We are Re-Releasing our first episodes as stand-alone stories! We'll pull apart one of our earlier episodes every Friday into shorter half-episodes. This week we're going back to our very FIRST episode! Taylor started us off with the story of Catherine The Great and her 'wet noodle' of a husband, Peter the III. Learn how this influential leader dealt with a man-child husband and a controlling Empress -- all while orchestrating of the greatest coups of the Enlightenment! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: doomedtofailpod@gmail.com
We are Re-Releasing our first episodes as stand-alone stories! We'll pull apart one of our earlier episodes every Friday into shorter half-episodes.
This week we're going back to our very FIRST episode! Taylor started us off with the story of Catherine The Great and her 'wet noodle' of a husband, Peter the III. Learn how this influential leader dealt with a man-child husband and a controlling Empress -- all while orchestrating of the greatest coups of the Enlightenment!
Pictures via the creative commons & AI.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod
Email: doomedtofailpod@gmail.com
Sources:
Catherine the Great by Robert k. Massie
Great Catherine by Carrolly Erikson
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
hey everyone it's Taylor from Doom to fail today it's our first re-release
episode so our first 30 episodes we did two stories per episode then we started dividing them and releasing Mondays and
Wednesdays so to make it a little bit easier to go back into the archive to pick out your favorites and re-listen
we're going to re-release our early episodes divided in half so first up is
episode one part one the story of Catherine the Great and her husband Peter hope you enjoy the people of the
State of California versus
[Music] what your country can do for you ask
what you can do for your country [Music] welcome to June fail the podcast where
we evaluate other people's tragic relationships so we don't have to evaluate our own I'm farce joined by my
co-host Taylor and every week we'll be bringing you two Tales one historic and one true crime related of a
relationships that were doomed to fail Taylor what is our signature drink today
well today I will be talking about um Catherine the Great who was Empress
of Russia signature drink no I know I'm getting there and the signature drink because talking about Russia is just
vodka um no mixers um no no
tonic nothing just let's do some shots of vodka that's our signature drink from
the alcoholic side perfect and on my side the signature drink is going to be water because we
are going to be covering some tea totalers um who strayed pretty far from their belief system
um so with that said uh let's go ahead and kick things off Taylor do you want to start us off yes I will and you know
what hello fars I'm going to focus on historical historical relationships that were
doomed to fail um kings and queens and Emperors and arranged marriages and a lot of violence
in coups and that sort of thing um I might talk about some more modern ones later but right now we're going to
start um in the 1700s and so I mentioned already I'm talking about Catherine the
Great it's a little bit selfish because I do have a podcast that I've been thinking about doing for like years and have not
done um about America's first ladies and what is cool and what I want to talk about there and talk about here is that
we're in the enlightenment we are in um like the late 1700s this is the same
time that like in America there's Martha Washington and then also there's Marie Antoinette and
also there's Catherine the Great it's like a lot of really like interesting stuff that's happening um like with women and with rulers and with like
revolutions around this time make sense do you know where we are yep okay
so um yeah in general I just freaking love it I think it's really fun that we're all
all these people live at the exact same time um have you seen Hamilton I have not but I've heard the playlists
of Hamilton got it so that I feel like this reminds me of you know when the women are like how lucky are we to be
alive right now like that's how I feel about this time in history it's just like super exciting I have some sources so you know how lucky you are to be live
right now this is Enlightenment super exciting things are happening in the world on the globe my sources are I read
two books on Catherine the Great in 2021 um during pandemic reading time
um the first one is called Catherine the Great by Robert K Massey it was okay um the last quarter of it is just like a
list of people that she slept with and like that there's more to life than that yeah
well I don't want just like your biography isn't going to be like a list of people you slept with I hope work I
don't think I hope I hope that's not the case I mean like maybe it'd be interesting for like a little bit but after a while you'd be like okay good
for you whatever um so that one was okay um
but book two that I read was better is called great Catherine by Carolee Erickson so that's the one that I recommend
um reading for this so I read those in 2021 and then I did some Wikipedia and chat gbt stuff to like
