochakov. ZOOID 2: 667, 668, GAP to Faleev.

17 Lettres de Catherine II au prince de Ligne p 81, JII to Ligne 18 June 1788.

18 CII – Ligne pp 96–7, Cobenzl to Ligne. Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 157, Ligne to JII; p 75. RGVIA f VUA.2388.7, L 291, GAP to CII 8 June 1788, Camp on the Bug. AVPRI 5.585.278, L 320, GAP to CII 17 October 1788.

19 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 p 176.

20 AAE 20: 74, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes’.

21 Aragon pp 268–70, N-S.

22 RGADA 11.864.2.91, Praskovia Potemkina to GAP (unsigned but probably Praskovia Potemkina), unpublished.

23 RP 2.1 p 36, Countess Ekaterina Sergeevna Samoilova.

24 Damas pp 66–9.

25 Damas pp 63–4.

26 Ligne, Mélanges vol 7 pp 198–201, Ligne to Ségur I December 1788. Ligne, Letters (Staël) vol 2 p 16, Ligne to Ségur I October 1788.

27 BM 33540 f489 and 33558 f443 and f445, SB to JB. BM 33558 f442, William Newton to J. T. Abbot 10 September 1789. Christie, Benthams in Russia p 241.

28 RGVIA 52.2.89.64–5, Lewis Littlepage to GAP 16 September 1788; and GAP to Little page 16 September 1788, both unpublished.

29 RGVIA 52.2.82.21, GAP to John Paul Jones ud, unpublished.

30 AVPRI 585.278, L 320, GAP to CII 17 October 1788.

31 RGVIA 52.11.82.23, John Paul Jones to GAP, 20 October 1788 on board battleship Vladimir before Ochakov, unpublished.

32 Otis pp 352–4. Preedy p 223.

33 Preedy p 216. Otis pp 335–52. Morison p 382.

34 Damas pp 70–1. AVPRI 5.585.278, L 320, GAP to CII 17 October 1788.

35 RGADA 11.893.11, Ligne to GAP 16 September 1788, unpublished.

36 Ligne, Mélanges vol 24 pp 25, 26, 32.

37 Damas pp 70–1.

38 AVPRI 5.585.278, L 320, GAP to CII 17 October 1788, Ochakov.

39 Damas p 72.

40 B&F vol 2 p 299, Cobenzl to JII 24 October 1788.

41 AAE 20: 74, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes’.

42 Damas pp 66–7.

43 BM 33540 f489, SB to JB.

44 Criste, Kriege unter Kaiser Josef II p 222 n3, quoted in Blanning, JII p 178.

45 Samoilov col 1251.

46 Damas pp 63–4.

47 RS (1895) 84 no 9 Tsebrikov p 172, 12–15 June; p 177, 28 July; p 151, 5 June 1788.

48 AVPRI 5.585.273, GAP to CII 15 September 1788.

49 RGADA 5.85.2.150–1, L 327, CII to GAP 27 November 1788.

50 RGADA 5.85.2.145–7, L 322, CII to GAP 19 October 1788.

51 AVPRI 5.585.284–5, L 324, GAP to CII 3 November 1788.

52 RGADA 5.85.2.152–3, CII to GAP 7 November 1788.

53 AVPRI 5.585.286–7, L 326, GAP to CII 17 November 1788.

54 RS (1876) 16 p 213, 16 August 1788; p 220, Garnovsky to Popov 1 October 1788.

55 RS (1876) 16 pp 229–30, Garnovsky to Popov 29 November 1788.

56 Damas p 72.

57 BM 33554 f96, Fanshawe 15 February 1789, Kiev.

58 Damas pp 74–5.

59 RGADA 5.85.2.150–1, L 327, CII to GAP 27 November 1788.

60 Damas pp 79–84. BM 33554 f98, Fanshawe.

61 Samoilov col 1251.

62 Damas pp 79–83.

63 Macdonogh p 299.

64 AVPRI 5.585.290, L 330, GAP to CII 26 December 1788.

65 Damas pp 84–6.

66 Samoilov col 1256. Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 187.

67 ZOOID 9 (1875): 459, the song in honour of the capture of Ochakov. There are also the songs dedicated to GAP’s 1790 campaign (p 461) and his death.

