Introduction
Following Kantorowicz’s theory of the Two Bodies of a King, a female ruler, like their male counterpart, could equally be transferred to a second, symbolic and disembodied position. The legitimacy of a sovereign is primarily derived through the physical body via dynastic heritage in which women usually represented the last possible solution. Legitimacy can be further strengthened or weakened by a sovereign’s physical constraints and mental abilities. For instance, the term Königsheil was attributed to a leader who governed for the benefit of his people. The dynastic ties between the Heil and the (primarily) male members of a specific family were only established later.
This chapter will analyse the different aspects of the body that Maria Theresia and Catherine II used in defence and representation of their legitimacy, depending on their respective circumstances and possibilities. Both monarchs constitute an exception of the norm of male rulership. Within that exception, however, and in juxtaposition to each other, Catherine II represents irregularity, while Maria Theresia shows an almost disappointing lack of provocativeness.1 In a larger context the commemoration of both female monarchs was strongly intertwined with political and societal circumstances during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter will show how gender-specific attributes were used in their commemoration, both to laureate and to denigrate them. Presenting contemporaneous sources and posthumous depictions, it attempts to show how those attributes have been intertwined, subjectively redefined, or simplified. The sources have been selected according to their representative status and are by no means exhaustive.
The Bodies of Legitimacy
There has been extensive research on the topic of the monarchical bodies since Kantorowicz first published his work in 1957, and the discussion has long been extended to the question of the number and characteristics of the queen’s bodies.2 The question of the king’s two bodies was first evoked by lawyers of Elizabeth I discussing the legality of certain decisions made by her brother, the minor king Edward VI. In this context, the lawyers decided that for the sake and purpose of government, the political body of a ruler had to be considered void of all “[…] defects that happen to the natural bodies of other people.”3
Following the logic of Elizabethan lawyers, the theory of the two bodies of a monarch is applicable to male and female rulers alike. However, no matter how big the pool of possible heirs, in European Christian traditions of rulership, a female sovereign was usually the last possible option. Within that context, a woman did not only represent the insufficiencies of her physical body, she also represented the lack of a male heir.4 Even if the succession was dynastically legitimate, it offered easier chances to challenge a woman on the throne. Wolfram Mauser argued that in popular narratives, female rulers were held to higher standards than their male counterparts.5 Considered to be more susceptible to negative forces, overcoming them made their virtues even more impressive and admirable. Taking that thought further, we also find attributes that can elevate a female ruler’s character, but would appear less virtuous or more controversial in a male body.
Both Maria Theresia and Catherine II understood their legitimacy as duty and divine calling. Maria Theresia argued hers through her hereditary right. However, aside from the Dei Gratia aspect of legitimacy that is acquired dynastically, passively, we can find the possibility of actively achieving Dei Gratia through ability and endeavour. The second view was prominently represented and propagated by Emperor Peter I (1682–1725) at the beginning of the eighteenth century and provided Catherine II with a powerful argument to build her legitimacy on.
A wrongful ruler could draw the wrath of supreme forces not only upon himself and his dynasty, but also upon his entire realm. At the same time, inheriting a throne did not relieve a ruler from his obligations towards his people. In Russian history, the symbolic connotation of “royal pretenders” sometimes even disregarded the fact of dynastic legitimacy:
Pretenders […] are perceived as sorcerers, and elements of anti-behaviour are attributed to them. And conversely Peter the Great, whose conduct seemed to his contemporaries nothing more nor less than anti-behaviour, is perceived essentially as a pretender: popular rumour, even during Peter’s lifetime, proclaimed him to be not a genuine (“natural”) Tsar, but rather a substitute Tsar who had no right to the throne.6
While Maria Theresia had inherited the Habsburg lands, Catherine II had been a foreign bride with no dynastic claim to the Russian Imperial throne. The need to create a dynastic legitimacy and the need to prove herself as a monarch embodying Russian values were more paramount than problems arising from her female sex. Presenting herself as worthy Russian successor was particularly important after she had made her husband’s Germanophilia a major point in the propaganda to denigrate him.
The law of succession established by Peter I in 1722 played into her hands because it introduced the possibility of inheritance through ability before dynastic origin if the ruling monarch wished it. Consequently, instead of a physical one, Catherine established a spiritual link to her Romanov and Rurikid predecessors, referring to them as her “forefathers.”7 Another example showing the prominence of legitimacy by ability over birth right was demonstrated during Catherine’s coronation festivities through the association with the Roman emperor Trajan, the first of the adopted emperors.8
In connection with her “grandfather” Peter I, her feminine sex was used to emphasise her role as the fulfiller of Peter’s endeavours. The combination of her feminine heart and her male intellect were presented as assets that allowed her to close the circle and complete his work.9 When Michael Yonan writes that Catherine II argued the choice of the better woman over the lesser man, it does not refer to a general confrontation of gender aspects but to a personal juxtaposition.10
In a German newspaper review of the Sky TV series “Catherine the Great” from 2019 we can find the following comparison: “She [Catherine] died the most powerful woman of her time. Maria Theresia […] had secured her position through diplomatic marriages. Catherine however, owed her power to her tactical talents and her mistrust of whisperers.”11
Concerning the question of dynastic legitimacy, the review, whilst being a journalistic, not a scientific essay, still offers interesting food for thought. With regard to securing her position, Maria Theresia’s dynastic legitimacy is not mentioned at all. Successful dynastic marriages of royal children mark a pragmatic tradition followed by sovereigns independently of their sex. It was undoubtedly a means to secure the political future of Maria Theresia’s realm, and the motivation was certainly strengthened by the wars that had cost her dearly, but it had little to do with the legitimacy of her rule as a female monarch per se. The quote seems to serve as comparison of Maria Theresia and Catherine II in terms of feminine traditionalism versus breaching the boundaries of gender. Similarly, Michael Yonan summarised, “For Maria Theresia, the role of mother, wife and widow were paramount in her iconography.”12
Maria Theresia had inherited the rule over the Habsburg lands dynastically, following the stipulations in the Pragmatic Sanction from 1713, established by her father Charles VI (1711–1740). It was the first legal document that secured succession in the Habsburg lands without division. It also included the yet unprecedented possibility of female succession in case of a break in the male line. As a woman, Maria Theresia now faced the challenge of defending an inheritance that was yet uncustomary in two aspects. Nonetheless, her legitimacy was challenged not so much based upon her sex, than using it within political power play. August III of Poland and Prince-elector Charles I of Bavaria argued their claims through their own Habsburg relations, and additionally, the Spanish Bourbons and Frederick II of Prussia joined the conflict in hope of profiting from the situation by territorial gain. The result was the War of the Austrian Succession from 1740 to 1748.
