You're Dead to Me - Catherine the Great

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

In the first episode of a new series, Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Julia Leikin and comedian David Mitchell to learn all about the life of Catherine II of Russia, better known as Catherine the Great. Catherine’s story is full of contradictions and ambiguities. She was a German princess who became empress of all Russia, a ruler who believed in Enlightenment philosophy but championed imperial expansion, and a sexually open woman in the patriarchal eighteenth century. From her childhood in Germany through her marriage to the heir to the Russian throne and eventual coup against his rule, this episode charts the twists and turns of Catherine’s life, and asks what kind of ruler she really was. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Jon Mason Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are sailing along the Neva River to sojourn in 18th century St. Petersburg, as we learn all about Empress Catherine II of Russia, also known as Catherine the Great.

And to help us, we have two great guests. In History Corner, she's based at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she lectures on modern European and Russian history. It's Dr Julia Lakin. Welcome, Julia. Hello. Thank you for having me. Pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, he's a BAFTA-winning comedy writer, performer and broadcaster. You'd have seen him on all the telly, Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look, Back, Would I Lie to You, Upstart Crow, as well as hosting The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4. And he's now a published historian because he's just written a very funny book,

Unruly, A History of England's Kings and Queens. If anyone deserves the epithet, the great, it's David Mitchell. Welcome, David. Thank you very much. That's too complimentary. Alfred is the only great person in this country, I was told at school. No, Constantine the Great and Canute the Great would be the other greats. I do mention the fact that Canute the Great is named as great, but not according to Miss Brown.

She said it's just Alfred in England that's great. And I think it was because she thought that Canute is a bit Danish. So he counts as a great Dane. Not the dog. Not the dog. And Alfred's the only great. But Constantine, well, as in the emperor. The emperor. He was crowned in York. So he counts. Because he was crowned in York. He's one only great. But Constantine, as in the emperor. The emperor.

He was crowned in York, so he counts. Because he was crowned in York. He's one of ours. We can claim him. I see. I think you're stretching your point. Okay. All right.

Miss Brown is the authority. We'll go with Miss Brown. David, you are not only a history graduate, but you are now a published historian as well. So, I mean, the obvious worry for me is, are you coming for my job? Is this a coup? Yes.

Oh. Yes, I wish to take over the past and redefine it to my own advantage because that very much seems to be the spirit of the age. No, I've just written a funny book about kings and queens and then I will back off. All right. I will allow you that small amount of turf. But thank you for coming in.

And today we are doing kings and queens of a sort, but we're meandering eastwards. We're off to Russia. So what do you know about Catherine the Great? Well, I did Catherine the Great for A-level, at which point she was less than 200 years dead. So it was practically current affairs. She was one of the enlightened despots. And the thing about the enlightened despots is that they weren't particularly enlightened. But they were sort of the virtue signaling tyrants who sort of told the world that they loved Voltaire and they

thought that humanity was a thing that should be cherished. But they broadly allowed the repressive regimes that they inherited to continue. Quite an accurate summation, Julia. You're nodding. The politically correct term now is enlightened monarch or enlightened absolutist monarch. Well, because it's always rude to them to call them despots. Yes. Yes. You don't want to offend anyone with a large army. So what do you know? So this is the So what do you know? This is where I guess what our lovely listeners at home might know about today's subject. And I'm guessing they've heard of Catherine the Great. She's one of the great names from history. And probably it's because of her

powerful and influential reign. Although quite a lot of people I bump into when I mention Catherine the Great, the first thing that comes to mind is a dodgy story about a horse. And we'll get to that later. Julia is wincing. But Catherine the Great is everywhere in pop culture. Recently, we've been treated to Elle Fanning's performance in the hilariously raucous and wildly inaccurate TV series The Great. But Catherine's been portrayed by such icons as Marlena Dietrich, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Betty Davis, even Catherine Deneuve

in the bizarrely named movie God Loves Caviar. Ideal name for a film. She's everywhere but what about the real history behind all the glitz and grisly drama? What made Catherine so great? Was she great? Are we happy with that word? Let's find out. Right David we'll start with an easy one. What was Catherine's name and where did she grow up? She was German. Yes. And I think she was called Sophie. Look at you with your A-level knowledge.

Yes. No, she wasn't. There was nothing Russian about her. But then again, she was royal. And I think in Germany at the time, because it was the Holy Roman Empire and there were about 300 states. So I think it seems like 25% of the population were princes and princesses. And she was one of them. So she was quite a small fry. Yeah. She wasn't in line to be in charge even of a tiny bit of the Holy Roman Empire, let alone Russia, which is bigger than many, many Holy Roman Empires all stacked next to each other.

You can go home, Julia. I can go home, I was going to say. I'm packing my bags. No, OK. So, I mean, David's spot on there. So, Sophia, what's the name? And where in Germany? So Catherine was indeed named Princess Sophia Augusta Friederike of Anhalt-Seerbst when she was born.

She was born in 1729 in Pomerania in a little Baltic port called Stetten where her father, who was a Prussian army general, he was stationed there at the time. But Anhalt-Seerbst is actually somewhere closer to the middle. So she was the eldest of five siblings, but only she and one of her brothers survived into adulthood. It appears she had a rather strained relationship with her mother who resented the fact that she was in boy, i.e. in line to kind of inherit the principality of Anhalt-Seapst and also the fact that it was really painful to give birth to her. So Catherine had what she described as a precocious education. She was taught religion, history, geography by a Lutheran priest who was the army chaplain. And she challenged him with questions such as, what is circumcision? And the more metaphysical, what preceded the world? Anyway, I should also-

Two great questions, right? And a lot more. She loved debating theology with him and he really didn't enjoy. He didn't enjoy the witty repartee with a 10-year-old. Sophia, she was a healthy, energetic child until the age of seven when she got a violent cough that left her bedridden for three weeks. And when she finally got up, it turned out she had a curvature of the spine. Do you want to guess what the recommended treatment was by German doctors at the time? What are they suggesting for her? Right well I mean bleeding obviously first thing bleed people that's the rule in medicine isn't it until the middle of the 19th century? Pretty much yeah. If that doesn't help well they didn't think too much outside the box you want some sort of

horrendous bracing contraption. Maybe, or stretching. That might work as well. You could use the things that they used in the castle to torture people, but not turn it up to the full level. Put it on mid-power. Yeah, just put it on the medical level. And then it comes out of two budgets, both the medical and the torturing budget.

