Qui es va casar amb Caterina II de Rússia?

Caterina II de Rússia (Szczecin, 2 de maig de 1729 - Sant Petersburg, 6 de novembre de 1796 ^(Julià)), anomenada la Gran, rus: Екатери́на II Алексе́евна Вели́кая, Iekaterina II Alekséievna Velíkaia, fou una princesa alemanya que esdevingué tsarina de Rússia per l'abdicació del seu marit, el tsar Pere III. Representa la monarquia il·lustrada per antonomàsia del segle xviii a l'Imperi Rus.

Grigori Aleksàndrovitx Potiomkin, príncep de Tàurida (rus: Григо́рий Алекса́ндрович Потёмкин, Txijovo, prop de Smolensk, 24 de setembre de 1739 - Iași, 5 d'octubre de 1791) va ser un estadista, militar i polític rus, amant de Caterina II de Rússia. Sovint s'ha transcrit o transliterat el nom de Potiomkin com a Potemkin, perquè en rus de vegades s'escriu la lletra "ё" ("io") sense la dièresi ("е", que quan és tònica, fa el so "ie"), cosa que pot causar confusió.

Va ser l'home encarregat de l'annexió a l'Imperi Rus de Nova Rússia (la regió de Crimea) i de l'administració de la regió durant els primers anys, allà va disposar d'enormes terrenys de cultiu i va fundar diverses ciutats, com ara Dniprò (1776), Kherson (1778), Mikolaiv (1789).

Va ser favorit de Caterina II. Segons dades controvertides, el 8 de juny de 1774 va contraure matrimoni morganàtic amb la sobirana.

Peter III Fyodorovich (Russian: Пётр III Фёдорович, romanized: Pyotr III Fyodorovich; 21 February [O.S. 10 February] 1728 – 17 July [O.S. 6 July] 1762) was Emperor of Russia from 5 January 1762 until 9 July of the same year, when he was overthrown by his wife, Catherine II (the Great). He was born in the German city of Kiel as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (German: Karl Peter Ulrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp), the grandson of Peter the Great and great-grandson of Charles XI of Sweden.

After a 186-day reign, Peter III was overthrown in a palace coup d'état orchestrated by his wife, and soon died under unclear circumstances. The official cause proposed by Catherine's new government was that he died due to hemorrhoids. This explanation was met with skepticism, both in Russia and abroad, with notable critics such as Voltaire and d'Alembert expressing doubt about the plausibility of death from such a condition.

The personality and activities of Peter III were long disregarded by historians and his figure was seen as purely negative, but since the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, more attention has been directed at the decrees he signed. His most notable reforms were the abolition of the secret police, exemption of nobles from compulsory military service, confiscation of church lands, and equalisation of all religions. He also put an end to the persecution of the Old Believers and made the killing of serfs by landowners punishable by exile. Although he is mostly criticised for undoing Russian gains in the Seven Years' War by forming an alliance with Prussia, Catherine continued it and many of his other policies.

After Peter III's death, many impostors thrived, pretending to be him, the most famous of whom were Yemelyan Pugachev and the "Montenegerin Tsar Peter III" (Stephan the Little).