Love and Conquest : Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Prince Grigory Potemkin (Niu Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)

個数：

Love and Conquest : Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Prince Grigory Potemkin (Niu Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)

  • 提携先の海外書籍取次会社に在庫がございます。通常3週間で発送いたします。
    【重要ご説明事項】
    1. 納期遅延や、ご入手不能となる場合が若干ございます。
    2. 複数冊ご注文の場合、分割発送となる場合がございます。
    3. 美品のご指定は承りかねます。
  • 【入荷遅延について】
    世界情勢の影響により、海外からお取り寄せとなる洋書・洋古書の入荷が、表示している標準的な納期よりも遅延する場合がございます。
    おそれいりますが、あらかじめご了承くださいますようお願い申し上げます。
  • ◆画像の表紙や帯等は実物とは異なる場合があります。
  • ◆ウェブストアでの洋書販売価格は、弊社店舗等での販売価格とは異なります。
    また、洋書販売価格は、ご注文確定時点での日本円価格となります。
    ご注文確定後に、同じ洋書の販売価格が変動しても、それは反映されません。
  • 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 475 p.
  • 言語 ENG
  • 商品コード 9780875803241
  • DDC分類 947.0630922

Full Description

Of all of history's great romances, few can compare with that of Catherine the Great and Prince Grigory Potemkin. Their turbulent and complicated relationship shocked their contemporaries and continues to intrigue observers of Russia centuries later. Lovers, companions, and, most likely, husband and wife, Catherine and Potemkin were also close political partners, and for a time Potemkin served as Catherine's de facto co-ruler of the Russian Empire. Their letters offer an intimate glimpse into the lovers' unguarded moments, revealing both ecstatic expressions of love and candid insights on eighteenth-century politics.

In February 1774, the Russian empress took Grigory Potemkin for her lover and, it is now believed, secretly married him a few months later. Particularly in the first two years of their relationship, Catherine was consumed by her passion for Potemkin. The hundreds of letters and notes she dashed off to him between assignations in the Winter Palace during this time attest to the giddy exuberance of the new love that so fully embraced her. Love and Conquest contains the most historically significant and personally revealing of these letters, only a few of which have ever before been translated into English.

Beginning with Potemkin's letter to Catherine written while off fighting the Turks in 1769 and concluding with his farewell note scribbled the day before his death in 1791, the correspondence spans most of Catherine's reign. The letters are at once personal and political, private and public. Many of Catherine's love letters to Potemkin written during their stormy affair reveal the empress' passionate personality. Potemkin's letters provide rare insight into his arrogant and mercurial character, while serving to dispel the myth of Potemkin as little more than a corrupt sycophant.

Love and Conquest reveals the complexity of Catherine and Potemkin's personal relationship in light of dramatic changes in matters of state, foreign relations, and military engagements. After their love cooled, Catherine and Potemkin continued to discuss and debate a wide range of state affairs in their letters, including the annexation of the Crimea, court politics, wars against the Ottoman Empire and Sweden, and the colonization of southern Russia. Together they carried out the most dramatic territorial expansion in the history of imperial Russia, transforming Catherine into a powerful world leader and creating a bond of affection that would never fully fade. Readers will find in the letters new insights on Russia's most famous empress, her passions, and her world.

Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Note on the Translation

1. Ardent Zeal, Sincere Confessions—1769-1774

2. Lovers—1774-1775

3. Breaking Up—1776

4. Partners—1777-1781

5. Annexing the Crimea—1782-1783

6. Southern Vision—1784-1787

7. War—1787

8. The Siege of Ochakov—1788

9. A Gallant Campaign, the Count's Betrayal, and Blackie

10. One Paw Out of the Mud

11. Death on the Steppe

Appendix I: Maps

Appendix II: Chronology

Appendix III: Table of Ranks

Index