The torturing budget, much larger. I mean, I think David is coming for both of our jobs. Yeah. But no, it's true. Her spine was realigned with the use of a harness and some other folk remedies. So, for example, she was also rubbed down periodically with a young maid's saliva.

And these folk remedies... Worth a try. And these folk remedies were supervised not by the local doctor, but by the local hangman. So this may have led to a distrust of doctors later in life. I mean, you wrote a memoir about your bad back called Backstory, which is a wonderful book. Have you considered a hangman or made saliva? I was suggested many remedies. That's one of the problems with having a bad back. Everyone's got their own solution. But nobody suggested made saliva.

And, you know, I don't know if you can get that on the NHS. She recovered her health, Jan-Sofia, and aged about 14 or so, she's packed off to Russia with her mother because she's going to be a candidate for marriage, to go and be essentially shown in front of this young heir to the Russian throne. He's called Peter. And who is Peter? He's another German. Oh, okay.

And also her cousin. Great. Well, so her second cousin, so not quite so scandalous. So his full name was Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein. So later he became Grand Duke Fyodor Fyodorovich. But yes, like Sophia, Holstein. So later he became Grand Duke Pyotr Fyodorovich. But yes, like Sophia, he was raised in Germany. And he was also the nephew of Empress Elizabeth of Russia, who in tribute to her deceased sister Anna nominated him as heir to the Russian throne. He was also a direct descendant of Peter the Great, who was his grandfather. But even before becoming nominated to the Russian throne, he was already heir to the Swedish throne. So he was, and Sofia's mother,

after ignoring Sofia, you know, her entire childhood, suddenly took this real interest in securing the match and to further stack the deck in her daughter's favour, Johanna got wrapped up in all of these court intrigues and almost got herself deported from Russia for being a Prussian spy. Brilliant. Right.

Catherine was sent there with her mother to be, and she's only like a candidate for the husband of this Peter. Well, yes, so there were numerous factions at court vying for or trying to support different candidates because marriages were quite political at the time, right? So whoever you're married

to means that you might have an alliance, it's harder to invade, you know, there's a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. So there was a Polish princess. I think there was a pro-France faction at court, a pro-Austrian faction. And Sophia was actually the compromise candidate. She's the Joe Biden.

She was bring both houses together. Because I'm aware that obviously in a lot of royal history, the marriages are arranged. You know, Matilda, subsequently not queen of england yeah was sent aged eight to go and marry the holy roman they were not then called holy roman emperor but and then didn't marry obviously can't marry him when he she was eight that would have been barbaric they waited till she was 12. um but but i don't think there were other candidates i think the deal was done and she and the child was shipped off and she knew she would be an empress, but not for Sophie.

She had to sort of win a leader's debate. So how would you go about charming the Russian court, David? If the Tsar of Russia is Elizabeth and Peter is the heir, who you might be marrying, what are you going to do to catch his eye? To catch Peter's eye and impress Elizabeth, his aunt, in Russia in the middle of the 18th century. So you're in a big palace, but everybody sort of smells and is about to die of some infectious disease because that's what the past was like. How do I seem both like a good partner in life, but also overwhelmingly sexy?

These are not questions I have the answers to. I found the dating scene quite stressful just in early 21st century UK. I mean, the plan here is quite a clever plan. She studies Russian and she converts, doesn't she, Julia? She converts to Russian orthodoxy. That's right. She converts to Russian orthodoxy. That's right. She converts to Russian orthodoxy. And very shortly after arrival, she actually gets sick because she paces along the cold floor in her bedchamber, kind of drilling herself on Russian vocabulary and Russian grammar. And one of the ways that we see

Elizabeth's kind of high regard for her is that when she gets sick, Elizabeth sits over her bedside. The empress, right, is taking care of this young candidate. So she, like the empress, likes her. Yeah. She's already ahead of the deal. But why learn Russian? Because the guy she wants to marry is German as well. Yes. And they all spoke French anyway.

Did Elizabeth speak Russian? Well, yes, Elizabeth, she really embraced Russia's authentic traditions and she loved, you know, frolicking in the countryside and Russian manner and Russian customs, so learning Russian. And she was a very devout Orthodox empress. And Sophia also quite cunningly uses the 18th century Google Translate function of the time. She writes letters in her native language.

She gets her teacher to translate them and then she copies them out in Russian and then says, I did the translation. And she writes to Elizabeth. So she's buttering up Elizabeth by pretending to write letters in Russian but actually she's cheating yeah she's also learning everyone's names at courts she's learning everyone's dog's names she's plugging herself into the gossip network and the efforts pay off she was selected as the best possible wife for Peter. Despite her mother being a Prussian spy. No, that's exactly right. Elizabeth didn't hold that against her. And she even let her mother remain in Russia until Catherine and Peter were married. So this was a major concession, but her

father wasn't invited to the wedding. And partially because of this. Oh, really? Yeah, to chastise the mother. And of course, Sophia converts to Orthodoxy. She takes the name Yekaterina Alexievna, which we anglicise to Catherine. Elizabeth chose the name for her in honour of her own mother, Catherine I of Russia. The two were married on the 21st of August, 1745. Lovely. So we have Catherine and Peter,

and it's a match made in heaven. Or is it? I mean, Peter is not the great romantic catch. Do you know anything about Peter as a young man? No, I don't know much about this Peter. Okay. Well, all I remember is that I don't think we're going to be hearing from him for the whole of this episode. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, Julia, the word I'm going to use that's probably the kindest word is immature. No, that's exactly right. He was immature. He enjoyed childish games, toy soldiers.

