1.  Absolute and Parliamentary Monarchies

a.  Feudal monarchies come to end

i.  Nobles lose influence after wars

ii.  Heavy wars require more taxes/better administration

b.  Absolute Monarchy

i.  Modeled after France

ii.  Parliament doesn’t meet

iii.  Blew up castles

iv.  Bureaucracy from merchants/lawyers

v.  Appointed representatives to provinces

vi.  Professionalized army

a.  formal training officers – no longer nobility

b.  uniforms and support

c.  military hospitals/pensions – Hotel des Invalides

c.  King Louis XIV of France– “I am the state”

i.  Patron of arts – government has cultural role

ii.  Versailles – keep nobles busy

d.  Mercantilism – protect economy of nation

i.  Reduce internal tariffs

ii.  Support manufacturing

iii.  Limit imports from other nations – lose $

a.  Heavy import taxes

b.  Need colonies for natural resources/market

c.  Borrowed in Spain, Prussia (Germany today), Austria-Hungary (Hapsburg)

e.  Focus on military, expansion/protection

2.  Tsarist Autocracy of Peter the Great

a.  Autocrat

b.  Put down revolts with cruelty

c.  Organized military

d.  Devalued parliament

e.  Recruited bureaucrats from outside nobility

f.  Secret police to watch bureaucrats/prevent dissent

g.  Chancery of Secret Police to 1990

h.  Foreign policy

i.  attacked Ottoman Empire, but didn’t win a ton of battles

ii.  weakened Sweden – sea port

i.  shifted capital to St. Petersburg

j.  What Westernization Meant

i.  Political changes

ii.  Small bureaucratic departments (think Ministries or Departments)

k.  Military

i.  Improved weaponry

ii.  First Russian navy

l.  Got rid of nobility for advisors – got specialized people

m.  Tsar-appointed local magistrates – can control provinces

n.  Systemized law codes/tax system (stuff China did 2000 years ago)

o.  New training institutes for bureaucrats

p.  Economic changes

i.  Metallurgy and mining

q.  Unlike W. Europe, didn’t urbanize, develop middle class

r.  Serfs used for manufacturing – nobles rewarded

s.  economics funded military

t.  Cultural changes

i.  Power to upper class women

ii.  wear Western clothing

iii.  Attend public events

iv.  Peasant relations stayed the same

a.  Take power from elite

v.  shave beards, wear western clothes – Mongol connection

vi.  altered appearance

u.  Borrowing from the West

i.  Education in math/sciences

ii.  Western cultural zone

iii.  imported ballet from France

iv.  Christmas trees from Germany

v.  To what extent was West imitated? Selective

i.  Didn’t change poor

ii.  Not wage labor, but serf (slave/coerced) labor

iii.  Economics for military purposes not for commercial expansion

iv.  Ideas to strengthen aristocracy, not create political rebellions

w.  Hostile Responses

i.  Peasants resented nobles – some didn’t speak Russian

ii.  Elite discouraged Western change – losing Russian identity

iii.  Set precedent for cycle of enthusiasm > revulsion

3.  Consolidation Under Catherine the Great

a.  Weak rule following Peter the Great

b.  Military leaders fought for power

c.  Anti-western leaders emerged

d.  Peter the Great’s daughter’s nephew – Peter III – mentally challenged

e.  Wife Catherine – German princess – takes over

i.  Put down rebellions

ii.  Centralized power

iii.  Used Pugachev Rebellion as an excuse for more power

f.  Catherine II – fascinating women rulers

i.  Hated husband/son

ii.  Helped overthrow husband

iii.  Enlightened leader + realist/needed to centralize

iv.  Selective westernizer

a.  Brought some ideas of French Enlightenment

b.  Brought some reformers to discuss law codes

c.  Image vs. Reality – centralized authority – serf life gets worse

g.  New powers to nobility – could increase punishment

i.  Nobles then gave more power to central authority

ii.  Became service aristocracy – sold out?

h.  Role of landlord

i.  Requisition peasant labor

i.  Levy taxes

j.  Impose punishments

i.  Fading from Western influence – still selective

k.  Improved St. Petersburg

l.  Encouraged nobles to travel

m.  Closed Russia after French Revolution – hmmm…why?

i.  Censored intellectuals – here’s a pattern/precedent

ii.  Russian expansion

iii.  Fought Ottoman Empire

iv.  ii. Extended holdings all the way down to modern day Alaska, Oregon, N. California

n.  Russia’s interests in Europe

i.  Divided Poland between Austria and Prussia

ii.  Poland’s parliament kept crippling gov’t flexibility

iii.  Set precedent of involvement in W. Europe

a.  Eventually, Russia would stop Napoleon

o.  Success by 1800 – summary – here’s what they accomplished

i.  Won independence

ii.  ii. Centralized gov’t

4.  Themes in Early Modern Russian History

a.  Introduction

i.  Nobility extremely important

a.  Two types

a.  Great landowners/absentee owners living in the cities – westernized

b.  Smaller owners live out in the countryside – less Westernized

ii.  Serfdom: The Life of East Europe’s Masses

a.  Nobles power over serfs increases

a.  Free farmers before

i.  Fell into debt – repay through servitude

ii.  worked land, but didn’t own it

b.  Gov’t encouraged process – why?

c.  Made nobles happy – won’t revolt

d.  Method of controlling masses, when bureaucracy wasn’t effective

iii.  Serf laws

a.  1649 – hereditary status – born a serf – can’t escape

b.  Similarity to slavery

iv.  Bought and sold

v.  Gambled away

vi.  Punished by masters

vii.  Differences

a.  nation enslaved own people, not outsiders

viii.  relied on community ties (see precedent for commun-ism)