um jog my memory um and then also have you seen the show The Great on Hulu I have not oh my gosh
so it is a it says it's a mostly true story um because it's not very true um it's like some things are true people
different timelines or whatever but essentially it's Catherine the Great and her husband Peter III um it's super sexy
everyone is like really cool um and in real life they were not it is not that sexy or that cool um but
definitely still watch it because it gives you like the vibe of being in Russia and that's where they do the tons
of shots of vodka and then they just throw their glass on the ground and go huzzah um
do they have indoor plumbing back then no um how sexy could it have really been
that's that's such a good question because not that sexy because it's not very yeah no I feel like
um people didn't shower that much um well definitely not shower we didn't bathe that much
um a lot of like heavy makeup and like powdered wigs and you're totally right uh no uh no running water
um there's a story that is not in my story but to share is someone was like oh I got a new summer house essentially
and all like the royalty went for the summer house and in the middle of the night half of it collapsed into a lake
and there were rats everywhere um it was just like that was just like normal and that was like a nice house
yeah not fantastic so no underwear plumbing and no Architects got it yeah no people are they're dirty they're a
little sticky they're also cold because they're in Russia um and you're really really far from the
rest of Europe and you're isolated like Russia is it always has been feeling isolated
um both you know physically and like culturally um before we go to Russia
we're gonna go to Prussia have you heard of Prussia do you know what that was I feel like that was the opening scene in
The Gladiator movie from forever ago was them being in Prussia and that is the extent of my knowledge of Prussia maybe
I don't I don't remember that but sure I'm sure they probably are um it's like where Germany is in like
Northern area of Germany um because Germany became a country like very recently like in the beginning of
the 1900s like it was like a collection of different states in different like places so we're in Germany Catherine the
Great was born Sophie Frederica Auguste Von angel stormberg in 1729. that was impressive
thank you I tried it's a long it's a long ass name um she was like minor royalty so like
not someone who was like gonna be Queen but she was like kind of like hung out
in those circles her mom Joanna Elizabeth of Holstein gottwerp had to
get her married I had to get her married to someone like soon to be able to look up their family status that was her mom's goal in the great she's played by
Jillian Anderson and it's very sexy and fun but uh in real life she was kind of she kind of sucked she
was kind of awful and so she wants to strengthen a precious relationship with Russia and so um is going to send her
daughter to Russia to marry Peter III who is well he's not Peter the third yet but he's going to be and he's in line to
be the Emperor of Russia so that's where she's sending Sophie our daughter over there this also leads to things like have you
ever seen that I'm going to ask you a lot of questions you're gonna be like no what are you talking about have you seen that picture of King George Kaiser
Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas together right before World War One surprisingly so yes nice nice so that this is the start of
that so everyone's going to be related we're gonna have a lot of cousins and relationships across Europe before all
the world wars I'm excited yeah I'm I'm actually surprised that you asked me if I saw something and I
actually had so close to me oh my gosh I love it so Peter III will be Peter III
he was they actually met when they were kids they were second cousins she didn't like him because he was a wet noodle so
I feel like I might be describing people in terms of their noodle wetness and he's a well he's a wet one
like the last noodle in the pot is like stuck on the bottom and you can't get it off the pot we're trying to clean hold
on so the two people that are supposed to get together are cousins yeah I mean
yeah okay just like you know Queen Elizabeth and what's his face that just died they're
cousins learning a lot got it um yeah that's I think that's kind of par for the chorus in royalty is that there's going to be a
lot of cousins getting married so they're second cousins so like you know whatever so Joanna says I want to get my
daughter to marry um someone who is Rich all these Bachelors everywhere there's like King
Louie and France like all stuff is happening I gotta get my girl in front of um a guy so she sends him to Russia
um she goes with Russia with Russia goes with her daughter to Russia blah blah and they
um stay there for a little bit the empress Elizabeth is currently running Russia likes her doesn't like her mom
sends her mom home and then Sophie lives in Russia then forever she never sees her mom again she also never sees her
dad again when she left pressure her dad was like promise me you won't convert to Russian Orthodoxy and she does like
