The Original Fake News?

How Catherine the Great Used Propaganda to Take an Empire

History has a habit of simplifying itself.

The heroes become nobler than they really were. The villains become more monstrous. Complex people are squeezed into neat little boxes because stories are easier to remember than nuance.

Sometimes those stories emerge naturally.

Sometimes they’re carefully manufactured.

On 9 July 1762, a 33-year-old German princess seized control of the largest empire on Earth. Within days, her husband – the reigning Tsar of Russia – had been forced to abdicate. Within a week, he was dead.

Her name would become immortal: Catherine the Great.

His would become synonymous with incompetence: Peter III.

But here’s the question historians have been wrestling with for over 250 years:

Was Peter really that bad?

Or did Catherine achieve something every great political strategist dreams of?

Did she win the battle for public opinion before she won the battle for the throne?

If social media had existed in 1762, we’d probably describe it as a coordinated information campaign.

Instead, Russia had something far older.

• Pamphlets.
• Rumours.
• Anonymous letters.
• Whispered conversations in drawing rooms.
• Public proclamations.
• Church sermons.

Long before hashtags, there was propaganda. And few people used it more effectively than Catherine the Great.

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A Marriage That Was Never Going to Work

The story begins decades earlier.

Born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, Catherine arrived in Russia as a teenage German princess chosen to marry the future heir to the Russian throne.

Her husband, Peter, was equally German by birth.

Neither seemed an obvious choice to rule Russia.

Yet Catherine understood something that Peter never truly grasped.

If she wanted Russians to accept her, she couldn’t simply become their ruler.

She had to become one of them.

• She learned Russian.
  
• She converted to Russian Orthodoxy.
  
• She immersed herself in court life.
  
• She carefully cultivated influential nobles, military officers and church leaders.

Peter, meanwhile, appeared to do almost the opposite.

Whether through personality or poor judgement, he seemed fascinated by Prussia, particularly its king, Frederick the Great. He openly admired Prussian military culture, dressed in Prussian uniforms and often behaved more like the ruler of a small German duchy than the future Tsar of Russia.

In politics, perception often matters more than intent.

Peter never seemed to appreciate that.

Catherine understood it instinctively.

Six Months That Changed an Empire

When Elizabeth of Russia died in January 1762, Peter finally inherited the throne.

His reign lasted just 186 days.

In those six months he made several decisions that shocked many within Russia.

Most controversially, he ended Russia’s participation in the Seven Years’ War.

From a military perspective, Russia had been winning.

Prussia appeared close to collapse.

Instead of pressing the advantage, Peter not only withdrew Russian forces but returned conquered territory and formed an alliance with Frederick the Great.

To many Russians – particularly military officers who had fought and died during the conflict – it looked like betrayal.

The Church disliked aspects of his proposed reforms.

The aristocracy grew increasingly nervous.

The Imperial Guard questioned his judgement.

Whether Peter was genuinely incompetent or simply pursuing unpopular reforms remains a matter of historical debate. Some modern historians argue that he has been treated rather unfairly, suggesting several of his domestic reforms were surprisingly progressive for the time.

Unfortunately for Peter, history is rarely written by people who’ve just lost power.

Before the Coup Came the Story

Coups are often imagined as dramatic military affairs.

Soldiers marching through palace gates.

Cannons.

Arrests.

Declarations from balconies.

In reality, successful coups usually begin much earlier.

They begin by convincing people that change is necessary.

This is where Catherine proved exceptional.

Years before she seized power, she had quietly built relationships throughout the Russian elite.

The influential Orlov brothers, senior military officers, became some of her closest allies.

Senior clergy increasingly viewed her as sympathetic to Orthodoxy.

Members of the nobility saw stability where they perceived unpredictability in Peter.

When the moment arrived, Catherine already possessed something every revolutionary movement needs:

People prepared to believe her.

The Pamphlets That Helped Topple a Tsar

It is tempting to imagine eighteenth-century politics as slow.

It wasn’t.

Information travelled remarkably quickly.

Not through smartphones or television.

Through paper.

