ABSTRACT
In her role as monarch, Catherine II the Great was a great cultivator of the arts, and her patronage of theatre during her reign contributed to its growth and stability. Although unpublished during her lifetime, the several versions of Catherine's Memoirs are an important example of women's autobiographical writing in the eighteenth century. Catherine also equipped her own palace with theatres. The theatre is situated at the east end of the Hermitage complex, across the Winter Canal from the current Hermitage Museum. Another group of short proverb plays, written in French, were shared only with the elite audience of the Hermitage Court Theatre. Of the many ways in which Catherine shaped her public persona, anonymity was a frequent strategy, particularly in the literary realm. Another factor that has influenced Catherine's claim to legitimacy as a significant Russian dramatist has been the controversy over the actual authorship of her plays and other writings.
