Empress Catherine II "the Great"

She had been born Princess Sophia August Frederika on May 2, 1729 in the Baltic seaport town of Stettin, then a part of German Pomerania. Her father was an obscure German military princeling named Christian August, and her mother was Princess Joanna Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Her father was nominal ruler of the tiny principality of Anhalt-Zerbst, but the greater part of his life was spent as an officer in the service of Prussia. Little Sophia was nicknamed …

…less to do with her and more to do with human nature. Catherine was unable to transform Russia through her will alone. Since she was unwilling to use terror or force to transform society, she chose a more patient path, hoping to gradually raise the level of culture by legislation, education, and example. She single-handedly grafted onto Russian rootstock the bud-wood of western culture, which was taken and remolded two generations later into something marvellous.