Welcome at National Geographic History Magazine March-April 2023 Issue

The death of a 96-year-old person should not feel shocking. Nine decades on this planet is a long life indeed, but when that person has been on the British throne for 70 years, it can feel unsettling. Perhaps it was not so much the passing of Elizabeth II itself, but more her absence that created such an unfamiliar feeling. She was a stable presence through the 20th and 21st centuries as rapid changes washed over the world. The ways in which people consume media, travel, and communicate with each other now bear little resemblance to when she took the throne in 1952. Through it all,there she was, keeping calm and carrying on.
I wonder if there was a similar feeling when 67-year-old Catherine the Great died in 1796. She had ruled Russia for more than three decades, but rather than a steadying influence, she was a disrupter. After seizing the throne for herself, she spent her reign constantly pushing Russia to grow bigger, to govern better, to think more rationally while embracing the arts and sciences. Rather than the calm in the storm, Catherine II was the storm, an agent of change that pushed Russia into a different era. After her death, Russia and much of the world must have seemed a quieter place.

Amy Briggs, Executive Editor

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