Audrey Min AP European History per 3 Mr.

Nelson 10/28/10

Min 1

Peter the Great: A Social Radical The borders of Europe as a continent are nebulous, at best. Inevitable blending of eastern and western cultures occurs. Russia exemplifies such a heterogeneous state. During and before the advent of Peter the Great, Western Europe had far surpassed Russia in industry, commerce, and government. Despite Peter's zealous reforms, Russia remained something of a peculiarity in Europe, caught between east and west, old and new. Peter the Great's reforms created a profoundly different state, a product of the unprecedented marriage of eastern tradition and western innovation. As a result of his revolutionary upheaval of Russian culture, the nation traveled simultaneously along two paths- one paralleling the western European growth of the seventeenth century, the other idiosyncratically Russian, producing consequences of a wholly different nature than those previously experienced on the European continent. Even in the years prior to Peter the Great, Russia was partially Western in its early growth. It was colonized by Vikings as England had been, and adopted Christianity long before Sweden, Lithuania, or Denmark. It faced the same governmental conflicts rising from the old medieval institutions of the feudal system and manorial lords that plagued founders of western European dynasties, as well as the subsequent debates over who should hold the majority of the power- an absolute ruler or a legislative body. In England, Parliament triumphed over the monarchy; Russia, however, followed France and Austria in that a ruling dynasty, the Romanov family, to which Peter belonged, was established, much like the French Bourbons or the Austrian

Min 2 Hapsburgs. The Romanovs monopolized the position of tsar until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; similarly, the Bourbons remained in control of France until the French Revolution. The Duma, the Russian parliament, was disregarded, just as the French Estates-General and the Austrian and Prussian diets were. The internal struggles which precipitated these developments, known as the Time of Troubles, greatly resembled the chaos of the Thirty-Year's War. It was from this disorder that Peter the Great emerged as tsar in 1682 (Palmer 217). Peter's desire to westernized Russia became apparent in the establishment of St. Petersburg, a thoroughly Western metropolis, in contrast to the heavily eastern former capital, Moscow (Palmer 219). It paralleled Louis XIV's construction of the palace of Versailles. Both were tributes to their respective absolute monarchs, who wished to display their power and splendor and more effectively exert their influence, and both required the labor of thousands of poor workers (Palmer 221). Peter understood the necessity of money in fueling Russia's ascension into the modern world. He taxed a number of commodities, but expectations fell on the peasants to pay the majority of them. Peter reduced the peasants to serfdom (Palmer 220), as did the Hohenzollerns in Prussia (210). Both nations' economies relied heavily on free labor, i. e. the destitute, unpaid serfs who bore the burden of taxes as well. In another tactic oriented towards promoting revenue and trade, Peter encouraged a mercantilist system and a series of commercial companies supported in part by the government (Palmer 220), just as the governments of England, France, and Holland sponsored their national companies (such as the Dutch East India Company) for overseas trade (Palmer 114). In order to manage and control these new systems, a new method of administration was needed. Peter eradicated the stagnant duma and oversaw every department underneath him, such as a senate dependent on him, and ten province-like areas known as "governments" (Palmer 220). Louis XIV did much the same thing, by placing

Min 3 himself at the top of a centralized bureaucracy (Palmer 177). Louis and Peter used remarkably similar devices to keep hold of their empires. Peter used war to protect Russia from the threats of Sweden and Poland, expand its territory, and gain advantages in trade and commerce, as well as to cohere the country- "The Russian empire, loose and heterogeneous, was held together by military might" (Palmer 219). Similarly, Louis "made war an activity of state" (Palmer 175) by

uniting the whole of France, previously a loose collection of semi-autonomous territories with military efforts, integrating not only civilian and military activity, but also promoting dependency upon superiors, with Louis at the head, within the ranks themselves (Palmer 175). Peter followed Louis's example and rendered the army an efficient, disciplined troops with modern, European weaponry (Palmer 219). France was not the only country which Peter's Russia imitated, however. His efforts to secularize the church and place it under his direct control correlate to England's Henry VIII and his campaign against the Catholic Church. Henry VIII wished to subordinate the Church and establish a Protestant Anglican church which looked to him, not Rome, for authority. He did so, and England remained a Protestant state for years afterward, with a chronic fear of Catholicism. Peter the Great similarly interfered with the established church for his own gains. He expunged the pope-like establishment of the Patriarch and instead ruled the Russian Orthodox church through a civil official called the Procurator of the Holy Synod, who ensured that the church did not contradict or displease the tsar. Peter's assiduous studies of European sociopolitical reforms allowed him to imitate their ways, at least to a certain extent. Though Russia adhered to European patterns of development, in some ways its growth was purely unique. Its economy, while based mostly on free labor at the expense of the serfs and peasants like other European states, also "rested largely on impressment of both management and

Min 4 labor, not on private profit and wages as in the increasingly capitalistic West" (Palmer 220). Russia's economy relied on the capability of those who controlled it, namely, the tsar and the aristocracy, as well as their ability to guarantee the obedience of the labor force upon which their fortunes depended, rather than the private, personal fortunes of wealthy individuals. Indeed, Peter the Great placed the government in direct control of all of his industrial and agricultural enterprises, ensuring no deviation from the original intent (Palmer 220). Another way in which it strayed from the European path can be observed in the legal irregularity of the Romanov dynasty. While structurally quite similar to the French absolutist system, it was poorly enforced and not recognized by the very people whom it sought to control (Palmer 220). Even France, Prussia, and Austria received periods of support from their people. They were not referred to as "a state without a people" (Palmer 220). Peter did work, however, to educate his administrators and government officials, as well as to balance the class system. He established a system of civil service which nullified birthrights for the sake of the state. It facilitated the rise of a lower-class citizen from the bottom of the figurative ladder to the higher ranks. He numbered the various ranks, one through fourteen. Peter's disgust for all things antiquated fueled his desire to convert the populace to the new, Western ways. He taught his subjects proper etiquette, more basic than Louis XIV's preference for elaborate court rituals (Palmer 174). Peter's "etiquette" was much simpler and applied to all of his subjects, not merely the privileged nobles residing in his court; moreover, it was not as superficial or superfluous, rather, it sought to remedy what Peter viewed as vulgarity and "Muscovite backwardness" (Palmer 221). Russia's unique tendencies marked it as an oddity in Europe; despite its efforts to change, it inevitably retained various unique characteristics that separated it from the majority of the continent.

Min 5 Though Peter's Russian reforms are eclipsed by his European ones, the combination of the two created a thoroughly unique state. The consequences of his actions were felt for years to come. He managed to isolate the aristocracy, who yearned for Westernization and European culture, and widened the gap between the upper and lower classes (Palmer 223). It was this gap that facilitated the Russian Revolution in 1917- the inability of the upper classes to respond to the plight of the proletariat opened the way for communism and the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. Despite its claims, the Bolshevik Revolution failed to address Russia's age-old issue of class divisions and instead served to deepen them. Additionally, Peter's emphasis on autocracy and serfdom established a tradition of such. These institutions remained throughout the Soviet era, centuries later. Peter's efforts, however, allowed Russia to emerge from its turmoil and enter the world of European politics. Peter the Great had a lasting influence on Russian history. He delivered Russia from the dark days of Muscovy into the modern European world. Russia's successful transformation from provincial obscurity to a significant power in European politics was due to Peter's interference with its military, government, and society. He copied European devices and adapted them to Russian culture and necessities, creating a culture distinctly Russian; not wholly European, but certainly not Asian either, rather a unique blend occupying the middle ground, a position rarely described in its convoluted history.