Enlightened or Despotic?: Russia under Catherine
Overview
Enlightened, or Despotic?: Russia under Catherine the Great
Russia in the eighteenth century was characterized by wars, crop failures, peasant uprisings, and growing discontent with the autocratic, all-powerful tsars and tsarinas. Despite these challenges, Catherine the Great was acknowledged and remembered as an enlightened despot who sought to understand Russia’s downtrodden. For this reason, her reign is often characterized and romanticized as the “Golden Age” of Russia.
Learning Objectives
- Examine the term “enlightened despot” and how Catherine the Great is an example of this.
- Evaluate the key domestic and foreign reforms of Catherine the Great.
- Examine why Catherine the Great is remembered as the “tsarina of Russia’s Golden Age.”
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Tsarina Catherine the Great: eighteenth-century Russian tsarina who is remembered for ruling Russia during its Golden Age of Enlightenment and producing numerous reforms
Enlightened Despot: authoritative, autocratic head of state whose power is strengthened by improving the quality of life for their subjects
Tsar Peter III: a tsar, and husband of Catherine the Great, who reigned for six months before his murder
Pugachev’s Rebellion: largest revolt led by serfs in Russian history
Cossack: member of an ethnic group in the Caucasus, or plains region of Russia who is often associated as an exceptional horseman
Background: Tsar Peter III
Peter III (1728 – 1762) was tsar of Russia for six months in 1762, after being chosen as successor by his unmarried, childless aunt, Empress Elizabeth. Orphaned at eleven, Peter was invited by his aunt, Tsarina Elizabeth, to Saint Petersburg and proclaimed her heir in 1742. Empress Elizabeth arranged for Peter to marry his second cousin, Sophia Augusta Frederica (later Catherine the Great). The young princess formally converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna (Catherine). They married in 1745 but the union was unhappy. The traditionally held view of Peter as a person of weak character with many vices is mainly drawn from the memoirs of his wife and successor.
Peter III’s temperament became quite unbearable for those who resided in the palace. He would announce trying drills in the morning for male servants, who later joined Catherine in her room to sing and dance until late hours. After Catherine became pregnant in 1759 with her second child Anna, Peter was led to believe he was not the child’s biological father because of rumors that Catherine had been promiscuous. Catherine angrily dismissed Peter’s accusation. And afterward, she spent much time alone in her own private rooms to hide away from her husband.
After Peter became tsar, he withdrew Russian forces from the Seven Years’ War and concluded a peace treaty with Prussia. He gave up Russian conquests in Prussia and offered 12,000 troops to make an alliance with Frederick the Great (1762). Russia thus switched from an enemy of Prussia to an ally. Russian troops withdrew from Berlin and marched against the Austrians on Prussia’s behalf. This dramatically shifted the balance of power in Europe. Frederick the Great secured victories and forced Austria to the negotiating table. However, the decision proved to be extremely unpopular in the Russian court and greatly contributed to Peter’s quick demise because he was seen as pro-Prussia.
One of Peter’s most widely debated reforms was a manifesto that exempted the nobility from mandatory state and military service. He gave them freedom to travel abroad. Although the exemption was welcomed by the Russian elites, the overall reform did not convince them to support their tsar, who was generally considered as taking little interest in Russia and its matters. A case of Peter’s religious policies serves as a demonstrative example of how the pro-Prussian emperor was perceived in Russia. He openly supported Lutheranism—the branch of Christianity practiced in Prussia. Many of his court and colleagues saw this support as an anti-Orthodox, and a devastating blow to Russian tradition.
Color portrait of Tsar Peter III and Catherine the Great
The Death of Peter and the Rise of Catherine the Great
In July 1762, barely six months after becoming emperor, Peter took a holiday and left his wife in Saint Petersburg. On the night of July 8, Catherine received the news that a conspirator had been arrested by her estranged husband, and this news encouraged her to act immediately on the conspiracy to overthrow Peter. She left the palace and departed for the Ismailovsky regiment, where Catherine delivered a speech asking the soldiers to protect her from her husband. Catherine left with the regiment to go to the Semenovsky Barracks where the clergy was waiting to ordain her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne. She had her husband arrested and forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. On July 17, eight days after his abdication, Peter III was murdered by the prominent statesman and soldier, Alexei Orlov.
Catherine the Great as Russia’s “Golden Age” Tsarina
The period of Catherine’s rule (1762 – 1796) is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire and Russian nobility. Catherine sought contact with and inspiration from the major philosophers of the era. She enthusiastically supported the ideals of the Enlightenment because she believed that improving the lives of her subjects would strengthen her authority. And improving her subjects’ lives earned her the status of an enlightened despot. The philosophy of enlightened despotism implied that the autocratic ruler knew the interests of his or her subjects better than they themselves did.
Catherine and Serfdom
In the 18th century, the peasantry in Russia were no longer bound to the land, rather, they were tied to their owners. This made Russian serfdom more similar to slavery than any other system of forced labor that existed at the time in Europe. A landowner could punish his serfs at his discretion and under Catherine the Great gained the ability to sentence his serfs to hard labor in Siberia, a punishment normally reserved for convicted criminals. The only thing a noble could not do to his serfs was kill them, because the life of a serf belonged to the state.
