Tag: biography

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

Each member of the book club at my local library reads a different book on the same topic. The topic for our meeting in July was biography or memoir. I originally thought of reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. However, one our members is retired from IT and avoids it like crazy. So I looked elsewhere. I remember that a member of my other book club recommended a biography of Catherine the Great of Russia. I checked in with her to find out which book that was. It turned out to be Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie.

Last year I started watching a Russian television production on Amazon Prime entitled Ekaterina that was about Catherine the Great, so I was already familiar with the early part of her story. She was German minor nobility and was born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst. She met her future husband, her second cousin Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and grandson of Peter the Great, on a trip to Berlin when she was ten. The marriage was later arranged by Peter the Great’s daughter and then Empress of Russia, Elizabeth. She renamed her nephew Peter and designated him as her successor. He hated Russia and worshiped Frederick the Great and all things Prussian. After Catherine married him, he refused to consummate the marriage preferring to play soldier. Catherine was forced to conceive an heir by another man. After Elizabeth died, Peter became Emperor Peter III. This was short lived. He was viewed by the nobility as not reliable. Catherine had gotten the nobility and the Russian people on her side. With their help, she overthrew her husband and became Empress Catherine.

She was an unusual woman in history and for her time. While believing enlightened monarchy was the only right government for Russia, she loved Russia and her people. She was also a woman who desired love and companionship though she never quite found a satisfying partner. Grigory Potemkin came closest to a true love and may have been her second husband. However, he could never quite get over his jealousy of her former lovers. Still very much in love, they lived the last years of their marriage separated. Catherine was also an astute politician, patron of the arts, and supporter of Enlightenment ideas.

The major thread of this biography is Catherine’s humanity. She is a whole person that we get to know. Her life was challenging, but she was strong. The other people in the book also show up as real people. That’s what stands out. This is not dry, boring history. This is the fascinating story of Russian leaders living their lives. You can’t get a more vivid portrait of this woman or her times.

My rating: 5/5

Learning From Others

Nelson Mandela

Today I finished reading Mandela’s Way: Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage by Richard Stengel. It’s sort of a biography formatted into lessons. I really appreciated this format. It allowed the author to focus on ideas throughout Mandela’s life rather than focusing on a time-based approach.

I bought this book many years ago and only just read it. I expected it to be a sort of leadership or business book applying the lessons of a great leader to those worlds. I was surprised to find that it was much more approachable than that. It is really a series of life lessons that apply to all aspects of life.

I sometimes read a book and struggle to make myself come back to it and finish. At first that happened to me with this book. I think that was because I was looking at it through a business lens. Once I shifted my perspective and saw it as a biography of life lessons to learn, I found myself eager to continue reading.

While I did not find any of the lessons earth shattering or new, there is great value in seeing how common life principles were lived by someone so much a part of history as Mandela was. And the author does not shy from Mandela’s flaws; this is no hagiography. In my opinion, that only make is more valuable. Life is messy. Learning how others applied life principles, successfully or not, is a great way to spend my time reading.