4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 July 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Did Catherine the Great really die having sex with a horse? Was she involved in her husband's death? And were her lovers selected for political reasons?
In this episode, Kate speaks with Virginia Rounding about the real Catherine the Great. We find out why Catherine's sex life still intrigues so many, and what kind of ruler she was. Virginia is the author of 'Catherine the Great: Love, Sex and Power’.
This episode was edited and produced by Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
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Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.
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0:00.0 | Hello everyone, it's me your host, Kate Lister. I'm just jumping in before the episode to ask you for a little favour. |
0:07.6 | If you are enjoying betwixt, and I hope that you are, we'd love it if you could vote for us for the |
0:12.5 | Listeners Choice Awards at the British Podcast Awards. If you follow the link in the show notes, |
0:17.9 | it should take you to the place you need to go and it would mean the world to us. We were shortlisted last year and the one before that and the one before that. |
0:27.8 | We were so close and it just made us want it even more. I think we can do it this year. Right, |
0:34.5 | on with the show. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are you, I am me and this is betwixt the sheets. And in case you're new around here, in case you've wandered in thinking betwixt the sheets, that sounds like some kind of nice home decorating program. No, you would be wrong. It is not. This is a show about historical smut, and therefore, I have to tell you. |
0:55.9 | This is an adult podcast book. Goodbye to other adults about adulty things and an adult's away covering a range of adults subjects. |
1:00.0 | Newspere and adult too. Do you feel safer? I feel safer. Fair do's. You were warned. Let's do it. |
1:08.6 | It's 1894 and Valashefsky, a Polish author, is hunched over the final pages of his new text, a biography of Catherine II of Russia. |
1:20.2 | And the final chapter is titled Private Life Favoritism. |
1:24.9 | The segment begins, there is a whole legend in regard to the love |
1:29.5 | affairs of Catherine. We shall try to replace it by a few pages of history. He wrote that quite |
1:35.6 | a while ago now and a hundred years after Catherine the Great had died, but it was as true then |
1:41.3 | and it is true now that her lustful ways will not be contained to a few pages of history. |
1:49.3 | In fact, Catherine's legendary love life has all but eclipsed her skills as a politician and a state leader. |
1:55.2 | Honestly, it's all anyone can talk about. |
1:57.9 | This was a woman who enjoyed a string of younger lovers well into her 60s. Go on, |
2:03.1 | Catherine. And you'd hardly bat an eyelid, an emperor doing such things, but an empress? |
2:08.8 | Well, we can't have that, can we? |
2:15.2 | What do you look for in a man? Oh, money, of course. |
2:18.3 | You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. |
2:20.3 | I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning enough and pushing the money. |
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