Catherine II of Russia

Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst was born on 2 May 1729 in Stettin, then Prussia, into a minor noble family. She herself wrote that there was nothing of interest in her childhood. In 1744 Empress Elizabeth chose her - on Frederick the Great's recommendation - as bride for her heir Peter. The fifteen-year-old converted to Orthodoxy, took the name Catherine, drilled herself in Russian late into the night, and survived pneumonia. Her memoirs note that she 'pretended to believe whatever was required'. The marriage failed; she built factional alliances at court.

In July 1762 Peter III lost noble and guard support with pro-Prussian policy and contempt for Orthodoxy. Catherine and her lover Grigory Orlov staged a coup; she was crowned empress in her own right. A week later the deposed Peter died, officially from a 'drunken brawl' in confinement; the role of the Orlov brothers and Catherine's knowledge are still debated. She was the principal beneficiary; the 'woman who killed her husband' rumour shadowed her reign.

The brilliance lay in foreign policy and culture. Russo-Turkish wars (1768-1774) opened the Black Sea; Crimea was annexed in 1783; three partitions of Poland tore the Commonwealth apart. Potemkin developed New Russia. She corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot, bought the libraries that became the Hermitage, founded the Smolny Institute (1764) - Europe's first state school for women - and wrote plays herself.

The shadow was long. Pugachev's rebellion (1773-1775) was crushed; the 1785 Charter of the Nobility confirmed absolute rights over serfs, and under her the share of Russians enserfed reached its grimmest peak. After 1789 she clamped down on liberals. She died on 17 November 1796 aged 67; her son Paul took the throne and reversed much of her work.