Countess Anna Stepanovna Protasova (Анна Степановна Протасова; 1745–1826) was a

lady-in-waiting A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman but of lower rank than the woman to whom ...

and

noblewoman Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteri ...

who was a confidant of Empress Catherine the Great in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

Life

She was the daughter of Senator Stepan Feodorovich Protasov and Anisya Nikitishna, née Orlova, and the cousin of Alexej Orlov with whom she is reported to have had a relationship. She was the foster parent of two girls who were rumoured to have had Orlov as their biological father and either Catherine or Protasova as their biological mother.{{citation needed, date= October 2022 Protasova replaced Countess

Praskovya Bruce Countess Praskovya Aleksandrovna Bruce (Прасковья Александровна Брюс; née Rumyantseva; 1729–1785) was a Russian lady-in-waiting and noble, confidant of Catherine the Great. Life {{unsourced, section, date=October 20 ...

as Catherine's confidante and first maid-of-honour in 1779 and became lady-in-waiting in 1785. Catherine entrusted her with her most intimate personal affairs. Protasova is most known in history as ''l'éprouveuse'' for the role that she is supposed to have played in Catherine's love life. According to legend, she was to "test" the prospective lovers sexually before they became Catherine's lovers after they had been suggested by

Potemkin Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (, also , ;, rus, Князь Григо́рий Алекса́ндрович Потёмкин-Таври́ческий, Knjaz' Grigórij Aleksándrovich Potjómkin-Tavrícheskij, ɡrʲɪˈɡ ...

, chosen by Catherine and examined by a doctor for venereal disease. The same role has been attributed without confirnation to her predecessor as lady-in-waiting, Praskovya Bruce. She accompanied Catherine on all of her journeys. Protasova is mentioned as ''l'éprouveuse'' in the

poems Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

.{{citation needed, date= October 2022 In 1801, she was given the title of countess, and she remained lady-in-waiting to Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna. Protasova died in St. Petersburg.{{citation needed, date= October 2022

References

{{commons category, Anna Protasova * Simon Sebag-Montefiore : ''Potemkin och Katarina den stora'' (2005) * Marie Tetzlaff : ''Katarina den stora'' (1998) {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Protasova, Anna Countesses of the Russian Empire Ladies-in-waiting from the Russian Empire 1745 births 18th-century people from the Russian Empire 1826 deaths Burials at the Dukhovskaya Church Court of Catherine the Great