title: 1. Russians as Greeks: Catherine II’s “Greek Project” and the Russian Ode of the 1760s–70s
abstract: C atherine II's well-known "Greek Project" is undoubtedly one of the largest, most comprehensive and ambitious foreign policy ideas that Russia's rulers have ever put forward.Like Catherine's colleagues and opponents both in Russia and abroad, modern historians tend to see it as just another of Potemkin's fantasies which the usually sober-minded empress allowed herself to be caught up in; as a manifestation of traditional imperial expansionism; as a smoke screen to hide less far-reaching but mor
journal: Academic Studies Press eBooks