History of Russia (1721–96) drills on the Russian army, and depriving Russia of a military victory by establishing his sudden alliance with Prussia. Making use of the discontent and fearing for her own position, Peter III's wife, Catherine, deposed her husband in a coup, and her lover's brother, Aleksey Orlov, subsequently murdered him, so in June 1762 Catherine became Catherine II, empress of Russia. Peter the Great had two wives, Yevdokiya Lopukhina (the daughter of a minor noble) and Marfa Skavronskaya (a Lithuanian peasant, renamed Catherine after her conversion to Orthodoxy). Catherine I's rise through Peter I's Table of Ranks from a simple peasant
Peter III of Russia Europe had taken. He fought corruption within government, established public litigation and abolished the secret police — a repressive organ started under Peter I – and intended to expose it as betrayer of the state for its mercilessness and torture methods. Catherine recreated this institution, and it remained present in Russia thereon. Peter established obligatory education for aristocrats; all aristocrats had to provide their children with education and report it to the senate. Furthermore, in some cities technical schools were established for middle and lower class children. Peter began the reorganization and modernization of the Russian army. One of his