The situation of Catherine II was slightly reversed to that of Maria Theresia’s. She had overcome the biggest challenge by deposing her husband. Her defence of legitimacy was directed inwardly, not outwardly. She was duly concerned with her lack of dynastic legitimacy, even after the deaths of the last male Romanov heirs, apart from her own son Paul, Ivan VI, and Peter III. However, no foreign power militarily challenged her rule and criticism was limited to words. Frederick II of Prussia, relative to both Catherine and her husband Peter III, had taken quick advantage of the succession gambit that followed Charles VI’s death, but would not have challenged the Russian Empire. In fact, Prussia had strongly relied on Russian support and Frederick allegedly expressed his displeasure with his supporter’s removal by saying “he [Peter III] let himself be overthrown like a child sent to bed.”13
Maria Theresia’s female gender caused yet another complication. Since 1438, the Habsburg dynasty had occupied the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. As an electorate title it had never been awarded to a woman, but no law actively prohibited it. The matter was apparently discussed even if the answer was forestalled. The prominent German jurist Johann Jacob Moser (1701–1785) remarked that while women were not exempt from succession by law, they could still hardly hope for it even if female regency had happened at the occasion of a ruler’s absence or his early death, leaving only an infant heir.14 Maria Theresia needed to secure the imperial position for the Habsburg dynasty through a husband and a son, making her physical body as mother and wife doubly important.
The Problems of Using and Overcoming the Female Body in Female Rule
Regina Schulte writes that the political strength of the female body “seems to require the proximity of a male body—as the consort of the king, the mother of future sovereigns, the widow and preserver of the royal or dynastic legacy.”15 What happens when the relationship is reversed, even reduced or completely omitted?
Maria Theresia strongly represented her sublime body through her physical body in the context of dynastic femininity, drawing her legitimacy from a union of three body parts so to speak, that of queen, mother, and wife. She ruled as a dynastic heir but always in the proximity of a male body. She accomplished the roles of consort, mother, and eventually widow, and lifted them onto the sovereign’s throne with her.
Catherine II could not use the physical feminine body in the same way, as a loyal and loving wife or as an attentive, cherishing mother. Neither did she present a lifestyle deemed virtuous for an unmarried woman. She had switched roles, turning from consort—which she had been praised at upon her wedding—into ruler.16 She took power as Empress in her own right and never made her son Paul co-regent, although he represented the only dynastic link between Catherine and the Romanov dynasty. The Empress focused on the ethereal aspects of an androgyne body, and by creating an intellectual spiritual legitimacy she circumvented the aspects of her physical feminine body. She portrayed her life as an ascent from a comparatively insignificant noble background, having been neglected by her mother for her female sex while great, intelligent men had not failed to recognise her talents.17 Catherine’s memoirs masterfully juxtapose the intimate feelings and personal life of a vulnerable young woman with a superior mind and spirit. The Empress shows a person, and not primarily a woman, who acquired the ability to unite the physical and the elevated body of a ruler through talent and endeavour. During her coup, “[…] Catherine projects different images of leadership as the historical moment requires: a divine androgyne on horseback, a noble and endangered empress, a popular military captain in touch with the spirit of each individual soldier, and finally, a pair of girlfriends privately revelling in their excellent adventure.”18
Maria Theresia’s son, Joseph II, would later argue the limitations of female rule by making an indissoluble connection of character, intellect, and gender. While acknowledging his mother’s experience and practice, he judged that she would always lack the ability of distinction while a man could discern the essence of things more easily and less emotionally.19 Catherine II would make a reverse conclusion and accuse her husband Peter III of almost exactly those shortcomings that Joseph II and others attributed to the female sex. She described Peter on many occasions as rash and emotion-driven in his decisions, following personal inclinations more than making rational calculations for the benefit of the realm.20
The identification of their femininity as the source of moderation, ratio, and clemency were used to praise both monarchs alike. It symbolised their ability to complete the positive male attributes of a ruler with their female talents. Similarly, Joseph von Sonnenfels praised Maria Theresia in 1762 as a ruler whose serenity was not derived from birth right but from capability. Neglecting to answer the prayers for a male heir, heaven had sent something even better instead. He praised Maria Theresia for uniting and thus completing “all male assets” with the “charms” of the female sex.21 Maria Theresia might not have been what was desired, but she was even better.