immediately when she gets to Russia because one of Katherine big things is like I am Russian I'm going to learn language I'm going to talk to the people
um and that was a lot big part of her ruling style like later on so I actually have a fun quote from the 1911
Encyclopedia Britannica describing Peter and his like wet noodleness so you can
kind of get a better idea of what he was like and I'll show you a picture of him you'll be like oh okay I mean that
picture like a painting but like they couldn't even make it flattering but in the encyclopedia it said nature had made
him mean smallpox had made him hideous his deranged habits made him loathsome and Peter had all the sentiments of the
worst kind of small German Prince of the time he had a conviction that his friendship entitled him to disregard
decency and the feelings of others he planned brutal practical jokes in which blows had always a share his most manly
taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which had be defined as a corporal's Mania the passion for
uniforms pipe clay buttons the tricks of parade and the froth of discipline he detested the Russians and surrounded
himself with holsteiners so it was a great he doesn't sound like a
picnic to be in a relationship with at the very least and I want to say like
when they say corporal's Mania like he wouldn't he would play with Toy Soldiers until he was very old and then once he
got more power he would make his serfs and his servants dress like soldiers but not Russian soldiers like Prussian
soldiers and then play Toy Soldiers with real people so kind of like a Kevin Spacey from
House of Cards yeah and then maybe a Kevin Spacey in real life as well but
like yeah oh yeah but like less manly I don't know if I agree with that but
carry on I'll go with your interpretation like if that's possible I just that's I think come like shorter at
least um I feel like you're shorter I don't know how tall it was but I feel I don't I don't know how tall Kevin species either but shorter anyway Peter barely
spoke barely spoke Russian you know played his played with his toy soldier sometimes they were real people so he
actually was not born in Russia either he was born in like another Prussian Holstein area um in northern Europe and was brought to
Russia because his aunt Elizabeth was the empress and needed an heir so she was considering him to be an heir he's
actually the grandson of Peter the Great but very far removed from any of that greatness so ask your questions yes
I feel like the red flag in this relationship is like who these people are it sounds like Peter is the worst
match for anybody and this poor girl was ripped from her Homeland and our family
to marry a cousin who's also a stranger it just all sounds bad yeah no I feel
like any any arranged arranged thing I feel like has is probably red flag any like especially if it's like for
Royal purposes you know like to enhance the relationship between Prussia and Russia it's not to like
because you like each other or because like you like each other or like whatever it's like all about land it's
all about like um you know getting getting power um it's you know it doesn't matter if
it's your cousin so like it's definitely um you know a little game of thronesy
because it's just like power and incest and all of that stuff so I think that obviously is a huge red flag and then
um Peter's just like not mature enough to be in a relationship he's he's never had to be and he doesn't understand like
what it would take emotionally to be in a relationship with someone but I don't know if that was a thing
then yeah it doesn't sound good yeah we'll probably get to this later but do we know if they were in love at any
point or they weren't no okay of course not of course sorry no definitely not
like she gets there um she's 16 when they get married and she gets she goes there in 1744 she gets
married her Mom leaves she starts to just like really fully be like I'm going to be Russian so she learned like I said
she learns Russian she becomes um you know friends with the empress Empress likes her she starts to like get involved with the the Russian Community
she's also reading a lot of stuff because she speaks Russian and French and Latin and German and so she's like
corresponding with Voltaire and like really trying to like bring these Western ideas to Russia because
um Russia is like way behind everyone else like economically infrastructure wise and part of it is because of the
isolation you know like it's cool as you have to take a sled to get there you know that's how far away it is
it's not like easy to get to so Catherine's now the
grand duchess a Katarina Alexa but so no longer Sophie she's Katarina she's
Catherine and her and Peter get married and she's you know reading and doing all this stuff but she's not having babies
and the question is like why isn't she having babies it's been like a couple years like what's going on in the the
rumor is Peters didn't know how he didn't no one told him how that's
what let's make a baby oh the whole process yes interesting okay a quite
simple process of baby making um he just didn't know so it's not always simple like maybe they like slept
