Potemkin, Grigori Aleksandrovich 1739-91
Russian soldier and politician

Born near Smolensk, of a noble but impoverished Polish family, he entered the Russian Horse Guards in 1755, and attracted the notice of Catherine the Great by his good looks. In 1774 he became her lover, and directed Russian policy. They may have secretly married. In charge of the newly acquired lands in the south, he made an able administrator, and constructed a fleet in the Black Sea. In the Second Turkish War (1787-92) he headed the army, and took the credit for Count Suvorov's victories (1791). He gained for Russia the Crimea and the north coast of the Black Sea, and he founded Sebastopol, Nikolaev and Yekaterinoslav (Dnipropetrovsk).

Bibliography: George Soloveytchik, Potemkin (1938)