While both rulers profited from the possibility of uniting male and female aspects perhaps more advantageously than a male ruler could, Catherine II’s depiction is clearly more focused on that aspect and strongly connected to the image of legitimacy by ability.
A painting by Vigilius Eriksen completed shortly after her coronation depicts the Empress with her two bodies, the earthly, palpable feminine and the sublime political.22 Next to the two coronation portraits by Eriksen and Torelli, it is symbolically even more complex and fascinating in the variety of interpretations it offers. The Empress is dressed in regal silver, standing at the centre of an otherwise unembellished room. On the left-hand side a mirror shows a reflection of her torso. The Empress meets the viewer with a soft, pensive, and benevolent look, one hand on her heart, the other gracefully holding a fan. The latter is pointing at her regal insignia positioned on the side table directly under the mirror. She presents, as the description on the Hermitage website aptly reads, “enchanting femininity,” while her reflected image shows a less feminine, perhaps even less attractive profile. The small crown that could easily be mistaken for a simple diadem on the Empress’s head is clearly visible on her mirrored image. The imperial crown features prominently and doubly as does the sceptre, its tip only visible in the mirrored image, while otherwise covered by Catherine’s fan. According to traditional contemporary connotations, a mirror represented truth and one’s image reflected in heaven. Eriksen’s portrayal depicts transcendence and the unification of a supporting physical body with the domineering imperial body. The mirror can also be seen as symbol of prudence, the personification of wisdom and intellectual virtues, foresight, precaution, and reasoning. All those are characteristics that Catherine used in her juxtaposition with her husband Peter III, whom she denied them.
Catherine’s symbolic motherhood was neither focused on a physical aspect nor was it in its sublime, almost exclusive focus on the imperial mother-figure, chastely unsexual. It was also—apart from her son whose role was marginalised—almost completely detached from any specific male body. Catherine’s motherhood to the nation was meant to combine it with the fatherhood. On the other hand, her association was limited in that sense that it could not transform from motherhood to motherliness.
Motherhood and Motherliness
Motherliness evolved as a female virtue from the focus on the family as an educational and emotional community in the late eighteenth century. When Joseph von Sonnenfels applied the yet fairly uncommon term to Maria Theresia in 1762, he created an encompassing signature for everything Theresian, argues Wolfram Mauser.23 Maria Theresia became mother to sixteen children and portrayed a family lifestyle that would become a major aspect in cultural-historical retrospective and facilitated the adjustment of Maria Theresia’s image to nineteenth-century bourgeois values.24
Outside the personal sphere, her marriage was meant to recreate the regularity of male succession and to replenish a drastically reduced dynasty. It was also directed at providing the Empire with another male successor from the Habsburg line. Maria Theresia’s fertility was therefore a matter of private and public interest, praised as her husband’s “delight” and as “joy in German breast.”25 The term “German” reflects the critical situation of conflict between the different German fractions competing for hegemony inside the Holy Roman Empire. It therefore emphasises Maria Theresia’s legitimacy not only as mother to the dynasty, but as mother to the future German King and Emperor, securing the title for her family.
The assurance of dynastic succession by reuniting the Habsburg lands and the Reich in one, male hand was paramount to Maria Theresia. Her son, Joseph, was elected King of the Romans as heir designate while his father was still alive, in 1764. It was a common practice but after previous events even more imperative. All aspects of the coronation were meticulously depicted in a fascinating richness of detail by court painter Martin van Meytens. The cycle was then put on display for a restricted public viewership in the Belvedere Castle to present the glory and continuance of the dynasty.26 As Sandra Hertel argues, despite a reduction in formality of every day court life, Maria Theresia brought the depiction of ceremonies to a new height, intending to present her achievements, in statesmanship, and in a dynastic sense, in the context of the Familia Augusta.27
Wolfgang Schmale creates the term of “working couples” as another signature of the eighteenth-century royal family model at the Viennese court, citing the relationships between Maria Theresia and her husband Francis Stephen, and Maria Theresia and Joseph II respectively as examples.28 Both men, while sovereigns as Emperors within the Reich, were only co-regents in the Habsburg lands, a fact that particularly annoyed Joseph II. However, it was also within this constellation next to her son that Maria Theresia’s symbolic signature role appears most challenged.
A commemoration of Catherine II as part of a task-sharing royal family business was not possible, considering her family arrangement was a very different one. Instead of a harmonious marriage, the relationship between Catherine and Peter eventually turned to rivalry. Any lack of popularity on his side could only serve her purpose.
