Eva Stachniak's Blog: On the absence of stories... - Posts Tagged "catherine-the-great"

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have read all biographies of Catherine The Great I could find and they all have something in them that is unique. Robert K. Massey's Catherine includes extensive excerpts from her memoirs, letters, and other primary sources--adding authentic voices to the narrative. Massey calls his biography "a portrait of a woman" and he is consistent in showing Catherine's feminine side.
I found his discussion of historical background very illuminating--he cleared a few mysteries for me--however I found that the last years of her life did not get as thorough a treatment as earlier periods. I was looking forward to his take on Platon Zubov, Catherine's last favourite, but got little there beyond a tantalizing statement that Zubov was different than her other lovers. Her earlier liaisons have been discussed with more details and are far more developed.
With all these flaws, the book is splendid and a true complement to the existing biographies of this enigmatic, fascinating, and powerful woman. I heartily recommend it.



View all my reviews

Hello,
The Winter Palace is out and is doing well. It has made it to The Globe and Mail Bestsellers's list as #3.
To my delight I am also being hosted by wonderful blogs.
Please take a look at my website to get a sense of what we are talking about when we are talking about The Winter Palace:
http://www.evastachniak.com/blogs/

And there will be more, I promise!

Eva

This is a link to a conversation I had with Craig Rintoul- the executive producer of Bookbits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9TXzu...

Hope you enjoy it!
Eva

CBC Studio One invited me to take part in their Book Club session. I was interviewed on stage by host Sheryl MacKay and co-host Jen Sookfang Lee.

Here is an audio recording of this wonderful Vancouver evening.

http://www.cbc.ca/nxnw/studio-one-boo...

A novel idea?
Twenty writer friends got together to offer this amazing opportunity to win 20 books. I am one of them. After just few days the giveaway has over 500 entries!
Please take a look and good luck!
Eva

Here is the link to my website and all the details:

The 20 authors 20 Book Valentine giveaway (including The Winter Palace)
http://www.evastachniak.com/2013/02/0...

From:
http://writinghistoricalnovels.com/20...

In Poland where I grew up, Catherine the Great has always been an object of hatred and scorn. After all, she is the Tsarina who, with the help of Prussia and Austria, wiped Poland off the map of Europe for over a hundred years. She is the empress who crushed the last Polish uprising and made Poland’s king – her one time lover – her prisoner. The Poles still cannot forgive her the bloody massacre in the suburbs of Warsaw during the Polish uprising of 1795. She is routinely referred to as “this horrible woman” and a “hypocrite”. Since mid-eighteenth century she has been a symbol of imperial Russia, a woman feared and despised, hated and cursed. A view shared by generations of Turks and descendants of Ukrainian Cossacks.

In Canada, where I’ve lived for the last thirty years, I have met another Catherine. Her Western biographers - and she has had many of them - stress that she was one of the most formidable women rulers in modern history. She is referred to as an enlightened empress, a legislator who did not shy from the first comprehensive attempt to reform Russia’s laws, a masterful politician with steady nerves and clear goals to strengthen Russia. She is hailed as a builder of magnificent palaces, gardens, schools, hospitals, and orphanages. She is seen as a collector of art, which can still be admired in St. Petersburg, and a passionate woman who didn’t hide her desires, taking younger and younger lovers as she aged.

It was this contradiction that provided the initial inspiration for turning to Catherine as the subject of my novel. Then, the more I learned about Catherine the Great, the more she intrigued me. How did she manage to transform herself from a minor Prussian princess who arrived in Moscow at 14 without a word of Russian at her disposal into the powerful autocrat of All the Russias? How did she survive the long and hard years in a loveless marriage, deprived of her children who were considered too important to be raised by their mother? How did she win over the hostile court for whom she was a mere “Housefrau with a pointed chin?” How did she manage to push aside her immature husband and reach for the throne of Russia?

In my subsequent research I have found many answers to these questions. Each biographer of Catherine the Great – and she has had many excellent ones from J.T. Alexander to Robert Massey – stresses some other aspect of her character. She was smart, charismatic, pragmatic and hard working. She had clear goals and stuck to them. She knew which course of action was politically feasible and which should not be attempted without patient building of support – like the abolition of serfdom which she wished to implement but gave up in the end. She was also clear that Russia’s prosperity was her ultimate goal and that she was not going to detour from it.

From a Polish perspective, none of this may matter much. Russia’s gain has been Poland’s loss and another look at Catherine the Great won’t change it. To me, the very act of re-examining who Catherine was has been a fruitful journey.

The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great

The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great

This is my latest blog written for:http://writinghistoricalnovels.com

For a writer of historical fiction, period memoirs promise to be the ultimate primary source, a treasure trove of inspiration for a novel’s scenes and the language in which those scenes are couched. But memoirs are not always entirely reliable and need to be read with caution. It may be that what they do not mention is far more important than what they do. The Memoirs of Catherine the Great provide an illuminating example.