He had rude table manners. He cared only for hunting, dogs, drinking, carousing, dressing up his servants in Prussian uniforms and making them parade around. Historians have referred to him as a parade-o-maniac. He just sounds like a standard monarch. They're all obsessed with hunting. If they only had invented the Nintendo earlier, the amount of wildlife that would have survived. Pareto maniac is a lovely word, but he's obsessed with the Prussians. He loves what the Prussian military uniform looks like. He likes Prussian shoulders because they're very tall,

they're big. He just likes watching men parade around. He could also be quite cruel to animals. Famously, he catches a rat chewing on one of his toy soldiers. How do you think he punishes the rat? I think he batters it with a shoe. He gives it a full court-martial. All right. And then he builds a miniature gallows and hangs it. Well, I mean, you say that that's cruel, but in fact that's a proper judicial protest. Isn't it? Actually, that's according the rat's own rights. People who have problems with pests in London,

do they all court-martial them? Every single mouse or cockroach? Catherine finds the body of the rat dangling from the gallows. Right, yeah. What have you been doing, darling? What is this? It's perhaps unsurprising, David, that sparks

are not flying in the bedroom between Catherine and Peter, if this is what he's doing in his spare time. And she's finding rat corpses in the bedroom. Julia, they're not really getting along in the physical sense, are they? No, much to Elizabeth's chagrin, they're not. In part because Peter was rather fond of bringing his toy soldiers to bed.

And it appears, true story, and it appears that nobody gave the couple any instructions on what was supposed to happen in the bedchamber. So, exactly. Anyway, eventually, after a decade of marriage, Catherine does produce and heir a son on September 20th, 1754. And publicly, Paul was recognized as Peter's heir, but in all likelihood, he was the son of his upbringing, his education, and this affected Catherine's relationship with Paul for the rest of her life. And then despite this experience,

she went and did the exact same thing to her grandchildren when they were born. Okay, so Paul is the heir. Elizabeth is fine with this arrangement where the lover has come into the bedroom to produce an heir, right? That's interesting, isn't it? Because they obsess these royal families with royal blood. Like that that really matters. Obviously, that is a notion we have now rejected. In fact, it's better that you don't limit yourself to giving power

to people from one inbred family. But in those days, they thought that was otherwise the magical ruling dust doesn't come from God, does it? It's all ruined then. And Elizabeth's in on it. She knows basically this isn't her nephew's son. So they've just chucked out the whole system.

This is a random German princess and her lover's child, who's now head of the Russian royal house. That's not the system, is it? Why is that okay? That's not the system, is it? Why is that OK? We don't know. So we don't know whether he was whose son Paul was because he grew up to look a lot like Peter III, surprisingly.

OK, so that could have been makeup. They're certainly not going to encourage him to have a different hairdo when they're trying to forge legitimacy. What I'm saying is I know that the Russians rig elections now. I didn't realize they also rigged primogeniture. Well, actually, no, there was no primogeniture. I mean, Peter the Great's law of succession got rid of primogeniture and the monarch could appoint essentially their own heir, which is how the Peter we're talking about, the Peter of Holstein, was nominated as Elizabeth's heir. Even though he wouldn't by prim primogeniture, have been the heir.

By primogeniture, Elizabeth wouldn't have been on the throne. She also seized power in a coup, as had the Empress before her. They do say that, essentially, the Russian throne goes to the occupier. Or at least in the 18th century it did. And just to say, primogeniture is, of course, the traditional medieval law that the firstborn son will inherit the throne as long as they're legitimate. So in 1761, Empress Elizabeth dies, having, I guess, successfully introduced the heir, you know, an heir of sorts. Paul will be an heir at some point.

And so in comes Peter III, the new Tsar, Catherine's husband. And what policies do you think he's enacting, David? There's been a lot of limits on the movement of rats, definitely. Julia, his policies are not awful. He's not terrible. Some of Peter's policies actually enjoy some support, but Peter was probably not cut out to be the monarch because he wasn't really that interested in governance even before he ascended the throne. When he was kind of governing Holstein from a distance it wasn't him but Catherine the Great or Catherine back then just Catherine. Catherine who was ably kind of stepping in and assisting him. This was so well known that foreign ambassadors

had come to refer to her as Madame la Ressource. Madame the Ressource that's great. Yeah exactly. Yeah so she was the power behind the throne. Well, pre-throne. And then when he becomes the Tsar, is she basically running it for him? Well, no. Spoiler alert. He only stays in power for about six months. But at the time, she was pregnant with her third lover's baby.

So she was actually staying out of the limelight. In his six short months, he managed to alienate key centres of power. He criticised the Russian Orthodox Church and deprived it of certain financial privileges. And it was rumoured that he wanted to convert Russia to Lutheranism. This is probably not true, but certainly didn't help his cause. So are we to take it that he would have preferred to have been King of Prussia? Because actually, I would say Emperor of Russia is basically a better job than King of Prussia. And the King of Prussia, who was at that point Frederick the Great, might have been willing to swap. It's worth asking.

All Frederick the Great did was try and make his kingdom bigger. And if he's suddenly in charge of Russia, well, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Yeah, a job swap where everyone wins. They do it with managers of football clubs. I'd have loved to have seen Frederick the Great's take on Russia. I certainly think the Ottoman Empire would be in for a pummeling. Yes, and then the other thing that Peter is doing is he's also alienating the courtiers in the actual courts

because he's invented a fun new game for the elderly Russian nobles. I like to think of Peter as basically an eight-year-old boy who's been given too much power. What kind of game do you think he's making them play? I don't know, Twister? Twister with guns? Nude Twister with guns? Careful, because that's a great idea.

No, it's basically hopscotch with added violence. So the name of the game... I wasn't far off. No, you have to knock the old men over by kicking them up the bum. So elderly men just being kicked over constantly. So he's only really in power for sort of six months or so, and already he's alienated everyone. But the most important thing for our story,

because we're talking really about Catherine, is that what's it like being married to this man? So for Catherine, I mean, this marriage was absolutely dreadful. And like you said, they had been married for 18 years by the time he took the throne. And their relationship really oscillated, really changed over that time. So throughout the marriage, though, he had flaunted his mistresses in her face, and he wanted to go on double dates, essentially, with her messieurs and his mistresses, which Catherine found a little awkward.

So he was up for an open marriage? I mean, they essentially... And she said, no, we have affairs and we keep it secret. Otherwise, it's not sexy. More or less. Anyway, but then once he became emperor, he was especially cruel and he publicly insulted her. There was, you know, kind of this one banquet

where he called her a fool in front of everyone. She ran away in tears, further increasing support for her. But the whole time that they were married, she took comfort in reading and paramours of her own. But by the time he came to power, they were virtually leading separate lives. And she's suffering depression at this time. She's got her lovers. Her most famous lover at the time is Gregory Orlov. But there comes a point where she's like, right, that's it. Enough. Enough of this man. That point comes after certainly after

she gives birth to her child with Grigory Orlov, Alexei. And then afterwards. But I should mention, it wasn't Catherine who was the author of the plot. She was just receptive to others' propositions. Sure. I'm open. I'm open to offers.

