This Russian Noblewoman, Beloved by Catherine the Great and Benjamin Franklin, Embodied the Age of Enlightenment

If not for her many accomplishments, Ekaterina Dashkova would have been a footnote in history, remembered merely as the younger sister of the mistress of Peter III, the Russian czar deposed by his better-known wife, Catherine the Great. Perhaps motivated by the prospect of this unflattering legacy, the Russian noblewoman—commonly called Princess Dashkova—strove to make a name for herself in the fields of…