Yekaterina Samoylova (1763–1830) was a Russian noble and

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 sh ...

Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

. She was a leading figure of

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

society and frequently mentioned in the literature, diaries and memoirs of the period. She was the daughter of prince Sergey Alekseyevich Trubetskoy and Yelena Nesvitskaya and in 1786 married General count Aleksandr Samoylov, nephew of

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

. In 1782 she became one of Empress Catherine the Great's ladies-in-waiting. During her stay with her spouse in Bender in 1787–91, she was rumoured to have had an affair with Potemkin. She was the role model of the capital's aristocracy, known for her love affairs — some of her children were not considered to have been her husband's — and for setting fashion trends.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samoylova, Yekaterina 1763 births 1830 deaths 18th-century people from the Russian Empire Ladies-in-waiting from the Russian Empire Russian nobility Trubetskoy family Burials at Lazarevskoe Cemetery (Saint Petersburg) Burials at the Dukhovskaya Church