Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (11 October [O.S. 30 September] 1739 – 16 October [O.S. 5 October] 1791) was a Russian military leader, statesman, nobleman, and favourite of Catherine the Great. He died during negotiations over the Treaty of Iași, which ended a war with the Ottoman Empire that he had overseen.
Potemkin was born into a family of middle-income landowners of Russian nobility. He first attracted Catherine's favor for helping in her 1762 coup, then distinguished himself as a military commander in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). He became Catherine's lover, favorite and possibly her consort. After their passion cooled, he remained her lifelong friend and favored statesman. Catherine obtained for him the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and gave him the title of Prince of the Russian Empire among many others; he was both a Grand Admiral and the head of all of Russia's land and irregular forces. Potemkin's achievements include the peaceful annexation of the Crimea (1783) and the successful second Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), during which the armed forces under his command besieged Ochakov.
In 1775, Potemkin became the governor-general of Russia's new southern provinces. An absolute ruler, he worked to colonize the wild steppes, controversially dealing firmly with the Cossacks who lived there. He founded the towns of Kherson, Nikolayev, Sevastopol, and Yekaterinoslav. Ports in the region became bases for his new Black Sea Fleet.
His rule in the south is associated with the (probably mythical) "Potemkin village", a ruse involving the construction of painted façades to mimic real villages, full of happy, well-fed people, for visiting officials to see. Potemkin was known for his love of women, gambling, and material wealth. He oversaw the construction of many historically significant buildings, including the Tauride Palace in Saint Petersburg.
Contents
Biography
Early life
A distant relative of the Muscovite diplomat Pyotr Potemkin (1617–1700), Grigory was born in the village of Chizhovo near Smolensk into a family of middle-income noble landowners. His father, Alexander Potemkin (1673–1746), was a decorated war veteran. His mother Daria Vasilievna Kondyreva (1704–1780) was "good-looking, capable and intelligent", though their marriage proved ultimately unhappy. Potemkin received his first name in honour of his father's cousin Grigory Matveevich Kizlovsky, a civil servant who became his godfather. Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore has suggested that Kizlovsky fathered Potemkin, who became the centre of attention, heir to the village and the only son among six children. As the son of an (albeit petty) noble family, he grew up with the expectation that he would serve the Russian Empire.
After Alexander died in 1746, Daria took charge of the family. In order to achieve a career for her son, and aided by Kizlovsky, the family moved to Moscow, where Potemkin enrolled at a gymnasium school attached to the University of Moscow. The young Potemkin became adept at languages and interested in the Russian Orthodox Church. He enlisted in the army in 1750 at age eleven, in accordance with the custom of noble children. In 1755 a second inspection placed him in the élite Horse Guards regiment.
Having graduated from the university school, Potemkin became one of the first students to enroll at the university itself. Talented in both Greek and theology, he won the university's gold medal in 1757 and became part of a twelve-student delegation sent to Saint Petersburg later that year. The trip seems to have affected Potemkin: afterwards he studied little and was soon expelled. Faced with isolation from his family, he rejoined the Guards, where he excelled. At this time his net worth amounted to 430 souls (serfs), equivalent to that of the poorer gentry. His time was taken up with "drinking, gambling, and promiscuous lovemaking", and he fell deep in debt.
Grigory Orlov, one of Catherine's lovers, led a palace coup in June 1762 that ousted the Emperor Peter III and enthroned Catherine II. Sergeant Potemkin represented his regiment in the revolt. Allegedly, as Catherine reviewed her troops in front of the Winter Palace before their march to the Peterhof, she lacked a sword-knot (or possibly hat plumage), which Potemkin quickly supplied. Potemkin's horse then appeared to refuse to leave her side for several minutes before Potemkin and the horse returned to the ranks.
Courtier and general
Although Catherine had not yet taken Potemkin as a lover, it seems likely that she passively—if not actively—encouraged his flirtatious behaviour, including his regular practice of kissing her hand and declaring his love for her: without encouragement, Potemkin could have expected trouble from the Orlovs (Catherine's lover Grigory and his four brothers) who dominated court. Potemkin entered Catherine's circle of advisers, and in 1762 took his only foreign assignment, to Sweden, bearing news of the coup. On his return, he was appointed Procurator, and won a reputation as a lover. Under unclear circumstances, Potemkin then lost his left eye and fell into a depression. According to legend, Grigory and Alexei Orlov invited Potemkin to a friendly game of billiards, then attacked him with their cues "for flirting with Catherine", resulting in Potemkin's eye being damaged during the brawl; the wound then turned septic "after being mistreated by a quack physician". Other sources claim that Potemkin's eye was struck by a ball "during a tennis match". According to Simon Sebag Montefiore, the cause of the damage was most likely just "an infection." His confidence shattered, Potemkin withdrew from court, becoming something of a hermit.