68 Damas pp 86–7. Samoilov cols 1256–7. BM 33554 f98, Fanshawe.

69 AAE 20: 81, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes’. Masson p 312.

70 AVPRI 5.585.290–3, GAP to CII 26 December 1788, Ochakov.

71 Damas pp 88–9.

72 AVPRI 5.585.288–9, L 328, GAP to CII December 1788.

73 Samoilov col 1258. Masson p 312.

74 RGADA 5.85.2.149, L 329, CII to GAP 16 December 1788. The engraved silver oval dish given by CII to GAP in commemoration of Ochakov can now be seen in the Armoury Museum of the Kremlin in Moscow. The medallion in his honour was created by K. Leberecht. RGADA 5.85.2.185, L 371, CII to GAP 7 September 1789.

75 JII–CII (Arneth) p 325, JII to Prince Kaunitz 2 February 1789; letter CLXVI, JII to CII 5 January 1789.

76 B&F vol 2 p 316, Philip Cobenzl to Ludwig Cobenzl 5 January 1789, Vienna. Also RGVIA 52.2.55.72, report from Vienna on GAP’s letter to the Prince de Ligne, concerning his conduct of the war 15 February 1791, unpublished.

77 RGVIA 52.2.82.24, GAP to N-S 7 December 1788, Ochakov, unpublished.

78 Davis p 194.

79 SIRIO 23 (1878): 467, CII to Baron F. M. Grimm 17 December 1788. Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin p 190.

80 AVPRI 5.585.290–3, L 330, GAP to CII.

81 Damas pp 89–90.

82 Damas p 93.

83 P. V. Zavadovsky, Pisma Zavadovskago Rumiantsevu p 320, P. V. Zavadovsky to P. A. Rumiantsev-Zadunaisky January 1789.

84 RGADA 5.85.2.155, L 333, CII to GAP 2 February 1789.

85 Khrapovitsky pp 229 and 238, 26 January 1789.

86 RS (1876) 16 pp 234–5 and 226, Garnovsky to Popov 3 January and 3 February 1789.

87 Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin pp 195–7.

CHAPTER 28: MY SUCCESSES ARE YOURS

1 For the main sources for this account of the Second Turkish War, see chapter 26, note 1. KFZ 11 February 1789. Also for this chapter: Madariaga, Russia pp 407–11, and Alexander, CtG pp 262–85.

2 Zavadovsky p 321.

3 KFZ 15 April 1789. RS (1876) October p 23.

4 SBVIM vol 7 p 127, GAP to A. V. Suvorov 23 April 1789.

5 CII Sochineniya vol 12, 2nd half-volume pp 699–701, L 355–7, June 1789. Khrapovitsky pp 255, 260, 11 April 1789.

6 Khrapovitsky, 11 and 12 February 1789.

7 RGADA 5.85.2.150–1, L 327, CII to GAP 27 November 1788.

8 B&F vol 2 p 340, JII to Count Cobenzl 24 April 1789; p 344, 19 May 1789; p 326, Cobenzl to JII 24 January 1789; p 335, 15 April 1789.

9 AVPRI 5.585.236, L 358, GAP to CII 9 July 1789, Olviopol.

10 AVPRI 5.585.299–303, L 334, GAP to CII February 1789.

11 AKV 13: 180–1, A. A. Bezborodko to Simon Vorontsov 7 March 1789.

12 Bezborodko letters 1685, GAP to Bezborodko 1789.

13 RGVIA 52.2.64.12, Ségur to GAP ud, spring/summer 1789, unpublished.

14 Aragon p 280, N-S to wife.

15 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 p 152.

