Catherine the Great and Potemkin

Simon Sebag Montefiore reconstructs the political and personal partnership between Catherine the Great and Grigory Potemkin, one of the most consequential relationships of eighteenth-century Europe. Potemkin rose from guards officer to prince, field marshal and imperial statesman, becoming Catherine’s lover and then a long-term collaborator whose influence extended through military policy, court appointments and the administration of Russia’s southern expansion.

The biography follows wars with the Ottoman Empire, the annexation and settlement of Crimea, the creation of Black Sea bases and the elaborate court politics that surrounded both figures. Drawing on correspondence and archival material, Montefiore argues that the relationship endured as a political partnership even after its most intense romantic phase. The work was first published as Prince of Princes and later retitled to foreground Catherine as well as Potemkin.