Tsaritsa Katerina Alekseyevna

Mikhail Ivanovich Semevsky (1837–1892) was a historian, journalist, and writer whose books enjoyed widespread popularity in pre-revolutionary Russia. The founder and publisher of the renowned historical journal "Russkaya Starina," he made a significant contribution to the preservation and publication of unique sources: letters, memoirs, and diaries of the Decembrists, as well as materials on the freedom and reform movements.

This edition presents the novel "Tsaritsa Katerina Alekseyevna" (1884), a fictionalized account of the fate of Catherine I. Born Marta Skavronskaya, a simple Livonian peasant, she rose from servant to wife of Peter the Great, becoming the mother of future empresses and the first woman to the Russian throne. Palace coups, court intrigues, love, and political will—all are intertwined in the dramatic story of the ascension of the "peasant woman to the throne."