Eighteen months later, Potemkin reappeared, probably summoned by Catherine. Upon his return, "the man once known as Alcibiades for his wit and beauty was re-nicknamed 'Cyclops'." He became an army paymaster and oversaw uniform production. Shortly thereafter, he became a Guardian of Exotic Peoples at the new All-Russian Legislative Commission, a significant political post. In September 1768, Potemkin became Kammerherr (chamberlain). Two months later Catherine had his military commission revoked, fully attaching him to court. In the interval, the Ottoman Empire had started the Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774 and Potemkin was eager to prove himself, writing to Catherine:
The only way I can express my gratitude to Your Majesty is to shed my blood for Your glory. This war provides an excellent opportunity for this and I cannot live in idleness. Allow me now, Merciful Sovereign, to appeal at Your Majesty's feet and request Your Majesty to send me to... the front in whatever rank Your Majesty wishes... [to serve] just for the duration of the war.
Potemkin served as Major General of the cavalry. He distinguished himself in his first engagement, helping to repulse a band of unruly Tatar and Turkish horsemen. He fought in Russia's victory at the Battle of Kamenets and the taking of the town. Potemkin saw action virtually every day, particularly excelling at the Battle of Prashkovsky, after which his commander Aleksandr Mikhailovich Golitsyn recommended him to Catherine. Potemkin's army, under Pyotr Rumyantsev, continued its advance. Potemkin fought at the capture of Jurja, a display of courage and skill for which he received the Order of St. Anna. At the Battle of Larga, he won the Order of St. George, third class, and fought well during the rout of the main Turkish force that followed. On leave to Saint Petersburg, the Empress invited him to dine with her more than ten times.
Favourite of Catherine II
Potemkin returned to court in January 1774 expecting to walk into Catherine's arms. The political situation, however, had become complex. Yemelyan Pugachev had just arisen as a pretender to the throne, and commanded a rebel army thirty thousand strong. In addition, Catherine's son Paul turned eighteen and began to gain his own support. By late January Potemkin had tired of the impasse and effected (perhaps with encouragement from Catherine) a "melodramatic retreat" into the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Catherine relented and had Potemkin brought back in early February 1774, when their relationship became intimate.
Several weeks later he had usurped Vasilchikov as Catherine's favourite, and was given the title of Adjutant General. When Catherine's friend Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm, objected to Vasilchikov's dismissal, she wrote back to him, "Why do you reproach me because I dismiss a well-meaning but extremely boring bourgeois in favour of one of the greatest, the most comical and amusing, characters of this iron century?" His uncouth behavior shocked the court, but Potemkin showed himself capable of suitable formality when necessary.
The frequent letters the pair sent to each other survive, revealing their affair to be one of "laughter, sex, mutually admired intelligence, and power". Many of their trysts seem to have centered around the banya sauna in the basement of the Winter Palace; Potemkin soon grew so jealous that Catherine had to detail her prior love-life for him. Potemkin also rose in political stature, particularly on the strength of his military advice. In March 1774, he became Lieutenant Colonel in the Preobrazhensky Guards, a post previously held by Alexei Orlov. He also became captain of the Chevaliers-Gardes from 1784.
In quick succession he won appointment as Governor-General of Novorossiya, as a member of the State Council, as General-in-Chief, as vice-president of the College of War and as Commander-in-Chief of the Cossacks. These posts made him rich, and he lived lavishly. To improve his social standing he was awarded the prestigious Order of St. Alexander Nevsky and Order of St. Andrew, along with the Polish Order of the White Eagle, the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, the Danish Order of the Elephant and the Swedish Royal Order of the Seraphim.
That Catherine and Potemkin married is "almost certain", according to Simon Sebag Montefiore, although biographer Virginia Rounding has expressed some doubts. In December 1784, Catherine first explicitly referred to Potemkin as her husband in correspondence, though 1775, 1784, and 1791 have all been suggested as possible nuptial dates. In all, Catherine's phrasing in 22 letters suggested he had become her consort, at least secretly. Potemkin's actions and her treatment of him later in life fit with this: the two at least acted as husband and wife.
