but rule through display was a precept of absolutist rule across Europe. Gendered
clichés about Russia’s female rulers, which started in the eighteenth century and
persist in modern scholarship, are a way of dismissing female power and distracting
attention from the collective achievements of government. In these cases, Anna’s
corrupt entourage did manage to bring the state budget into order after Peter I’s
riotous spending and Elizabeth assembled an officialdom capable of accomplishing
military and economic reform and achieving significant success in the Seven Years
War. In their reigns the Russian economy steadily grew, along with the empire’s
stature in European geopolitics.
The most arresting story of eighteenth-century rulership is the dynamic person-
alities of Peter I and Catherine II, who together ruled forfifty-nine years of
the century. Each was competent, decisive, and successful. As noted, Peter I
transformed many Russian institutions and practices and has left in his wake a
rich historiography. Lionized in Russia until the late nineteenth century, the image
of Peter wasfirst subject to influential criticism in the work of Russian historians
V. O. Kliuchevskii and Pavel Miliukov, who dismiss him as impetuous and
unguided by any master vision and criticize him for producing more suffering
than gain. Current historiography reshapes a positive evaluation. Marc Raeff, James
Cracraft, Paul Bushkovitch, and others set Peter’s quarter-century of rapid change
in a larger context, arguing that by the end of his reign he was executing a coherent
policy ofPolizeistaatinstitutions and practices. They also recognize the broader
social support that made his work possible, crediting the depth of talent assembled
around Peter. While his friend and confidant Alexander Menshikov ended his
career mired in corruption, many of Peter’s men acted with innovation and
competence: diplomats Boris Kurakin, Andrei Matveev, and Peter Tolstoi, political
theorists Prokopovich, Javorskij, and Shafirov, trusted comrades in the Dolgorukii
family, homegrown administrators like Andrei Vinius and Pavel Iaguzhinskii,
foreign advisors Patrick Gordon, Francois Lefort, James Bruce, Anton Devier,
and scores of imported engineers and entrepreneurs.
Catherine II’s greatness as a ruler is equally undeniable (Figure 13.5). She
worked to present herself as a devoted servant of her people, consulting her
people, awarding rights and privileges, patronizing the arts. In private she was a
demonic worker, insisting on personal control, putting in long hours daily, and
always keeping minions in check. She was intelligent, well read, and a stern
manager. She selected excellent, qualified military and administrative leaders
to guide her ambitious reforms, talented men who well deserved the tasks
she assigned, such as governor-generalships of vast territories (Potemkin)
or managers of her new imperial bureaucracy (Aleksander Viazemskii, Jakob
Sievers, Aleksander Bezborodko). Her accomplishments are myriad: she was
responsible for empire-wide administrative reforms, vast imperial acquisitions,
skillful geopolitical positioning, expansion of cultural institutions and expression.
Even more than with Empresses Anna and Elizabeth, Catherine’s reputation has
been tarnished by gendered slander. European writings of her day and much
modern historiography have accused her of excessive sexuality, citing her many
favorites. Certainly she had a monogamous series of lovers, but most European
Imperial Imaginary and the Political Center 277