The line of succession was secured through her son Paul. Certain factions at court who had supported Catherine during her coup against Peter III expected that she would raise Paul’s role to more prominence, ruling merely as regent for the infant heir. Catherine had defended her coup as a mother who needed to protect her Russian children, but also as a biological mother saving her son and heir from being removed by his own “father.” At the time of the coup, Paul was only eight years old, and unlike Maria Theresia, no strategic political or symbolic considerations urged Catherine to install her son as co-regent, neither was she personally inclined to do so. If Paul had been a valuable asset for taking the throne, he was obviously less important for keeping it. The Empress’s representation focused more strongly on the aspect of Mother to the Nation, while her motherhood of the only dynastically legitimate heir played a minor role in her representation of legitimacy. A panegyric text portrayed Catherine II as Astrae, the goddess who, following Vergil’s fourth eclogue, could be associated with the Virgin Mary and mother to a son, who brings about a golden age.29 However, it was the Mother who took the spotlight and stayed there. According to the Petrine laws of succession, Paul’s future depended solely on his mother’s choice of heir and their personal relationship is not known to have been very affectionate. A nineteenth-century source compares Maria Theresia as paradigm of conjugal love and fidelity to Catherine, who unseated her own husband and treated her only child like a stepson.30 All in all, there is not much that offers a propagandistic portrayal of a loving relationship between mother and son. Elisabeth Badinter argues that the peace agreement between Maria Theresia and Frederick II that was negotiated against her son’s explicit wishes in 1779, must have torn her heart out, stuck between the ruler and the loving mother who had to publicly patronise and degrade her son.31 It is difficult to determine Maria Theresia’s emotion on that matter so clearly, but it appears implausible to make a similar argument about Catherine II. This is meant to emphasise the limits that can be found regarding Catherine’s portrayal as a mother-figure within her own character and self-presentation.
Symbolic Commemoration
Within the social-cultural and national-political context of the nineteenth century, Maria Theresia was lifted above men through idealised depictions. It greatly relied on the fact that she, albeit an exception as female ruler, had otherwise not broken with tradition. She had accepted the singularity of her position and did not question the predominance of male succession itself. Her feminine gender was presented as an accomplishment in order to legitimise a female ruler, but she did not redefine gender roles. She did not have to. The praise of her feminine attributes was meant to strengthen her rule by dynastic right, not to justify an illegitimate usurpation. Stollberg-Rilinger writes, “As an exception, Maria Theresia did not endanger traditional gender roles but on the contrary, allowed historians to indulge in the praise of her femininity, beauty, fertility, authenticity, grace, warmth and devotion.”32
Historian Géza Hajós called the imperial life at Schönbrunn Palace “vorbiedermeierlich,” comparing it to the nineteenth-century family idyll away from restraint and protocol where the bourgeois family allowed a role separation that was not found among classes where husband and wife traditionally worked together.33 Soon the images of the bourgeois wife and the romanticised version of the royal wife overlapped. A copper engraving from 1868 by Liezen-Mayer shows Maria Theresia breastfeeding the child of a beggarwoman in the tradition of Mary lactans.34
Furthermore, Maria Theresia became the symbol of a newly shaped Austria that had emerged from the Holy Roman Empire. By the last third of the nineteenth century, it was in need of consolidation and redefinition, especially after an economic crisis and severe losses of territory to the newly created German Empire and Kingdom of Italy. This situation showed clear parallels to the challenges of Maria Theresia’s reign. Her image combined the physical-biological mother and the devoted Mother of Austria, both embedded within the romanticised ideal of an almost physically palpable bourgeois motherliness. Within it, despite the original background of role-segregation, the sovereign, the wife, and the mother perfectly intertwined. Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal argued that the motherhood of Maria Theresia extended to her subjects, which formed a completion of the woman and the ruler.35 However, the writer considered Catherine II torn between her greatness as ruler and her inferiority as women since she had refused to fully embrace her motherhood. As a consequence, according to Hofmannsthal, she would always be judged by history for her immoral lifestyle, while Maria Theresia escaped such criticism.
We can see a pattern forming in the commemoration of both monarchs that often focuses on either the physical or the intellectual abilities of the subject under observation. Whether the connotation was made advantageously or disadvantageously frequently depended on the socio-cultural and political background of the writer. The presentation of and focus on Maria Theresia’s physical body would be negatively argued as representing a lack of intellect, and in combination with her Catholic faith, labelling her as a bigot and reactionary. At the same time, Catherine’s intellectual and supra-sexual sublime body could be easily denigrated by different traditionally feminine-connotated weaknesses. For instance, the rumour of Peter III having been poisoned enjoyed popularity not least because poison was regarded as a woman’s weapon, as a most dishonourable way to remove an opponent, and as a vicious example of the use of female intelligence.
The praise of Maria Theresia as national mother-figure continues into the twentieth century. Ideologically, for Catholics and Protestants, and for proponents of Greater-Germanism and Lesser-Germanism alike, Maria Theresia represented a truly Germanic woman. She embodied all female virtues of the traditionalist völkisch-nationalist propaganda, but within the Greater- and Lesser-German context, she could easily get caught in propagandistic crossfire. German historian Willy Andreas wrote that “The name of this woman who was completely German and Austrian […] preserves its warm, lively and enchanting ring. Poets are right to speak of her like they speak of Haydn and Mozart similar to something exquisite and indissoluble.”36 According to Andreas, Maria Theresia was happiest in the years between her marriage and her father’s death where she had to be mother, daughter, and wife alone.37 In his opinion, she had shown little interest in the bloom of German intellectual culture and was too religiously conservative, thus limiting progress and variety in cultural development. These words call to mind a general depiction of Austrian culture made by Madame de Staël from the early nineteenth century.
