Catherine the Great: The 1762 Coup and Her Reign over Russia

Catherine the Great seized the Russian throne in a palace coup on 28 June 1762 (Old Style; 9 July in the modern Gregorian calendar), overthrowing her husband, Emperor Peter III. A German princess with no hereditary claim, she went on to rule Russia for 34 years. Her reign brought vast territorial expansion, ambitious reforms inspired by the Enlightenment, and the tightening of serfdom that shaped Russian society for a century.

A German princess in Russia

Catherine was born Sophie Friederike Auguste, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, on 2 May 1729 (New Style) in Stettin, then a Prussian port and today Szczecin in Poland. Her family belonged to the minor German nobility. In 1744 Empress Elizabeth of Russia chose her as a bride for her nephew and heir, Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, the future Peter III.

Sophie converted to Russian Orthodoxy, took the name Ekaterina Alekseyevna, and married Peter in August 1745. The marriage was unhappy. Peter was devoted to Holstein and to Frederick the Great of Prussia, while Catherine read widely, learned Russian and built connections at court. Their son Paul, the future emperor, was born in 1754 and was taken from her to be raised by Elizabeth.

The reign of Peter III

Elizabeth died on 25 December 1761 (Old Style; 5 January 1762 New Style) and Peter became emperor. Some of his measures were popular, such as the manifesto of February 1762 freeing the nobility from compulsory state service. Others alienated powerful groups.

Most damaging was his foreign policy. Russia had been fighting Prussia for five years in the Seven Years’ War and had won major victories such as Kunersdorf in 1759. Peter, an open admirer of Frederick, made peace in May 1762 and handed back all Russia’s conquests. He then prepared a war against Denmark to win back territory for his native Holstein, and ordered the elite Guards regiments to take part.

Peter also offended the Orthodox Church by moving to take over its lands, and he favoured Holstein officers and Prussian-style drill. Rumours spread that he intended to divorce Catherine and marry his mistress, Elizaveta Vorontsova. Catherine’s position, and perhaps her freedom, was in danger.

The coup of June 1762

A conspiracy formed around Catherine among officers of the Guards. Its leaders were Grigory Orlov, her lover, and his brothers, especially Alexei. Other supporters included the young Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, the diplomat Nikita Panin, tutor to Grand Duke Paul, and Count Kirill Razumovsky, colonel of the Izmailovsky Regiment.

The plot was forced into action when one conspirator, Captain Passek, was arrested on 27 June. Early the next morning Alexei Orlov woke Catherine at Peterhof, the summer palace on the Gulf of Finland, and took her by carriage to St Petersburg. At the barracks of the Izmailovsky Regiment the soldiers swore allegiance to her, followed by the Semyonovsky and Preobrazhensky Guards. At the Kazan Cathedral she was proclaimed autocrat of all Russia, and a manifesto justified the coup as the defence of Orthodoxy and Russian glory.

That evening Catherine, dressed in the green uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guards and riding at the head of the troops, set out for Peterhof. Peter had spent the day indecisively at Oranienbaum and Peterhof, and an attempt to reach the naval base at Kronstadt failed when the garrison refused to admit him. On 29 June he signed an act of abdication. The coup had taken little more than a day and was almost bloodless. Catherine rewarded her supporters generously: the Orlov brothers received titles, estates and serfs, and the soldiers of the Guards were given money and promotions. Her success depended on the Guards, and she remained careful for the rest of her reign to keep the support of the nobility who filled their officer ranks.

The death of Peter III

The former emperor was taken to a country house at Ropsha, about 30 kilometres from St Petersburg, under a guard commanded by Alexei Orlov. On 6 July (Old Style) he died there. The official announcement blamed a haemorrhoidal colic.

Few believed it then or since. A letter attributed to Alexei Orlov, known only from a later copy, describes a quarrel at dinner in which Peter was killed. Most historians accept that he died a violent death at the hands of his guards. There is no proof that Catherine ordered it, though she clearly benefited and none of those involved was punished.

Catherine’s reign

Catherine was crowned in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on 22 September 1762 (Old Style). She ruled as Catherine II until her death in November 1796. Her reign can be divided into a reforming early period and a more cautious later one, especially after the shock of the French Revolution.