16 Ségur, Mémoires 1859 pp 152–3.

17 This account of the Jones sex scandal is based on the Otis, Morison and Preedy biographies of Jones, as well as on unpublished letters from the Comte de Ségur to GAP in RGVIA.

18 RGVIA 52.2.64.12, Ségur to GAP ud, summer 1789, St Petersburg, unpublished. Ségur, Mémoires 1859 pp 164–5.

19 J. P. Jones to GAP 13 April 1789, quoted in Otis p 359. Statement to chief of police quoted in Morison p 388. RGVIA 52.2.64.12, Ségur to GAP ud, summer of 1789, St Petersburg, unpublished.

20 RGVIA 52.2.47.31, Prince Kaunitz to GAP 30 June 1789, Vienna, unpublished.

21 AVPRI 5.585.203, L 344, GAP to CII April 1789. KFZ 12 April 1789.

22 RGADA 5.85.2.17, L 343/4, CII to GAP April 1789.

23 RGADA 5.85.1.496, L 343, GAP to CII and CII to GAP April 1789.

24 Petrov, Vtoraya turetskaya voyna vol 2 appendix pp 15–16, GAP’s report from 10 June 1789, Elisabethgrad. RGVIA 52.2.48.3, GAP to Cobenzl 25 March 1789, on the battleplan for 1789, unpublished.

25 GAP received frequent reports on the French Revolution from the Russian Ambassador to Versailles Simolin (e.g. RGVIA 52.2.56.31, Simolin to GAP 27 April/8 May 1790, Paris, unpublished – ‘The King is a phantom prisoner in the Tuilleries…a horrendous anarchy.)’ Count Stackelberg in Warsaw also sent news (RGVIA 52.2.39.306, Stackelberg to GAP 26 July/6 August 1789, Warsaw, unpublished – ‘Paris presents the vision of a vast camp – all doors closed…streets full of soldiers, women who excite their courage…’.) When he returned to France, the Comte dé Segur also reported on events to GAP: RGVIA 52.2.64.24, Ségur to GAP 9 May NS 1790, Paris, unpublished – ‘we’re in convulsions’.

26 AVPRI 5.585.347, L 353, GAP to CII 25 June 1789, Olviopol. GAP received information about the Polish Revolution from a wide variety of sources. Most of these unpublished letters and reports remain in his archives: RGVIA 52.2.70.1. Branicki for example reported on the situation in Warsaw on 31 December 1788, unpublished. Stackelberg sent detailed reports and local newspapers, e.g. RGVIA 52.2.39.290, Stackelberg to GAP 1/12 June 1789. GAP himself tried to calm the Russophobia by instructing Stackelberg and others to reassure King Stanislas-Augustus and others about his own peaceful intentions towards Poland, e.g. RGVIA 52.2.39.11, GAP to Stackelberg 6 July 1788, Ochakov, unpublished, or RGVIA 52.2.39.21, GAP to Stackelberg 20 July 1789, Olviopol, unpublished. These are mostly outside the remit of this work but should be invaluable to students of Russo-Polish relations.

27 SIMPIK KV vol 2 p 9. GAP’s orders to his Cossack officers show his gradual development of Cossack forces into a substantial new Host. GAP to Ataman Sidor Bely 2 January 1788, Elisabethgrad; p 10, GAP to A. A. Golavaty on formation of Black Sea Host from ex-Zaporogian Cossacks 10 August 1788; p 24, GAP to Anton Golavaty to recruit the new Black Sea Host 4 October 1789.

28 AVPRI 5.585.339, L 350, GAP to CII 10 June 1789, Elisabethgrad.

29 RS (1876) 15 p 16, Garnovsky December 1786.

30 Masson pp 42, 55. Vigée Lebrun pp 13–14. Golovina p 120. Golovina, who shows Catherine’s playful simplicity with her ladies, was writing about the last year of the Empress’s life. They knew she was not well and Golovina wept after she seeing her for the last time.