If Austria has produced no great men in the literary career, it is to be attributed not so much to constraint as to the want of emulation. It is a country so calm, a country in which competence is so easily secured to all classes of its inhabitants, that they think but little of intellectual enjoyments.38
These characteristics, however, were not simply owed to her sex, said Andreas. Unlike Maria Theresia, “the other German woman, the one on the tsarist throne” proved what the female mind could accomplish in the areas of spirit and science.39
After 1945, Maria Theresia became the symbol of an Austria that had finally accepted its fate outside of Germany and began to build an identity of its own. Austria continued to represent softness, tranquillity, and savoir vivre versus almost over-stretched German efficiency. Historian Wilhelm Hausenstein called Maria Theresia the centre of Austrian culture, and described Baroque Vienna as symbol of femininity, where male and female melted into each other, unlike sterile male Baroque cities like Rome and Berlin.40
It is only since the end of the twentieth century that scholars have begun to tackle the stereotyping and the generalisations on a large scale, trying to separate the two female monarchs from the context of their strongly political and socio-cultural commemoration over the last two hundred years.
The Challenges of Dissecting Stereotyped Symbols on a Multilevel Basis
Myth is not a context; it is a framework within which one can make interpolations.41 Symbols are not fixed to a strict interpretation, and within different religious-cultural influences those interpretations could easily merge into each other. The multiple aspects of Pallas Athena were used for married and unmarried women in various combinations, and offered the possibility of unifying the female body with a male spirit. As a virtuous maiden unaffected by Cupid’s arrows, Minerva could even be associated with the Virgin Mary herself.42 When Maria Theresia was depicted as Minerva after the birth of her first son, Joseph II, it was not the virginal warrior goddess but the aspect of protection that was paramount.
Furthermore, the figures associated with Catherine and Maria Theresia, both historically palpable and mythological alike, were embedded within different narratives and contexts, and offered critics opportunities to redefine the images. When Willy Andreas referred to Catherine II’s epithet “Semiramis of the North,” he did so in juxtaposition to Maria Theresia, presenting the latter as more virtuous but also less crafty. Like many others, by the eighteenth century, the name of the Babylonian queen had become a dictum with a great variety of possible uses and interpretations, depending mostly on the desired connotation. Voltaire himself, who had shaped the epithet in laureation of the Russian Empress, had published a play called “Sémiramis” in 1746 that depicted a tragic heroine who had poisoned her husband to achieve the throne. He uses the term to express admiration for Catherine’s achievements, comparing Semiramis to Penthesilea, Tomyris, and Elizabeth I of England as a ruler, but considering the circumstances of Catherine’s ascension to the throne, a sarcastic undercurrent can be at least suspected.43 However, his connotation is still far away from the popular reduction of the epithet in connection with Catherine to a cunning and sexually insatiable woman whose way was paved with the corpses of her victims, the personal and the political. In fact, the study material for the archduchess Maria Theresia, as provided by her tutor Spannagl, also contained a short biography on the Babylonian queen. In it, Semiramis was described as a woman who surpassed not only her own sex but men as well in virtue and courage.44
The acknowledgement of a woman sovereign could subliminally imply the degradation of her male counterparts. Frederick II would often make his appreciation or disregard of ruling women or their influence on men in power depending on political circumstances.45 Particularly within the strongly male-dominated area of warfare, the aspect of denigrating competition took effect. A woman defeating her enemies added even more to their shame. Hence, approval or ridicule of their gender was extremely situational and aside from cultural connotations and personal inclinations, often had a strong political dimension, depending on the role of the ally or antagonist.
Unlike Maria Theresia, Catherine II did not fight wars primarily to defend her legitimacy but to enlarge the Empire, which had been extended by the size of a quarter of its European parts at the time of her death. That difference is shown very well in the funeral orations of Maria Theresia where her wars were argued as justified, lead out of necessity and not desire, in defence of her God-given birth rights.46 Depicting a female ruler in conflict and war always leads to a hybrid portrayal of the woman between her physical body and her symbolic body as ruler. Whether leading her troops in battle or not, she still represents them. In her wartime propaganda, Maria Theresia was glorified as the Mother of Christ who, herself peaceful and forgiving, could call God’s wrath to the defence of her insulted honour, which was particularly effective against the Protestant Prussians. Similarly, during the Russo-Turkish Wars, Catherine’s soldiers were praised as an army of Enlightenment and the Russian Empire, marking Catherine respectively as the defender of Christianity. Thus, like Maria Theresia, Catherine became a symbol of the Holy Mother despite the great differences in their approach to traditionally considered female virtues and chastity.47 Voltaire took advantage of the chance to ridicule the Turkish troops for their defeat by a woman when commenting that the victory would be celebrated with a Te Deam instead of a Te Deum.48
In an international political context, Catherine’s questionable legitimacy and shortcomings as a woman would be repeatedly combined to denigrate her, and as a further consequence, the Russian Empire. Both monarchs stood pars pro toto for their realms, culturally as well as politically, and were or still are portrayed as such. If Russia symbolised expansion, Catherine would often represent the greedy, cunning schemer. If Maria Theresia’s Austria stood for defence, Catherine’s Russia represented attack. In 1792, Sir Horace Walpole wrote, “[…] and yet one has the assurance to rail at the grand usurperess, who would sluice all the veins of Europe and Asia to add another chapter to her murderous history. Well! If she dies soon, she will find the river Styx turned to a torrent of blood by her shedding!”49
