Whispers that she had ordered her husband's murder grew to murmurs that she was an immoral woman and finally to shouts that she was a depraved, lust-crazed nymphomaniac. Yet few historical figures have been so enthusiastically vilified as Catherine the Great. She began the process of imposing legal and political order on the chaos she inherited from her predecessors. She raised the prestige of Russia in Europe. She brought vast new lands under Russian rule. Her achievements as empress were prodigious. Precociously intelligent, self-confident, and attractive but with a stubborn, wayward streak, Sophia withstood a degree of emotional battering that would have broken a weaker spirit until at last she emerged, triumphant over her many enemies, as Empress Catherine II of Russia. From the moment the fourteen-year-old Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst agreed to marry the heir to the Russian throne, she was mired in a quicksand of intrigue.
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