Awesome Women Library
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  • Engineers, Inventors, & Scientists
    • 1900 - present
      • Rachel Carson
      • Eugenie Clark
      • Sylvia Earle
      • Dian Fossey
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      • Ruth Handler
      • Mary Jackson
      • Shirley Ann Jackson
      • Stephanie Kwolek
      • Hedy Lamarr
      • Mary Leakey
      • Wangari Maathai
      • Mary Sherman Morgan
      • Ellen Ochoa
      • Sally Ride
      • Stephanie Schwabe
      • Donna Shirley
      • Kathryn Sullivan
      • Ruth Wakefield
      • Peggy Whitson
      • Wu Chien-Shiung
    • 1800 - 1899
      • Hertha Ayrton
      • Florence Bascom
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      • Annie Jump Cannon
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      • Marie Curie
      • Lillian Gilbreth
      • Margaret E. Knight
      • Lise Meitner
      • Ynes Mexia
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    • - 1799
      • Mary Anning
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      • Wang Zhenyi
  • Health & Medicine
    • Virginia Apgar
    • Sara Josephine Baker
    • Alice Ball
    • Clara Barton
    • Patricia Bath
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    • Marie Equi
    • Elizabeth Hazen
    • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
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    • Mae Jemison
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    • Mary Eliza Mahoney
    • Florence Nightingale
    • Ogino Ginko
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  • Performance Artists
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    • Ma Rainey
    • Rihanna
    • Yma Sumac
    • Maria Tallchief
    • Rosetta Tharpe
    • Raven Wilkinson
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    • Judy Chicago
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    • Alice Guy-Blache
    • Maija Isola
    • Lois Mailou Jones
    • Frida Kahlo
    • Yayoi Kusama
    • Dorothea Lange
    • Edmonia Lewis
    • Julia Morgan
    • Marianne North
    • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
  • Picture Book Biographies
  • Bulletin of Awesomosity (aka, the blog)
  • About the Library
  • Awesome Women Resources
  • Contact
  • Home
  • What is an Awesome Woman?
  • Activists & Community Builders
    • Oyinkan Abayomi
    • Jane Addams
    • Fatima al-Fihri
    • Jessie Daniel Ames
    • Susan B. Anthony
    • Inessa Armand
    • Ella Baker
    • Josephine Butler
    • Mary Shadd Cary
    • Septima Clark
    • Dorothy Day
    • Durgabai Deshmukh
    • Nawal El Saadawi
    • Lady Bird Johnson
    • Helen Keller
    • Coretta Scott King
    • Anne Carroll Moore
    • Rosa Parks
    • Alice Paul
    • Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Ghenia Avril de Sainte-Croix
    • Sophie Scholl
    • Doria Shafik
    • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    • Sojourner Truth
    • Harriet Tubman
    • Malala Yousafzai
  • Athletes
    • Ball Sports
      • Althea Gibson
      • Mia Hamm
      • Billie Jean King
      • Lisa Leslie
      • Nancy Lieberman
      • Cheryl Miller
      • Jackie Mitchell
      • Martina Navratilova
      • Annika Sorenstam
      • Toni Stone
      • Pat Summitt
      • Sheryl Swoopes
      • Serena Williams
      • Venus Williams
      • Lynette Woodard
    • Body Sports
      • Nicola Adams
      • Laila Ali
      • Simone Biles
      • Bonnie Blair
      • Alice Coachman
      • Nadia Comaneci
      • Dominique Dawes
      • Keiko Fukuda
      • Tanni Grey-Thompson
      • Sonja Henie
      • Florence Griffith Joyner
      • Jackie Joyner-Kersee
      • Ibtihaj Muhammad
      • Annie Smith Peck
      • Wilma Rudolph
      • Junko Tabei
      • Lindsey Vonn
      • Kristi Yamaguchi
      • "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
    • Water Sports
      • Anita DeFrantz
      • Gertrude Ederle
      • Katie Ledecky
      • Ellen MacArthur
      • Dara Torres
  • Authors
    • Ama Ata Aidoo
    • Anna Akhmatova
    • Louisa May Alcott
    • Isabel Allende
    • Maya Angelou
    • Jane Austen
    • Mary Ritter Beard
    • Hildegard von Bingen
    • Nellie Bly
    • Gwendolyn Brooks
    • Octavia Butler
    • Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
    • Tsitsi Dangarembga
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Marjory Stoneman Douglas
    • Lorraine Hansberry
    • Toni Morrison
