Catherine played up her female-male image until the very end of her reign. Masculine dress became her clothing of choice for public appearances and military ceremonies. Her son’s teacher, Semen Poroshin, gave an account in his diary of her appearance on April 8th, 1765, when she took part in Easter festivities: “Her Highness visited a public comedy performance today; she was on horseback wearing the military uniform of a horse guardsman. She was donating money.”75 The next day, she visited a suburban tavern in a different uniform: “Her Highness was wearing the uniform of an infantry guardsman today; she went to the ‘Three Hands’ and had dinner there.”76 She also attended military training in June 1765 near Krasnoe Selo “on horseback, wearing a horse-guardsman’s uniform.”77
This image turned out to be a consistent poetic trope in all ode writing of the time. It reflected the episode from Catherine’s coup of 1762 when she had ridden ahead of the army bound for Peterhof dressed as a man. Vasilii Maikov, in his Ode on the Occasion of the Election of Delegates for a Committee for a New Code in 1767 (Ода на случай избрания депутатов для сочинения проекта Нового Уложения 1767 года), included the same poetic motifs which referred to the event:
A woman, dressed as a brave man, Overflowing with heroic spirit, Rushes ahead of defiant combat To fight and win all army around;
Her horse turns and whirls And kicks up the sand Making clouds of dust Peter was great and glorious, When he smashed the heads of the Reckless Swedes in the battle of Poltava. 78
75 Russkii Arkhiv, 7 (1869), 16.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid, 46.
78 Vasilii Maikov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 199.
The competition over Amazon images would continue for the following decades and would establish a ritual for the representation of the empress in poetry. Later, Gavrila Derzhavin (1743—1816), in his extended poem would deem the Amazon image the most appropriate for the empress:
Dress her beauty in golden armor, And put her in masculine attire Her helmet with feathers will shine, Zephyrs will stream through her locks;
Her horse will turn its head around Stormy foaming his furrows.
The grey-haired North will be amazed And let her possess him <…> 79
In his Explanations of the Works, Derzhavin connected this fragment from his poem to the events of 1762: “This is a picture of the Empress coming to the throne when, dressed as a warrior, sword in hand, she rode ahead of the guards on a brave white horse.”80 In addition, Derzhavin’s poem depicted Russian as an allegorical figure of “the grey-haired North,” that is, as a male figure in the cold, northern part of the world. After his ode Felitsa (Фелица, 1782), Derzhavin tried to revive metaphors of royal representation. The poem The Picture of Felitsa included newly invented devices for projecting the empress’s image. He associated Russia with a male, not a female, figure. Derzhavin’s male “grey-haired North,” who bowed before the beautiful horsewoman (and asked her to possess him) represented a chivalrous inversion of traditional gender roles.
The poet clearly identified himself with the “grey-haired North,”
a gallant metaphor (with obvious erotic connotations) of the newly Westernized Russia under Catherine’s rule.
During the last years of her rule, as tired of political connotations as she was of cross-dressing, Catherine returned to her early habits: she brought back the masquerade performances
79 Sochineniia Derzhavina. S ob’’iasnitel’nymi primechaniiami Ia. Grota, 1 (Saint Petersburg 1868), 191.
80 Ibid, 204.
47 C o u p D ’ é t a t a s C r o s s - D r e s s i n g
of Elizabeth’s era. In the late 1780s, Catherine got involved with the court theater Hermitage where foreign diplomats and her closest circle of friends also participated. The participants, the Empress included, wrote scenarios full of allusions to court life, all in French.
Catherine’s admirer, the quick-witted Count Ségure, composed Crispin Duegne, which addressed the fashionable topic of cross-dressing.81 Crispin, acting according to his master’s plan, disguises himself as a woman and serves as Henriette’s duegne to help his master court the young heroine. Performances of the comedy were met with tremendous success.
In 1790, Catherine held a court masquerade with traditional cross-dressing. In October, 1790, Alexander Khrapovitskii, her secretary, made note of the occasion in his diary: “I was told in secret that there would be a surprise at the Hermitage; according to the plan, the men should dress as women and the women as men.”82 The era of Empress Elizabeth, who adored masquerades, had faded into the past and become a historic tradition which no longer threatened Catherine’rule and seemed ripe for imitation. Catherine had laid out a plan for the masquerade. She made a detailed account of the number of people to be invited and the items to be prepared.
In addition, she described the main scenario for the approaching performance:
It occurred to me that we could organize a very amazing thing. We should arrange a ball in the Hermitage Palace, like in the old times, but with fewer people, and more distinguished guests. <…> The ladies should wear modest attire, without farthingales and elaborate headdress. <…> After a few dances, the Marshal of the Court will escort the Grand Duchess, in the company of a violinist, through all the rooms and into the large hall near the theater. The curtains in this hall should be down, especially at the entrance, so that what is to happen will be hidden from view. Four boutiques with masquerade costumes should be placed inside, two for women’s clothes, two for men’s. French actors will play the roles of merchants;
81 Théâtre de l’Hermitage de Catherine II, impératrice de Russie, composé par cette princess, par plusieurs personnes de sa societé intime, et par quelques ministres etrange (Paris, 1799), 1, 49—88.
82 A. V. Khrapovitskii, Pamiatnye zapiski (Moscow, 1862), 233.
they will sell, on credit, women’s dresses to men, and men’s clothing to women. There must be signboards above the boutiques which read: Men’s Goods for the women’s dresses and Ladies’ Wares for the men’s. <…>83
The empress and her ninety-four guests participated in the ceremony: the clothing was historical, further confusing and complicating the distinction between male and female. More than likely, the costumes did not make the participants look ugly or uncomfortable — a new kind of cross-dressing which excluded the sadistic subtext of the gender play at work under Elizabeth.
Khrapovitskii described the events: “There was a dinner in the Hermitage. After that, we opened the boutiques, donned our dresses, and the masquerade began; all the guests were very happy.”84
The masquerade had been designed as a theatrical performance: professional actors joined the courtiers, and all participants performed according to Catherine’s scenario. The cross-dressing took place in a room near the Hermitage’s theater.
The empress used her authority to transform the guests (among them was Grand Prince Pavel Petrovich) into obedient actors performing their roles. However, the theatrical character of the event overshadowed any political meaning. The masquerade was supposed to allude to Elizabeth’s era, but also to outshine it. Well-organized and pre-arranged, the masquerade was to demonstrate the excellence, style, and assurance of the court and sovereign’s power. The reference to Egypt was to demonstrate both the civilized and fashionable attitudes of the royal court. Born of masquerade amusements, Catherine’s political strategy of gender inversion had once again returned to its roots and become a court performance played out on the stage of the imperial theater.
83 Zapiski Imperatritsy Ekateriny Vtoroi (Saint Petersburg, 1907), 668.
84 A. V. Khrapovitskii, Pamiatnye zapiski, 234.
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