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Abstract:

The article analyzes the fate of the Catherine II’s myth in Russian literature and culture in the 18th century. The author shows that G.R. Derzhavin was one of its creators. The focus is on the “Felitsa’s cycle” of the Derzhavin’s poems. Derzhavin constructed the main elements of this myth in his “strange” ode “Felitsa”, that was first published in the “Interlocutor of Russian Word Lovers” in 1783: the empress Catherine II, in many ways contrary to the existing odic tradition, appeared to be a “human”, whose “simplicity” and unique “efficiency” were strikingly different from the behavior of the nobles and from her predecessors on the Russian throne, a “philosopher on the throne”, whose rationality was opposed to the “charlatanism” of Freemasonry. This myth is analyzed in a broad historical, cultural and ideological contexts. Also the author suggested the reasons why “Catherinian myth” turned out to be unclaimed in the 20^th century.

Keywords: Catherine II, G.R. Derzhavin, “Felitsa”, ode.