Catherine II: The Prussian Days

[selenak]

Catherine the Great wrote and rewrote her memoirs, which she never finished, through decades of her later life. How much of the original manuscript survives is an open question (what we have never even reaches her ascension to the throne); of some events, like her first encounter with her later husband when they were both children (and before he was brought to Russia) there are even three versons. In short, editors trying to come up with a definite version had their work cut out for them, and it's not surprising there are several versions - one volume, two volumes, some starting with her arrival in Russia, some containing her childhood in Prussia - out there. With all these caveats: here are some quotes of the two volume German translation which does contain the pre-Russian childhood and youth of the quondam Princess Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst, who had several run-ins with the Hohenzollerns whom she'd later deal with under much changed circumstances.

( Meeting Heinrich, Meeting Fritz )