I mean, there's a line... She writes her memoirs later and she edits them a lot so we're never quite sure at what stage she's writing things and then they sort of get added back in

little additions later. But there's a very powerful line where she says it was a matter of either perishing with or because of him or else of saving myself, the children

and perhaps the state. So she's also worried that she might be killed in a second coup. Someone else's coup might come in for Peter and she might just get caught up in it. So she could be either killed by him or killed by the people who supplant him because she is, after all, his wife. Right. So she feels she has to orchestrate a coup or two in self-defence. Exactly.

Yeah. I mean, that is certainly, I'd say, if I had orchestrated a coup in self-defence. Exactly. That is certainly, I'd say, if I had orchestrated a coup to take over Russia, that is how I would retrospectively justify it. Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't make it not true, but I would just say that is also what you would say whether or not it's true.

How do you launch a coup? Obvious, you need to get the army on site and then you occupy the TV and radio stations. And here we are, the BBC, we're already halfway there. Absolutely. You need to get the army on side and then you occupy the TV and radio stations. So I shoot. And here we are at the BBC. We're already halfway there. I think there's a guy at the door with some caviar. Yeah, I mean, you're spot on. Get the army on side is half the battle.

And Catherine does that incredibly quickly. That's right. So Catherine and her allies, they had been building up support on her behalf throughout Peter's reign. And this wasn't very hard to do because she was quite popular and Peter was not. And her lover, Grigoriy Arlov, and his brothers were quite well regarded among the military regiments. And Nikita Panyin, the Grand Duke's tutor, but also a senior statesman, he had sought to secure political support for her as well. But then their plans were almost spoiled because one of their supporters got arrested, so the plan had to move up. She was awoken early in the morning on

the 28th of June in 1762 at Peterhof by Alexei Arlov, so the brother of her lover. And then they raced to St. Petersburg where elite army regiments proclaimed her as empress and sovereign of all Russias. Then she went to the Kazan church. She was proclaimed sovereign by the clergy. And then she reached the Winter Palace where crowds cheered and soldiers swore oaths of loyalty to her there. And Peter, of course, didn't even know that he was overthrown until the following day when he got to Peterhof and found it empty. Then Catherine puts on this guard's uniform and rides to Peterhof to arrest Peter. And at first he tries to negotiate, but then he signed an unconditional abdication. He

was arrested, taken to his country estate at Ropsha, while his quarters at Schlüsselberg Fortress were being prepared. And Catherine wasted no time in arranging her coronation. So on September 22nd in 1762, at the age of 33, she was proclaimed the Empress of Russia and to demonstrate further her respect for Russian traditions. And this is also key because her manifesto on accession to the throne accused Peter of undermining orthodoxy and endangering Russian traditions and institutions and its military glory. So she wanted to kind of highlight her association to Russia. She was crowned in the Moscow Kremlin at the Assumption Cathedral.

So she was really capitalising on the political religious symbolism of this location. So 1762 is the coup. She seizes power and Peter is just out. He doesn't even know what's happened. And he wakes up one morning, you're no longer the Tsar. How long do you think he lasts, David? I don't sense he's around a year later, is he? No.

Is he around the following Saturday? Pretty much, no. He gets eight days. Eight days? Eight days. All right, guess what he was. If he was, it depends what day of the week it was. Sure, sure.

He's probably strangled by Gregory Orlov. Alexei. Is it Alexei? Okay. So an Orlov brother, one of the five. They're interchangeable. They get drunk in a party. No, no, no.

Not interchangeable. One was a lover and one was a big fighter. Not interchangeable. You've got to pick the right brother for the right job. Exactly. Oh, I picked the wrong brother. I got the plumber brother. The lover brother's trying to strangle you.

This is a disaster. Grigori was the handsome one and Alexei Arlov had this big scar on his face. Oh, perfect. He even looked intimidating. Helps you remember. Exactly. It's the one with the scar.

He does the strangling. Yes. Whereas the one with the flamenco shoes, he's the lover. He's the one you want. So, okay, Sir Peter gets eight days and then he is strangled. Wink, wink, without Catherine's permission.

Obviously. Obviously, Catherine would never say yes. That is also what I would say in retrospect in her shoes. I have to ask Julia, is there a kind of conversation where they sort of say, well, look, Catherine's got an heir, Paul. He should be Tsar. Can she be regent? Can she keep the throne warm? But actually, Paul's the rightful heir. Nikita Panyin's original plan or kind of vision was that Catherine would be regent to her son Paul. And you're right, Catherine really, as we've been talking, Catherine really didn't have a legitimate claim to the throne. And you know, the only precedent is palace coups like Empress

Anna in 1730 and Empress Elizabeth in 1741. And there was quite a lot of precedent. It seems like what mainly is happening in Russia in the 18th century is that women orchestrate coups and then rule. We even call it the, you know, age of the palace coup. And also the fact that she's the third woman to rule in the 18th century. When women come to power, the fourth.

Peter the Great's second wife, who was initially a Lithuanian peasant. Amazing. Okay, so actually it's not like Tudor England where a woman comes to power and everyone freaks out like, oh my God, a woman in power. Here, they're like, yeah, a woman in power. Like last week. That's normal for us.

And she was Catherine I, wasn't she? So it's just another Catherine ruling when Peter's dead. Right. Yeah. It's a different Peter, different style of death. But nevertheless, it's the same. Peter's dead. Catherine's in charge.

Delete is applicable. It's a style of death, but nevertheless, it's the same. Kate is dead, Catherine is in charge. Delete is applicable. She also makes sure that she weeds out basically anyone who might spark popular outcry against her. So makes sure to stamp out the opposition. There are several. And she spends the first few years of her reign

really being afraid of multiple threats to her legitimacy, including possibly some from those who want to put her son, Paul, on the throne. Yes, Paul will become a bit of a thorn in her legitimacy, including possibly some from those who want to put her son Paul on the throne. Yes, yeah, Paul will become a bit of a thorn in her side, actually. And this Paul, because Paul, you said earlier, was brought up by, essentially under the rule of Elizabeth. He's somewhat estranged from her. Oh, yeah, they have a terrible relationship. And, you know, kind of the older he gets, they are deemed to be in competition with one another. And Paul always considers Peter III as his father, regardless of what the case may actually be. And so he kind of resents in some ways about what happens.