An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernize Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the Russian economy continued to depend on serfdom. And the increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to increased levels of reliance on serfs. To secure support from the nobles, Catherine publicly declared that nobles held the right to control their serfs. This was one of the chief reasons behind ongoing rebellions among serfs during her reign. More than fifty peasant revolts occurred between 1762 and 1769. These culminated in Pugachev's Rebellion in 1773 – 75, when Yemelyan Pugachev promised the serfs land of their own and freedom from their lords. Pugachev launched the rebellion in mid-September 1773. He had a substantial force composed of Cossacks, Russian peasants, factory serfs, and non-Russians. Despite some victories, by late 1774 the tide was turning, and the Russian army’s victory at Tsaritsyn left 9,000 to 10,000 rebels dead. By early September, the rebellion was crushed. Pugachev was betrayed by his own Cossacks when he tried to flee; he was beheaded and dismembered in 1775 in Moscow.
Catherine’s Educational Reforms
Catherine believed a “new kind of person” could be created by giving Russian children a European education. However, despite the experts’ recommendations, only modest action was taken. The Moscow Foundling Home (Moscow Orphanage), charged with admitting destitute and extramarital children, was created to experiment with new educational theories. Shortly after the Moscow Foundling Home, Catherine established the Smolny Institute for Noble Girls to educate females. Within the walls of the Institute, they were taught impeccable French, musicianship, dancing, and complete awe of the tsarina. The establishment of the institute was a significant step in making education available for females in Russia. The remodeling of the Cadet Corps in 1766 initiated many educational reforms. The Corps began to take children from a very young age and educate them until the age of 21, and the curriculum was broadened from the professional military curriculum to include the sciences, philosophy, ethics, history, and international law.
Catherine and Religion
Catherine converted to Russian Orthodoxy as part of her immersion in Russian culture, but she personally remained largely indifferent to religion. Her religious policies largely aimed to control populations and religious institutions in the multi-religious empire. She nationalized all the church lands to help pay for her wars, largely emptied the monasteries and forced most of the remaining clergymen to survive as farmers or on fees for services. However, in her anti-Ottoman policy, she promoted the protection and fostering of Christians under Turkish rule. Although she placed strictures on Roman Catholics in the Polish parts of her empire, Russia also provided asylum to the Jesuits following their suppression in most of Europe in 1773.
Catherine took many approaches to Islam during her reign but her pro-Islam policies were all an attempt to control Muslim populations in the empire. After the Toleration of All Faiths Edict of 1773, Muslims were permitted to build mosques and practice freely. In 1785, Catherine approved the subsidization of new mosques and new town settlements for Muslims. By building new settlements with mosques placed in them, Catherine attempted to ground many of the nomadic people who wandered through southern Russia. In 1786, she assimilated the Islamic schools into the Russian public school system so they could be regulated by the government. The plan was another attempt to force nomadic people to settle.
Russia often treated Judaism as a separate entity and Jews were under a separate legal and bureaucratic system. After the annexation of Polish territories, the Jewish population in the empire grew significantly. Catherine levied additional taxes on the followers of Judaism, but if a family converted to the Orthodox faith that additional tax was lifted. In 1785, she declared Jewish populations to be officially foreigners, with foreigners’ rights. Catherine’s decree also denied them the rights of Orthodox or naturalized citizens of Russia. Taxes doubled again for those of Jewish descent in 1794, and Catherine officially declared that Jews bore no relation to Russians.
Intellectualism in Russia
Catherine had a reputation as a patron of the arts, literature, and education. The Hermitage Museum began as Catherine’s personal collection. Within a few months of her accession in 1762, having heard the French government threatened to stop the publication of the famous French Encyclopédie on account of its irreligious spirit, Catherine proposed to the philosopher Diderot that he should complete his great work in Russia under her protection. She wrote comedies, fiction, and memoirs while cultivating the French encyclopedists, who later cemented her reputation in their writings. Catherine enlisted Voltaire to her cause and corresponded with him for 15 years—from her accession to his death in 1778. During Catherine’s reign, Russians imported and studied the classical and European influences that inspired the Russian Enlightenment. She also became a great patron of Russian opera. However, she did not support a free-thinking spirit among her own subjects as much as among the famous French philosophers. Catherine exiled Alexander Radishchev to Siberia after he published his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1790 (one year after the start of the French Revolution), which warned of uprisings because of the deplorable social conditions of the serfs.
Catherine's Legacy
Catherine the Great was truly an enlightened despot. Autocratic and controlling, power remained in the hands of Russia’s tsarina. And yet, she proved sympathetic and progressive in her attempts to understand the Russian people. Her reforms were moderate to marginal in terms of “liberalizing” and “modernizing” Russia. However, they made progress at a time when Russia suffered from prolonged wars, external enemies, and internal strife. In particular, she is remembered for achieving reforms that surpassed many of her male predecessors and descendants.
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Boundless World History
"Catherine the Great and Russia"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/catherine-the-great-and-russia/