Contemporary Ottoman Views of Catherine the Great

Abstract

This article is the first to examine views of the Russian empress Catherine the Great (r. 1762-96) in the contemporary eighteenth-century Ottoman empire. Drawing on Turkish chronicles, embassy reports and captivity narratives, it reveals extreme hostility but also a fascination with Catherine, whom the sources depict variously as a foreign interloper, usurper, regicide and trial sent by God. The article argues that this vilification stemmed not from simple misogyny but rather, in large part, from an Ottoman rejection of Catherine's legitimacy as well as from their close personal identification of her with the two empires' geopolitical struggles.