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Title Catherine The Great: Ep 1 Of 2 / Director: Burgess, Paul
Published Australia : ABC, 2006
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Description 1 online resource (streaming video file) (48 min. 31 sec.) ; 294156572 bytes
Summary One of history's most powerful women; she was fearless in war and passionatley in love. Catherine The Great tells her compelling story.Catherine, as the then Princess Sofia, was summoned at the tender age of 14 by the brutal and domineering Empress Elizabeth, daughter of the Czar Peter II of Russia, to marry her nephew and produce an heir to the throne.But the nephew, Peter, an orphan raised by his tutors, was a reckless, idiotic adolescent who was no measure intellectually for the princess and she was neither physically nor mentally attracted to him. However, indifferent as Catherine might have been to him, she was not indifferent to the Russian people and her ambition to rule as their Empress.Locked at 17 in a grim and loveless marriage, Catherine devoted herself to pleasing the Russian people, adopting their manners and their way of life. She became fluent in Russian, changed her religion and her name, educated herself, while simultaneously learning to deal with the intrigue and treachery of the Russian court.Catherine allied herself with powerful and influential figures, all with an eye on becoming a player on the wider European stage. When her chance came, she seized power in a daring coup and became Empress as her unpopular husband was secretly murdered. She took a number of lovers along the way and gave birth to children by several fathers and doubt persists if her first child, Paul, her son by Peter, was actually his. But her most enduring, if tempestuous love, with whom she formed one of the most remembered partnerships in history, was Prince Grigory Potemkin, who became co-ruler. PRODUCTION DETAILS:Catherine the Great was written, produced and directed by Paul Burgess and John Paul Davidson as a Brook Lapping production for the BBC. Stars Emily Bruni as Catherine, Danut Chiriac as Peter III and Dan Badarau as Grigory Potemkin
Event Broadcast 2006-07-23 at 21:25:00
Notes Classification: PG
Subject Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796.
Empresses -- Biography.
Kings and rulers -- Conduct of life.
Man-woman relationships.
War stories, Russian.
Russia (Federation)
Form Streaming video
Author Berelowitch, Wladimir, contributor
Burgess, John, cast
Burgess, Paul, director
Lieven, D. C. B, contributor
Madariaga, Isabel De, contributor
Montefiori, Simon Sebag, contributor