The True Story of Catherine the Great’s Mother, Joanna

Fans were thrilled when Gillian Anderson was announced as a new addition to Hulu’s The Great—the playful and often anachronistic account of Catherine the Great’s (Elle Fanning) rise against her husband, Peter III (Nicholas Hoult). In season 2, Anderson was cast as Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, the mother of Catherine the Great and, on the show at least, not someone you want to mess with. When Joanna arrives, her daughter has successfully pulled off a coup and she’s only days away from giving birth. And yet Joanna manages to introduce even more chaos into the situation.

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But Joanna was a real person, and like all the real people on The Great, the writers have taken some liberties with her life story. Anybody watching is likely going to wonder how much of that narrative lines up with Anderson’s portrayal. Here are some of the basics for viewers who want a little history with their entertainment. Be warned, though: Some spoilers for Season 2 of The Great lie ahead.

Joanna wasn’t necessarily that influential.

Catherine was born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst (before converting to Orthodox Christianity and changing her name). Her mother Joanna was described as being the daughter of “minor Prussian nobles who had more social connections than money,” per Biography. Joanna’s family ruled the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, which didn’t have much land or wealth. But it was in a strategic place between Denmark and Germany, and on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Many powers in the area saw the region as a place to wrestle for control of the Baltic and Northern Europe, so they had some influence. But ultimately, Joanna was married to Prince Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst at 15 years old. She’d been living in Wolfenbüttel Castle with the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, which was supposedly a lively place. But after her marriage, she had to move to Stettin in Pomeranian, now known as Poland, for her husband’s military career and found it pretty dull. The opportunities for influence were limited in her early life.

She wasn’t really allergic to peanuts.

…As far as we know. It’s always fun when a historical show peppers in plot points about health care, which The Great does in abundance, like Catherine’s pre-natal frog watch. When Catherine offered her mother a chance to try this new delicious treat, the peanut, most watchers could probably see her anaphylactic shock coming from a mile away. While there likely were people with peanut allergies, even in Russia in the 1700s, National Geographic explained that the first scientist to really investigate the body’s response to allergens started his trials in 1859, in Manchester, England. Maybe Joanna was allergic to peanuts, but no one watching would have known what they were seeing. Nor had the means to revive her.

She wasn’t really the ”maestro of marriage.”

When Joanna shows up in Russia to check on The Great‘s version of Catherine, it’s because she’s heard about her daughter’s coup against her own husband. The rebellion rumors are squelching Joanna’s plans to see another daughter married to another prince, this time France’s Louis XIV. No prince wants to marry into a family with a history of starting an actual war against their spouses. In reality, Catherine’s only other sister died when she was three years old.

And it seems as though Catherine’s marriage wasn’t necessarily aided by her mother. Though Joanna raised her daughter with the idea that she’d marry advantageously, apparently other schemes took priority. Joanna and Catherine were invited to the Russian court to arrange a union between Peter and Catherine by the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in 1744. While there, Joanna got in trouble when the Empress discovered she was trying to support Prussian interests in court on behalf of Prussia’s king, Frederick the Great. She was banished from Russia in 1745 and never saw her daughter again.

Catherine wasn’t really a mommy’s girl.

During Gillian Anderson’s brief guest spot, we see Catherine coming to terms with the fact that her mother doesn’t actually support her as a leader. Joanna turns out to be rather conservative, for all of her social and sexual manipulations. She believes that women should not brag about taking power from men because “then their fists” come up. The last time Catherine sees her mother alive, they have a huge fight over Joanna’s insistence she give Russia back to Peter. The scales have fallen from Catherine’s eyes and she finally realizes her mother doesn’t unconditionally love her the way she’d believed. Based on the story above, Catherine likely always knew her mom was going to prioritize her own political agenda. She once wrote of her parents that her father “saw her very seldom,” and her mother “did not bother much about me.”

She died in exile.

You’ll probably be shocked to read that she wasn’t actually pushed out a window while making passionate love to her son-in-law. After the death of her husband, Prince Christian August of Anhalt-Zerbst, Joanna served as regent for her son, Frederick Augustus, until 1752 when he reached his majority. However, they both outlived their kingdom. Anhalt-Zerbst was invaded by the Prussians in 1958, and ceased to exist. Joanna lived in exile in Paris, until her death at age 47 in 1760.

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