The empress recalls her first months in her new home as Princess Sophie, distancing herself from her scheming mother and assimilating into Russian life.
Stachniak characterizes Empress of the Night as a complement to The Winter Palace, and this time presents an inside view from Catherine herself, reflecting upon key episodes of her entire reign in flashback as a stroke slowly claims her at the age of 67. In The Winter Palace, author Eva Stachniak’s first book on Catherine the Great, a fictional confidante to the young princess Sophie narrates her ascension to the Russian throne, ending with her coronation. Also, yes, famously retaining lovers who could advise her and advance her agenda. There were enormous challenges inherent in Catherine’s rise, including learning Russian language and culture, cultivating political allies as a foreigner, and wresting and then holding power in an infamously fickle court for over 34 years. At its heart, the story of Catherine the Great is simple and compelling: an obscure German princess, Sophie, navigates a difficult political landscape to marry Peter, the heir to the Russian throne – and then overthrows her husband and takes the throne herself. Catherine the Great once said, “I am one of those people who love the ‘why’ of things,” and the historical account of her long reign makes clear that she often discovered the “whys” of the problems that Russia faced, along with their solutions.
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