in the same bed but they just like never it was never consummated they never had they they had didn't do that so
eventually he figures it out someone tells him like it's pretty much like a drunk Bros around a thing and then being
like so Peter you know your wife is not pregnant what's going on and he's like oh we're hugging a lot I don't know you
know and then someone like tells them how babies are made and he's like oh and then he gives a mistress because he's like that sounds fun
you know yeah yeah he sounds like he learned how uh most of us learn from from the pros well not bros more so like
in you know Middle School probably but yeah yes exactly so he's like mentally
there he's like mentally in middle school so Catherine's like okay fine well then I'll also like take a lover
and so she you know they both have relationships which is super normal in this time also like a king or queen will
have a favorite you know someone who is like they're a person to like you know have
sex with and not worry about like you know getting pregnant so much because ideally like your wife would just be constantly having babies because half of
them were gonna die you gotta get a boy all that kind of thing right like you've seen you've seen did you watch House of
the Dragon no but everybody tells me too but I'm gonna be a contrarian and wait until it's done and then watch it the way I
did with Breaking Bad anyway spoiler alert like 75 women die in childbirth so like it's the same idea where like
everyone's dirty and if the baby's like not coming out perfectly you're gonna die so so they just have various lovers
that's totally normal and totally fine but they're trying to you know get to power in Russia and they have a little
bit of a idea to do a coup against Elizabeth and who is you know Peter's Aunt she's a current abreast they're in
line to be to be next but they're trying to overthrow her Elizabeth finds out and says listen you guys got to give me an
error and I won't have you killed essentially so they do they do make a baby his name is Paul he's a boy he does
become emperor of Russia eventually he is also a wet noodle um which I think is proof of his uh you
know parentage is that he's a butt needle just like his dad it is interesting they named him Paul it's
it's like Paul's the guy you study with at the library like you you want
something more powerful than like an Ivan or I don't know maybe I haven't I've been in the story
perfect so the timeline is wax please if anyone is a Russian historian don't come
to my house and kill me but Elizabeth is Empress of Russia when we know when they're when they're there
she became Empress but overflowing but over overthrowing um Emperor Ivan who was two months old so Emperor Ivan was
just two months old he was like you know a baby and she was like this I I'm even though I'm a woman I'm still gonna
do it so she put him in jail and he was in jail for 20 years and then one day there were people who were like trying
to help him escape and accidentally killed him lots of bad luck yeah yeah he didn't
have the stones at two months old to withstand the coup I take it yeah so Ivan didn't make it but he was he was
also someone who who could have been Emperor but he wasn't so we had Paul eventually so now you know they're
hanging out Peter has a mistress who's rumored to just like be awful just like
not very nice like not pretty people are like why do you have a terrible woman as
your as your mistress but he like loved her so that's like Peter's great love is is this woman and Catherine's great love
is a man named Gregory orlov and they are he's a general and he's like you're
so smart we know better than Peter like we have to be prepared to overthrow him when he becomes Emperor and they kind of
they start thinking about that and planning that for a really really long time
they were surrounded by people was this was this would have been so clear that something was going to be going
awry at some point when she your wife is hooking up with the guy who controls the military yeah you didn't see this coming
I take it I think he just like doesn't care because he's doing like kids stuff you know like playing with Like Toy
Soldiers and he's probably just talking to this woman who's his main his um
yeah yeah oh totally so she's just like not really
I don't think he's all there like he just wants to play he wants to he also has a lot of plans to like align with
Prussia and like side with them in like different Wars and things of where Russia really wouldn't do that so you
know he's just kind of like busy doing his own things they don't live together you know there's like a whole all sorts of things like they're
they're pretty separated and then so Elizabeth who is empress is she dies in
1762 and Peter becomes Emperor he is Emperor for about six months that's as
long as he makes it so she you know he's making everybody really mad he but he does pass like 200 new laws so there's
actually a little bit that I was reading where like maybe he's not the worst and like a new new historians or like being
like well he did some Progressive things you definitely want to separate like Church's State and like you know he couldn't he wasn't like the worst human
