If you know your European history, you may have already guessed what’s being referenced here. Like Marie Antionette’s “Let them eat cake,” Catherine has an untrue yet persistent myth attached to her name, that she – Catherine, not Marie Antoinette – died while committing a carnal act with her horse.
It’s a blatant lie. Empress Catherine the Great did not die this way. She passed away on November 6, 1796, following a debilitating stroke. She was sixty-seven.
It was a typical though no less tragic death, almost expected for such a chronically overworked individual. Catherine was found the day before by her attendants, alone and unconscious on the floor of her bedchamber water closet. Her last conscious act as tsarina was to reply to some correspondence at her writing desk.
Catherine did not die anywhere near a stable, nor was her horse in any way involved with the swift end of her reign. Perhaps if she had died in a riding or hunting accident, there might have been some inane logic to the malicious rumors. Yet the rumors bloomed anyway, like vines taking root in dry soil. Confusingly and defiantly.
So how was it that Catherine, just one of two Russian rulers to be given the moniker “the Great,” came to be associated with such a crude and ridiculous legend? Where did it all begin?
Unlike today, where our whip-fast modern technology can track down the name, address, car model, and social media follower count of any gossipy hen who spreads a fib about a politician or celebrity, there is no single, particular person to blame for Catherine’s story. It is likely we will never know who started it. But we can make some educated guesses.
There are four popular origin stories. All have solid foundations.
The first, most obvious theory is that the story was spread by a political enemy of Russia in order to lessen the nation’s glory in the eyes of the world after the death of its leader. If this were the case, the most likely candidate would be Catherine’s contemporary, Frederick the Great, who was always openly opinionated about his fellow ruler’s private life. He famously wrote in a letter to his brother: “A woman is always a woman and, in feminine government, the c— has more influence than a firm policy guided by straight reason.”
If the Prussian king was crude enough to include such undiplomatic statements in his correspondence, he would also probably be base enough to actively spread a gross rumor, or at least make an offhand remark that ignited the flame. England and France could have also been the culprits. England was bitter that Catherine had not agreed to provide troops to quash the American rebellion. And France, well, they made humiliating female leaders with outlandish accusations an art form, from its damning treatment of Marie Antoinette to its later mockery of Napoleon Bonaparte’s first consort, Josephine de Beauharnais. All three of Russia’s European rivals are plausible culprits.
The second theory is that the rumor arose from among the Russian narod. Catherine’s popularity was far from universal, and there were many who never fully embraced her as their sovereign ruler. In fact, many never considered her their ruler at all, but rather only the regent for her son. Many believed she overstayed her welcome in that role, and there were uprisings against her, most notably Pugachev’s Rebellion of 1773-75. The horse myth could have stemmed from public dissatisfaction with the empress, as did the cake quote wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette.
The third theory is that the rumor was started by a spurned paramour. This theory makes the most sense, in that its context is purely sexual and meant to undermine Catherine the woman and lover, rather than Catherine the empress. Consider how often an ex will tell tall tales out of spite. All it takes is one night in a tavern, and by the next morning, the ex’s drunken tirade is already circulating. In particular, Prince Grigory Orlov was reputedly bitter about Catherine’s refusal to marry him, despite his instrumental role in putting her on the Russian throne and getting rid of Peter. Could he have started the story after his fall from power and eventual exile from her social circle?
The fourth and final theory is that the rumor was started by Catherine’s own son. Yes, her own son, and immediate heir, Paul I of Russia. Paul had always despised his mother for excluding him from politics, and for possibly ordering the murder of his father, Peter III (though Peter was likely not his biological father; Paul was more likely sired by Sergei Saltykov, another of Catherine’s lovers).
Though his reign lasted only four years (he was assassinated in 1801 by one of his own soldiers, in a collusion with his own son, Alexander – see here), that was plenty of time to incite some collateral damage to Catherine’s legacy.
Although the source of the horse story is ambiguous, the reasons for its notoriety are crystal clear. The circumstances of Catherine’s time and personal life were fertile ground for this very specific type of smear campaign. Even in the progressive Age of Enlightenment (during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), women rulers were held to the moralistic standards of a medieval queen: she had to be chaste, pious, and devoted to charitable causes. A king, meanwhile, could be promiscuous, but his consort’s reputation had to be irreproachable.