Diplomat
Potemkin's first task during this period was foreign policy. An Anglophile, he helped negotiate with the English ambassador, Sir James Harris, during Catherine's initiative of Armed Neutrality, though the south remained his passion. His plan, known as the Greek Project, aspired to build a new Byzantine Empire around the Turkish capital in Constantinople. Dismembering the Ottoman Empire would require détente with Austria (technically still the Habsburg monarchy), and its ruler Joseph II. They met in May 1780 in the Russian town of Mogilev. The ensuing alliance represented the triumph of Potemkin's approach over courtiers such as Catherine's son Paul, who favored alliance with Prussia. The May 1781 defensive treaty remained secret for almost two years; the Ottomans were said to still have been unaware of it even when they declared war on Russia in 1787.
Elsewhere, Potemkin's scheme to develop a Russian presence in the rapidly disintegrating state of Persia failed. Plans for a full-scale invasion had previously been cut back and a small unit sent to establish a trading post there was quickly turned away. Potemkin focused instead on Russia's southern provinces, where he was busy founding cities (including Sevastopol) and creating his own personal kingdom, including his brand new Black Sea Fleet. That kingdom was about to expand: under the Treaty of Kuçuk Kainarji, which had ended the previous Russo-Turkish war, the Crimean Khanate had become independent, though effectively under Russian control. In June 1782 it was descending again into anarchy.
By July 1783, Potemkin had engineered the peaceful annexation of Crimea and Kuban, capitalizing on the fact that Britain and France were fighting elsewhere. The Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti accepted Russian protection a few days later with the Treaty of Georgievsk searching for protection against Persia's aim to reestablish its suzerainty over Georgia; the Karabakh Khanate of Persia initially looked as though it might also, but eventually declined Russian help. Exhausted, Potemkin collapsed into a fever he barely survived. Catherine rewarded him with one hundred thousand roubles, which he used to construct the Tauride Palace in Saint Petersburg.
Governor-General and city builder
Potemkin returned to St. Petersburg in November 1783 and was promoted to Field Marshal when Crimea was formally annexed the following February. He also became President of the College of War. The province of Taurida (Crimea) was added to the state of Novorossiya (lit. New Russia). Potemkin moved south in mid-March, as the "Prince of Taurida" or "Potemkin-Tauricheski". He had been the namestnik of Russia's southern provinces (including Novorossiya, Azov, Saratov, Astrakhan, and the Caucasus) since 1774, repeatedly expanding the domain via military action. He kept his own court, which rivalled Catherine's: by the 1780s he operated a chancellery with fifty or more clerks and had his own minister, Vasili Popov, to oversee day-to-day affairs. Another favored associate was Mikhail Faleev.
The "criminal" breaking of the Cossack hosts, particularly the Zaporozhian Cossacks in 1775, helped define his rule. However, Montefiore argues that given their location, and in the wake of the Pugachev rebellion, the Cossacks were likely doomed in any case. By the time of Potemkin's death, the Cossacks and their threat of anarchic revolt were well controlled. Among the Zaporizhian Cossacks he was known as Hrytsko Nechesa.
Potemkin then embarked on a period of city-founding. Construction started at his first effort, Kherson, in 1778, as a base for a new Black Sea Fleet he intended to build. Potemkin approved every plan himself, but construction was slow, and the city proved costly and vulnerable to plague. Next was the port of Akhtiar, annexed with Crimea, which became Sevastopol. Then he built Simferopol as the Crimean capital. His biggest failure, however, was his effort to build the city of Yekaterinoslav (lit. 'glory of Catherine'), now the city of Dnipro. The second most successful city of Potemkin's rule was Nikolayev (now Mykolaiv), which he founded in 1789. Potemkin also initiated the redesign of Odessa after its capture from the Turks; it was to turn out to be his greatest city planning triumph.
Potemkin's Black Sea Fleet was a massive undertaking for its time. By 1787, the British ambassador reported twenty-seven ships of the line. It put Russia on a naval footing with Spain, though far behind the Royal Navy. The period represented the peak of Russia's naval power relative to other European states. Potemkin also rewarded hundreds of thousands of settlers who moved into his territories. It is estimated that by 1782 the populations of Novorossiya and Azov had doubled during a period of "exceptionally rapid" development. Immigrants included Russians, foreigners, British convicts diverted from Australia, Cossacks and controversially Jews. Though the immigrants were not always happy in their new surroundings, on at least one occasion Potemkin intervened directly to ensure families received the cattle to which they were entitled. Outside of Novorossiya he drew up the Azov-Mozdok defense line, constructing forts at Georgievsk, Stavropol, and elsewhere and ensured that the whole of the line was settled.
