Либертинаж как способ управления государством: Екатерина II глазами маркиза де Сада

The article discusses the image of Catherine II in the context of the French anti-monarchist pamphlets that abounded after the French revolution and were often directed at the Russian empress as well, representing her as the “Semiramis of the North”. A special case is Marquis de Sadeʼs Histoire de Juliette, ou les Prospérités du vice, which unmistakably refers to Catherine II in projecting an “ideal” state, the pillars of which are unbounded crime and vice. Finally, the author connects these ideas with some of Dostoevskiiʼs writings, notably the figure of the Grand Inquisitor in his novel The Brothers Karamazov.