Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie has written a biography of Russia's great empress Catherine that is - well, great. Massie, who won the Pulitzer for "Peter the Great," knows the history of the country, and he brings that knowledge to his writing.
Catherine was an unlikely person to rise to such an exalted position and to rule so wisely and well. The era was known as the golden age of Russia.
She was born in Germany to "an obscure, penurious nobleman," a career soldier and minor prince, and his wife, Princess Elizabeth, who dreamed of a much more exciting life than living in the German countryside.
Her birth was a disappointment to her mother, who longed for a son who would inherit her father's estate. Princess Elizabeth, then 16, had little to do with Catherine, and had even less interest when a son was born 18 months later.
It appeared that Catherine was destined to be married to an impoverished prince and deposited in an obscure German castle. Instead, an amazing series of events sent her to Russia to marry Peter, her second cousin, who had been selected as the heir to Empress Elizabeth.
The marriage wasn't happy. Peter was a strange young man, obsessed with all things military, including the endless games he played with toy soldiers, and he was devoted to Frederick of Prussia.
Peter apparently never slept with his wife, and when Catherine finally produced an heir, it was believed that the father was Sergei Saltykov, her first lover after her arrival in Russia.
Catherine's survival of circumstances that might have crushed her, her intelligence and her ambition finally put her on the Russian throne, despite not being Russian or in line for the succession.
Catherine not only ruled well, improving the lives of her subjects by such things as instituting public health and building orphanages, but she also drew up the principles in the Nakaz, a forerunner of the U.S. Constitution.
She also oversaw the expansion of the Russian navy and expanded the country so that it had an outlet on the Black Sea.
And yes, she took lovers, but dozens of them, not the hundreds so claimed.
Massie writes a lively account of Catherine's life and her reign. His clearly drawn depictions of the schemes, jealousies and maneuvers of the court, and of Catherine, bring the era and the woman to life.
The book is big. It has to be to cover the scope of Catherine's life. But it is so engrossing, it's a quick read.