Creating the Empress

“The strength of Proskurina's work lies in its detailed analysis of a wide range of Russian literary works from this period, particularly in highlighting the frequent use of Classical subjects or genres by authors to discuss the symbolic or analogous content of their writings. Similarly, she draws on an impressive range of English- and Russian-language scholarship to emphasize the need to view these Classical themes and motifs in the context of wider European symbolic traditions, as well as the immediate historical context of Catherine II's reign.”

“Vera Proskurina’s Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II offers a striking and sophisticated demonstration of the ways literary works served and shaped imperial ideology. It joins other recent path breaking works like those of Andrei Zorin, Cynthia Whittaker and Elise Wirtschafter that read eighteenth-century Russian literature back into the political and cultural landscape of the day. Dr. Proskurina offers brilliant new close readings of many familiar works establishing their rich meanings by reconstructing the Russian and European cultural context. She demonstrates the vital political functions of this literature as it expressed and shaped imperial Russian culture. These functions include establishing various myths that supported Catherine’s power as a woman ruler and that shaped cultural, literary and political aspects of court culture. Dr. Proskurina bring to her subject an impressive grasp not only of the literary texts and written sources, but also of the cultural specifics of the era, viewing the works under investigation through the prism of contemporary literary institutions and the complexities of reigning cultural mythology they helped foster.”

“Vera Proskurina’s Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II is an erudite and imaginative examination of Catherine the Great’s reign through the double lens of politics and poetry. The author, who is known for her expert and graceful interpretation of cultural symbols, brings this approach to perfection in the new volume. She traces different aspects of Catherine’s age symbolic representation beginning with a brilliant deconstruction of the gender dynamic in the 1762 coup d’état and ending with a masterful analysis of the Empress’s dubious reputation as an ageing coquette in the last years of her reign. Theoretically sound and well-written, the book will be a welcome addition to the library of every Catherine scholar. The book’s handsome appearance makes it a pleasure to read."

Proskurina prefers to present her exploration of cultural production of the Catherine era in a discourse that has a distinctly Foucauldian flavor: symbolism of power, translatio imperii, self-fashioning, or self-presentation...it is an ambitious project, both in its scope and its theoretical claims.

"The volume includes careful analyses of contemporary sources as well as of the poetry, prose, and journalism of the 18th century. Highly recommended."