On the amazing fate of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great - nee Sofia Frederica Augusta, a German princess from the provincial Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst, who, by the will of fate, ascended the Russian throne and for almost thirty-five years (1762-1796) autocratically ruled the great Empire - about its extraordinary plans and achievements, love joys and relationships with nobles, as well as about the fate of Russia of the Catherine era, and many other things are told in his new book by the famous historian Nikolai Ivanovich Pavlenko, a recognized connoisseur of the history of Russia XVIII century.