Commander-in-Chief
Potemkin remained in the south, gradually sinking into depression. His inactivity was problematic, given that he was now Russia's commander-in-chief and, in August 1787, another Russo-Turkish war broke out, the second of Potemkin's lifetime. His opponents were anxious to reclaim the lands they had lost in the last war, and they were under pressure from Prussia, Britain, and Sweden to take a hostile attitude towards Russia. Potemkin's bluster had probably contributed to the hostility, either deliberately or accidentally. Either way, his creation of the new fleet and Catherine's trip to the south had certainly not helped matters. In the center, Potemkin had his own Yekaterinoslav Army, while to the west lay the smaller Ukraine Army under the command of Field Marshal Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky. On water he had the Black Sea Fleet, and Potemkin was also responsible for coordinating military actions with Russia's Austrian allies.
Potemkin and Catherine agreed on a primarily defensive strategy until the spring. Though the Turks were repelled in early skirmishes against the Russian fortress at Kinburn, news of the loss of Potemkin's beloved fleet during a storm sent him into a deep depression. A week later, and after kind words from Catherine, he was rallied by the news that the fleet was not destroyed, but only damaged. General Alexander Suvorov won an important victory at Kinburn in early October. With winter now approaching, Potemkin was confident the port would be safe until the spring.
Turning his attention elsewhere, Potemkin established his headquarters in Elisabethgrad and planned future operations. He assembled an army of forty or fifty thousand, including the newly formed Kuban Cossacks. He divided his time between military preparation (creating a fleet of a hundred gunboats to fight within the shallow liman) and chasing the wives of soldiers under his command. Meanwhile, the Austrians remained on the defensive across central Europe, though they did manage to hold their lines. Despite advice to the contrary, Potemkin pursued an equally defensive strategy, though in the Caucasus, Generals Tekeeli and Pavel Potemkin were making some inroads.
In early summer 1788, fighting intensified as Potemkin's forces won their naval confrontation with the Turks with few losses, and began the siege of Ochakov, a Turkish stronghold and the main Russian war aim. Less promising was that Saint Petersburg, exposed after Russia's best forces departed for Crimea, was now under threat from Sweden in the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790. Potemkin refused to write regularly with news of the war in the south, compounding Catherine's anxiety.
Death
Potemkin fell ill in the fever-ridden city of Iași, then often known as Jassy in English, although he kept busy, overseeing peace talks, planning his assault on Poland, and preparing the army for renewed war in the south. He fasted briefly and recovered some strength, but refused medicine and began to feast once again, consuming a "ham, a salted goose and three or four chickens". On 13 October [O.S. 2 October], he felt better and dictated a letter to Catherine before collapsing once more. Later, he awoke and dispatched his entourage to Nikolayev. On 16 October [O.S. 5 October] 1791 Potemkin died in the open steppe, 60 km from Iași. Picking up on contemporary rumor, historians such as the Polish Jerzy Łojek have suggested that he was poisoned because his madness made him a liability, but this is rejected by Montefiore, who suggests he succumbed to bronchial pneumonia instead.
Potemkin was embalmed, and a funeral was held for him in Iași. Eight days after his death, he was buried. Catherine was distraught and ordered social life in Saint Petersburg be put on hold. Derzhavin's ode Waterfall lamented Potemkin's death. Likewise many in the military establishment had looked upon Potemkin as a father figure and were especially saddened by his demise. Polish contemporary Stanisław Małachowski claimed that Aleksandra von Engelhardt, a niece of Potemkin's and the wife of Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, a magnate and prominent leader of the Targowica Confederation, worried for the fate of Poland after the death of the man who had planned to revitalise the Polish state with himself as its new head.
Potemkin had used the state treasury as a personal bank, preventing the resolution of his financial affairs to this day. Catherine purchased the Tauride Palace and his art collection from his estate, and paid off his debts. Consequently, he left a relative fortune.
Catherine's son Paul, who succeeded to the throne in 1796, attempted to undo as many of Potemkin's reforms as possible. The Tauride Palace was turned into a barracks, and the city of Gregoripol, which had been named in Potemkin's honor, was renamed.