And after Catherine dies, he moves Peter III and his body to kind of align next to her. All right. So let's talk about the Russia that Catherine has inherited, the state, the country, the people, much like the early Beach Boys. It's all about the serf. What is a serf? How does serfdom work? Tell us about Russian society. So serfdom, it was both a social and economic system in Russia at the time. Serfs were peasants. They were bonded to estates where they largely worked the land. But they also were the ones who paid taxes and they provided the base for military recruitment. So serfdom was a very important system. There were up to 10 million of them in a population of about 20 million.

Russia very much depended on these peasant agricultural workers. And they lived in horrible conditions. They had very little freedom. They needed their owner's permission to leave their village to take up certain livelihoods. They were legally forbidden from marrying who they wanted to unless they had their owner's permission from protesting against their owner's actions, and they could be bought and sold. So as Catherine put it, their lives or their souls weren't their own. And the institution of serfdom was an important political and economic question in Catherine's Russia. This was the question on which Catherine and the people who supported her, right, all of the nobles really diverged on. Let's talk domestic policy, everyone's favourite. Catherine sort of goes first and foremost for the legal code. She launches a public consultation.

How modern, how Blairite. Well, this, I remember this from This Is All The Enlightened. It's not Enlightened, was it? Enlightened. That feels like that's the big, see how I'm doing a law code. And that's like, that's what Montesquieu would want. And Voltaire will write letters saying how approving he is. And it seems so organised, but broadly speaking,

everyone's living in a horrendous squalor with no rights. This sort of chaotic legal system, she tries to reform it in 1767. She calls a legislative, I can't even say the word, a legislative committee or a commission even. And it appoints people from all over Russia. It's quite surprising in some ways. That's right. So this legislative commission called in 1767, it was really like a national assembly before both the Constitutional Convention

in the nascent United States and before the French National Assembly after the French Revolution. So delegates who were elected from among the nobility, from merchants, industrials, Cossacks, non-Russian communities. So everyone except the serfs and the clergy were represented here. There were over 500 delegates. But importantly, as guidance for the work of this commission, she wrote the Nakas, or the Great Instruction to the Legislative Commission. She spent about two years writing this thing. But it was really more like a set of principles,

which she largely culled from Enlightenment era texts. So these are nice principles. They are, but they're very abstract, right? So, you know, what does liberty really mean to say to or like everyone should... I think liberty to a serf means, you know, that thing you haven't got, it's that. Well, but they were endowed the commission, so no one asked them. But, right, so they're really, really abstract. So what are they?

There's liberty. So people have liberty. I mean, there's 655 articles. Well, liberty is everything that's not explicitly prohibited by law. So over 600 articles, they sent 204 times. David, how many legal recommendations after all this time did they agree on? Oh, I mean, I don't know, 96. If only.

I'm going to say one. Well, yes, sort of. And it was never officially implemented. They didn't make any legal recommendations. But what they did do is agree to bestow onto Catherine the title The Great. And this really annoyed her, right, because she wanted them there to discuss policy. And they even gave her a choice. Would you like to be The Great, The Wise, or Mother of the Fatherland?

And she chose the latter, Mother of the Fatherland, and said that history was going to be the judge of the former. But secretly, she was really flattered because Peter didn't get to be The Great until the fourth decade of his rule. But why didn't they agree on anything else? Well, I mean, for one thing, because these are really abstract principles and they didn't really have much experience. They spent a lot of time reading the Nakas out loud over and over again because, you know, a third of them or half of them were illiterate. So essentially it's formless.

Those 500 people are assembled basically a bit like a parliament, except in a country where there's no parliamentary tradition, and they don't really know what's going on. She's in charge. She sent this huge document. We'd better just say how nice she is. Yeah, there are domestic reforms that she does pass, which do matter. They do have an impact, Julia. That's right. So using kind of her powers as an enlightened monarch with nearly unlimited reach, she does implement the sweeping program of reforms. So there's the 1775 provincial reform that draws the lines and the borders of the Russian Empire and kind of rationalizes them. She established new courts, she created local boards of welfare to provide, you know, healthcare and education. She set up foundling homes, mental asylums.

She was particularly interested in the area of education. So in May 1764, she set up the Smolny Institute for Noble Girls. So this was modeled on foreign boarding schools, but it had a secular curriculum, you know, another kind of nod to the Enlightenment, and also the Novodevichy Institute for the Third Estate. In 1786, she provided for the establishment of free schools throughout the empire, although there was some limited take up there for various reasons. We also associate her reign with a greater policy of religious toleration, although historians have argued that these policies of toleration transformed religious authority into an arm of imperial rule. The Russian nation faces a huge medical epidemic of bubonic plague and then smallpox. It's a huge problem. And Catherine introduces variolation, which is smallpox inoculation. She works with

a British doctor called Thomas Dimmesdale, and he gives her and her son Paul variolation, which is where you take the scabs from a smallpox victim and you rub them on your open wound so that you get mini smallpox, basically. And this is something that had come out of West Africa. It was used in the Ottoman court. And she is one of the very earliest to introduce it into a European nation. So she's quite brave in introducing that for herself, for her son, and for Russia itself. Well, she decides to lead by example, which is a good thing. So it became very fashionable, essentially,

to receive the inoculation. But I should say she overcame kind of her own, not only her distrust of doctors, but also she was especially afraid of smallpox because it killed her uncle, right, Elizabeth, and disfigured her husband. We talked about domestic policy, but she meddles in the election of the King of Poland

and she knows him. David, how do you think she knows him, the new king? The King of Poland? The new one. I don't know, maybe they had a thing. Yep. Yeah. You're getting the gist now, aren't you?

Yeah, figuring out. He's a former lover of hers called Stanislaw August Poniatowski. And yeah, from from bedroom to throne room, the ultimate sleeping away to the top. Yeah, it's great, right? I mean, fair enough. So she's interfering in Polish politics. Later on, she pretty much invades Poland and calms it up. She's not just sort of domestic policy only.

