Eighteenth-century libertinism in a time of change: representations of Catherine the Great.

During and soon after Catherine II's long reign in Russia, accounts of her in her native Germany often included gendered representations of her sexual behavior. Assessments in prayers, biographies, caricatures, and histories shifted from chaste and virtuous to adulterous and libertine. Meanwhile, interpretations of sexuality also changed. Extramarital sexuality among aristocrats and royals that long elicited no shock became a target of middle-class criticism, boosted by anti-royalist sentiments of the French Revolution and new middle-class notions of faithful womanhood. Two novels about Catherine written soon after her death, Miranda (1798) by Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht and Der Gunstling (1808) by Caroline Auguste Fischer, navigate these shoals. (RD)

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Representations of the sexual behavior of public figures draw on a richly textured assemblage of duties, pleasures, distastes, taboos, allusions, and metaphors, all variously inflected by powerful social factors such as gender, age, and class. In the eighteenth century the famous people whose sexuality was dissected in government documents, such as trial records or diplomatic accounts, in journalism, correspondence, and just plain gossip, were mostly at court, (1) and their inconstant, hedonistic, unsentimental, and even predatory sensuality was often classed as libertine. Much as that term was associated with men, and complex though it was for a woman to live the libertine life, some (allegedly) did, none perhaps more famously than the German princess who had taken the throne of Russia: Catherine the Great.

For geographical, political, and protonationalistic reasons (both Catherine and her royal husband Peter III, grandson of Peter the Great, grew up in Germany), Catherine's German contemporaries were fascinated with the tsarina. The German book and print markets circulated numerous graphic and textual images of her, including speedy translations of accounts from other European languages. In such public representations, and augmented by more private ones, accounts of Catherine's marital and extramarital sexual behavior came into circulation in Germany. Within a few years of her death (1796) the stories were even recycled into two German novels: Miranda, Koniginn im Norden, Geliebte Pansalvins (Miranda, Queen of the North, Beloved of Pansalvin, 1798) by Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht and Der Gunstling (The Favorite, 1808) by Caroline Auguste Fischer. Because procreative (hetero)sexuality was an urgently advocated arena of action for rulers, discourse on the sexuality of rulers was legitimized. Furthermore, libertinism was considered and represented to be a widespread practice in the highest levels of society. At the same time, the emerging middle class was sharpening its critique of the all-powerful upper levels of society by attacking aristocratic immorality, especially sexual immorality. So although extramarital sexuality among aristocrats and royals elicited no shock or surprise (and Miranda is an instance of this accepting attitude), it was a frequent target of criticism, often with representations of predatory aristocratic men exploiting vulnerable and good middleclass young women. The French Revolution and its critique of royalty gave a powerful boost to these familiar moralistic attacks, while new middle-class notions of family intimacy and tender, faithful womanhood reinforced the condemnation of libertine aristocrats, including Catherine (evident, for example, in Der Gunstling). Both positions, the accepting and the critical, ignited the public imagination surrounding Catherine II's sexuality during her lifetime, after her death, and until today.

Much as Catherine has served as a sexual Rohrschach blot, she is also a historical figure who ruled Russia for thirty-four years (1762-96). She conducted experiments in enlightened governing, including calling together an assembly of delegates to draw up a law code for Russia, establishing a system of schools, reforming the administration of the country, and alternately tolerating, encouraging, and censoring the expansion of publishing and the development of Russian intellectual life. Like most other rulers of her era, she failed to end serfdom. She significantly enlarged the boundaries of Russia at the expense of Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and the less organized central Asian region, and settled vast areas with new populations. Under her rule, Odessa and Sebastopol were founded and Russia became a power on the Black Sea. Her art collecting and book purchasing laid the foundation for several of Russia's impressive cultural institutions. And her lovers included several distinguished men.