60 free Catherine the Great trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Catherine the Great trivia quiz covers the minor German princess who became the longest-reigning female ruler of Russia. The easy questions are the ones most people know: where she was born, how she got the throne, the husband she overthrew, the museum that began as her private collection and the horse story that was never true. From there it moves through her rise: the name she was born with, the illness she nearly died of on arrival, her conversion, the loveless marriage to a Prussia-obsessed heir and the regiment she rode to on the morning of the coup. The harder end covers the reign in detail: the crown made in two months, the smallpox inoculation, the Nakaz and the Grand Commission, the paper rouble, Pugachev's revolt, the three partitions of Poland, the annexation of Crimea, the Smolny Institute, the Charter to the Nobility, her letters to Voltaire and the lovers she pensioned off with serfs. It finishes with her stroke, her will and the many actresses who have played her, from Marlene Dietrich to Elle Fanning. Every answer was checked against Catherine's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Peter the Great and Russia quizzes are natural companions.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which country was Catherine the Great born?
Prussia
She was born in Stettin, now Szczecin in Poland, where her father was governor and a Prussian general.
Q 02Catherine was born with which German princely surname?
Anhalt-Zerbst
She was Princess Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg; she took the name Catherine on converting to Orthodoxy in 1744.
Q 03How old was Sophie when she first met her future husband in 1739 and found him 'detestable'?
10
She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol, and kept to the other end of the castle.
Q 04How was Sophie related to Peter, the heir she married?
Second cousins
Two of her first cousins became kings of Sweden, and her uncle became heir to the Swedish throne.
Q 05On arriving in Russia, Sophie nearly died of pleuritis; what did she credit her survival to?
Frequent bloodletting
She had four phlebotomies in a single day; her call for an Orthodox priest rather than a Lutheran pastor delighted the court.
Q 06Which reigning empress arranged Sophie's marriage and doted on her?
Elizabeth
Elizabeth had once been engaged to Sophie's uncle, who died of smallpox before the wedding.
Q 07On converting to Orthodoxy in 1744, Sophie took the name Catherine and which artificial patronymic?
Alekseyevna
It made her the namesake of Catherine I, mother of the reigning empress.
Q 08In which palace did Catherine and Peter, the 'young court', live for many years after their 1745 wedding?
Oranienbaum
There, according to Herzen, she had her first affair while her marriage remained unconsummated.
Q 09Which Roman historian's Annals did Catherine say caused a 'revolution' in her mind in 1754?
Tacitus
He taught her to look for the 'hidden and interested motives' behind people's professed reasons.
Q 10Which chamberlain did Catherine imply in her memoirs was the real father of her son Paul?
Sergei Saltykov
The final version she left to Paul himself explained why he was Peter's son.
Q 11Which Prussian king did Catherine's husband Peter III openly idolise, alienating the Russian nobility?
Frederick II
Peter halted Russian operations against him in the Seven Years' War, throwing away the occupation of Berlin.
Q 12To which guards unit did Catherine ride on the morning of the July 1762 coup to ask for protection?
The Izmailovsky Regiment
She then went on to the Semenovsky Barracks, where the clergy were waiting to proclaim her sole ruler.
Q 13How long had Peter III been emperor when Catherine overthrew him?
About six months
Q 21Which kingdom in the Caucasus became a Russian protectorate under the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk?
Georgia
King Erekle II signed in return for a promise of defence against Persian attack.
Q 22Which former lover did Catherine install on the throne of Poland in 1764?
Stanisław Poniatowski
They had met in 1755 when she was 26 and he 22; their daughter Anna was legally regarded as Grand Duke Peter's.
Q 23How many times was Poland partitioned during Catherine's reign?
Three
After 1795, Poland ceased to exist as an independent state until after the First World War.
He died eight days after the coup at Ropsha, possibly at the hands of Alexei Orlov.
Q 14What was the official cause of Peter III's death after the autopsy?
Haemorrhoidal colic and apoplexy
He is generally assumed to have been assassinated, though how he died is unknown.
Q 15Which rival claimant, imprisoned since infancy at Schlüsselburg, was killed during a failed attempt to free him and use him against Catherine?
Ivan VI
Like her predecessor, Catherine had ordered that he be killed if anyone tried to rescue him.
Q 16How many diamonds were set into the Great Imperial Crown made for Catherine's coronation?
4,936
Made in a record two months, it also carries 75 pearls and a 398.62-carat spinel and weighs 2.3 kg.
Q 17By roughly how much did Catherine extend the borders of the Russian Empire?
About 520,000 square kilometres
The gains came mainly at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Q 18Which 1774 agreement ended the first of Catherine's Turkish wars and made Crimea a Russian protectorate?
The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca
It also made Russia the protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire.
Q 19In which year did Catherine formally annex Crimea?
1783
Her triumphal procession through the peninsula in 1787 helped provoke the next war with the Ottomans.
Q 20Which Black Sea city, founded on Catherine's orders in 1794, replaced Ottoman Khadjibey?
Odessa
Yekaterinoslav, another new city, literally means 'the Glory of Catherine'.
Q 24Whose ragtag insurgent armies rose against the partition of Poland in 1794?
Kościuszko's
They won some early successes before falling to superior Russian forces.
Q 25Which body did Catherine create in 1780 to protect neutral shipping from the British navy?
The League of Armed Neutrality
She positioned Russia as an international mediator, a role Britain would later play.
Q 26How did Catherine describe the Qianlong Emperor in a 1790 letter to Baron de Grimm?
'My Chinese neighbour with small eyes'
She had vowed not to die until she had 'suppressed the pride of China'.
Q 27Which shipwrecked Japanese sea captain did Catherine receive at Tsarskoye Selo in 1791?
Daikokuya Kōdayū
He was used as a trade envoy, but the 1792 mission to Japan under Adam Laxman failed.
Q 28Which German farming settlers did Catherine encourage to migrate to Russia?
The Volga Germans
They brought innovations in wheat, flour milling, tobacco and sheep raising.
Q 29Which institution issued Russia's first government paper money in 1769?
The Assignation Bank
The notes were needed because military spending had drained the treasury of silver; they circulated until 1849.
Q 30Which English doctor inoculated Catherine against smallpox?
Thomas Dimsdale
By 1800 about 2 million inoculations had been given in Russia; historians count it among her most significant contributions.