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Abstract:

N.M. Karamzin's judgments about Catherine the Great constantly attract researchers’ attention. This article attempts to examine in chronological order Karamzin's reviews of the personality and work of Catherine, presented in his writings of various genres (poems, “Historical Praise to Catherine the Great” a note “About Ancient and New Russia”, “The Opinion of a Russian Citizen”), as well as in conversations and letters of Karamzin. The purpose of the work is to comprehend the dependence of the delivered assessments on the author's intention, on the domestic political or international situation, on Karamzin's worldview and on his historical philosophy. The author analyzes Karamzin's assessments in the genre aspect, determines the dynamics and the dominant of Karamzin's assessments of Catherine, establishes the reasons for the idealization and mythologization of her image (despite the historiographer's awareness of her “weaknesses”). As a result, the main vector of changes in the image of the empress created by Karamzin is revealed: from her idealization and mythologization — to the “human character” and to the historical insight of her reign.

Кeywords: Catherine the Great, N.M. Karamzin, reviews and assessments, mythologization, “human character”, historical insight.