The focus of our today’s story is on the prominent Russian educator and a patroness of the literary arts, Yekaterina Dashkova. 

She was born in 1744 into the family of old Russian nobility in Moscow. During the reign of Peter the Great’s daughter, Empress Yelizaveta, Yekaterina’s father, Roman Dashkov amassed a big fortune and, notorious for his arrogance and miserly ways, even earned the nickname of “Roman the Big Stasher”. Roman Vorontsov was making ample use of the sway his family held  at the royal court. Yekaterina’s mother died when she was only two, father just couldn’t care less about his kids and so the little girl was given to the care of her uncle Mikhail Vorontsov. The little Yekaterina was the ultimate fruit of the Enlightenment era steeped in the ideas of Voltaire, Montesquieu and Diderot. Coming home one day the romantically-minded young lady, she was 15 now, stumbled upon the dashing Prince Dashkov and immediately fell in love with the handsome giant.  The two walked down the aisle shortly after and Yekaterina, still in her teens, gave birth to a son and a daughter…

It wasn’t long before the young princess got disillusioned with her husband, though, realizing that behind his beautiful exterior her spouse had no substance at all. She thus shifted her attention and later affection to the Grand Duchess Catherine. The wife of the would-be Russian Emperor, Catherine felt in many ways suppressed by her husband and desperately needed someone to lean on.  Ascending the throne as Peter III, Catherine’s husband remained as cold to her as he had ever been before. Rumor had it that he even wanted to confine his wife to a monastery. Unhappy with the new monarch, the Guards were foursquare behind Catherine. There was a plot now brewing up fast… 

The young Dashkova knew what was going on right from her royal friend. The fact that Dashkova’s younger sister, Elizabeth, occasionally shared the bed with the Emperor did not prevent the two Catherines from being intimately close to each other. 

The young Dashkov couple took an active part in the coup d’etat organized by the future Empress Catherine the Great to dethrone her husband. Princess Dashkova was in good graces. Her prestige in society was so high that she was often called Catherine the Minor. The Empress did not like that and took a cool attitude to her onetime confidante. The Dashkovs moved away from the court and Yekaterina dedicated herself wholly to family matters.  Losing her husband to pneumonia at the still young age of 20,  the Princess  found herself almost broke most of the family fortune squandered by her late husband who was a high-living gambler.  Dashkova and her two children retired to the country estate where they lived almost literally from hand to mouth. The Spartan existence yielded fruit though and  five years later Yekaterina Dashkova  decided to use whatever money she had managed to save up to make a journey abroad to give education to her son and daughter and to see the enlightened European world.  No matter how hard she tried, however, nothing eventually came out of her amazingly useless offspring… 

During her travels in Europe, Yekaterina Dashkova won the fame of one of the best-educated men around. She met Denis Diderot, Adam Smith and even the idol of her youth, Voltaire, in Geneva. After Dashkova’s European triumph it occurred to Catherine II  to make her the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. The 37-year-old Dashkova fully lived up to Catherine’s expectations literally resurrecting the Academy from a sorry state of disrepair. During her 12-year-stint as the Academy’s Director, Yekaterina Dashkova built a new building for the Academy, restored the print shop and resumed the practice of scientific expeditions.  She arranged regular publication of academic works, including those by the great scientist Mikhail Lomonosov. Dashkova also takes much credit for the compilation of the first ever dictionary of the Russian language and its grammar using her drive and steel resolve to publish the indispensable dictionary and grammar in a matter of just six years.

As the long reign of Catherine the Great drew to a close, dark clouds started gathering over the head of Princess Dashkova and the Academy. Increasingly alarmed by what was going on in France, the Empress would not allow any mention in the press of revolution, republican rule and things like that.  Then, as if to bait the frightened Yekaterina, the Academy published a play extolling republican liberties. It looks like Dashkova had somehow failed to read the script before it was sent to the presses and so she became the butt of the royal fury.  In a word, Dashkova was seen as a pain in the neck that’s exactly the way she now felt about everyone else… Increasingly stern and whimsical, she was feared by her servants and laughed at by the court and the rest of the city. Finally Dashkova tendered her resignation which was promptly accepted. After Catherine II’s death, her son, Paul I who hated all of his mother’s favorites, exiled Dashkova to a remote village where she spent several months living in a crammed peasant hut. After Emperor Paul’s death, Yekaterina Dashkova moved to the Moscow estate of her late husband and spent the rest of her days in seclusion, fighting with her servants and writing memoirs. This outstanding woman definitely had something to remember…

01/16/2006