Helen Mirren in HBO’s Catherine the Great Limited Series

[LoveNDino]

Color me excited

[+ Pensant]

Wow!

[LoveNDino]

Oct 21st, folks

 

[thickornotatall]

Color me excited

Wild Horses couldn't keep me away!

[+ Funguy]

Wild Horses couldn't keep me away!

 

I hear Catherine liked wild horses, too!

[TruthBTold]

Of course, as she is in everything she is in, Mirren is great. Like every history unless you are familiar with the characters who make up the previous emperors/empresses, nobility, and courtiers it is hard to keep track of who is who (at least in the first episode). Although she wields power much as Elizabeth I of England, Catherine seemed to be much more educated and determined not only to keep hold on power but to leave her mark in many areas of society that she could. For example, she was determined that women would be educated (at least some of them). She also seems to want to have Russia become much more Western European in look and imported various things to that end. For instance, she had herself (and her child) inoculated against smallpox at a time it was not done in the country. Later she had a vast number of her subjects inoculated to prevent the outbreak of the disease. The only thing that I really knew about her before this series was that the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg was begun as the personal art collection of Catherine. She bought 500 art pieces and had them brought to the palace. It later became the national art museum. Moreover, she encouraged the colonization of much of Alaska, which was later sold to the United States (during the reign of a different Emperor.