25. Fact or Fiction: Did Catherine the Great Die While Engaged in a Bestial Act With a Horse?
Fiction. One of the most salacious – and persistent – stories surrounding royal deaths concerns Catherine the Great (1729 – 1796). To wit, that she was so licentious, promiscuous, and sexually insatiable, that she used horses to satisfy her lusts, and died in the midst of an act of bestiality with a well-hung equine. The story has persisted and been repeated for centuries, despite the fact that it is blatant sexist calumny with no basis in reality and zero historic evidentiary support.
Tsarina of Russia from 1762 until her death, Catherine was a German-born princess who ascended the throne after she had her husband, Tsar Peter III, assassinated. She continued the westernization work begun by Tsar Peter the Great, and by the end of her reign, Russia had fully joined the mainstream of European political and cultural life. Her regal reign was not to be matched by a regal and dignified death, however. Catherine did shuffle off the mortal coil in an embarrassing manner, but there was no horse involved.