    • Sappho
    • Harriet Beecher Stowe
    • Ida B. Wells
  • Business & Finance
    • Mary Kay Ash
    • Olive Ann Beech
    • Polly Bemis
    • Marguerite Boucicaut
    • Juana Briones
    • Clara Brown
    • Nellie Cashman
    • Coco Chanel
    • Nicole-Barbe Clicquot
    • Ellen Demorest
    • Katharine Graham
    • Hetty Green
    • Isabella Greenway
    • Annie Turnbo Malone
    • Indra Nooyi
    • Charley Parkhurst
    • Eliza Pinckney
    • Lydia Pinkham
    • Mary Ellen Pleasant
    • Muriel Siebert
    • Madam C.J. Walker
    • Maggie Lena Walker
    • Marie Webster
    • Oprah Winfrey
  • Civil Servants, Teachers, & World Leaders
    • Corazon Aquino
    • Queen Yaa Asantewaa
    • Mavis Batey
    • Mary McLeod Bethune
    • Empress Taytu Betul
    • Queen Boudicca
    • Mary Bowser
    • Charlotte Hawkins Brown
    • Gro Harlem Brundtland
    • Nannie Helen Burroughs
    • Empress Catherine II of Russia
    • Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
    • Shirley Chisholm
    • Pharaoh Cleopatra VII
    • Sarah Emma Edmonds
    • Queen Elizabeth I of England
    • Ruth Bader Ginsburg
    • Pharaoh Hatshepsut
    • Noor Inayat Khan
    • Belva Lockwood
    • Patsy Mink
    • Sandra Day O'Connor
    • Deborah Sampson
    • Trung Sisters
  • Computer Science & Math
    • Maria Agnesi
    • Jean Bartik
    • Kimberly Bryant
    • Annie Easley
    • Sophie Germain
    • Margaret Hamilton
    • Grace Hopper
    • Hypatia
    • Katherine Johnson
    • Sofya Kovalevskaya
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Maryam Mirzakhani
    • Emmy Noether
    • Ruchi Sanghvi
    • Dorothy Vaughan
  • Daredevils, Explorers, & Pilots
    • Ann Bancroft
    • Bessie Coleman
    • Amelia Earhart
    • Amy Johnson
    • Sacagawea
    • Freya Stark
    • Bessie Stringfield
    • Valentina Tereshkova
  • Engineers, Inventors, & Scientists
    • 1900 - present
      • Rachel Carson
      • Eugenie Clark
      • Sylvia Earle
      • Dian Fossey
      • Rosalind Franklin
      • Jane Goodall
      • Ruth Handler
      • Mary Jackson
      • Shirley Ann Jackson
      • Stephanie Kwolek
      • Hedy Lamarr
      • Mary Leakey
      • Wangari Maathai
      • Mary Sherman Morgan
      • Ellen Ochoa
      • Sally Ride
      • Stephanie Schwabe
      • Donna Shirley
      • Kathryn Sullivan
      • Ruth Wakefield
      • Peggy Whitson
      • Wu Chien-Shiung
    • 1800 - 1899
      • Hertha Ayrton
      • Florence Bascom
      • Katharine Burr Blodgett
      • Annie Jump Cannon
      • Martha Coston
      • Marie Curie
      • Lillian Gilbreth
      • Margaret E. Knight
      • Lise Meitner
      • Ynes Mexia
      • Maria Mitchell
    • - 1799
      • Mary Anning
      • Marie d'Arconville
      • Laura Bassi
      • Emilie du Chatelet
      • Catharine Littlefield Greene
      • Maria Sibylla Merian
      • Wang Zhenyi
  • Health & Medicine
    • Virginia Apgar
    • Sara Josephine Baker
    • Alice Ball
    • Clara Barton
    • Patricia Bath
    • Elizabeth Blackwell
    • Louyse Bourgeoise Boursier
    • Rachel Fuller Brown
    • Mamie Phipps Clark
    • Gertrude Belle Elion
    • Marie Equi
    • Elizabeth Hazen
    • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
    • Karen Horney
    • Mae Jemison
    • Anandibai Joshee
    • Mary Eliza Mahoney
    • Florence Nightingale
    • Ogino Ginko
    • Mary Seacole
    • Jane Cooke Wright
    • Rosalyn Yalow
  • Performance Artists
    • Alicia Alonso
    • Marian Anderson
    • Josephine Baker
    • Lucille Ball
    • Misty Copeland
    • Dorothy Dandridge
    • Ellen DeGeneres
    • Katherine Dunham
    • Ella Fitzgerald
    • Evelyn Glennie
    • Martha Graham
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Billie Holiday
    • Nichelle Nichols
    • Annie Oakley
    • Dolly Parton
    • Mary Pickford
    • Ma Rainey
    • Rihanna
    • Yma Sumac
    • Maria Tallchief
    • Rosetta Tharpe
    • Raven Wilkinson
  • Visual Artists
    • Etel Adnan
    • Sofonisba Anguissola
    • Mary Blair
    • Margaret Bourke-White
    • Julia Margaret Cameron
    • Judy Chicago
    • Artemisia Gentileschi
    • Alice Guy-Blache
    • Maija Isola
    • Lois Mailou Jones
    • Frida Kahlo
    • Yayoi Kusama
    • Dorothea Lange
    • Edmonia Lewis
    • Julia Morgan
    • Marianne North
    • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
  • Picture Book Biographies
  • Bulletin of Awesomosity (aka, the blog)
  • About the Library
  • Awesome Women Resources
  • Contact