ever maybe he's like a not soaking wet noodle um but I don't know I didn't read a lot about that but he did a bunch of
stuff so 200 new laws in his first six months Catherine's just like smarter than him you know and people can see
that and she's like doing this thing and and people are excited about her so um in July 1762 six months after Elizabeth
dies Peter starts to actually get a little nervous he's like oh I can see
her hanging out with people that maybe could not want me maybe emperor so he finally got you on yeah yeah so he has
them all arrested so Catherine said it happens like in the middle of the night in one day all of a sudden other people
are arrested and like she's like I don't know what getting letters from horses I don't know like it's like happening
really fast and she's like so she runs to where the soldiers are and she says listen everyone you need to protect me
from my husband he's going crazy he arrested my friends like he's the bad guy I want to be in charge of Russia I
will do a better job than him and she has the same thing to the clergy and everybody loves it they're like this sounds great like they've it's been
rumors people have been talking about it so they all swear allegiance to her and they do this like weird thing with like
boats where like Peter's On A Boat and she's on a boat and she's like oh my God just give up he like tries to run away then he finally he like he gives up and
she makes him sign over abdication paper so she is now the empress I I love how
directly the parallel here is when a relationship breaks up and you have shared mutual friends and it's like are
you my friend or are you his friend it's the exact same thing except with like armies and exactly people the courts I
guess exactly and like 90 of them chose her you know because they were like you seem like at least you speaker
language you know like you if they knew nothing like they knew that so so Catherine says okay thank you for
signing this over I'm gonna send you to jail for a little bit and then we'll talk later like that sounds great but
guess what happens she kills him yeah they never talk he dies he mysteriously dies in jail like
two days later so just like all those people in Russia right now who get thrown out of like Windows of hotels
basically yeah like oh that's crazy just like Ivan who got killed by his people
saving him that makes no sense you know you told me you're in a Russian jail probably I could I could have guessed
that I could have presumed that yeah so Peter is now gone they never had a chance to talk it out he's just gone and
Catherine is an empress of Russia and she rules Russia for three decades she does a bunch of like cool modernizing
reforms some stuff she doesn't do she does have more kids she meets you know a couple other men who become her her
favorites when she gets older when she's like 60 she has his uh favorite like boyfriend who's like in his 20s and she
just like loves him and they just have like such a good time together and he dies and she's so devastated because he
was like another person she really loved or a lot of he cheats on her a bunch so she like you know gets the kicks him out
but ends up still like you know hooking up with a bunch of people um which again is not the most interesting about her but it happens so
she has more kids she expanded the empire into Asia into Europe she was you know had an alliance with England so she
was really just kind of talking to to everybody and one of the cool things that she did first was she visited as
much of Russia as possible which is really really hard like literally she was in like a a sled full of Furs and
like going across like the the um the what's it called what's it called up there Alejandra the Siberian Siberian
yes yeah yeah so she's like doing all that she there's a big part of Russia
that is Islam so she's like you know cool with them she's cool with different religions she's like you know really doing that kind of stuff she
um expands to paper money she creates Banks they're uh the thing that isn't
great that's not great with any of the leaders during this time is a relation to like slavery and serfdom so in Russia
they didn't really have like the transatlantic slave trade that's really how it's happening at this time but they did have like you know half of Russia
was a surf which is pretty much like you are indentured to you know the person who owns your land who owns the land who
owns their land and it's pretty pretty crappy way to live so you know that still happens and the service were very
much like well she's enlightened and all these things but why are we still living this really shitty life which is like
yeah why are you but it's because people suddenly diverse people are still like we're still Rich she became a painter of
the Arts our collection is now the Hermitage Museum in Moscow right or St Peters wherever it is that's where
that's her collection she invited a lot of people to Russia she also inoculated people against smallpox so she's like
pro-vaccination and did it herself so did they also accuse her of embedding
microchips and they got vaccinated or no the concept was Chief Warren yeah well
