Catherine II as female ruler: The power of enlightened womanhood

Ivleva, Victoria

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116448 Copy

Description

Title

Catherine II as female ruler: The power of enlightened womanhood

Author(s)

Ivleva, Victoria

Issue Date

2015-11

Keyword(s)

• Catherine II
• Peter I
• Elizabeth
• gender roles
• patriarchy
• matriarchy
• statecraft
• housecraft
• domesticity
• education

Abstract

This article examines some of the complexities of female rule during the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796). It argues that in addition to the Baroque scenarios of power inherited from her predecessors, the German-born Russian empress employed the cultural roles of an “enlightened” woman of merit – a matriarch, a craftswoman, a house manager, and an educator – roles that projected positive values of womanhood, in order to position her femininity as beneficial to the state and to thereby legitimize her authority as a female sovereign.

Series/Report Name or Number

ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, vol. 3

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Copyright and License Information

• Copyright 2015 Victoria Ivleva
• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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