Muscovite (Russian) Empire [individual assignment]
Muscovite (Russian) Empire
Until the 18th century, Muscovy (modern-day Russia) remained largely closed off to western Europe as a result of the Mongol invasion of the 13th century. Some trade did exist; for instance, Elizabethan England imported Russian timber for the building of ships, but for the most part Russia was not affected by developments in the West, most notably missing out on the humanistic culture of the Italian Renaissance.
The Mongols had forced the Moscow princes to submit to their rule and provide them with tribute and slaves. Moscow princes collected the khan’s taxes and suppressed uprisings, gaining power in the process. Eventually, the Muscovite princes were able to defeat their rivals for power.
Ivan III, a grand prince of Moscow, stopped paying tribute to the Mongols and in 1480 began building his own empire. He established a strong central government, and ruled as an absolute monarch, a czar, who was also the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The czar claimed that his authority to rule came directly from God.
By the 16th century, the Duchy of Muscovy would emerge as the dominant state within the Russian steppe, an area that had absorbed a number of other rival states while pushing the Mongols back to the east. During the reign of the appropriately named Ivan the Terrible (r. 1533–1584), there was a significant expansion of the territory under the control of Muscovy toward the east (especially Cossack Yermak’s military expedition into Siberia), while Ivan also sought, often through staggeringly violent means (repressions named oprichnina), to gain control over a recalcitrant nobility. Following his death in 1584, Russia entered into the period known as the “Time of Troubles,” which lasted until the selection of a tsar from the Romanov family in 1603, the dynasty that would continue to rule Russia until the Revolution of 1917.
The individual who did the most to transform the Russian state into a major European power was Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725). As a young man, Peter travelled to the West where he became fascinated by the work done in Dutch shipyards and other examples of Western technology. Upon his return to Russia, Peter was determined to Westernize his backward state.
Peter expanded the revenue available to the monarchy by imposing head taxes on Russian serfs while also establishing monopolies on essential commodities such as salt (by monopolization of commodities Peter I ruined trade in many dependent countries including Ukraine which had well established trade networks with Europe since its Kyivan Rus’s times). Peter used this expanded revenue to follow the lead of the absolutist states in Europe and establish a centralized bureaucracy. In order to ensure the loyalty of his nobility as well as use them for governance, Peter established a Table of Ranks, in which all positions in the state had graduated rankings, which also provided an opportunity for commoners to rise up the ranks and reach a coveted position as a noble. Just as in Prussia, the nobility were to be used as an essential tool of royal absolutism.
In keeping with his desire to keep a “window to the West,” Peter established the eponymous city of St. Petersburg in 1703. The city was built on what seemed to be unpromising marsh land, and thousands of serf laborers would lose their lives in the building of a grand city with architecture that mimicked the newest styles from France.
At the start of World War I, many of the Russian officers had German names, the descendants of the Western military experts that Peter invited to Russia to help him establish a standing army. To ensure that he had enough soldiers, Peter conscripted serfs to serve in his force for the interminable period of twenty years. Peter also built the first Russian navy. Peter used his army to greatly expand Russian territory, and in achieving this goal, he was fortunate that his state was becoming more powerful at the same time that the major states on his borders, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, were in relative decline. Most notably, he defeated the Swedes in the Great Northern War (1700–1721), which marked the end of the brief period going back to the age of Gustavus Adolphus in the 17th century when Sweden was a great European power.
The westward outlook of Russia during the reign of Peter would continue under his successors. Western thought, particularly the writings of the French philosophes, would play a role in inspiring the reign of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796). While the story of Catherine and the horse is most likely the stuff of legend, she was a robust, sexually active woman who read Montesquieu and Voltaire and toyed with ways to apply their ideas to her still semi-barbaric state. Catherine began the process of revising and codifying Russian law, but for the most part, she only dabbled with bringing about actual reform. Once she became convinced later on in her reign that enlightened thought could pose a challenge to her monarchy, she dropped the idea entirely. While few practical results stemmed from Catherine’s infatuation with Enlightenment thought, it did help establish the primacy of French culture and ideas among the Russian aristocracy.
Experts’ questions
1. What factors influenced the history of Muscovy (Russian empire)?
2. Based on the text, why was the Russian politics so aggressive? (Point out several reasons for this).
3. Compared to (with) nations from other geographical zones, what were the distinct features of Muscovy (Russian empire)? (Before answering, read other nations in the theme 9 section).