From great to ridiculous – the Presidential Library discovers unknown facts from the lives of famous people

The Presidential Library electronic collections, numbering more than 600 thousand units today, are not accidentally called the national treasury of the history of Russia, but documents and books digitized by library specialists - "registered in eternity". Here you can find royal decrees, first editions of Ivan Fyodorov's printing house, official biographies of prominent statesmen, and little-known facts from their life. In this "history in gigabytes" there was also a place for amusing cases and curiosities, which sometimes occurred with the powerful of this world.

Here, in particular, one can learn about Catherine the Great from the sources of the Presidential Library.

... Once the English envoy, Lord Witworth, presented Catherine II a huge telescope, which she admired very much. The courtiers, wishing to please the Empress, were in a hurry to guide each other to the sky and assured them that the mountains on the moon were quite clearly distinguishable. "I not only see the mountains, but even the forest", - said General Sergey Lavrentievich Lvov, the hero of the Ochakov storm, when the line came to him. "You excite in me curiosity", - Catherine said, rising from the chairs. "Be hurry, my lady, they have already started cutting down the forest; you should have time to look at it", -noted an experienced warrior.

In the presented on the portal of the Presidential Library "Selected Works" by Catherine the Great, edited by A. N. Chudinov (1894), the main principles of successful public administration were formulated and commented on. "All the present vices do not mean anything", - the Empress says, "they are similar to the flowing high water: water, coming to its former borders and banks, will have a more natural course than the previous one…". The Empress ... was convinced, like many great minds, that the root of all good is in knowledge, as well as the source of all evil in ignorance".

She considered the source of knowledge and experience to be her chosen interlocutors. She approached Suvorov to herself, contrary to the opinion of Potemkin, and had long conversations with him, invited Denis Diderot to St. Petersburg, with whom she had been in a long correspondence before. When he stressed her profound and versatile knowledge, Catherine answered: "And it is not surprisingly: I had good teachers - misfortune and loneliness". At the same time, the Russian Empress did not lose her love for life, her sense of humor, her tact.

In 1789 and 1790, Admiral Vasily Yakovlevich Chichagov won brilliant victories over the Swedish fleet. The Empress expressed a desire that he tell her about his campaigns. Catherine was warned that the admiral sometimes uses indecent expressions and is unlikely to please her with sea bikes. The Empress, however, insisted on her own. She accepted him in the office and, sitting opposite, prepared to listen. The old man began ... Without the skill to speak in the presence of such an important person, he was timid at first, but he became more animated, started shouting, waving his arms - as if he were talking to an equal. Having described the heated battle and having reached the moment when the enemy fleet turned to flight, the admiral forgot himself and, using scolding Swedes, began to use obscene words. "I will them ... I will them ...", - the admiral shouted. Suddenly the old man came to his senses, jumped up from his armchairs in horror, fell down before the empress: "It's my fault, mother, your Imperial Majesty ..."

"Not a big deal", - the Empress said meekly, "not a big deal, Vasily Yakovlevich, do continue; I do not understand your marine terms".

... Comic and dramatic, little known and so popular that they are attributed to folk art, but always the real facts from the history of our country you can find in electronic copies of unique publications stored in the Presidential Library.