The Presidential Library's webinar to illustrate the activities of Catherine the Great

On October 23, 2020, at 10:00, the Presidential Library's portal will broadcast an online webinar "The Golden Age of Catherine II". The event will highlight materials that reveal the features of the national policy by the Empress, who was called the Great during her lifetime.

34 years of the reign of Catherine II covered a number of significant reforms and changes in public administration, military, social and financial fields.

One of the first reforms of the Empress, who ascended to the Russian throne in 1762, was the Senate reform of 1763.

In 1764, she implemented the secularization of the church lands, which concluded the long confrontation between church and state. Catherine II signed the Manifesto on the transfer of church possessions to the state. This decree determined the legal property status of the Russian Church until the end of the synodal period in 1917.

In the next year, 1765, the "Manifesto on the General Delimitation of Lands in the All-Empire" was proclaimed. It divided private lands and separated them from state lands.

All innovations are not successful from the start, sometimes they provoke resistance. The historian and writer Pyotr Petrov described the difficulties that the Empress faced in the first years of her reign in the work "Catherine II - the Legislator" (1863).

In 1766, trying to improve state legislation, Catherine announced the establishment of a Commission to create a New Council Code. The Commission staff included elected deputies from all social groups of Russian society excluding the serfs. The webinar will present an archival document "Draft Concepts" and the Manifesto drafts and a Decree to the Senate on the establishment of a Commission to create a New Code. These unique documents were written and edited by Empress Catherine II herself.

On the birthday, April 21 (May 2, the new style), 1785, Catherine signed two legislative acts: "Charter for the Rights, Freedoms, and Privileges of the Noble Russian Gentry" and "Charter for the Rights and Privileges of the Cities of the Russian Empire", which completed the formation of the social stratification in Russia.

During the reign of Catherine II, there was a Peasants' War 1773–75 (Pugachev's Rebellion). The Rebellion raised in the Volga and Ural regions and was suppressed. Pugachev and his companions were interrogated and executed. The webinar will also feature the very engaging document of 1858 - "Interrogations of Yemelyan Pugachev and a letter about him from Empress Catherine II to Count P. I. Panin".

These and many other materials are available in more than 1000 Centres of Remote Access in all Russian regions and 30 foreign countries. They provide full access to the electronic collections of the Presidential Library, which include about one million storage items.

The Presidential Library regularly holds webinars on various topics via video conferencing. They introduce to the unique collections of the national electronic storage and release rare historical documents, publications and other materials that are little known to a wide audience.

The "The Golden Age of Catherine II" webinar will be broadcast online on October 23 from 10:00 (Moscow time) in the Live broadcasts section of the Presidential Library's portal in accordance with the live broadcast program. Please note that you need to update the portal page before watching the webinar in the Live broadcasts section.

The Presidential Library's portal also provides information about past and future webinars in the Webinars section, and news on Centres of Remote Access - in the Centres of Remote Access section.