She's going to get involved. And then there's the Ottoman Empire. You talked about them getting pummeled. They become a bit of a kind of adversary, Julia, don't they? The Russians and the Ottomans fought about 10 wars before the Crimean War. The Ottoman Empire wasn't just Catherine's adversary. But by seeing her intervention in Poland, the Ottoman Empire gets particularly nervous about Russia's growing influence and searches out a pretext and declares war on Russia in September 1768. Now, since the time of Peter the Great, Russia had tried to get access to the Black Sea

and also influence events in the Mediterranean. So Russia really devotes a lot of resources to this and comes out victorious. And she annexes it later in 1783. Right, in 1783, she annexes Crimea, and then she kind of goes on this triumphal tour of the territories in 1787. This provokes the second Russian-Ottoman war because with all of these glorious military and naval exercises, the Ottoman Empire suddenly...

Gets angry. Well, yeah, it gets angry, imprisons the Russian ambassador, declares war, and to make matters worse, Sweden declares war from the other side. Oh, not Sweden. And Sweden.

Russia eventually defeats both and then also later carves up Poland a little more. Yeah, there you go. So enlightened monarch at home, fun-loving war criminal away. Russia's getting vastly bigger. From a starting point of being massive, it gets even bigger, but crucially further south,

more access to the sea, which is worrying all the other countries. And also further west, right? Right. Oh, okay. No west along the Baltic, as it were, into Poland. Yes, exactly.

So Poland doesn't exist, but also further east, right? So Russian encroachment, Siberia continues. There are these expeditions to the North Pacific, and it sets up eventually kind of the formal colonization of Alaska. So you'd think that Catherine's huge success in terms of foreign policy and domestic policy, that people would be delighted with her. But there are actual several rebellions against her.

Her son's always plotting against her. But the most famous one is called the Cossack Rebellion. It's led by a guy called Pugachev, I think. He genuinely rises up against the Julia. And it's the largest rebellion in imperial Russia before the 20th century. So Emilian Pugachev, he's a leader, a Cossack. Cossacks were autonomous communities of soldiers across the Russian steppe, and they served the Russian state as frontier soldiers. But by this time, they had very legitimate grievances on the state's encroachment in their traditional autonomy. So in 1773, Pugachev taps into this resentment. And, you know, he raises thousands of supporters, and they kind of plunder and massacre populations and lay siege

to imperial strongholds. Now, what makes this particularly interesting was Fugachov's claim to be Peter III, Catherine's dead husband. And so as Peter III, he issued manifestos, he bestowed favors, he lavished gifts onto his followers, he liberated them from obligation and taxes and pardoned them for their crimes, and also set up these parallel institutions. So he held court and lived in a palace. Sorry, there are air quotes here around these. And he had a state war college parallel to the imperial war college. So there was this very carnivalesque quality to his behavior. And eventually, this uprising suppressed because the war with the Ottoman Empire ends and troops are sent in to put down the

rebellion and Pogacar is handed over even by his own followers. He's supposed to be a quarter, but the executioner beheads him first. That's kind of accidentally. So they ruin the opportunity of all that cruelty. But so there's this conspiracy theory, essentially, then that Peter III hadn't been strangled, but he just slipped off somewhere and lived as a Cossack. Like Elvis. That's quite a common thing. People thought Richard II was still alive in England for a long time.

Lambert, Simnel, Perkin, Warbeck, all that. She tried to anticipate this, actually, by displaying his strangled body. So he lay in state for a while. I mean, they put some fluffy scarf or something around him and he looked horrible. But she tried to anticipate this very thing. How far is the impersonation going? Is he court-martialing rats? Is he cosplaying as Peter?

No, he's court-martialing people, but the fact that he doesn't have an authority. Okay. When you weaken the authority, you've got this mad notion that being from the right family will give you special ruling powers. But as soon as you start to tinker with that notion, then other people will inevitably start pretending that they've got the magical ruling powers because you haven't kept a lid on the mad system that you're ostensibly running.

But were there legitimate, as you say, legitimate grievances of the Cossacks? Is that to do with Catherine's imposition of more state structure throughout the empire? So in the one side, it's sort of liberal and getting organized and having a proper state. On the other side, it's encroaching upon individual communities' historical rights. That's right. But it's not unique to Catherine. It had been ongoing. And these are things like forcing them to go serve in wars, but not in Cossack units. Okay. historical rights. That's right. But it's not unique to Catherine. It had been ongoing. And

these are things like forcing them to go serve in wars, but not in Cossack units. Okay. So there's a lot. So the Cossack rebellion is a big threat to her and she manages to crush it. Paul Hassan, big threat to her, managed to keep him quiet enough. But we've talked already about the paradox of the Enlightenment monarch. David's mentioned Voltaire. What kind of Enlightenment vibes is she giving off? She is an Enlightened monarch, but she's Voltaire. What kind of Enlightenment vibes is she giving off? She is an Enlightenment monarch, but she's also a pragmatist. So I think we see this pattern that on the one hand, she tries to rule Russia in this just and humane kingdom, but then she also keeps butting up against principles. Now, when Denise Diderot comes

to visit Russia, they spend 60 afternoons chatting. He's one of the editors of the encyclopedia. He's one of the editors of the Encyclopedia. He's one of the French Enlightenment philosophers, kind of a big figure. And so they spent afternoons chatting away, and he wants to kind of restructure all of Russia. And she says to him, you know, that all of your grand principles, they make fine books, but I'm a poor empress. I work upon human nature, which is irritable and easily offended. So she kind of begins to recognize the political limits to her absolutism. And just to say that after the French Revolution, which had taken Enlightenment principles to its very extremes, there's a noticeable shift in Russia.

So Russia, after 1789, becomes distinctly more conservative. Yeah, it happens everywhere, doesn't it? They see everywhere. They see the French Revolution and they panic. They sort of go, all these ideas we've been flirting with, these letters we've been writing to philosophers, we've got to row back on that or we'll all get guillotined. Yes.

There's one philosopher who refuses to visit Russia because he's scared of what will happen to him. And the reason he is scared is because, we haven't mentioned this, Peter, when he's killed, he's strangled, but the official cause of death that's given is fatal hemorrhoids It's nice to let him go with something

Is he done on beer? I think it might be done on beer I think this philosopher says, I'm not going to Russia, I have hemorrhoids and I know what happens to people with hemorrhoids in Russia They die The interesting thing I think is that not only is she interested in politics, you know, she reads Voltaire, she reads Diderot, she meets him.