Consider Queen Elizabeth I (who ruled from 1558-1603). She cloaked herself in this very image, presenting herself to the world as an eternal virgin, “married to her country,” as a defense against critics. This worked for Elizabeth to an extent and cemented the gratitude of the people of England, who appreciated their queen’s self-sacrifice for their sake.
But Empress Catherine, at the center of European politics in the 1700s, took the exact opposite tack. Marie Antoinette may have never said “Let them eat cake,” but Catherine certainly had her cake and ate it too. While thoroughly devoted to the development of her domain, Catherine was not willing to pretend she was celibate. Her love affairs were legendary and well-known at the time. After overthrowing her undesirable and insufferable man-child of a spouse, Peter III, in a military coup in 1762, Catherine openly enjoyed an array of male lovers, none of whom she ever married (Peter III had, understandably, put her off marriage forever). The majority of the Russian people, and of much of the rest of the world, did not approve.
It was an age-old double standard. In the eyes of such a still-conservative era, it was normal for a man to have such a healthy appetite for sex, but a woman who strayed from the safe confines of marriage was depraved, unnatural, and debauched. Her libido was bound to extend to some unusual fetishes, and in Catherine’s case, popular opinion decided it must be horses. That Catherine actually did love riding horses was a well-known fact. At a young age, she turned to equestrian pursuits as an escape from the dissatisfactions and frustrations of stiff, formal royal life and a terrible arranged marriage. And as Robert K. Massie writes in Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Catherine also made a point of being on horseback when she first paraded in St. Petersburg as empress following the coup, intending to introduce herself along with her magnificent steed as a dual symbol of Russia’s liberation:
“On Sunday morning, June 30, still in uniform and still riding her white horse, she made a triumphant entry into the capital. The streets were crowded with people; church bells rang, drums rolled.”
It was a cunning move, as many successful conquerors’ immortal images are of them on horseback. Being able to handle a feisty horse signaled that one was able to handle the army and the state, and several of Napoleon’s official portraits were painted with such an idea in mind. Yet horseback riding was still considered taboo for women, particularly riding astride a horse, as it was believed such vigorous exercise could damage women’s wombs and hinder their childbearing abilities. Of course, none of this hindered Catherine. This was a woman who not only could handle a horse, army, and state, but also had the courage to rise up and replace a man who couldn’t.
If one shifts perspectives, and eliminates the controversial elements, it can be said that Catherine’s love of horses humanizes her rather than animalizes her. She could be seen to be embracing the loyal, unconditional love of her horses, having suffered many betrayals throughout her life, both political and personal. Surely such reliable companions brought some comfort. But that is all.
Perhaps it was just hard for people to imagine a sexually liberated woman enjoying a form of love that was both innocent and harmless.
Implications of bestiality as a tool to tarnish the reputation of an otherwise intimidating royal figure is not a new concept. Loving a common creature drags a nearly holy figure back down to Earth, to be sneered at among mortals. Examples go back to the 1600s. William Shakespeare had the proud, formidable Queen Titania fall in love with the donkey-headed Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to make her look ridiculous to audiences. This comical plotline, and this bizarre romance, strips Titania of all and any awe-inspiring merit.
Go back even further, to ancient Greece and the reign of the mighty Macedonian king Alexander the Great (356 BC –323 BC). Though never directly accused of bestiality, his adoration of his horse Bucephalus nevertheless raised a few eyebrows in his day and has become a source of remark and close study among historians.
Even ancient mythology isn’t exempt! Loki, the slyest, most resourceful, and arguably the most dangerous of the Norse Gods, shapeshifts into a mare and mates with the stallion Svaðilfari in what has to be one of the most made-fun-of folktales of all time.
The major issue with such stories about past heroic figures is that, because they are seen to have been possible of so much, we ascribe to them things that are truly unbelievable when given serious scrutiny. As humorous as they are, they wrongly diminish the historical figure. Thus, when people poke fun at Catherine the Great for potentially sleeping with her horse, it leaves less room for seriously analyzing her strength, her power, her Enlightenment ideals, and her overall legacy as Russia’s most iconic crowned head. We may forget that Catherine wanted to abolish serfdom or that she made education more accessible for women. We forget how glorious and admired she was, when all of Russia rallied behind her to dethrone her inept husband.
Indeed, we should ask, What matters more as a lesson for the living: a good laugh at the expense at someone who is dead, or the truth?
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