The Early Reign of Oleg: Catherine the Great's Grand Ambition Towards Russia

Abstract

This thesis explores the eighteenth-century Russian Enlightenment, cosmopolitism, culture and humanities, and Russian music, under the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796). Petrine and pre-Petrine Russia was known for its autocratic and despotic rulers. However, Catherine was an avid disciple of Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire, Diderot, d’Alembert, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Beccaria, and Grimm. The objective of this research is to demonstrate Catherine's many “enlightened” ideals as she integrated them into Russia’s “most” important historical play, her very own The Early Reign of Oleg (1790) with music by Carlo Canobbio, Vasilij Pashkevich, and Giuseppe Sarti. This thesis also aims to illuminate eighteenth-century Russian music in the empress’s court.