Catherine
II, otherwise known as Catherine the Great, ruled the Russian Empire
from 1762 until her death in 1796. Within the last generation or so,
there has been a flourishing of Catherinian studies in North America
and Western Europe. Eschewing the conventional wisdom and popular cliches
that had labeled Catherine a hypocrite at best and a sexual deviant
at worst, these scholars have begun to construct a complex and nuanced
view of the Empress and her rule. In their estimation these were dynamic
years, full of both enlightened actions and more typically autocratic
deeds. In short, it was a time like any other: full of tensions and
contradictions.
Scope
The purpose of this web site is to help undergraduate and beginning graduate students access this new body of Catherinian scholarship. Works have been chosen both because of their scholarly quality and the linkages each provides to the larger body of scholarship from which they have emerged. All of the resources discussed here should generally be available at any given university research library; however, the call number and shelf directions are obviously specific to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Davis Library. It should be noted that some of the electronic resources are subscription services that are only accessible to members of the UNC community.