31 CII Sochinenya vol 12, 2nd half-volume pp 699–701, L 355, CII to GAP June 1789. RGADA 5.85.2.166–7, CII to GAP 14 July 1789.

32 RS (1876) 16 p 400, Garnovsky to Popov 21 June 1789. RGADA 5.85.2.3–4, GAP to CII 18 July 1789, Olviopol.

33 AKV 12: 63, P. V. Zavadovsky to S. R. Vorontsov June 1789, St Petersburg.

34 Khrapovitsky pp 290–1, 19 June 1789.

35 RS (1876) 16 pp 406–7, Garnovsky to Popov.

36 Masson pp 99–100.

37 RS (1876) 16 p 404, Garnovsky to Popov. Khrapovitsky p 290, 18–23 June 1789.

38 RGADA 5.85.2.163, L 358, CII to GAP 6 July 1789.

39 RGADA 5.85.2.173, L 363, CII to GAP 5 August 1789, Tsarskoe Selo.

40 Khrapovitsky pp 294–8, 501–4.

41 RGADA 5.85.2.7, L 357, GAP to CII ud.

42 RGADA 5.85.2.166–7, L 319, CII to GAP 14 July 1789.

43 RGADA 5.85.2.163, L 358, CII to GAP 6 July 1789.

44 RGADA 5.85.2.177, L 365, CII to GAP 12 August 1789.

45 Masson p 194.

46 PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers, Foreign, cyphers 65 SP 181, Baron de Keller to Berlin 26 February 1789, St Petersburg.

47 Saint-Jean pp 137–45. This is always dubious but see also GAP on V. A. Zubov after Ismail: RGADA 1.1/1.43.35–5, L 444, GAP to CII 18 December 1790, Bender.

48 Damas p 113.

49 RGADA 1.1.43.42, L 362, GAP to CII 30 July 1789, Olviopol.

50 Philip Longworth The Art of Victory pp 156–7. SD vol 3 pp 500–10. V. S. Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov pp 157–69.