Caricatures, a relative new media in the eighteenth century, are an excellent example as “[…] visual pendants to the escalations of political crisis.”50 They show the appropriation of the physical gender in a wider context. However, caricaturists did not reinvent facts and they depicted Maria Theresia and Catherine II mostly within the context of their mainstream images. We can see that Maria Theresia as a character becomes almost invisible in caricatures, while the focus of her denigration is very much reduced to her sex. Catherine II, however, gave caricaturists ample opportunity for interpretations of her character. From the sanctimonious reformer, to the seductive, mischievous Delilah and her poisonous charms, from the man-eating matron outwitting the meek male kings and smart diplomats of Europe alike, to the devilish bloodthirsty virago, who is struck down by the vision of her own cruel past, we can find the Empress in almost all shapes and sizes.51
Considering the personal and political circumstances of Catherine’s rise to power, the criticism was more frequent, more frequently explicit, and more personal than compared to Maria Theresia. James Harris, envoy to Catherine’s court, argued that she was aiming for male virtues but could not even drop her female vices; “she wants the manlier virtues of deliberation, forbearance in prosperity and accuracy of judgment, while she possesses in a high degree the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex—love of flattery, and its inseparable companion, vanity.”52 Unlike in the case of Maria Theresia, Catherine’s pars pro toto representation of Russian politics, culture, and society often lead to a disadvantageous portrayal of all, melding prejudice and criticism of the woman, the ruler, and the realm. “[…] Only in Russia could a German Princess be transformed in such a way—where the murder of tsars and grand dukes remains a custom to this very day. […] And can we not say the same considering the love life of the great duchess and empress?”53 The commemoration of Catherine II thus exploited her physical feminine body within the political and socio-cultural context. “Next to her versatile education […] she had amassed slyness, experience, pretense and prudence in such a way as only the intrigues of the Russian court could have taught her.”54 Negative connotations would be used to symbolise the Empress and the realm alike, but interpretations differed as to how much Catherine had been corrupted by Russia and how much by herself.55 In 1936, a German biographer argued that as wife to a German prince, Catherine would most likely have born a dozen children while astonishing the world with witty anecdotes and a Chronique Scandaleuse that would have found its place on bookshelves next to the accounts of Princess Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine.56 Even the recent Russian TV series “Ekaterina” (2014) adopts a similar portrayal when a young Catherine informs the Empress Elizabeth that for the lessons of the Russian court and consequently for her future conduct, Elizabeth alone would be to blame.
In juxtaposition with Maria Theresia, we can see that the aspects of symbolic national parenthood worked out very differently in retrospective throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries outside of Russia. Within Austria, aside from her previously discussed lack in motherliness, her rule became controversial in a cultural-political context.
Neither did the Empress feature prominently among the Russian rulers that were “discovered” for Soviet propaganda. Her entry in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia identifies her thirst for power and glory as defining motives and does not fail to mention her favouritism and the expensive gifts she bestowed upon her beloved French philosophers, casually linking her failings to female characteristics.57 Again, we find the accusation of vanity and pretence, instead of introducing effective legal and economic reforms that would ignite social change. As a Soviet encyclopaedia, it also criticises Catherine for her Francophilia, and as autocrat who aggravated serfdom and whose reforms were mostly in favour of nobility. At the same time, her antagonist, Pugachev, became a leading figure of Soviet propaganda as commander of the so-called Peasants’ War.58 In a conversation with Sergei Eisenstein, Joseph Stalin expressed that he considered the Empress as the beginning of a development that turned the Russian court into a German one.59 Of the two rulers strongly associated with Europeanisation, Peter I was the more preferable option.
In the direct juxtaposition of Catherine II and Maria Theresia, we identify a few key features that stayed constant during their posthumous reception, but switched between praise and denigration according to different contexts. In direct comparison to Catherine II, Maria Theresia’s idealisation as femina ad exemplum within her exceptionality eventually began to draw criticism and even ridicule. Her lack of provocativeness made her less interesting for gender studies.60 Catherine’s questionable family life and sexual behaviour were eventually disconnected from their negative connotations and pars pro toto contexts. As an irregularity within the exception, she represents at first glance a more interesting, albeit controversial figure for gender studies and associated disciplines, as well as popular culture. The latter continues to exploit familiar characteristics for both monarchs and often simplifies them within gender stereotypes, whilst attempting to show intimate portrayals and trying to uncover the woman from history.
Conclusion
Juxtaposing two female rulers from eighteenth century Europe, analysing their very individual approaches without losing the bird’s eye view and studying the different aims behind their commemoration diachronically as well as synchronically, poses a fascinating challenge.
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger writes that “Maria Theresia does no longer need to be revived by history, she must rather be dug out from under all the different layers of historiographic projections that have overrun her.” This is equally true for Catherine II.61 The two monarchs established their female legitimacy as exceptions of the rule within which they presented themselves. Both were represented and criticised as differently from each other as they might have been from certain male counterparts. They were deeply embedded within their political and cultural environments and strongly dependent on their circumstances, sometimes beyond their female sex. Posterity has turned them into symbols of larger societal, cultural, and political contexts, positive and negative alike. To detach them from those contexts, focussing prominently on their “gender-personae” is certainly tempting in the search of “precursors” for the modern emancipated woman. However, it also risks new generalisations and stereotyping.
This chapter is by no means exhaustive but seeks to encourage the idea of more comparative works and detailed observations that analyse the different approaches to female legitimacy within the restraints of personal characteristics and surrounding conditions. Additionally, it stresses the importance of looking at the consequences of one-dimensional portrayals within larger contexts and of discussing female rule empirically, considering its manifold variations.
