Memoirs

"I cannot see a clean pen without feeling the desire to immediately dip it in ink," Empress Catherine II honestly confessed in her memoirs, which were banned in Tsarist Russia (even Nicholas I first became acquainted with them only after receiving a copy kept by Pushkin after his death). It was not until 1865 that Herzen published the Empress's memoirs in London, and they only became fully available to the domestic reader in the early 20th century. An incredible archive left by Catherine the Great has survived to this day, consisting of dozens of volumes, which contains her notes and letters, as well as journalism, plays, historical and philosophical works. This edition includes the late version of the "Memoirs" (covering the period from 1744 to 1758), as well as the "Selected Letters" of the Empress.