Cat the Great and the Cats

Cat the Great and the Cats

Wednesday, 15 May 2024 07:23

Although born German, Catherine the Great became the Empress of All the Russias, ruling from 1762 until her death in 1796. Her long reign saw the expansion of Russia in every possible direction and dimension: geographical, political, military, economic and cultural. She really did drag the country kicking and screaming into the 19th century.

Sophie Friederike Auguste, Prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst, as she was then, was born in 1729 in Stettin, which was in Prussia at the time, although it is now Szczecin, Poland. Political geography, don’t you just love it. Smart, organised, pragmatic, cultured, strong-minded and ambitious, she grew right out of her minor aristo beginnings and right into a major player on the world stage.

When she was 14, a marriage was arranged with her second cousin Karl Ulrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, grandson of Peter the Great. Sophie was sent to Russia, where she became Catherine Alexeyevna, and they married in August 1745.

Reader, she detested him.Well, he was pretty detestable by most accounts: nasty, stupid, sottish, neurotic and maybe impoten, and incapable of rulership or much else. Instead of repining, Catherine used her time wisely, learning Russian, building a network friendships, influence and and alliances with all the right people, educating herself in the arts and philosophy, and making herself agreeable, especially to the Empress Elizabeth. daughter of Peter the Great and aunt to Catherine’s feckless husband.

Elizabeth died in January 1762, and Karl Ulrich, now known as Peter III, took the throne for a brief six months. Before he could inflict too much actual damage, Catherine led a well-supported coup to overthrow him in July, and he was mysteriously murdered very shortly afterwards. She was crowned Empress in September.

And why am I telling you this?

Partly because it was Catherine’s birthday on 2 May, so it’s a bit of an homage.

Mostly because of the Hermitage cats.

The Hermitage Museum of Art and Culture now takes up the whole Winter Palace complex in St Petersburg. The Winter Palace was once the official imperial residence of the Romanovs. Now, as well as housing a world-beating art collection, it maintains a payroll of feline operatives.

It was Empress Elizabeth who first employed cats. In 1745, finding the imperial residence overrun by rodents, Elizabeth issued a decree ordering that cats from the city of Kazan should be brought to her court, specifically 'better cats, the largest ones, able to catch mice, and accompanied by a person who will look after their health'. This was a big military operation: Kazan is around 1500 km from St Petersburg and is the capital of Tatarstan; Kazan cats are strapping feline units and ferocious hunters, so it was a bit like ordering in the marines. It was a great success.

When Catherine took over the Empress role, she continued the practice. The gung-ho cats from Kazan had dwindled to a memory, as the entire corps had been neutered. This may have prevented overpopulation, but did mean that there was no breeding stock. So in 1764, when Catherine kickstarted her new cultural agenda by establishing an art gallery in the Hermitage, one of the smaller buildings in the palace complex, there were no cats to do the mousework. Scouts were sent out, and more skilled vermin hunters were recruited. The Palace was an animal friendly zone; Catherine had around 300 pets of various kinds, and the preferred imperial cat breed was the Russian blue. She used to confer them on ambassadors and fellow royals as diplomatic gifts.

Cats continued to work with the Romanovs until 1917, when the revolution struck and the royal family fled eastwards to Ekaterinburg in an attempt to escape their doom. They took their dogs, but left the cats behind. When the palace was stormed, the cats survived. Post revolution, St Petersburg became Leningrad, the whole palace became a museum, and the cats held on to their jobs. The end came during World War II and the siege of Leningrad, which lasted from 1941 to 1944. The Hermitage cats perished, along with 1.5 million people, of starvation or disease. No cats were left to guard the museum.

Very soon after the end of the war, there was a feline recruitment drive to re-establish the Hermitage Vermin Control Unit. Signing your cat up became an act of patriotism, and the corps was soon up to full strength.

Today there are around 70 felines on the staff. Some are descendants of the postwar intake, others are passing freelancers who join in, sort of rat-catching ronins. They wander the museum freely, and are based in the tunnels and cellars under the Hermitage, where you can visit if you get all arted out. They get regular food, cosy beds, strokes and tickles on request, have their own hospital and even their own art gallery, hung with pictures of them drawn by visiting children.

Cats rule see Clowder Press Essential

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