She's writing, too. She writes history books. She writes poems. She writes music and literature and theatre and her own memoirs. She's hugely productive as a creative force. But moving on, she has lots of lovers. We think at least 12, some say 17. But the greatest lover is Potemkin.

How do I pronounce it? Potemkin. First name Battleship. Battleship, that's right. His parents, very unusual. Had a hamster called Battleship. Have you heard of this fella? I have heard of him and I've heard and obviously the Battleship was named after him

and so I'm assuming he's like a military guy a big military guy that helped her and also had an affair with her. A great love but more than that, he's like a military guy, a big military guy that helped her and also had an affair with her. A great love, but more than that, he's probably the only lover who's on her intellectual equal, right? Is that fair? Yes, I think. Yeah. So he's almost prime ministerial to her.

That's a very rude thing to say about the king of Poland. Sorry. That's a very good point. So the king of Poland was, you know, this kind of erudite, very well-educated European man of letters. And Potyomkin is very clever. He's very smart. He's very energetic. He's eccentric, too, but they come from different worlds. So he kind of embodies this old Russian heroism, whereas Paniatovsky, the King of Poland, is much more European. So Potyomkin, one of her great loves, possibly even her husband, she refers to him as husband in their letters. And essentially, their physical relationship only

lasts for a couple of years, in part because I think they couldn't really reconcile their deep love and his political ambitions. And so instead, he is placed to kind of manage the southern empires, right? The Crimean editions. Yeah, exactly. placed to kind of manage the southern empires. The kind of Crimean editions. Yeah, exactly. So he kind of helps integrate the annexed Crimea into the empire. He sets up the Black Sea Fleet and he wins the second Russian-Ottoman war. Allegedly, he even helps kind of screen successors for the role of favorite, which really adds to our various crass characterisations of Catherine's

sexuality. Screen favourites as in, not that guy, he's too good a lover. He introduces her. So he sort of feels that if he introduces her to her next lover, he would sort of retain some sort of control and, you know, this would be his

guy is her new squeeze. Because we haven't said that she comes to power age 33 and she rules for 34 years. Most of her romantic life, she's older than her lovers. And the older she gets, the younger they get. Fair enough. And that unfortunately brings us on to, well,

relations with horses, question mark. Her sexuality is, or is this scandal that gets associated with it which is cruel and propagandized but the idea here is that she how do i do this on radio fall she has physical intimacy with a horse that's the correct formulation unfortunately the story is entirely untrue there's no historical basis for it. And, you know, it's just kind of... People don't, do they? You just don't. In general, it doesn't happen.

No. Whereas it does sound like the sort of thing people would make up to undermine the reputation of someone who's famously promiscuous. Yes. But also really, I think, to undermine her achievements as well, right? As a woman on the throne.

So... And there's all this sort of sexual scandal. There is propaganda against her. She's not popular in the European press and the American press. So there is quite, you know, the British, the French, the Americans, they're writing about her. The more powerful Russia gets, kind of the more calumny Catherine receives.

And there are very, lots of unflattering depictions. The Imperial Stride is this famous 1791 sketch of her that both sexualises her and tries to point out that she's this imperialistic, hungry monarch. And we're not going to show you the pornography, but there is pornography. Political pornography. It must have been, from a British or American perspective, the fact that Russia now has access to the Black Sea is a massive own goal. And, you know, it's caused some problems subsequently.

At this point, Britain doesn't actually have a lot of trade in the Black Sea. So it's really much more the French who are concerned. The French are more worried. But Russian intervention and kind of incursions into the Mediterranean are of greater concern, but also acquisition of territory, because obviously territory means more wealth and more people who could be put in armies to march against.

Yes, the bigger your population, the bigger your army. Catherine was also kind of known for this policy of populationism. So not only kind of her desire to preserve the public health of the population, but she also invited lots of settlers and gave them lots of privileges. Because that's the key resource. The key resource is people, not land. Let's talk about her final years then. So Sir Potomkin dies, she's quite old, and how much longer after his death does she die too? Well, she dies in 1796, but I should say that the final years of her reign had quite a different

tenor to the earlier part. We talked about how the French Revolution and especially the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette closed the curtain on this more open-minded, enlightened Catherine, right? The one who encouraged independent thinking and reform. And one mark of this was her reaction to the publication of Alexander Radishchev's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, which pointed to the inhumanity of serfdom. So Radishchev was sentenced to death, but his sentence was eventually commuted, and he was merely exiled to Siberia. And Catherine later wrote that Radishchev was a worse rebel than Pugachev. These final years before her death in 1796, she also partitioned Poland two more times, won the Russian-Ottoman and the Russian-Swedish War, and was even going to intervene in the French

Revolutionary Wars in Italy. But she didn't because she died inconveniently. And although her partner, right, in so many ways, Potemkin died in 1791, she had the young Platon Zubov on her arm. So she was still recognizable as this energetic monarch. And her death, of course, was not as dramatic as legend. She collapsed in her toilet, her water closet. No horses. No horses. Okay. After what must have been a stroke. And she had to be carried to her bed, but they couldn't quite lift her onto the bed. So she died 36 hours later on the floor. Oh. Yeah. And she was succeeded by Paul, who not only tried to erase her legacy, but revived the military tone of his father, Peter III's reign.

And he brings back primogeniture, right? Of course he does. So male primogeniture. So this means more peaceful transitions. But this was the last time a woman ruled Russia. And what about her memory? He essentially suppressed any talk of her. Really? So even though her reign had been very successful, he doesn't try and... Because that would be more common, wouldn't it?

To sort of derive your legitimacy from a previous successful regime. No, he derives his legitimacy by emulating Peter III. Fetch the rat gallows! I mean, he doesn't survive on the throne very long either because he's killed in favour of his son, Alexander I, who is much more kind of in line with Catherine the Great's reigns

and then her posthumous reputation becomes a question of some debate. The Nuance Window! It's time for The Nuance Window. This is where Dr. Julia gets two uninterrupted minutes to tell us something we need to know about Catherine the Great. So without much further ado, Julia, take it away, please. Thanks, Greg.