Empress Catherine II of Russia

May 2, 1729 - November 17, 1796
(Stettin, Prussia - St. Petersburg, Russia)

"I am one of the people who love the why of things."

  • RUSSIAN EMPRESS
  • Ruled Russia for 34 years, seizing power from her unpopular husband
  • LONGEST-SERVING woman to lead the Russian empire, known as Catherine the Great
  • Born Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst
  • Proposed many reforms -- governmental, social, and economic -- to encourage cultural development, establish Russia as a world power, and uplift the poor (unsurprisingly, the nobility was not supportive of this last objective, and in fact actively blocked enactment of several laws that would have given more power to the lower classes)
  • Granted the right of private printing presses
  • Established an atmosphere of cultural and intellectual stimulation, opening the doors for major artistic achievements throughout the 19th century​​​​
  • Founded the Hermitage Museum, which is still a major art institution
  • ​Wrote new guidelines for a more enlightened code of law, founded Russia's FIRST medical school, and reduced religious persecution​
  • ​Authored memoirs, operas, essays, and the FIRST children's stories published in Russia​
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

Not So Awesome

Towards the end of her reign she became increasingly despotic, even going so far as to reverse her earlier stance and shut down private presses that were critical of her.
Bibliography: Cavallo, Francesca and Elena Favilli. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women. Canada: Timbuktu Labs, Inc., 2016. Print.
Doyle, Caitlin. Girls Can Do Anything: From Sports to Innovation, Art to Politics, Meet Over 200 Women Who Got There First. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2016. Print.
Krull, Kathleen. Lives of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, Rebels (and What the Neighbors Thought). Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2000. Print.
Smith, Douglas. “Catherine II of Russia.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, 2008, 294-296.
Blakemore, Erin. (2019, November 1). Idealistic and tough, Catherine the Great sought to modernize Russia.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/who-was-catherine-great?

Support this organization dedicated to preserving her story:

Hermitage Museum

Books by this Awesome Woman

The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

Biographies for Kids and Young Adults

The Life & Times Of Catherine The Great
A Royal Ride: Catherine the Great's Great Invention
(picture book)
Catherine the Great: And the Enlightenment in Russia
Catherine the Great

Research

Catherine the Great
The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of Russia
Great Catherine: The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia
Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
Catherine the Great

Historical Fiction

The Royal Diaries: Catherine: The Great Journey, Russia, 1743
The Winter Palace
Empress of the Night

Spread the word!