you know what's interesting is like they were scared people were scared and then when they saw people didn't die from it
they did it themselves so they like used logic to be like oh maybe this does
work and then did it and then we're okay rather than being like I'm gonna be mad about this forever and
never do anything so the so the people in the 1700s Russia who have no running
water were essentially more enlightened when it came to vaccines than modern day people got it yeah it was fantastic
um you know um and then one of the last people that that she was with another like great
love of her life was General potemkin and did you ever see this is farther the
battleship potemkin which is like one of the first movies ever made definitely do not see that it's in it's
like make it no but it I mean honestly it's like this is what I remember from
okay I took like a film propaganda class in grad school and it's like
this it's a story of a battle and the battleship named potemkin and it's like coming up to port and like I just
remember people like falling down the stairs I don't know why there's stairs because also battleships I don't really understand I should watch it again but
there were people falling down the stairs and rolling but when the first movies ever made in Russia in the world and that that's what I think over and
think of potemkin but then so they were married they actually like got secretly married um most people think and they were like
pretty happy towards like the end of her end of her life he ended up leaving her to go out and like do you know Army
things to go out to battle and then he had the hands of leaving her for several of his nieces like he dated some of his
nieces which is gross and then he died um you know in his 50s like pretty young out in the battlefield so another kind
of gross incestible thing that was like happening then I'm gonna go on a limb and say those
relationships we're also doomed to fail yes his sister was like can you stop dating my daughters yeah yeah so gross
so you know whatever Catherine liked him and and that one didn't work out either so when she died you know she did have a
favorite around but she basically you know she was married to Peter she might have gotten married to potemkin she dated orlov for a long time dated like
they went to like dinner but like they even did the coup they were together for a long time and those are the great loves of her life and she died on
November 16th 1796. people who didn't like her said that she died having sex
with a horse okay but you know might kill you and it's not true
um but she had a stroke like old people do um so after her her son Paul other wet
noodle became emperor um and made a bunch of bad decisions that led to the fall of the um Russian Empire later wow
for World War one so she was kind of the beginning of all of that tried to do a lot for the enlightenment you know I
think she was really successful in her life out in Russia but definitely not
meant to have like a fairy tale move to a place Mary the prince become
the queen that part of the fairy tale was not not in the cards for her so what would you what would you say I mean this
seems pretty obvious at this point but what would you say are the clear red flags that were going on here I mean
I want to say like her I think she made the best of the situation because she could have done
like Marie Antoinette also was in a very similar situation just like married to someone random who sucked and she
did more like hang out in court and you know the reason that people feel the way they do about Marie Antoinette versus
Catherine the Great because she was like I really want to do these things I think that she wouldn't have had that opportunity if her husband had been
more of a green flag you know yeah like if she had been if she had been like hey I'm awesome and then she'd been really
happy then she would have had you know 10 kids with him and she would have just been you know the you know his you know
there with him while he did all of his stuff and she would have been she could have been happy doing that but he sort of gave her the opportunity to do other
things because he ignored her and he was like playing with his friends and like you know doing stuff that like he he
didn't he didn't see her as a threat he should have yeah
it sounds like it worked out for Catherine and the fact that she has now
gone down its history as Catherine the Great is a huge indicator of that yeah
he came from he came from like a lineage of Peter the Great and he's just like Peter you know yeah yeah
wet noodle what noodle I don't like wet noodles okay really interesting cool so that that's
the story of Catherine the Great her wet noodle Peter the third and the relationship that was never going to be
super in love but ended up making her very successful which was you know always fun to see and then as far as I'm
going to hand it over to you for give us something more recent give us some true crime relationships that that turned bad
I'm like I'm nervous yeah let's [Music]
all right there you have it that was Catherine the Great and her what noodle husband Peter I hope you enjoyed please
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