Enlightened ideas. Catherine corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot, bought Diderot’s library, and invited him to St Petersburg in 1773. In 1767 she called a Legislative Commission of elected deputies from most social groups except the serfs, and wrote for it a long Instruction (Nakaz) drawing heavily on Montesquieu and Beccaria. The commission discussed a new law code but never produced one.

Government and society. After the revolt of 1773–1775 she reorganised local government in the Statute on the Provinces of 1775, which created smaller provinces and districts. The Charter to the Nobility of 1785 confirmed noble privileges, and a parallel charter set out the rights of towns. She founded the Smolny Institute for noble girls in 1764 and a national system of public schools in 1786.

Culture. Her purchases of European paintings laid the foundation of the Hermitage collection. In 1768 she was inoculated against smallpox by the English doctor Thomas Dimsdale, setting an example to her subjects.

Serfdom. For all her Enlightenment language, Catherine strengthened the power of landowners over their serfs, who made up the majority of the population. She also gave hundreds of thousands of state peasants to favourites and officials. Discontent erupted in Pugachev’s Rebellion, the largest peasant revolt in Russian history.

Expansion of the empire

Under Catherine, Russia grew to the south and west. Two wars with the Ottoman Empire, in 1768–1774 and 1787–1792, gave it the northern coast of the Black Sea. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) opened the Black Sea to Russian shipping, and in 1783 Russia annexed the Crimean Khanate, as described in the article on the Russian annexation of Crimea. New cities such as Kherson, Sevastopol and Odesa were founded.

In the west, Catherine joined Prussia and Austria in the three Partitions of Poland of 1772, 1793 and 1795, which brought most of present-day Belarus and Lithuania, Courland and Ukraine west of the Dnieper (except Galicia) under Russian rule. By the end of her reign the population of the empire had risen, by most estimates, from around 20–23 million to some 36–37 million, partly through these annexations.

Much of the southern expansion was directed by Grigory Potemkin, her most important partner in government and, for a time, her lover and possibly her secret husband.

Key people

Catherine II (1729–1796) was the driving force of the coup, which she presented as a rescue of Russia from a ruler who despised it.

Peter III (1728–1762) reigned for only about six months. Later historians have argued that some of his policies were more reasonable than his enemies claimed, but his political misjudgements were fatal.

Grigory Orlov (1734–1783) and Alexei Orlov (1737–1808) organised support in the Guards. Grigory remained Catherine’s favourite until 1772; Alexei later commanded the Russian fleet that destroyed the Ottoman navy at Chesma in 1770.

Ekaterina Dashkova (1743–1810) took part in the coup aged 19 and later directed the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences and founded the Russian Academy.

Myths and facts

The horse story. Catherine died after a stroke at the Winter Palace on 17 November 1796 (New Style). Lurid stories about her death, including the notorious one involving a horse, were invented by enemies and have no historical basis.

Potemkin villages. The idea that Potemkin built fake, painted village fronts to deceive Catherine on her 1787 tour of the south is greatly exaggerated. Settlements were certainly cleaned and decorated for her visit, but the new towns and fleet she saw were real.

“Enlightened despot”. Catherine admired the philosophers, but she never intended to limit her own autocratic power, and she became hostile to radical ideas after 1789.

Timeline

• 1729, 2 May: Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst is born in Stettin.
• 1745, August: She marries Grand Duke Peter in St Petersburg.
• 1762, 5 January (NS): Empress Elizabeth dies; Peter III becomes emperor.
• 1762, 28 June (OS): The Guards proclaim Catherine empress in St Petersburg.
• 1762, 29 June (OS): Peter III signs his abdication at Oranienbaum and is taken to Peterhof.
• 1762, 6 July (OS): Peter dies in custody at Ropsha.
• 1762, 22 September (OS): Catherine is crowned in Moscow.
• 1767: The Legislative Commission meets in Moscow.
• 1783: Russia annexes Crimea.
• 1796, 17 November (NS): Catherine dies at the Winter Palace.

Why it matters

The coup of 1762 was the last of a series of 18th-century palace revolutions in which the Guards decided who ruled Russia. It brought to power one of the most capable rulers in Russian history, whose conquests made the empire a great power on the Black Sea and in central Europe, and whose reliance on the nobility deepened the serfdom that later rulers struggled to undo.