National Geographic documentary: Icons of Power: Empress of Ambition
HBO show: Catherine the Great
PBS documentary: Catherine the Great

Meet more Awesome Women like this

While its neighbors became European colonies, Ethiopia remained an independent nation, thanks to her.
This woman's reign was so historic, the whole era was named after her.
Why was this woman's poetry banned in her own country?
Picture Books
Can't decide which Awesome Woman to meet next? Place your fate in the Librarian's hands... if you dare! Mwahahaha!
Pinterest
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  • Home
  • What is an Awesome Woman?
  • Activists & Community Builders
    • Oyinkan Abayomi
    • Jane Addams
    • Fatima al-Fihri
    • Jessie Daniel Ames
    • Susan B. Anthony
    • Inessa Armand
    • Ella Baker
    • Josephine Butler
    • Mary Shadd Cary
    • Septima Clark
    • Dorothy Day
    • Durgabai Deshmukh
    • Nawal El Saadawi
    • Lady Bird Johnson
    • Helen Keller
    • Coretta Scott King
    • Anne Carroll Moore
    • Rosa Parks
    • Alice Paul
    • Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Ghenia Avril de Sainte-Croix
    • Sophie Scholl
    • Doria Shafik
    • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    • Sojourner Truth
    • Harriet Tubman
    • Malala Yousafzai
  • Athletes
    • Ball Sports
      • Althea Gibson
      • Mia Hamm
      • Billie Jean King
      • Lisa Leslie
      • Nancy Lieberman
      • Cheryl Miller
      • Jackie Mitchell
      • Martina Navratilova
      • Annika Sorenstam
      • Toni Stone
      • Pat Summitt
      • Sheryl Swoopes
      • Serena Williams
      • Venus Williams
      • Lynette Woodard
    • Body Sports
      • Nicola Adams
      • Laila Ali
      • Simone Biles
      • Bonnie Blair
      • Alice Coachman
      • Nadia Comaneci
      • Dominique Dawes
      • Keiko Fukuda
      • Tanni Grey-Thompson
      • Sonja Henie
      • Florence Griffith Joyner
      • Jackie Joyner-Kersee
      • Ibtihaj Muhammad
      • Annie Smith Peck
      • Wilma Rudolph
      • Junko Tabei
      • Lindsey Vonn
      • Kristi Yamaguchi
      • "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
    • Water Sports
      • Anita DeFrantz
      • Gertrude Ederle
      • Katie Ledecky
      • Ellen MacArthur
      • Dara Torres
  • Authors
    • Ama Ata Aidoo
    • Anna Akhmatova
    • Louisa May Alcott
    • Isabel Allende
    • Maya Angelou
    • Jane Austen
    • Mary Ritter Beard
    • Hildegard von Bingen
    • Nellie Bly
    • Gwendolyn Brooks
    • Octavia Butler
    • Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
    • Tsitsi Dangarembga
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Marjory Stoneman Douglas
    • Lorraine Hansberry
    • Toni Morrison
    • Sappho
    • Harriet Beecher Stowe
    • Ida B. Wells
  • Business & Finance
    • Mary Kay Ash
    • Olive Ann Beech
    • Polly Bemis
    • Marguerite Boucicaut
    • Juana Briones
    • Clara Brown
    • Nellie Cashman
    • Coco Chanel
    • Nicole-Barbe Clicquot
    • Ellen Demorest
    • Katharine Graham
    • Hetty Green
    • Isabella Greenway
    • Annie Turnbo Malone
    • Indra Nooyi
    • Charley Parkhurst
    • Eliza Pinckney
    • Lydia Pinkham
    • Mary Ellen Pleasant
    • Muriel Siebert
    • Madam C.J. Walker
    • Maggie Lena Walker
    • Marie Webster
    • Oprah Winfrey
  • Civil Servants, Teachers, & World Leaders
    • Corazon Aquino
    • Queen Yaa Asantewaa
    • Mavis Batey
    • Mary McLeod Bethune
    • Empress Taytu Betul
    • Queen Boudicca
    • Mary Bowser
    • Charlotte Hawkins Brown
    • Gro Harlem Brundtland
