17/03/2021

IMPA's Director-General speaks about Euler and the Empress of Russia.

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Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S.Paulo.

Tsar Peter III had the name, but none of the qualities of his formidable grandfather, Peter I, the Great. Unpopular due to his pro-German ideas, on June 9, 1762, he was deposed by troops loyal to his charismatic wife, the German princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, who, upon converting to the Russian Orthodox Church, had adopted the name Catherine.

He died shortly afterwards, under suspicious circumstances, and Catherine was soon crowned, beginning a reign of more than three decades that made her the most powerful woman ever, and the only one to receive the nickname "the Great". Among her priorities was restoring to the imperial capital the cultural splendor it had enjoyed since the reign of Peter I.

Leonhard Euler's demands to return to Russia were exorbitant: an annual salary of 3,000 rubles, a pension for his wife, Katharina, and the promise of important positions at court for their children. Catherine accepted without hesitation, and in 1766, Euler returned to St. Petersburg for the last time. He is buried in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in a marble mausoleum that I had the opportunity to visit in 1991, when I participated in the inauguration of the Euler Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the (then) Soviet Union.

This final period of his life was marked by several tragedies. Five years after becoming blind, in 1771 his house was destroyed by a fire that nearly cost him his life. Two years later he lost his wife of 40 years. Eight of the couple's 13 children did not reach adulthood.

But in 1776 he married his half-sister-in-law Salome, and this relationship lasted until his death. Catherine the Great was a cultured and sophisticated woman who corresponded with the greatest intellectuals of her time and made a point of personally discussing matters with the thinkers she gathered at her court. Euler was no exception: he had regular meetings with the sovereign to discuss mathematics and other sciences.

To read the full text, visit the newspaper's website.