The Shocking Rumor About Catherine the Great and “Electricity Experiments on Prisoners” — What’s Real and What’s Myth in the Life of Russia’s Most Controversial Empress

Most people remember Catherine the Great as one of history’s most powerful female rulers: a monarch who corresponded with philosophers like Voltaire and tried to bring enlightened reform to one of Europe’s most backward empires. But a wild, grisly rumor circulates — and it’s one that’s guaranteed to shock anyone who loves bizarre historical tidbits: that Catherine ordered electricity experiments on condemned prisoners to study its effects on the human body.

Did that really happen? The short answer is: no — there’s no reliable historical evidence that Catherine ever conducted such experiments. Yet the persistence of this myth tells us something fascinating about how history, rumor, and the bizarre collide in our collective imagination. Let’s unpack the truth behind the myth and the real life of one of history’s most controversial rulers.

The myth of Catherine and electrical experiments most likely originated from the general aura of bizarre, cruel scientific experiments that have been documented in various eras — from uninformed medical “research” in Europe to notorious 20th‑century psychiatric studies such as the Milgram shock experiments or unethical prisoner research in prisons. Those are well‑documented cases of harmful experimentation on humans, and they stir up strong reactions when they’re recounted — so it’s easy to see how a fantastical story might be projected backwards onto a powerful historical figure.

But let’s be clear: historians who study Catherine’s reign — including her own extensive correspondence and contemporary accounts — do not record evidence that she personally ordered electrical torture or scientific testing on prisoners. In fact, the first practical uses of electrical experimentation on humans didn’t emerge until several decades after Catherine’s death in 1796 — and even then, they were isolated and not connected to her court. You won’t find this episode in any serious biography, academic text, or archival record about her life or Russia’s Enlightenment era.

So where did the idea come from? The answer has less to do with history and more to do with mythmaking. Catherine’s life has long been fertile ground for scandalous rumors — sometimes planted by enemies, sometimes by popular imagination. Long before the era of viral memes, Catherine’s critics circulated lurid stories about her personal life, sexuality, and conduct, many of which were political propaganda rather than factual accounts. Some of these rumors were wildly exaggerated — including claims about her intimate life, which even today are repeated without evidence.

This is partly because Catherine lived at a time when public perception mattered enormously. She rose to power through a coup that dethroned her unpopular husband, Peter III, and she ruled Russia for 34 years — a period of remarkable expansion, reform attempts, and brutality alike. That alone makes her an irresistible subject for both admirers and detractors.

In reality, Catherine was deeply influenced by Enlightenment ideas. She maintained correspondence with luminaries like Voltaire and Denis Diderot, discussing philosophy, governance, and reform — sometimes sincerely, sometimes more to burnish her image as an enlightened sovereign than as an expression of her domestic policy.

But when it came to science and medicine, Catherine’s most noteworthy experiment — and this one is absolutely true — was her decision in 1768 to have herself inoculated against smallpox. This act was both symbolic and practical: at a time when smallpox was a terrifying and often fatal disease, Catherine invited British physician Thomas Dimsdale to perform the inoculation. After the procedure worked without harm, she approved a mass inoculation program across Russia — a public‑health innovation that saved countless lives. This is a truly surprising and forward‑thinking episode in her reign, one far more remarkable than the speculative myth about electrical experimentation.

Another strange — but real — contribution she made was cultural: Catherine helped popularize an early form of the roller coaster in Russia by installing a wheeled track ride at her summer palace in 1784, long before modern amusement parks existed. It’s an odd footnote that her taste in entertainment influenced what would become a global amusement tradition.

So why does the false story about electricity persist? Part of the answer lies in how we interpret power and cruelty. Leaders who are both brilliant and ruthless — as Catherine undeniably was — tend to become legends. It’s far more dramatic to imagine a ruler using prisoners as electrical guinea pigs than to acknowledge the messy realities of eighteenth‑century governance: war, bureaucracy, shifting alliances, and the brutal maintenance of serfdom. And when modern audiences hear “electricity + prisoners + Catherine the Great,” it hits like a viral story — shocking, uncanny, and all the more memorable for its implausibility.

Yet if we’re honest, Catherine’s real life offers plenty of shocking truths without needing to invent new ones. She was a woman who navigated palace intrigue, dethroned a husband, corresponded with European intellectuals, expanded Russia’s territory dramatically, and tried to marry Enlightenment ideals with absolute monarchy — a contradiction at the heart of her reign that continues to fascinate historians.

In the end, the rumor that she ran electric experiments on prisoners says more about how we process history than about Catherine herself. It reflects our inclination to blend drama, ethics, and shock value into narratives about powerful figures. The truth — that Catherine combined genuine intellectual ambition with ruthless political tactics — is itself far richer and stranger than any myth could be.