III. Mark the following sentences as true or false:

1. Catherine’s father entered the service of Russia with the rank of a general.

2. Catherine had some Russian ancestors.

3. Catherine received her education in a higher educational establishment.

4. The choice of Catherine’s husband was influenced by the ruling Russian Empress Elizabeth.

5. Lestocq and Frederick’s intrigue aimed at ruining the Russian chancellor Bestuzhev was a success.

6. Catherine’s mother was banned from the country for spying for King Frederick of Prussia.

7. Elizabeth disliked Catherine for her character and behavior.

8. Catherine devoted much of her time to learning the Russian language.

9. Because of her father’s will Catherine adopted Orthodoxy.

Text 2 the reign of catherine II

I. Read the text to get the general understanding of it.

Not many people at European courts believed that Catherine would last long. Catherine herself knew how fragile her position really was. She kept the statesmen who had been active under Empress Elizabeth and under Peter.

When Catherine met the Senate for the first time at the Summer Palace, she was stunned by the realities of the country's financial and social situation. The chief portion of the army was still abroad and had not been paid for eight months. The budget showed a deficit of 17 million rubles, in a country of only 100 million people. No one knew what the revenues of the treasury were. Everywhere people complained about corruption, extortion and injustice. At that moment Catherine left the sheltered world of a civilized court and stepped into Russia as it was: ignorant, superstitious, disorganized, unruly, and often diseased and to a European appallingly backward. She decided to concentrate on increasing Russia’s wealth, and as Russia was primarily agricultural, she began with the land. But first she had herself crowned on Sunday, September 22 in the old Assumption Cathedral in the heart of Moscow’s Kremlin.

After her return to St. Petersburg, she turned to the affairs of state. She worked relentlessly from early morning to late at night. She decided that the overriding task would be to improve techniques in the agricultural regions. To work the under populated areas, she saw that more workers were needed. Catherine turned to advertisements in foreign newspapers, mostly German, inviting settlers and offering attractive terms. The response was excellent.

Next she turned to mining and sent geologists to access the ores from Russia's seemingly barren lands. She founded the first School of Mines in St. Petersburg. Furs had long been a resource of Russian wealth and she encouraged the existing trade in Siberia. As early as 1762 she decreed that anyone could start a new factory, except in the two capitals, which were overcrowded. Soon, enterprising state peasants were running large textile plants. A whole range of industries began to emerge: linen, pottery, leather goods and furniture. The total number of factories during her reign was increased from 984 to 3161.

Catherine now turned to education. There were few schools in Russia. She started to convert a convent in St. Petersburg into a boarding school for girls, the Smolny Institute. In 1786, Catherine issued the Statue for Schools for all of Russia. Every district town was to establish a minor school with two teachers, every provincial town a major school with six teachers.

It was her great regret during her long reign that she was unable to abolish serfdom. She realized that she would alienate the nobility with such an act, who depended on the labor of the serfs for their great estates. She did, however, issue several decrees for the humane treatment of the serfs. Catherine continued throughout the years to help the underprivileged and the poor.

Catherine possessed majesty without being pompous. She was neither cold nor inhuman. Over the years she lived through hurtful criticism, rebellion, war and estrangement from her son, whom she thought incapable of ruling Russia. She was a woman alone without her own family, except her beloved grandchildren.

Russia owes her much. After a long reign of thirty-four years, Catherine died of a stroke on the 17th of November, 1796. History knows her as Catherine The Great, a title she was offered during her life time and rejected. “I leave it to posterity to judge impartially what I have done” she said at the time; and Catherine has done well. She deserves the title, because she earned it.