ZOOID 9: 390-3, about the gravestone monuments of Kherson Fortress Church, including Soldatsky. ZOOID 5 (1863): 1006, about the place of GAP's burial by I. Andreevsky: Emperor Paul I to Alexander Kurakin 27 March 1798 and Kurakin to the local Govenor Seletsky, received on 18 April 1798. It is ironic that this was the same A. B. Kurakin whose letter to his friend Bibikov, when he was in Paul's entourage on his trip to Europe in 1781-2, had ensured that Paul was excluded from power as long as Catherine lived. On Paul and GAP's body, see AAE 20: 331, Langeron, 1824: 'The commander of the fortress had the courage to disobey but reported that [Paul's] order had been obeyed'. Langeron was close to Paul's court.
AAE 20: 331, Langeron writes in 1824 of his disgust that the family had not yet built GAP the monument he deserved. Karpova pp 355-64. RGVIA 1287.12.126.23-4 A. Samoilov to Alexander I. GAOO 4.2.672.2, Alexander I rescript to build GAP monument 1825. But, as soon as Paul was murdered by his Guards officers in 1801 and his son Alexander succeeded promising to govern 'like my beloved grandmother Catherine the Second', GAP was rehabilitated and a monument commissioned in
Kherson. The sculptor I. P. Martos was commissioned, but work was soon stopped by one of the frequent rows between Potemkin's heirs about money - it was to cost the vast sum of 170,000 roubles - and did not start again until 1826. The colossal bronze Classical monument, finally unveiled in 1837, depicted Potemkin in Roman armour and robes with a huge sword and plumed helmet, on top of a pedestal reached by steps and guarded by the figures of Mars, Hercules, Apollo and Neptune. But during the Revolution Kherson changed hands back and forth and it was the Petluraists who tore down Martos's Roman GAP to avenge the liquidation of the Zaporogian Sech. They tossed it into the yards of the local museum. The Nazis later either stole it or destroyed it.
AAE 20: 331, Langeron, 'Evenements 1791'. ZOOID 9: 390-3.
ZOOID 5 (1863): 1006, I. Andreevsky. Milgov letter from Kherson 12 October 1859 published in St Petersburg journal Vedomosti no 9 18 January i860.
ZOOID 9: 390-3, N. Murzakevich 30 August 1874.
Father Anatoly, priest of St Catherine's Church. Author's visit to Kherson July- August 1998.
B. A. Lavrenev, Potemkin's Second Burial.
ZOOID 9: 390-3, Soldatsky. L. G. Boguslavsky to E. V. Anisimov 15 July 1786, Kherson.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
In the case of a character about whom such a malicious mythology developed, even during his lifetime, a word on sources is helpful. I have been very fortunate to find much new and unpublished material in the various archives. Of the Russian archives, large amounts were published in the last century in SIRIO and ZOOID, as well as in historical journals such as RA and RS and collections of documents such as Dubrovin's Bumagi Potemkina (SBVIM). Then there are the published Vorontsov archives that remain a key source. All contain materials ignored or forgotten. For example, SIRIO contains documents such as Richelieu's 'Voyage en Allemagne' and Catherine's own account of Potemkin's ball, which have been relatively neglected in the West. Overall these are invaluable and usually accurate, though I have checked the originals wherever possible.
V. S. Lopatin's newly published collection of the Catherine-Potemkin correspondence is a massive work of scholarship and research, the fruit of twenty years' labour, and I have used it liberally. This is now indispensable to any student of this epoch. Even these over 1,000 letters are unlikely to be complete and there are more notes between the two of them still be catalogued. Lopatin's collection of letters between Suvorov and Potemkin and his account of their relationship are equally obligatory reading, for his research has successfully reinterpreted their relationship. That said, Lopatin's accounts sometimes lean towards the romantic - he accepts for example that Catherine was the mother of Elisaveta Temkina and gave birth to her in Moscow in 1775; and that Catherine visited Chizhova on her return from Mogilev. His datings of the letters are always sensitive and plausible, but there are occasions, such as the letters referring to Cagliostro, where Western research proves that the timing must be much later. In my awe of, and gratitude for, Lopatin's monumental work, I have humbly corrected these assertions or at least suggested doubt.
