#ekaterina

Some more delightful RPShipping, since historically Sophia Razumovskaya and Peter Razumovsky had a blissful marriage.

It's fascinating to me how much more likable and positive Ekaterina (and Paul First and Last) made Paul than he used to be perceived, which is actually very much in accordance with changes in historians' view of him but yeah...

(Within the show world, it is far from certain he'd be as good a ruler as Ekaterina but as a person he is way better.)

The scene with Duke Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick, telling his remaining children his oldest has died (because Catherine killed him of course) and trying to hold it together but not being able to...

This show is flawed but while they don't always blend it well, I love that they allow Catherine to be shown as a charming...monster.

She's a strong ruler, a beautiful woman, can be charming. She's also utterly selfish, a bad mother, and the way she's treated dynastic rivals and anyone related to them (let's face it, the Duke's children have way more right to the throne than she does; but then her son also has more right and she's not sharing even with him) is appalling.

Just bang already, people.

The fact that Paul, despite his previous prejudice (since this is a bastard son of his mother) took to his half brother immediately and vice versa (and his half bro doesn't talk to anyone except for Paul and that painter once, and keeps his ability to talk a secret) is genuinely ADORABLE.

(When he asked him "you are silent in Russian. Are you capable of being silent in French too?" AWWWWWW)

It makes total sense though because (a) both do not like Catherine nor should they - she's genuinely a terrible mother (and the kid doesn't know it, but opening up first that he will never love Catherine wins him a spot in Paul's heart right away) and (b) both are very similar in being neglected by birth fam and desperate for someone of their own to love.

That was so tragic. Panin is the freaking WORST

OK whut whut they made a show about young Empress Elizabeth? i want!!!

Aaaand they put in romance with Elizaveta and Shubin good lord.

Per wikipedia (I put in google translate from russian wiki page since I am too lazy to translate myself):

He was distinguished by exceptional good looks, agility, and vigor. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, to whom he served as an orderly, favored him; she was known among the Semyonovsky Guardsmen as "Mother." Elizabeth wrote passionate love poems to Shubin. After ascending the throne, Anna Ioannovna removed Shubin from the Tsarevna’s court and sent him to Reval to serve in the Dorpat Regiment; however, on December 31, 1731, he was brought back to St. Petersburg and taken to the Secret Chancellery, where he was subjected to brutal torture and flogging with the knout. In January 1732, he was sent to Kamchatka, where he was forcibly married to a local woman.

Once she eventually managed to overthrow the government and ascended the throne, she brought him back and made him a general though romantically she moved on.

PS And here is a mv for Elizabeth and Razumovsky, her long term lover, secret husband and a man she eventually made a prince who managed a miracle of having no enemies because he was utterly not interested in power but only in her so basically a unicorn.