    • Nannie Helen Burroughs
    • Empress Catherine II of Russia
    • Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
    • Shirley Chisholm
    • Pharaoh Cleopatra VII
    • Sarah Emma Edmonds
    • Queen Elizabeth I of England
    • Ruth Bader Ginsburg
    • Pharaoh Hatshepsut
    • Noor Inayat Khan
    • Belva Lockwood
    • Patsy Mink
    • Sandra Day O'Connor
    • Deborah Sampson
    • Trung Sisters
  • Computer Science & Math
    • Maria Agnesi
    • Jean Bartik
    • Kimberly Bryant
    • Annie Easley
    • Sophie Germain
    • Margaret Hamilton
    • Grace Hopper
    • Hypatia
    • Katherine Johnson
    • Sofya Kovalevskaya
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Maryam Mirzakhani
    • Emmy Noether
    • Ruchi Sanghvi
    • Dorothy Vaughan
  • Daredevils, Explorers, & Pilots
    • Ann Bancroft
    • Bessie Coleman
    • Amelia Earhart
    • Amy Johnson
    • Sacagawea
    • Freya Stark
    • Bessie Stringfield
    • Valentina Tereshkova
  • Engineers, Inventors, & Scientists
    • 1900 - present
      • Rachel Carson
      • Eugenie Clark
      • Sylvia Earle
      • Dian Fossey
      • Rosalind Franklin
      • Jane Goodall
      • Ruth Handler
      • Mary Jackson
      • Shirley Ann Jackson
      • Stephanie Kwolek
      • Hedy Lamarr
      • Mary Leakey
      • Wangari Maathai
      • Mary Sherman Morgan
      • Ellen Ochoa
      • Sally Ride
      • Stephanie Schwabe
      • Donna Shirley
      • Kathryn Sullivan
      • Ruth Wakefield
      • Peggy Whitson
      • Wu Chien-Shiung
    • 1800 - 1899
      • Hertha Ayrton
      • Florence Bascom
      • Katharine Burr Blodgett
      • Annie Jump Cannon
      • Martha Coston
      • Marie Curie
      • Lillian Gilbreth
      • Margaret E. Knight
      • Lise Meitner
      • Ynes Mexia
      • Maria Mitchell
    • - 1799
      • Mary Anning
      • Marie d'Arconville
      • Laura Bassi
      • Emilie du Chatelet
      • Catharine Littlefield Greene
      • Maria Sibylla Merian
      • Wang Zhenyi
  • Health & Medicine
    • Virginia Apgar
    • Sara Josephine Baker
    • Alice Ball
    • Clara Barton
    • Patricia Bath
    • Elizabeth Blackwell
    • Louyse Bourgeoise Boursier
    • Rachel Fuller Brown
    • Mamie Phipps Clark
    • Gertrude Belle Elion
    • Marie Equi
    • Elizabeth Hazen
    • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
    • Karen Horney
    • Mae Jemison
    • Anandibai Joshee
    • Mary Eliza Mahoney
    • Florence Nightingale
    • Ogino Ginko
    • Mary Seacole
    • Jane Cooke Wright
    • Rosalyn Yalow
  • Performance Artists
    • Alicia Alonso
    • Marian Anderson
    • Josephine Baker
    • Lucille Ball
    • Misty Copeland
    • Dorothy Dandridge
    • Ellen DeGeneres
    • Katherine Dunham
    • Ella Fitzgerald
    • Evelyn Glennie
    • Martha Graham
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Billie Holiday
    • Nichelle Nichols
    • Annie Oakley
    • Dolly Parton
    • Mary Pickford
    • Ma Rainey
    • Rihanna
    • Yma Sumac
    • Maria Tallchief
    • Rosetta Tharpe
    • Raven Wilkinson
  • Visual Artists
    • Etel Adnan
    • Sofonisba Anguissola
    • Mary Blair
    • Margaret Bourke-White
    • Julia Margaret Cameron
    • Judy Chicago
    • Artemisia Gentileschi
    • Alice Guy-Blache
    • Maija Isola
    • Lois Mailou Jones
    • Frida Kahlo
    • Yayoi Kusama
    • Dorothea Lange
    • Edmonia Lewis
    • Julia Morgan
    • Marianne North
    • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
  • Picture Book Biographies
  • Bulletin of Awesomosity (aka, the blog)
  • About the Library
  • Awesome Women Resources
  • Contact