Early life and education
Born into an old House of Vorontsov, Countess Yekaterina Romanovna was the daughter of Count Roman Vorontsov (1717–1783), a member of the Senate, and his wife, Marfa Ivanovna Surmina (1718–1745), divorced Princess Dolgorukova. Her uncle Mikhail Illarionovich and older brother Alexander both served as Imperial Chancellor. Her younger brother Semyon was a Russian ambassador to Great Britain, and a celebrated Anglophile. She had two older sisters: Maria, later Countess Buturlina, who married Count Peter Buturlin, and Elizabeth, who married state advisor Alexander Polyansky. Among her godparents were Empress Elizabeth I and Grand Duke Peter Petrovich, later Emperor Peter III; her mother was a lady-in-waiting and very close friend of the Empress.
When Yekaterina was just 2 years old, Marfa died and Count Roman was an absent father, so the children were sent to different places. Alexander continued to live with their father, but Semyon was raised in the countryside by their grandfather and the three sisters went to live with their uncle Mikhail at the lavish Vorontsov Palace., who provided his nieces with an exceptionally good education and spared no expenses with them.
Yekaterina learned several languages (Russian, French, Italian and German), studied mathematics at the University of Moscow and read French literature – according to her memoirs, her favourites were Bayle, Montesquieu, Boileau and Voltaire. She also developed an interest in politics at a very young age and was allowed by her uncle to go through his papers, reading diplomatic letters from Russian ambassadors to illustrious foreigners like the Emperor of China (the content of which she describes in her memoirs), which gave her an inside look at how diplomacy worked. She grew up a well-educated, well-read, bright and intelligent girl.