So I just wanted to use this opportunity to unpack what exactly made Catherine great. So was it on the one hand her cultural aspirations, her enlightened views, her Republican spirit, or her emulation of Peter the Great's expansionism and desire to influence the political affairs of Europe? Now, in light of Russia's current war in Ukraine, it's difficult to uncritically celebrate her imperial ambitions, particularly because Catherine's policies affected the territories that today make up Ukraine. And even on her own terms, Catherine was this immensely complicated, multifaceted figure, which is what makes her so interesting. And as I

suggested in the century following her death, her posthumous reputation had already become this idiom in which the Russian empire worked out its national politics. So the celebrated empress was chastised by many, including Russia's national poet, Alexander Pushkin. Now in the 21st century, Catherine II has been deployed as a propaganda figure for the Putin regime because Putin has depicted her as a foreigner who yearned to become Russian, a woman who wrote that she will defend her homeland with her tongue and with a pen and with a sword, right? So echoing these military aspects of her rule and the appropriation of many parts of Ukraine, including Crimea, for the Russian Empire.

This is a history that has not endeared her to the Ukrainian nation. So it's a topical reminder to ask whose perspective a historical characterization celebrates. Much of what made Catherine such a celebrated figure, expanding the Russian empire, gaining access to the Black Sea, developing the northern shores of the Black Sea, command over this vast empire, suppressing rebellion, acquisition of cultural artifacts. These all happened at great expense to the autonomy of others. So I'd say that current international politics really raises the question of whether this is a price that's worth paying for greatness. David, Catherine the Great. The thing is, I suppose you can only, you have to judge historical figures on their own terms.

And on her own terms, she succeeded in her own aims. I think the British, the French, the Americans, they were not keen on her by the end, so it's an interesting question whether you get judged by your enemies or by your people. The fact she was called Catherine the Great in her reign is quite interesting. That's very rare. What strikes me is that through most of human history, most of the government most places have got,

has been brutal and terrible, and I think that goes for her as well. But she's not an outlier in that regard. So what do you know now? This is our quickfire quiz to see how much David has learned. And we have talked extensively about an awful lot of stuff. So let's see how well you do. So question one. Where was Catherine born in 1729? Oh, Stettin. Question two. What did young Catherine do

to try and impress the Empress Elizabeth of Russia? She learnt Russian. She did? Yeah. And in terms of letter writing, what did she do? She pretended she could write letters in Russia

by copying them out and having them translated. But hopefully long term, she could have written them. She did. Long term, she learned Russian. Yeah. Question three.

What nasty game did Catherine's unpopular husband, Peter III, force elderly courtiers to play? Oh, Leapf them. She did. Long term she learned Russian. Question three. What nasty game did Catherine's unpopular husband Peter III force elderly courtiers to play? Oh, leapfrog. It was. It was hopscotch with kicking involved. Oh, hopscotch. Hopscotch, leapfrog.

It was a sort of combination, I think. It's only when you hear those terms next to each other you realise they're different. Question four. Name a famous French Enlightenment thinker that Catherine corresponded with. Diderot. Yeah.

Who turned up. He did. He actually came and then she said afterwards, you don't understand this actually. It's a nightmare dealing with these people, so you stick to your books. Yeah, you could have had Voltaire as well. Question five. Which important territory on the Black Sea did Catherine annex in 1783?

Crimea. It was. Question six. Pugachev's rebellion against Catherine is also known sometimes by what name based on the people and the soldiers who involved? It would either be the Cossack rebellion or the guy who's pretending to be Peter III rebellion. The Cossack rebellion is typical,

but I like your version as well. Yeah, it's very good. You're doing very well. Six out of six so far. Question seven. What was unusual about the 1767 Legislative Commission to review Russia's laws? That it existed was pretty unusual.

They didn't come up with anything at all other than the suggestion to flatter the person who'd summoned them. Yeah, that's fair. Which may actually, in Russia, be a very, very wise approach. That's fair. Question eight. Can you name two of Catherine's more enlightened, inverted commas, domestic policies?

She had an inoculation for smallpox. That's right. I encouraged that. Well, the assembly you just mentioned, I could go for that. But you said something that it slightly went out of my... Think of children. Oh, school! Yes, school's very good.

I was going to say the structure of the administrative areas. Absolutely very good. You're doing very well. You need to know who the council is. Exactly. For the bin day, for the bin collection. Otherwise you don't know who to get angry with. Question nine.

What event in 1789 led to increased censorship and conservatism in Catherine's later rule? The French Revolution. Absolutely. And this for a perfect ten. After her death in 1796, who was Catherine succeeded by? Paul. It was. Her son, but probably not the son of the person he proudly proclaimed himself to be the son of.

Perfect. Ten out of ten, David Mitchell. Look at you with your knowledge. Well done, which means Julia taught you well. So well done, Julia, too. Thank you, Julia. Fabulous. Well, there we go.

We've learned all sorts of things about Catherine the Great. And listener, if you want to hear more about another empire-building Enlightenment monarch, you can check out our episode on Frederick the Great of Prussia with Stephen Fry in Comedy Corner. So you can compare notes. And for more Ruthless Queens, we also have fab episodes on Njinga Evindongo and Agrippina the Younger.

And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, leave a review, share the show with your friends and make sure to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds. We're called You're Dead to Me. You don't want to miss an episode, do you? I'd just like to say a huge thank you then to my guests in History Corner. We have the fantastic Dr Julia Lakin from Royal Holloway.

Thank you, Julia. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, we have the delightfully droll David Mitchell. Thank you, David. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, we have the delightfully droll David Mitchell. Thank you, David. Thanks. Thank you for having me and thank you for helping me do well in the test.

You did very well on your own. You needed no help. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we launch a well-timed coup against another historical subject. But for now, I'm off to go and convince Gwyneth Paltrow to invest in my new wellness company, Gob. You basically take the spittle from a maid and you rub it on the back and everyone gets rich. Hooray! Bye!

This episode of You're Dead to Me was a BBC production. It was researched by John Mason and written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Nagoose and me. The audio producer was Steve Hankey. The production coordinator was Caitlin Hobbs. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow and me. The senior producer was Emma Nagoose and the executive editor was Steve Hankey. The production coordinator was Caitlin Hobbs. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price-Gidfellow and me. The senior producer was Emma Neguse. And the executive editor was Chris Ledgerd.

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