The Westernizing of Russia

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Section 5.26

• The Westernizing of Russia

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Introduction

• Austrian monarchy, Prussia, and the Russian
  empire became modern states
• Borrowed administrative systems from the west
• Remained distinct in political, social, and
  cultural characteristics
• 1650 to 1750 Muscovy modernized into Russia
• Undergoes a process of Europeanization
• Peter The Great 1682-1725) initiated rapid and
  forced change
• Roots are European (Vikings at Kiev)
• Still out of the loop during the Renaissance.
  Why?
• Were Christians before many other Northern
  Europeans (Greek Orthodox)
• Influence comes from Constantinople instead of
  Rome
• Mongol invasions (1240)
• kept them under Asian domination for 250 yrs.
• 1480 Ivan III gained Muscovy independence
• No warm water port
• communication with the west was difficult

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Prussia v. Russia

• Prussian differences from Russia
• Germanic vs. Slavic
• Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox
• Protestantism gave Prussia connection to Europe
• European universities vs. no universities
• Close to commercial activity vs. distant from
  commercial activity
• More European vs. More Oriental
• Russia develops a unique blend of European and
  non-European traits

• Prussian parallels with Russia
• Great plains culture
• Lacked natural borders
• Grew by the addition of territories
• State arose as a means of supporting a modern
  army
• Autocratic governments
• Landlord class was strong and controlled the
  peasantry
• No native commercial class to speak of
• Imported new skills from western Europe

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Russia before Peter the Great

• Slavic in language
• Diverse population
• Great Russians (Muscovites) lived around Moscow
• Scandinavian
• Tartars
• Cossaks (semi-independent cowboys)
• White Russians (Byelorussians)
• Little Russians (Ukrainians)
• Russia is facing eastward
• Conquered the Tartars in 16th and reached Urals
• Stretching to the Urals and beyond
• Frontier experience in Siberia
• Alaska
• Trade is focused on the east
• Europe was in the rear of Russia
• 1552 Ivan the Terrible conquers the Kazaks
• with the help of a German engineer
• Richard Chancellor in 1553 of England makes
  contact through Archangel on the White Sea
• England has access to eastern goods (from Persia)

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Russian culture before Peter the Great

• Asiatic
• Course and crude
• Men wore beards, skirted garments
• Drunkenness, religious piety
• women wore veils and were secluded
• Religion was mystical and superstitious
• Little respect for life
• Murder, kidnapping, torture, physical cruelty
• Little support for education or charitable
  institutions
• No respect for learning or sentiments of humanity
• Geometry was a sin
• Abhorred of God is any who loves geometry it is
  a spiritual sin Russian bishop
• Arithmetic was little understood
• Arabic numerals were not used
• Abacus was instrument of trade
• Ability to predict eclipse magic
• Manufacturing was non-existent
• Some European characteristics
• Manorial and feudal organization

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Early Tsars

• Ivan the Terrible (1553-1584) the first Tsar
• Consolidates authority under his title
• Inherited throne at 3
• Mother murdered by nobles at 7
• Had a virgin competition (girls over 12) to
  choose a bride
• Used Bible to give instructions on torture
  methods (so it was like hell)
• Killed son in fit of rage with his staff
• Buried in a monks habit
• At Ivans death Time of troubles(1604-1613)
  ensues
• War and infighting
• 1613 Michael Romanov (17) was elected Tsar
• Romanov in the one and only dynasty
• Begins to repress representative institutions
• Move toward absolute monarchy

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Serfdom in Russia

• serfs had some mobility
• Plains and Siberia
• Landlords move to secure a labor force
• Manors become slave plantations
• Laws make serfs fugitives if they leave
• Lords have right to recover limitless
• Killing of a serf could be squared by giving the
  lord another
• Civil rights of peasants deteriorate
• bonded to the land
• bonded to the lord
• 1625 law allowed lords to sell peasants (chattel)
• Stephen Razin lead a serf revolt with some
  success (Great Peasant Revolt (1670-71)
• Outfitted fleet on Caspian and invaded Persia,
  sacked cities on Volga
• 1671 he was executed
• Results in more repression of the serfs

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Peter and the Orthodox Church

