AP Chapter 18 The Rise of Russia

Russia’s Expansionist Politics Under the Tsars

The Need for Revival Under Ivan III (Ivan the Great), who claimed succession from the Rurik Dynasty and the old Kievan days-a large part of Russia was freed (from the Tartars) after 1462 He organized a strong army He also used loyalties to the Orthodox Christian faith and to Russia to win support for his campaigns

Ivan III Ivan the Great

Tartars The Mongol period reduced the vigor of Russian cultural life, lowering the levels of literacy among the priesthood With trade and manufacturing down, Russia had become a purely agricultural economy dependent on peasant labor Ivan III called Russia the Third Rome and claimed the title of tsar or Caesar

Ivan IV

Ivan IV or Ivan the Terrible, continued Ivan III’s policies He placed greater emphasis on controlling the tsarist autocracy by killing many of the Russian nobles or boyars whom he suspected of conspiracy

Time of Troubles Ivan IV died without an heir which led to the Time of Troubles In 1613 an assembly of boyars chose a member of the Romanov family as Tsar The Romanov Dynasty was to fuel Russia until the great revolution of 1917

Michael Romanov Anastasia RomanovMichael Romanov

Michael Romanov was the first Tsar of the Romanov Dynasty He reestablished internal order He drove out the foreign invaders (Sweden & Poland) and resumed the expansionist policy of his predecessors He gained the Ukraine, including Kiev, in the south

Expansion

Patterns of Expansion The territorial expansion policy focused particularly on Central Asia Both Ivan III and Ivan IV recruited peasants to migrate to the newly seized lands, particularly in the South These peasant adventurers, or Cossacks, were Russian pioneers, combining agriculture with daring military feats on horseback

Cossacks

During the 16 th Century, the Caspian Sea area but also moved into Western Siberia, across the Urals, beginning the gradual takeover and settlement of these vast plains, which previously had been sparsely inhabited by nomadic Asian peoples Expansion also offered tsars a way to reward loyal nobles and bureaucrats by giving them estates in new territories

Expansion Russia used slaves for certain kinds of production work into the 18 th Century Russia created trading connections with its new Asian territories and their neighbors Russia’s early expansion eliminated independent Central Asia that age old source of nomadic cultures and periodic invasions in both the East and West

Continued Russia became a multicultural Empire like the Mughal and Ottomans Particularly important was the addition of a large Muslim minority, overseen by the Tsarist government but not pressed to integrate with Russian culture

Western Contacts and Romanov Policy The Tsars realized that Russia’s cultural and economic subordination to the Mongols had put them at a commercial and cultural disadvantage Ivan III was eager to launch diplomatic missions to the leading Western States During the reign of Ivan IV, British merchants established trading contacts with Russia

Continued The Tsars imported Italian artist and architects to design church buildings and the magnificent royal palace in the Kremlin in Moscow

Royal Palace of the Kremlin

Alexis Romanov

He abolished the assemblies of nobles and gained new power over the Russian Church His policies resumed the Orthodox tradition of State control over the Church Dissident religious conservatives, called Old Believers, were exiled to Siberia or Southern Russia

Russia’s First Westernization, Tsarist autocracy of Peter the Great In politics, Peter the Great was an autocrat He had no interest in the parliamentary features of Western center such as Holland, seizing instead on the abolitionist currents in the West He enhanced the power of the Russian state by using it as a reform force

Peter the Great

Peter the Great Continued Peter extended an earlier policy of recruiting bureaucrats from outside aristocratic ranks and giving them noble titles to reward bureaucratic service He imitated Western military organization, creating a specially trained fighting force to put down local militias He set up a secret police to prevent dissent and to supervise the bureaucracy

Peter Attacks Peter the Great attacked the Ottoman Empire, but he won no great victories His attack on Sweden left that country as a second rate military status This gave Russia a “window on the sea”, including a largely ice free port From this time onward, Russia became a major factor in European diplomatic and military alignments

St. Petersburg He moved his capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg (which he built)

What Westernization Meant He tried to streamline Russia’s small bureaucracy and altar military structure by using Western organizational principles He improved the military’s weaponry He created the first Russian navy He completely eliminated the old noble councils creating a set of advisors under his control