The archives - particularly RGADA, RGVIA and AVPRI, all in Moscow, and RGIA, in Petersburg, and AGAD, the Polish State Historical Archive in Warsaw - remain full of unpublished material. In RGADA, for example, I have found a wealth of unpublished letters to and from Potemkin, on questions of state, on his personal finances and on his love life, including many anonymous love letters and letters from Alexandra Branicka. RGVIA, the War Ministry archive, contains the archive of Potemkin's Chancellery and many fascinating state and private documents which I have used here. RGIA contains unpublished letters from Frederick the Great as well as personal accounts. In Warsaw, the huge Deboli archive has been under-used and there is also a wealth of letters from Potemkin to Stanislas-Augustus. Overall, the correspondence in these four archives contain a mass of unpublished material, much of which is used in the book: this includes letters to and from the Emperors Joseph and Leopold; Prince Kaunitz; Frederick the Great; King Gustavus III of Sweden; King Stanislas-Augustus of Poland; Prince Henry of Prussia; Potemkin's nieces Countess Alexandra Branicka and Princess Tatiana Yusupova; his nephews Count Skavronsky and Count Branicki and Potemkin's Polish allies and agents; his art dealers such as Lord Carysfort; visitors like Lady Craven, Reginald Pole Carew and Senac de Meilhan; Count Simon Vorontsov and other Russian statesmen; the Prince de Ligne; the Comte de Segur; the Earl of Malmesbury; the Duke of Leeds; Jeremy and Sir Samuel Bentham; the Prince de Nassau-Siegen; John Paul Jones; Lewis Littlepage; Francisco de Miranda; his secret diplomatic agents and Russian ambassadors from Vienna, Paris, Constantinople; his bankers, including Baron Richard Sutherland; and many fascinating jewels such as his shopping-list in Paris. Many of these correspondences, such as those with Stanislas-Augustus and Sutherland, stretch across all these archives.
Sadly, I have been able to use only a fraction of the materials I have found: some such as the huge materials on Potemkin and Poland or Potemkin's military orders belong in other books; some such as those from Ligne and Malmesbury simply add interesting twists to relationships that are already well documented. Some are simply too detailed or obscure to use.
In the local museums in Ukraine and Russia, the archives often contain copies of documents long since sent to the Moscow RGADA or RGVIA, but I was lucky enough to find some rarities there too, like the original invitation to Potemkin's ball in the Odessa State Local Historical Museum, which may be the only one in existence. There is also immense local knowledge of fact and legend that has not been tapped for a century, as well as information on characters, such as M. L. Faleev in Nikolaev, that is not available elsewhere.
In Britain, the PRO contains the unpublished despatches of Fitzherbert and Fawkener, which give a fresh account of Potemkin's last months in Petersburg and which have rarely been used. The British Museum's Bentham archive, though much has been published, still yields many unseen treasures. I found most useful the unpublished archive at Antony in Cornwall of Reginald Pole Carew's diaries of his visits to Russia and his time with Potemkin. In Paris, AAE, the Foreign Ministry Archives at the Quai d'Orsay, contain a wealth of useful documents, many unpublished, as well as the complete account of the Comte de Langeron, which is invaluable. Parts of
Langeron have been published in Russia and a full Western publication is being prepared.
The published material on Potemkin divides clearly into the prejudiced and the unprejudiced, or at least the mythical and the documentary. Naturally, I have treated anything connected to Helbig, The Memoirs of the Life of Prince Potemkin, Cerenville (both Helbig adaptions) or Saint-Jean (whose very identity is a mystery) as hostile or untrustworthy, while Castera is more useful. Even when recounting neutral stories, Charles Masson, Saint-Jean, and Helbig must be regarded as 'myth-writers', not historians. But the mythology of Potemkin is important too and tells its own tales, though I try to reassess it wherever possible using documents. Masson hated Emperor Paul and his Secret Memoirs were notoriously published in his lifetime, yet he records some Potemkin anecdotes that ring true. Eye-witnesses like Ligne, Segur, Corberon, Richelieu, Miranda, Damas and Langeron (all foreigners) and Rostopchin, Tsebrikov, Ribeaupierre, Derzhavin, Bezborodko, Vorontsov, Zavadovsky, Wiegel, Engelhardt and Samoilov were prejudiced and subjective, but one senses that they were telling what they believed to be the truth. Some are openly malicious, such as Rostopchin and Vorontsov; Dolgoruky is malicious and a fantastist; while others such as Samoilov are supporters. Many fall somewhere in between. Bezborodko for example strikes one as studiously fair. The Table Talk', history of the Pugachev Rebellion and Historical Notes of A. S. Pushkin are other underused sources: the poet was captivated by Potemkin, knew his family and circle, and carefully recorded their stories, which I therefore treat as valuable anecdotal history from the people who knew him. Among the foreigners, Ligne's and Langeron's malicious accounts of Potemkin's war record have completely blackened his reputation through all the histories ever since. Yet they are also invaluable, given Langeron's fair tribute to Potemkin later in life. In Ligne's case, unpublished letters in Potemkin's archives give us the chance to put his prejudices in perspective. Richelieu's, Stedingk's and Miranda's much more positive accounts of the same period have often been overlooked, and redress the balance.