Book Review: Catherine the Great

In Catherine the Great, we get to see a new side of a tsar of Russia. (http://www.biography.com/people/catherine-ii-9241622)The first thing that comes to mind is the power they have and the typical stereotype of what a monarch is entered I our minds. Though the book we get to see the Catherine as a real person going through the struggles of her people and even now in present day. The author Robert K Massie shows a new way of writing historical fiction. Ignoring the boring school textbook of explaining the events and who was in what. He used Catherine own memoirs to help write this book and explain of what he meant if the situation is hard to understand for us the readers.

Another thing about the book which made it more interesting than most historical book is that the way he portrays each character in the book. He takes the time to explain even the most minor characters so you know what role they played and why they were important. That was really good. For me as reader personally I got confused with all that information at my face for character like her lover named Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov who doesn’t appear again in the book. Though that was the only drawback in the book I enjoyed the pictures that were included to give the readers a visual of what they looked like. I personally thought the guys she had for lovers and possible husband were super ugly and fat. She could have chosen hotter guys or the artist had painted the better looking ones and the placed it in the book. The only good looking guy was her lover that only lasted about a year and was named Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mamonov.jpg). Though I would say that when Catherine was younger she was really pretty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caravaque_catherine.jpg), thought she aged with grace I say that a big change after she died (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katharina_II.,_die_Gro%C3%9Fe.jpg). Okay enough about my rants of the trend look during the 1700s.

Another reason why the book was good was that Catherine approach to her ruling was almost as good as a king ruling Russia. She was handling all the internal problems of Russia like surfs and the war like the one with Turkey and Prussia. In my opinion the way she handle it proves and show that women during those time were more than capable of childbearing and house wife. Here at page is a great example is at page 392 when the fake Peter the 3rd was trying to be the king Catherine showed her intelligence “brought her to the decision that her primary duty as empress was to enforce the authority of the crown. She did this by summoning soldiers not philosophers.”

The writing style of the book was more of a formal way, but my interesting. Reason being is that after he told us the facts, he adds in his two cent and it different than what most historians would. As I said before he tells the story as if he’s putting commenting on the text with no filter. An example of this is in the first part of the book. “Despite her apprehensions, there was no turning back. She had come to Russia, she had learned Russian, she had resisted her father and converted to Orthodoxy, she had worked hard to please the empress, she was ready to marry Peter despite his flaws. Having made all these concessions and sacrifices, she was not going to throw it all away go home, and settle down with Uncle George.”  The writing style is one I like because the way he comments and talks is what I do when I read historical books and documents. Annotating and commenting at the same time, he kept a good balance of that throughout the book. In end I enjoyed the book and learn a lot more about Russia and I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys to learning.