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27. ———. “Weibliche Herrschaft als Ausnahme?” In Weibliche Herrschaft im 18. Jahrhundert. Maria Theresia und Katharina die Große, edited by Bettina Braun, Jan Kusber, and Matthias Schnettger, 19–51. Bielefeld: transcript, 2020.
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Footnotes
1
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia Die Kaiserin in ihrer Zeit (München: Beck, 2017), xxii–xxiv.
2
See for instance Regina Schulte, ed., The body of the Queen (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006).
3
Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s two Bodies. A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 7.
4
Regina Schulte, “Conceptual Approaches to the Queen’s Body,” in The Body of the Queen. Gender and Rule in the Courtly World, 1500–2000, ed. Regina Schulte (New York: Berghahn, 2006), 1.
5
Wolfram Mauser, Konzepte aufgeklärter Lebensführung: literarische Kultur im frühmodernen Deutschland (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000), 145.
6
B.A. Uspenskij, “Tsar and Pretender: “Samozvanchestvo or royal imposture in Russia as a cultural-historical phenomenon,”” in “Tsar and God” and other essays in Russian cultural semiotics, eds. Boris Uspenskij and Victor Zhivov (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012), 132.
7
Claus Scharf, “Tradition—Usurpation—Legitimation. Das herrscherliche Selbstverständnis Katharinas II,” in Russland zur Zeit Katharinas II. Absolutismus—Aufklärung—Pragmatismus, ed. Eckhard Hübner, Jan Kusber, and Peter Nitsche (Köln et al.: Böhlau, 1998), 75.
8
D.A. Rovinskij, obozrenie ikonopisanija v“ rossij. Do konca XVII veka (A. S. Suvorina, 1903), 279.
9
Simon Dixon, “The Posthumous Reputation of Catherine II in Russia 1797–1837,” The Slavonic and East European Review 77.4 (October 1999): 646–679.
10
Michael Yonan, Empress Maria Theresa and the Politics of Habsburg Imperial Art (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2011), 4.
11
“Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,” accessed 11 March 2021, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/serien/die-sky-serie-katharina-die-grosse-erotomanin-der-macht-16447576.html. It should be mentioned here that the argument of Catherine’s “mistrust of whisperers” stands in a certain contrast to the numerous sources that criticized Catherine for favouritism and susceptibility to flattery.
12
Yonan, Empress Maria Theresa, 4.
13
Dieter Wunderlich, Vernetzte Karrieren (Regensburg: Pustet, 2000), 155.
14
Moser, Johann Jakob, Teusches Staats=Recht, Bd. 2 (Nürnberg: Stein, 1738), 327
15
Schulte, “Conceptual Approaches,” 1.
16
B. von Bilbassoff, Katharina II. Kaiserin von Russland im Urtheile der Weltliteratur I. Band: Die Literatur bis zu Katharinas Tode (1744–1796) (Berlin: Johannes Räde, 1897), 3.
17
Mark Cruse and Hilde Hoogenboom, ed. and trans., The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (New York, Modern Library, 2005), 21.
18
Monika Greenleaf, “Performing Autobiography: The Multiple Memoirs of Catherine the Great (1756–96),” The Russian Review, 63.3 (2004): 415.
19
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, 557.
20
Catherine the Great, “Letter to Count Poniatowski Informing Him of Her Coup,” in Andrew Kahn and Kelsey Rubin-Detlev, trans., Catherine the Great. Selected Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 16-23; see further Catherine’s memoirs for her descriptions of Peter III. Cruse and Hoogenboom, Memoirs of Catherine the Great
21
Joseph von Sonnenfels, Sonnenfels Gesammelte Schriften, Achter Band (Wien: mit von Baumeisterischen Schriften, 1786), 4.
22
“The State Hermitage Museum,” accessed 11 March 2021, https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/38706/.
23
Wolfram Mauser, Konzepte aufgeklärter Lebensführung: literarische Kultur im frühmodernen Deutschland (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000), 137–147.
24
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, 264; Aquarelles by Maria Theresia’s favourite daughter Maria Christina depict members of the imperial family in almost bourgeois-like intimacy. The archduchess most likely imitated Dutch paintings by Cornelis Troost.
25
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, 253.
26
Sandra Hertel, “Die Zeremonienbilder im Kontext der maria-theresianischen Repräsentation,” in Die Repräsentation Maria Theresias, eds. Werner Telesko et al. (Wien et al.: Böhlau, 2020), 173.
27
Hertel, “Die Zeremonienbilder im Kontext der maria-theresianischen Repräsentation,” 173.
28
Wolfgang Schmale, “Maria Theresia, das 18. Jahrhundert und Europa,” in Die Repräsentation Maria Theresias, Werner Telesko et al., ed. (Wien et al.: Böhlau, 2020), 27.
29
Vera Proskurina, Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II. (Brighton, USA: Academic Studies Press, 2011) 49–50. See also Girardet, Klaus Martin, Konstantin. Oratio ad sanctorum coetum. Rede an die Versammlung der Heiligen, trans. and ed. Klaus Martin Girardet. Fontes Christiani, Volume 55 (Freiburg et al.: Herder, 2013), 201–207.
30
Karl Ludwig Blum, Ein russischer Staatsmann. Des Grafen Jakob Johann Sievers Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte Rußlands, Zweiter Band (Leipzig, Heidelberg: C. F. Wintersche Verlagshandlung, 1857), 3.
31
Élisabeth Badinter, Maria Theresia. Die Macht der Frau (Wien: Paul Zsolnay, 2017), 276.
32
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, xvii.