• Orthodox Church is largely controlled by the Tsar
  after 1589
• promoting the concept of Holy Russia
• Constantinople is controlled by the Turks
• Russia sets up its own Patriarch
• Reforms led to split between new and old
  believers
• Further divides the peasants (old believers) from
  the government
• Church is willing to reform from within
• Rejects reforms from the west (Peter)
• Peter puts control of the Church under a
  committee of bishops with a civil representative
  to keep the Church in line
• Peter secularizes the Church and makes himself
  the head after the European model
• This follows the trend in Europe of secularized
  control of religion

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Peter the Great Foreign Affairs and Territorial

• Expansion
• Exposure to the West
• Europeanization would have been more gradual
  w/out Peter
• Initiated a social revolution
• Met Europeans of other nationalities in Moscow
  (German quarter) when he was a boy
• Met Westerners at Archangel and took lessons in
  navigation
• Spent over year in Holland and England and saw
  how backward Russia was
• Worked as a ships carpenter in Amsterdam and
  talked with business and political leaders
• Visited workshops, mines, hospitals, forts
• Unlike other Europeans monarchs (very tall,
  unpretentious, dressed carelessly, practical
  joker, slob, mixed easily with commoners

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Swedish threat recedes

• Poles hoped to Catholicize Russia
• Soon no longer a menace as nobles squabbled
• Peter formed alliance with Poland against Sweden
  in 1697
• Charles XII was known to kill sheep in his room
  for enjoyment
• Great general
• Routed Peters 40 thousand with only 8 thousand
  at b of Narava
• While Charles pursued Poland Peter modernized
  army in Western model
• Charless army greatly weakened by Russian winter
  of 1709 was destroyed at Poltava in S. Russia
• Peter conquered Livonia, parts of Finland and
  went as far as the Elbe
• Treaty of Nystadt (1721) ended Northern War and
  gave Russia Baltic shore

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War and Imperial Russia

• Wars helped father Russia
• Peter eliminated the elite but rebellious
  streltsi (Moscow guard) and rebuild army from
  bottom up
• Used European officers, uniformed troops in
  Western styled, organized them in regiments,
  armed them with muskets, artillery

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Founding of St. Petersburg

• Named after himself and patron saint
• His chief window on the West
• Established offices of gov, made noblemen build
  town houses, encouraged foreign merchants,
  craftsmen to settle
• Meant to be new symbol of Russia (facing Europe)
• Made it the new capital (until 1917)
• Called Leningrad in 1924 but back to Petersburg
  in 1991

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Internal Changes under Peter

• Mercantilism encouraged
• Money needed to pay for expanding government
• Taxes on land inns, mills, hats, leather,
  coffins, right to marry, sell meat, wear a beard,
  be Old Believer were imposed
• Fell mostly on peasants
• Organized commercial companies and gave them
  capital, labor supply (serfs)
• Serfs in Industry
• Gave owners right to sell serfs without land and
  move them from landed estates into mines, or
  industrial activity
• New Administrative System
• Got rid of Duma and national assembly
• Made a senate dependent on himself, 10
  territorial areas called governments (gubernii) a
  Latin word
• He was at top of structure, autocrat
• Abolished rule of hereditary succession and said
  tsar could name his own successor
• Required state of service
• All landowning aristocrats required to serve in
  army or civil admin.
• Birth counted for nothing
• tax administrator Kurbatov was an ex-serf

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Peters Social Revolution

• Attempted to reeducate Russians
• Required gentry to put sons in school
• Simplified Russian alphabet
• Edited 1st newspaper
• Ordered book of etiquette (not to spit of floor,
  scratch themselves, gnaw bones at dinner, take
  off hats, converse pleasantly, give eye contact,
  converse with women)
• Ordered beards to be shaved (he himself did in
  court to nobles)
• No respect for aristocratic status (torturing
  them as he would peasants)

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Results of Peters Revolution

• Resistance to Reform
• Some thought he was going too fast, xenophobic
• Son, Alexis said he would stop Peters program
  (Peter had him killed)
• Died in 1725
• His changes stuck
• The methods used, force fastened autocracy,
  serfdom, bureaucracy on country
• Exclusion of Peasants
• Still regarded as brutes and children and did not
  become European by Peter