How Did Catherine II Modernize Russia

Catherine II was a woman of many talents and abilities, which were used during her thirty years of ruling over Russia. During her reign, she was able to accomplish much. Catherine’s goal was to modernize Russia and bring it out of the medieval slump that it had been suffering from. She believed that it could and would become one of the great powers in the world. Before her noble ambitions could be achieved, would first need to become Czarina. This task would prove to be difficult for her and would require a large amount of political skill and wit to achieve. Several obstacles arose that tested her ability to navigate the dangerous political waters. The first was her lack of connection to the throne. She was a German princess, who at the time was not a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, and was plucked from an obscure royal family from an even more obscure branch of that family. She was picked by Elizabeth to be the wife of the future Czar, Peter III. He would become one of the first obstacles in her

path to ruling Russia. Ruling alongside Peter would limit or eliminate any political power that Catherine could possess.
Her rise to power is an interesting story with which many different facets that can be explored to discover different reasons for her ascension to Czarina. The different aspects of this story can be accentuated depending on which events have heavy emphasis placed upon and from this; it can change the audiences’ perceptions of Catherine. She could be seen either as a naïve teenager who decisions were made outside of her control and she followed along with others’ plans and plots, or as an individual who had their own motives for taking advice from individuals and using people to meet her own goals. The sources that were chosen for this comparative essay will address the question of who was Catherine the Great and what were her main motives during her reign?
Marvin J. Chomsky, who was born in New York City, directed the movie Catherine the Great (1996). Chomsky has done an enormous amount of work in the historical dramas such as the miniseries Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1970s), The Wild Wild West (1965), Holocaust (1978), and Inside the Third Reich (1982). He directed Catherine the Great (1996) because of his interest in history, and the ability that Chomsky possesses to create dramatic liberties a flair of with Hollywood’s perspective of historical events. One of the biases that Chomsky may have is the need to sell his films to a larger audience who may not be completely interested in the historical accuracy of his film. This could lead to smudging of historical details to create a more interesting story. The need for increasing the salability of his films lower the credibility of his film because the viewers be wanting a film that is more interesting than historically accurate; for example, Chomsky adding a dramatic flair to romanticize the sometimes-duller portions of Catherine.
The second source is a movie directed by the publishing company PBS Home Video. This publishing company used two directors to oversee the filming of Catherine the Great (2005). The first was Paul Burgess who has been a director and editor of many of PBS’s TV Series Documentaries. He has produced films such as Queen Victoria’s Empire (2001), We Built this City: London (2003), and Crime and Punishment (2008). The second director was John-Paul Davidson, who produced movies within a similar genre as Burgess such as Year of the French (1982), Galahad of Everest (1991), New Europe (2007), and Perspectives (2011). Both of these directors illustrate their desire, through their films, to present historically accurate information in the forms of drama documentaries on historical events using facts, letters, publications, and other primary sources to reconstruct the lives and stories that they are presenting to the public.
The one bias that they may have is similar to Chomsky is the desire to make their films more interesting with a small amount of flair. This may encourage the two directors to take certain liberties with Catherine’s story, however, because of the publishing company that they work for aspires to have historically accurate dramas they will most likely have performed fewer liberties with their work than Chomsky did with his film. In addition, the directors were working for PBS Home Video, which is a company that provides large amounts of educational materials to the public. This company would ensure that the Davidson and Burgess limited their changing of the historical context to maintain accuracy. Another reason that their film is credible is due to the directors explicitly explaining where their information comes from whenever the narrator, Emily Bruni, is talking directly to the audience. Her dialogues are the directors’ interpretations of the Catherine’s personal letters and correspondences.
A Short History of Russia was written by B.H.

Sumner. He is a historian born in London that has written four different books about Russian history called, Tsardom and Imperialism in the Far East and Middle East, 1880-1914 (1942), A Short History of Russia (1943), Peter the Great and the Ottoman Empire (1949), and Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia (1950). Sumner appears to be interested in Russian history eras ranging from Peter the Great to the rise of the Soviet Union. Throughout his writing of A Short History of Russia, there were no blatantly apparent biases. The reader could wonder whether there are implicit biases due to World War II going on during the writing of this book, and the negative feelings the English may have had towards Russia during this time. B.H. Sumner is a very credible source who completed a sizable amount of research to produce this book due to the large history that he was trying to consolidate into less than five hundred

pages.