Pamphlets were one of the social media platforms of the Enlightenment.

Cheap to print.

Easy to copy.

Easy to distribute.

They were read aloud in taverns, discussed in coffee houses, passed between noble families, copied by hand and circulated through cities at astonishing speed.

Many carried no author’s name.

Some appeared anonymously.

Others deliberately disguised their origins.

Modern internet users would recognise the technique immediately.

The format may have changed.

Human behaviour hasn’t.

Peter’s Reputation Began to Collapse

Many of the stories circulating about Peter painted a deeply unflattering picture.

• He supposedly preferred playing with toy soldiers to governing an empire.
  
• He allegedly adored Prussia more than Russia.
  
• Some pamphlets portrayed him as unstable.
  
• Others claimed he intended to sideline the Orthodox Church.
  
• Rumours spread that he planned to arrest Catherine.
  
• Whispers suggested he intended to divorce her entirely.

Some accusations probably contained elements of truth.

Others were undoubtedly exaggerated.

A number only appeared in force after Catherine had already seized power, making them impossible to verify independently.

That, perhaps, is the most fascinating aspect.

Propaganda rarely needs to invent everything.

It simply selects certain facts, ignores others and repeats the chosen narrative until alternatives become difficult to imagine.

Catherine Became Russia’s Saviour

While Peter’s image deteriorated, Catherine’s was carefully elevated.

Official proclamations and supportive publications increasingly described her as calm, intelligent and devoted to Russia.

Remarkably, her German origins – once a potential weakness – almost disappeared from the narrative.

Instead she became the defender of Orthodoxy.

The protector of Russia.

The responsible adult.

She wasn’t simply overthrowing her husband.

She was supposedly rescuing the nation.

Every successful political campaign understands this principle.

It is not enough to destroy your opponent’s reputation.

You must simultaneously provide voters – or subjects – with a reassuring alternative.

Modern marketers would recognise it immediately.

This was classic brand positioning.

The Coup That Barely Needed Fighting

On 9 July 1762 (28 June under the Russian calendar then in use), Catherine was proclaimed Empress.

Large sections of the Imperial Guard declared their loyalty.

Peter found himself increasingly isolated.

Resistance largely evaporated.

Within days he signed his abdication.

A week later he was dead.

Official reports claimed he had died from complications following “haemorrhoidal colic” after a drunken altercation.

Few believed it then.

Even fewer believe it today.

Most historians suspect he was murdered by men associated with Catherine’s supporters, although definitive proof has never emerged.

Ironically, even the explanation for Peter’s death became part of the propaganda war.

History Written by the Victors

One reason Peter’s reputation remains so poor is surprisingly simple.

Many surviving accounts were produced after Catherine had become Empress.

The people writing history often owed their careers, status or even their lives to her success.

This presents historians with an awkward challenge.

How much of Peter’s reputation reflects reality?

How much reflects an extraordinarily successful political communications campaign?

Even today, revisionist historians continue re-evaluating Peter III, arguing that several reforms traditionally dismissed as failures were, in fact, surprisingly forward-thinking.

History, it turns out, sometimes needs its own fact-checkers.

When the Propagandist Became the Target

History has an odd sense of irony.

Having helped shape one of the most successful political narratives of the eighteenth century, Catherine would spend the rest of her life becoming the subject of another.

If Peter III had been portrayed as an incompetent foreign fool, Catherine was increasingly portrayed as something else entirely: a woman driven by insatiable lust.

There was, of course, some truth buried beneath the exaggeration. Following Peter’s death, Catherine had a succession of well-documented lovers. Unlike many monarchs of the period, she made little effort to disguise her favourites, often rewarding them with titles, estates and influence. To her political opponents, however, this presented an irresistible opportunity.

What would have been dismissed as perfectly ordinary behaviour for a male ruler became evidence of moral corruption when the ruler happened to be a woman.

Pamphlets, satirical prints and whispered gossip spread across Europe, each embellishing the previous story. A handful of lovers became dozens. Political alliances became lurid affairs. Personal relationships became proof that Russia itself was being ruled by vice rather than reason.