Catherine the Great started writing her memoirs a few times in her life, but none of these attempts were ever finished. The longest attempt and her final one – abandoned in 1794, two years before her death – begins with the following sentence: “Fortune is not as blind as people imagine. It is often the result of a long series of precise and well-chosen steps that precede events and are not perceived by the common herd….” To a careful reader, it quickly becomes quite clear that the memoirs themselves constitute one of these well-chosen steps. For what Catherine is giving us is not an act of confession – so popular in the 18th century – but a carefully woven story produced by a savvy politician who knows what she wants.

I’ve read and re-read these memoirs many times in the course of doing research for my own novel and, every time I reach for them, I’m awed by the perfect pitch of Catherine’s reasoning and her guiding objectives. Her writing is lucid, straightforward, and logical. She assumes that the reader is familiar with the facts of her reign, so what she provides are the intimate details behind the facts and her thoughts, all carefully chosen to justify why she had the right, moral if not legal, to claim the Russian throne. Before we learn of her orderly habits, her work ethic, and her readings, she makes sure we learn that her late husband was inept, slovenly, and fond of drink. That instead of accepting the Orthodox religion as she did, he “took it into his head to dispute every point”. That he was childish and “resistant to all instruction”.

In contrast to Peter III, we read, Catherine II did everything to be a good wife to her inept husband and a loyal subject to empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Bit by bit she produces further evidence of his unstable character. Peter III, we learn, once executed a rat; he also tortured her, his long-suffering wife, with his fiddle playing. Incidentally – in a telling admission - Catherine also confesses to being tone deaf and finding all music to be an infernal noise.

Catherine presents further evidence of her credentials. She doesn’t spare the details of how she was mistreated – her aunt-in-law left her unattended after childbirth and refused to allow her to see her newborn son – but she also makes sure the reader knows she is not vindictive and doesn’t indulge in self-pity. Yes, she tells us, I was mistreated but I raised myself up and worked with whatever life brought my way. She makes sure we learn of her fortitude, her cheerful disposition, but most of all of her good sense and judgment. For this captivating account is Catherine’s way, not just to elicit our sympathy, but to sway us to her way of thinking. After putting the book down, the reader must be convinced that Catherine deserved to become empress because she was wise and enlightened, a just monarch who had the right to the absolute power she had seized.

Yet, as we read these memoirs we can see how Catherine writes herself into a corner. It soon becomes clear that no matter how enlightened, just, and reasonable she is, she cannot justify her husband’s murder. Yes, he was immature, silly, inept. But was he a threat? Was he the monster she wants us to see in him?

In the end Catherine gives up. The memoirs end in 1759, when she is still Grand Duchess and empress Elizabeth Petrovna is very much alive and in charge of the Russian court. The last few pages are notes for the subsequent chapter, ending with the following words: “… things took such a turn that it was necessary to perish with him, by him, or else to try to save oneself from the wreckage and to save my children, and the state.”

A tall order.

I can imagine her staring at these notes, wondering how on earth she is going to convince the reader that this was the case. And at the end abandoning the whole project altogether.

***

Eva Stachniak’s author website: www.evastachniak.com

Empress of the Night and The Winter Palace are two novels inspired by the Russian empress Catherine the Great. Both are meant to stand alone, but they work best together, for together they offer two different vantage points from which the reader can watch Catherine the Great. In The Winter Palace Catherine's story is told by Varvara, her confidante and spy, clearly captivated by her mistress. Empress of the Night gives Catherine centre stage. In this novel we meet the Russian empress as a mature woman who has survived palace politics and secured her own position. A woman who knows how to rule and knows the price of power.

You may not always like her, you may not always approve of her decisions, but you will have to admit she is one of the most fascinating women with few equals in world history.

A group of fabulous authors have banded together to give away 20 books! Empress of the Night, my second Catherine the Great novel, is among them.

To win all 20 books, you must add them to your Goodreads to-read list by clicking the link next to each book (you can add books to your Goodreads to-read list by clicking on the button just below the book’s photo on Goodreads). The more books you enter the more books you will win if you are picked. You can only win all of the books if you add them all to your to-read list.

There will be 1 winner for every 250 entrants. US and Canada only. Contest runs till February 16, 2014.

Please click on this link to get the details and to enter:

http://catherinemckenzie.com/book-lov...


Good luck!

Empress of the Night: A Novel of Catherine the Great--here are some early reviews I'd love to share:

…ambitious…structurally complex and psychologically intense Empress of the Night aims for Hilary Mantel. Stachniak’s writing is distinct, however, especially in vivid description of sensory details: perfume, sweat and the click of heels on polished floorboards.--Quill & Quire (Canada)

Empress of the Night … casts light on Catherine’s life with unflinching honesty and intimacy. This fun novel of lovers, intrigue and malicious and manipulative nobility keeps readers enthralled with every page…--Virtuoso Life Magazine (US)

Stachniak’s absorbing novel opens readers’ hearts to an extraordinary and misunderstood woman …wonderfully written, Stachniak’s story vibrates with passion, drama, and intrigue. This is a feast for fans.-- Romantic Times Magazine (US)

…historical fiction fans will appreciate this personal account of a formidable and, indeed, infamous ruler. --Library Journal (US)

And a link to my UK interview on The Bibliophibian:

http://breathesbooks.wordpress.com/20...