33
Géza Hajós, Schönbrunn (Wien, Hamburg: Paul Zsolnay, 1976), 58
34
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, “Weibliche Herrschaft als Ausnahme?” in Weibliche Herrschaft im 18. Jahrhundert. Maria Theresia und Katharina die Große, eds. Bettina Braun et al. (Bielefeld: transcript, 2020), 22–23.
35
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Maria Theresia. Zur zweihundertsten Wiederkehr ihres Geburtstages, full text in: Katja Kaluga, “Beeinflussung der öffentlichen Meinung. Hugo von Hofmannsthals Austriaca 1914–1917. Kritische und kommentierte Edition,” (PhD diss., University of Wuppertal, 2011), 48–49.
36
Willy Andreas, Geist und Staat. Historische Porträts (München, Berlin: Oldenbourg, 1927), 128.
37
Andreas, Geist und Staat, 84.
38
Baroness Staël Holstein, Germany. In three volumes. Vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1813), 57.
39
Andreas, Geist und Staat, 124.
40
Wilhelm Hausenstein, Europäische Hauptstädte. Ein Reisetagebuch (1926–1932) (München: Prestel, 1954), 95ff.
41
Hans Blumenberg, “Wirklichkeitsbegriff und Wirkungspotential des Mythos,” in Terror und Spiel. Probleme der Mythenrezeption, ed. Manfred Fuhrmann (München: Fink, 1971), 51.
42
Rudolf Wittkower, “Transformation of Minerva in Renaissance Imagery,” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2.3 (1939): 199.
43
Hans Schumann, ed. and trans., Monsieur—Madame. Der Briefwechsel zwischen der Zarin und dem Philosophen (Zürich: Manesse Verlag, 1991), 321. Voltaire has been heavily criticized for his friendship with Catherine II, among others, by several of his French compatriots. François A.J. Mazure accused him of having prostituted his genius and the dignity of history: “Pour qui donc Voltaire a-t-il prostitué son genie et la dignité de l’histoire? […] Aux yeux de Voltaire, Catherine II fut un grand homme […] si elle prodigua 100 millions de roubles pour ses favoris, elle protégea du moins Diderot et l’Encyclopédie.” F.A.J. Mazure, Vie de Voltaire (Paris: Alexis Eymery et al., 1821), 215
44
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, 23.
45
Frederick II in a letter to d’Alembert, January 6th 1781 in Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand, Tome XXV, ed. Johann David Erdmann Preuss (Berlin: Rodolphe Decker, 1854), 171, letter 228; Dieter Wunderlich, Vernetzte Karrieren. Friedrich der Große, Maria Theresia, Katharina die Große (Regensburg: Pustet, 2000), 129, 152.
46
Bettina Braun, “Maria Theresia—Friedensfürstin oder Oberbefehlshaberin?” in Weibliche Herrschaft im 18. Jahrhundert. Maria Theresia und Katharina die Große, eds. Bettina Braun et al. (Bielefeld: transcript, 2020), 169–171.
47
Vera Proskurina, Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II (Brighton, USA: Academic Studies Press, 2011), 181.
48
Voltaire in Brenda Meehan-Waters, “Catherine the Great and the Problem of Female Rule,” The Russian Review, 34.3 (1975): 294.
49
Horace Walpole, Letters addressed to the Countess of Ossory. From the Year 1769 to 1797. In two Volumes. Vol. II, ed. Vernon Smith (London: Richard Bentley, 1848), 475–476.
50
Werner Telesko, “Zerrbilder der Politik. Karikaturen der Epoche Maria Theresias,” in Die Repräsentation Maria Theresias. Herrschaft und Bildpolitik im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, eds. Werner Telesko et al. (Wien et al.: Böhlau, 2020), 142.
51
See for instance the caricatures by Thomas Rowlandson and Isaac Cruikshank, “The British Museum,” accessed 11 March 2021, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-6401/; for caricatures on Maria Theresia see for instance Telesko, “Zerrbilder der Politik. Karikaturen der Epoche Maria Theresias,” 142–148.
52
James Harris in Meehan-Waters, “Catherine the Great,” 293.
53
Wilhelm Rath, ed., Die deutsche Zarin. Denkwürdigkeiten der Kaiserin Katharina II. von Rußland (München: Wilhelm Langewiesche-Brandt, 1916), 302.
54
Karl Ludwig Blum, Ein russischer Staatsmann. Des Grafen Jakob Johann Sievers Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte Rußlands, Erster Band (Leipzig, Heidelberg: C. F. Wintersche Verlagshandlung, 1857), 135–136.
55
Anonymous, Katharina II vor dem Richterstuhle der Menschheit. Größtentheils Geschichte (St. Petersburg: 1797), 2.
56
Wolfgang Hoffmann-Harnisch, Die Große Katharina. Geschichte einer Karriere (Berlin: Drei Masken Verlag, 1936), 30.
57
“Great Soviet Encyclopedia,” accessed 11 March 2021, http://bse.sci-lib.com/article037013.html.
58
Dietmar Neutatz, “Die Umdeutung von Razin und Pugačev in der Sowjetunion unter Lenin und Stalin,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 65.1 (2017): 114–131.
59
Authorised transcript of the conversation in Katerina Clark et al., Soviet Culture and Power. A History in Documents, 1917–1953 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2007), 440–445.
60
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, xxii–xxiv.
61
Stollberg-Rilinger, Maria Theresia, xxvi.