Westernization Continued A Tsar-appointed town magistrate served as final authority for elected town councils Peter’s ministers systematized law codes to extend through the whole Empire and revised the tax system, with taxes on ordinary Russian peasants increasing steadily New training institutes were established for aspiring bureaucrats and officers

Peter’s Economics Peter’s economic efforts focused on building up metallurgical and mining Landlords were rewarded for using serf labor to staff new manufacturing operations

Women under Peter’s Reign He encouraged upper-class women to wear Western style clothing and attend public cultural events He made no move to change gender relations among the masses of Russian peasants He required male nobles to shave off their beards and also wear Western clothes

Peter’s Beard Tax

Peter’s Science Peter and his successors founded scientific institutes and academies along Western lines and serious discussions of the latest scientific and technical findings became common Peter wanted economic development to support military strength rather than achieve wider commercial goals Westernization was meant to encourage the autocratic state, not to challenge it with some of the new political ideas circulating in the West

Consolidation Under Catherine the Great

Continued The death of Peter the Great in 1724 was followed by several decades of weak rule, dominated in part by power plays among army officers who guided the selection of several ineffective emperors and empresses After Peter III’s death, his wife Catherine the Great continued to rule as Empress

Continued She defended the powers of the central monarch She put down vigorous peasant uprisings which were led by Emalia Pugachev Catherine’s reign combined genuine Enlightenment interest with her need to consolidate power as a truly Russian ruler She imported several French philosophers for visits and patronizing the arts and sciences

Continued She summoned various reform commissions to discuss new law codes and other Western style measures including reduction of traditionally severe punishments

The Centralizer She was a centralizer and certainly an advocate of strong tsarist hand She did give new powers to the nobility over the serfs She increased the harshness of punishments nobles could decree for their serfs

The Builder She continued building St. Petersburg in the classical styles popular at the time in the West and encouraged leading nobles to tour the West and even send their children to be educated there

Expansion Catherine pursued the tradition of Russian expansion by resuming campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, winning new territories in Central Asia, including the Crimea, bordering the Black Sea She accelerated the colonization of Russia’s holdings in Siberia and encouraged further exploration, claiming the territory of Alaska in Russia’s name She increased Russian interference in Polish affairs

Expansion

Themes in Early Modern Russian History After the expulsion of the Tartars, increasing numbers of Russian peasants fell into debt and had to accept servile status to noble landowners when they could not repay They retained access to much of the land, but not primary ownership Serfdom gave the government a way to satisfy the nobility and regulate peasants when the government itself lacked the bureaucratic means to extend direct controls over the common people

Continued By 1800, half of Russia’s peasantry was enserfed to the landlords, and much of the other half owed comparable obligations to the state An act in 1649 fixed the hereditary status of the serfs, so that people born to that station could not legally escape it The intensification of estate agriculture and serf labor reflected Eastern Europe’s growing economic subordination to the West

Continued Coerced labor was used to produce grain surpluses sold to Western merchants for the growing cities of Western Europe Most peasants were illiterate and quite poor They paid high taxes or obligations in kind, and they owed extensive labor service to the landlords or government

Serfs

Trade and Economic Dependence Most manufacturing took place in the countryside, so there was no well defined artisan class Small merchant groups existed The nobility, concerned about potential social competition, prevented the emergence of a substantial merchant class

Social and Economics that Worked It produced enough revenue to support an expanding state and empire The system, along with Russia’s expansion, yielded significant population growth

Economic Limitations The system suffered from important limitations Most agriculture methods were highly traditional, and there was little motivation among peasantry for improvement because increased production usually was taken by the state or the landlord Manufacturing lagged behind Western standards, despite the important extension developed under Peter the Great

Social Unrest Russia’s economic and social system led to protest By the end of the 18 th Century, a small but growing number of Western oriented aristocrats such as Radichev were criticizing the regime’s backwardness, urging measures as far reaching as abolition serfdom More significant still were the recurring peasant rebellions

Radichev Criticized The Government of Catherine the Great

Pugachev Peasant rebellions had occurred from the 17 th Century rebellion of the 1770s was particularly strong

Pugachev’ Rebellion

Russia and Eastern Europe Areas such as present day Poland or the Czech and Slovak regions operated more fully within the Western cultural orbit Hungary became part of the German dominated Hapsburg Empire as did Czech lands, then called Bohemia The eclipse of Poland highlighted Russian emergence on the European as well as the Eurasian stage

The Russia of the Tsars