Екатерина II.Записки

For a long time, the "hand -handed notes" of Empress Catherine II were stored under the stamp of "special secrecy" imposed on them by her son, Emperor Paul. However, he allowed his close friend, Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin, to remove a copy from the "notes". Subsequently, several more lists appeared, which went around the reign of Alexander I and Nicholas I (they were known by the historian A.I. Turgenev, N.M. Karamzin and A.S. Pushkin).
In 1859, a significant part of the empress’s memoirs was published in London A.I. Herzen. They made a real splash throughout Europe and were translated into several languages ​​(the original was written in French).
At the beginning of the 20th century, the works of Catherine decided to publish the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Having received permission to work in closed archives, Academician A.N. Pypin, who led the publication, discovered the originals of the Empress "notes" in full. The London publication, as I now was assured, gives only half of the whole "notes" and barely a third