Potemkin's grave survived a destruction order issued by Paul and was eventually displayed by the Bolsheviks. His remains appeared to lie in his tomb at St. Catherine's Cathedral in Kherson. The exact whereabouts of some of his internal organs, including his heart and brain first kept at Golia Monastery in Iași, remain unknown. Pro-Russian officials during the Russian invasion of Ukraine said that his remains were taken from his tomb and transported to Russia. This was the ninth time that Potemkin's remains were moved.
Personality and reputation
Potemkin "exuded both menace and welcome"; he was arrogant, demanding of his courtiers, and very changeable in his moods, but also fascinating, warm, and kind. It was generally agreed among his female companions that he was "amply endowed with 'sex appeal'".
Louis Philippe, comte de Ségur described him as "colossal like Russia", "an inconceivable mixture of grandeur and pettiness, laziness and activity, bravery and timidity, ambition and insouciance". The internal contrast was evident throughout his life: he frequented both church and numerous orgies, for example. In Ségur's view, onlookers had a tendency to unjustly attribute to Catherine alone the successes of the period and to Potemkin the failures. An eccentric workaholic, Potemkin was vain and a great lover of jewelry (a taste he did not always remember to pay for), but he disliked sycophancy and was sensitive about his appearance, particularly his lost eye. He only agreed to have portraits made of him twice, in 1784 and again in 1791, both times by Johann Baptist von Lampi and from an angle which disguised his injury. Potemkin was often noted for his uncouth behavior, most notably his unscrupulous sexual liaisons and biting his nails. Potemkin's nail-biting was so persistent that it was frequently noticed by courtiers and guests, and resulted in hangnail.
It is possible that Potemkin was affected by bipolar disorder. His highs and lows, his inability to follow through on his ideas, his material and sexual excesses, his impulsive whims, his energy and lethargy, and his depressive spells suggest some kind of bipolar disorder. In a time that was not aware of mental illness, Potemkin, and the people in his life such as Catherine, suffered from this lack of understanding.
Potemkin was an intellectual. The Prince of Ligne noted that Potemkin had "natural abilities [and] an excellent memory". He was interested in history, generally knowledgeable, and loved the classical music of the period, as well as opera. He liked all food, both peasant and fine, his favorites including roast beef and potatoes; while his Anglophilia meant that English gardens were prepared wherever he went. A practical politician, his political ideas were "quintessentially Russian", and he believed in the superiority of the Tsarist autocracy. He once described the French revolutionaries as "a pack of madmen". One evening, at the height of his power, Potemkin declared to his dinner guests:
Family
Potemkin had no legitimate descendants, though it is probable he had illegitimate issue. Elizabeth Temkina was the once-alleged daughter of Catherine the Great and Grigory Potemkin.
Four of his five sisters lived long enough to bear children, but only the daughters of his sister Marfa Elena (sometimes rendered as 'Helen') received Potemkin's special attention. The five unmarried Engelhardt sisters arrived in court in 1775 on the direction of their recently widowed father Vassily. Legend suggests Potemkin soon seduced many of the girls, one of whom was twelve or thirteen at the time. An affair with the third eldest, Varvara, can be verified; after that had subsided, Potemkin formed close—and probably amorous—relationships successively with Alexandra, the second eldest, and Ekaterina, the fifth.
Potemkin also had influential relatives. Potemkin's sister Maria, for example, married Russian senator Nikolay Samoylov: their son Alexander was decorated for his service under Potemkin in the army; their daughter Ekaterina married first into the Raevsky family, and then the wealthy landowner Lev Davydov. She had children with both husbands, including highly decorated General Nikolay Raevsky, Potemkin's great-nephew. His wider family included several distant cousins, among them Count Pavel Potemkin, another decorated military figure, whose brother Mikhail married Potemkin's niece Tatiana Engelhardt. A distant nephew, Felix Yusupov, helped murder Rasputin in 1916.
Legacy
Despite attempts by Paul I to play down Potemkin's role in Russian history, his name found its way into numerous items of common parlance:
A century after Potemkin's death, the Battleship Potemkin was named in his honour. The ship became famous for its involvement in the Russian Revolution of 1905 and subsequent dramatization in Battleship Potemkin, a Soviet movie by Sergey Eisenstein, which at one point was named the greatest film of all time.
The name of the giant seaside staircase in Odesa, featured in The Battleship Potemkin, eventually became known as the Potemkin Stairs.
The phrase Potemkin village entered common usage in Russia and globally, despite its fictional origin.
The Grigory Potemkin Republican Cadet Corps is a specialized institution in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Transnistria that is named after the Russian prince.