Artwork

Content provided by Royal United Services Institute. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Royal United Services Institute or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Player FM - Podcast App
Go offline with the Player FM app!

S4E9: Catherine the Great: Russia’s Black Sea Expansion

33:48
 
Share
 

Manage episode 380680840 series 3383104
Content provided by Royal United Services Institute. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Royal United Services Institute or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Catherine II of Russia prided herself on being called ‘emperor’, not ‘empress’. Having dumped her weak husband, she deployed her lovers strategically: one she made king of Poland, one she sent to conquer Crimea, and one to rule over it. Here are the origins of Russia’s claims to Ukraine.

Dr Kelly O’Neill, an historian of Russia at Harvard University, and the author of Claiming Crimea: A History of Catherine the Great’s Southern Empire, joins Beatrice and Paul for this episode.

Coming from an aristocratic family of the Holy Roman Empire, Catherine II married the heir to the Russian imperial throne, but upon his accession, managed to seize power and reigned in her own right from 1762-1796. She plunged into European great power politics with great talent and sweeping strategic moves. Previously, Russia had not had access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean trade beckoning beyond it. Catherine even had her eye on Constantinople, and dreamed of freeing it from Turkish occupation to restore it to Christendom under the rule of her grandson, fittingly named Constantine. While this did not come to pass, by the end of her reign, Russia had occupied a large part of the Polish Lithuanian empire, dominated the Black Sea and was a European great power. It was said that no cannon in Europe could be fired without her leave, a line that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov currently likes to use in his speeches: clearly, his master would like to restore this situation.

  continue reading

58 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 380680840 series 3383104
Content provided by Royal United Services Institute. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Royal United Services Institute or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

Catherine II of Russia prided herself on being called ‘emperor’, not ‘empress’. Having dumped her weak husband, she deployed her lovers strategically: one she made king of Poland, one she sent to conquer Crimea, and one to rule over it. Here are the origins of Russia’s claims to Ukraine.

Dr Kelly O’Neill, an historian of Russia at Harvard University, and the author of Claiming Crimea: A History of Catherine the Great’s Southern Empire, joins Beatrice and Paul for this episode.

Coming from an aristocratic family of the Holy Roman Empire, Catherine II married the heir to the Russian imperial throne, but upon his accession, managed to seize power and reigned in her own right from 1762-1796. She plunged into European great power politics with great talent and sweeping strategic moves. Previously, Russia had not had access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean trade beckoning beyond it. Catherine even had her eye on Constantinople, and dreamed of freeing it from Turkish occupation to restore it to Christendom under the rule of her grandson, fittingly named Constantine. While this did not come to pass, by the end of her reign, Russia had occupied a large part of the Polish Lithuanian empire, dominated the Black Sea and was a European great power. It was said that no cannon in Europe could be fired without her leave, a line that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov currently likes to use in his speeches: clearly, his master would like to restore this situation.

  continue reading

58 episodes

All episodes

×
 
Loading …

Welcome to Player FM!

Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.

 

Quick Reference Guide