51 RGIA 1146.1.33, Mikhail Garnovsky’ accounts for GAP 27 July 1789, William Gould sent to Dubossary, unpublished.

52 RS (1889) 9 p 512, Prince Y. V. Dolgoruky.

53 RGVIA 52.1.586.2.430, GAP to Suvorov 1 September 1789.

54 Longworth, Art of Victory p 157. SD vol 3 p 553, Suvorov to Khvostov 29 August 1796.

55 RS (1875) October p 220, GAP to CII 10 September 1789.

56 AAE 20: 95–7, Langeron, ‘Résumé des campagnes’. Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov pp 157–70.

57 SO (1839) vol 9 p 64, GAP to Suvorov and Suvorov to GAP September 1789, quoted in Lopatin, Suvorov i Potemkin p 167.

58 RGVIA 52.2.52.8, GAP to Ligne 15 September 1789, Lauchon, unpublished.

59 AAE 20: 149, Langeron, ‘Evénements de campagne de 1790’.

60 AVPRI 5.585.144, GAP to CII 9 November 1789, Bender.

61 RGVIA 52.2.39.28, GAP to Count Stackelberg with text of Bender surrender 7 November 1789, unpublished.

62 RGVIA 52.2.46.3, JII to GAP 1 December 1789, Vienna; and RGVIA 52.2.46.14, JII to GAP 5 December 1789, Belgrade, unpublished. These letters show the close relationship and liaison between the Austrians and GAP in 1789. The nuances are fascinating – but are outside the remit of this book. See also the following letters by GAP to JII, Prince Kaunitz, Count Cobenzl and the Prince de Ligne. RGVIA 52.2.52.8, GAP to Ligne 15 September 1789, Louchon. GAP, who had been hurt by the Prince de Ligne’s slanders after their falling out at Ochakov, was still fond of his friend and always touchingly keen to win his admiration. After the Battle of Rymnik, for example, he wrote to him: ‘I’m scribbling you a letter to remind you, my Prince, of one who loves you tenderly in spite of all your faults.’ RGVIA 52.2.48.4, GAP to Cobenzl 30 July 1789, Olviopol. RGVIA 52.2.46.1, GAP to JII 15 September 1789, Kauchon. On Rymnik: RGVIA 52.2.47.1, GAP to Kaunitz 28 July 1789, Olviopol. RGVIA 52.2.47.3, GAP to Kaunitz 15 September 1789. RGVIA 52.2.48.33, Cobenzl to GAP 26 September 1789 on fall of Belgrade, and RGVIA 52.2.48.36, 15/26 October 1789, GAP to Cobenzl: sends congratulations. RGVIA 52.2.48.38, Cobenzl to GAP on Bender 16/27 November 1789, St Petersburg. RGVIA 52.2.46.2, GAP to JII 7 November 1789 on fall of Bender. RGVIA 52.2.47.54, Kaunitz to GAP on hopes of peace 2 November 1789. RGVIA 52.2.46.3, JII to GAP 1 December 1789, Vienna, congratulates GAP on Bender. RGVIA 52.2.48.3, GAP to Cobenzl 25 March 1789 on the battle-plan for 1789. All of the above unpublished.

63 PRO FO Secretary of State: State Papers Foreign, cyphers SP106/67, Sir Robert Ainslie in Istanbul to J. Ewart in Berlin 8 February NS 1790, unpublished.

64 AVPRI 5.585.326–7, L 383 GAP to CII.

65 AVPRI 5.585.326, L 383, GAP to CII 9 November 1789, Bender.

66 IRLI 265.2.2115.13–14, L 338, GAP to CII 22 September 1789, Kaushany.

67 AVPRI 5.585.132, L 374, GAP to CII 2 October 1789, Akkerman (Belgrade-on-Dniester).

68 AVPRI 5.585.237, GAP to CII 21 October 1789, Kishnev.

69 RGADA 5.85.2.198, L 379, CII to GAP 18 October 1789.

70 GPB S-Sch f755 vol 1 quoted in Lopatin, Potemkin i Suvorov p 173, GAP to Suvorov and Suvorov to Popov 8 November 1789.

71 CII–Ligne p 114, CII to Ligne 5 November 1789.

72 RGADA 5.85.2.197, CII to GAP 18 October 1789.

73 RGADA 5.85.2.199, L 378, CII to GAP 18 October 1789.

74 RS (1876) 16 pp 415–22, Garnovsky to Popov August/September.

75 RGADA 5.85.2.204, L 383, CII to GAP 15 November 1789.

76 AVPRI 5.585.128–31, L 388, GAP to CII December 1789.

77 RGADA 5.85.2.273, L 391, CII to GAP 20 December 1789.

78 AVPRI 5.585.123–31, L 359, GAP to CII December 1789, Jassy.

79 RGVIA 271.1.43.3, JII to GAP 7 October 1789, Vienna, unpublished.

CHAPTER 29: THE DELICIOUS AND THE CRUEL: SARDANAPALUS

1 For the main sources for this account of the Second Turkish War, see Chapter 26, note 1. Golovina pp 24–5.

2 SIRIO 54 (1886): 197, Richelieu, ‘Mon voyage’.

3 Ligne, Mélanges vol 7 p 199, Prince de Ligne to Comte de Ségur 1 December 1788.

4 Mansel, Constantinople pp 154–5. This description owes much to Philip Mansel’s chapter on the Greek princes of Wallachia and Moldavia.

5 AAE 20: 8–10, Langeron, ‘Journal de la campagne de 1790’.

6 Ligne, Mélanges vol 7 pp 199–210, Ligne to Ségur 1 December 1788.