Then came the story that refused to die.

At some point during the decades after her reign, rumours began circulating that Catherine had died whilst attempting to have sex with a horse. It is one of history’s most infamous royal scandals – and almost certainly one of its most successful pieces of political misinformation.

There is no credible contemporary evidence to support it.

None.

In reality, Catherine suffered a stroke in November 1796 and died peacefully in her bed the following day, surrounded by her household. Yet the horse story proved irresistible. It was shocking, absurd and impossible to forget. Like so many successful pieces of propaganda, it survived not because it was true, but because it was memorable.

The irony is almost perfect. A ruler who understood better than most how narratives could shape political reality would eventually become trapped inside a fictional narrative of her own. Today, millions of people know the horse story but couldn’t name a single one of her educational reforms, her correspondence with Enlightenment philosophers, or the administrative changes that helped transform Russia into one of Europe’s great powers.

That may be the greatest victory propaganda ever claimed over Catherine the Great.

The Marketing Lesson Hidden in an Eighteenth-Century Coup

This is where the story becomes unexpectedly modern.

Strip away the horses, powdered wigs and imperial palaces, and the strategy feels remarkably familiar.

Peter became associated with:

• Foreign influence.
• Poor judgement.
• Instability.
• Weak leadership.
• National decline.

Catherine became associated with:

• Stability.
• Patriotism.
• Competence.
• Security.
• National renewal.

Those aren’t random descriptions.

They’re positions.

Modern marketing would describe this as creating two competing brands within the minds of an audience.

One represented risk.

The other represented reassurance.

Consumers—and voters—rarely make decisions by evaluating every available fact. They simplify complex choices into mental shortcuts, a principle explored decades later by writers such as Walter Lippmann in his work on public opinion. Once those mental pictures become established, changing them becomes incredibly difficult.

The Medium Changes. The Psychology Doesn’t.

Today, political narratives spread through TikTok, X, YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp.

In 1762 they travelled through pamphlets, proclamations, sermons and whispered conversations.

The technology has transformed.

The psychology has barely changed.

People rarely remember detailed policy.

They remember stories.

They remember symbols.

They remember villains.

They remember heroes.

As political scientist Harold Lasswell later argued, propaganda succeeds not simply because it informs people, but because it shapes the emotional lens through which people interpret events. Long before Lasswell formalised those ideas, Catherine’s supporters appeared to understand them instinctively.

Even the principle of social proof – later explored by Robert Cialdini – was visible. Once influential nobles, military leaders and clergy publicly supported Catherine, their endorsement encouraged others to follow. Momentum itself became persuasive.

The mechanics remain remarkably familiar.

Final Thoughts

History often tells us that armies win wars.

The story of Catherine the Great suggests something slightly different.

Sometimes, stories win first.

Before soldiers changed sides, minds had already been changed. Before Peter III was forced to abdicate, his reputation had already begun to collapse. The coup itself lasted only a matter of days; the campaign to shape public opinion had been running for years.

Yet perhaps the most important lesson comes after Catherine had secured the throne.

The woman who had benefited from one of history’s most effective political narratives eventually became the victim of another. Her achievements as an administrator, reformer and patron of the arts have been overshadowed in popular culture by a grotesque myth that never happened. Two centuries later, a fabricated story about a horse is recognised by far more people than her genuine accomplishments.

That should make every marketer, politician and historian pause for thought.

Propaganda rarely succeeds because it is entirely false. It succeeds because it wraps fragments of truth inside stories that people want to repeat. It appeals to emotion before evidence, outrage before accuracy and memory before fact.

The printing press has become social media. Pamphlets have become posts. Anonymous satirists have become anonymous accounts. The technology has evolved beyond recognition, but the psychology remains stubbornly familiar.

Perhaps that is the real legacy of Catherine the Great’s rise to power.

Empires can be conquered by armies.

Reputations can be conquered by stories.

And once the story takes hold, reclaiming the truth is often the hardest battle of all.

And once the story takes hold, reclaiming the truth is often the hardest battle of all.