Enlightened Despotism in Russia

Enlightened Despotism in Russia PDF Author: James F. Brennan
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Generally when historians consider englightened despotism in Russia they turn to the reign of Catherine the Great. The twenty-year reign of her predecessor, Elisabeth Petrovna, is ignored as some sort of «dark age». With the passage of time, scholars have found that elements of enlightened despotism were well developed before Catherine. Internal tariffs were abolished in 1753, law codes were written but not enacted, Moscow University was opened in 1755, the death penality was unofficially abolished, the Academy of Fine Arts was founded and efforts were made to spread education. Indeed, there were unenlightened aspects of the period, such as the treatment of Jews and Old Believers. But if the Seven Years' War had not interrupted the process, there is little doubt that the reign of Elisabeth would be the one historians would first consider when studying Russian enlightened despotism.

Enlightened Despotism in Russia

Enlightened Despotism in Russia PDF Author: James F. Brennan
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
Generally when historians consider englightened despotism in Russia they turn to the reign of Catherine the Great. The twenty-year reign of her predecessor, Elisabeth Petrovna, is ignored as some sort of «dark age». With the passage of time, scholars have found that elements of enlightened despotism were well developed before Catherine. Internal tariffs were abolished in 1753, law codes were written but not enacted, Moscow University was opened in 1755, the death penality was unofficially abolished, the Academy of Fine Arts was founded and efforts were made to spread education. Indeed, there were unenlightened aspects of the period, such as the treatment of Jews and Old Believers. But if the Seven Years' War had not interrupted the process, there is little doubt that the reign of Elisabeth would be the one historians would first consider when studying Russian enlightened despotism.

Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825

Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825 PDF Author: Cynthia H. Whittaker
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 9780674011939
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825, an elegant new book created by a team of leading historians in collaboration with The New York Public Library, traces Russia's development from an insular, medieval, liturgical realm centered on Old Muscovy, into a modern, secular, world power embodied in cosmopolitan St. Petersburg. Featuring eight essays and 120 images from the Library's distinguished collections, it is both an engagingly written work and a striking visual object. Anyone interested in the dramatic history of Russia and its extraordinary artifacts will be captivated by this book. Before the late fifteenth century, Europeans knew virtually nothing about Muscovy, the core of what would become the "Russian Empire." The rare visitor--merchant, adventurer, diplomat--described an exotic, alien place. Then, under the powerful tsar Peter the Great, St. Petersburg became the architectural embodiment and principal site of a cultural revolution, and the port of entry for the Europeanization of Russia. From the reign of Peter to that of Catherine the Great, Russia sought increasing involvement in the scientific advancements and cultural trends of Europe. Yet Russia harbored a certain dualism when engaging the world outside its borders, identifying at times with Europe and at other times with its Asian neighbors. The essays are enhanced by images of rare Russian books, illuminated manuscripts, maps, engravings, watercolors, and woodcuts from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, as well as the treasures of diverse minority cultures living in the territories of the Empire or acquired by Russian voyagers. These materials were also featured in an exhibition of the same name, mounted at The New York Public Library in the fall of 2003, to celebrate the tercentenary of St. Petersburg.

Catherine & Diderot

Catherine & Diderot PDF Author: Robert Zaretsky
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674737903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In a dual biography crafted around the famous encounter between the French philosopher who wrote about power and the Russian empress who wielded it with great aplomb, Robert Zaretsky invites us to reflect on the fraught relationship between politics and philosophy, and between a man of thought and a woman of action.

The Enlightened Despots

The Enlightened Despots PDF Author: Geoffrey Bruun
Publisher: New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston
ISBN:
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description


Enlightened Absolutism

Enlightened Absolutism PDF Author: H.M. Scott
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349205923
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Each book in this series is designed to make available to students important new work on key historical problems and periods that they encounter. Each volume, devoted to a central topic or theme, contains specially comisssioned essays from scholars in the relevant field. These provide an assessment of a particular aspect, pointing out areas of development and controversy and indicating where conclusions can be drawn or where further work is necessary, while an editorial introduction reviews the problem or period as a whole. In this text the contributors assess reform and reformers in late 18th century Europe, covering such topics as Catherine the Great, the Danish reformers, the Habsburg Monarchy and events in Spain and Italy.

Enlightened Despotism

Enlightened Despotism PDF Author: John G. Gagliardo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Europe
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description


A Parting of Ways

A Parting of Ways PDF Author: Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky
Publisher: Oxford : Clarendon Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description


Emancipation of Russian Nobility, 1762-1785

Emancipation of Russian Nobility, 1762-1785 PDF Author: Robert E. Jones
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400872146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Catherine the Great's treatment of the Russian nobility has usually been regarded as dictated by court politics or her personal predilections. Citing new archival sources, Robert Jones shows that her redefinition and reorganization of the Russian nobility were in fact motivated by reasons of state. In 1762, Peter III had "emancipated" the nobility from obligatory state service, and in the early years of her reign Catherine attempted to govern Russia through a bureaucratic administration. Although this threatened the provincial nobles with social and economic decline, the government was oblivious to their plight until the peasant revolt of 1773-1775 convinced Catherine that she could not provide Russia with a government capable of defending and promoting the national interest without them. This realization led to the formation of a new alliance between the state and the nobility, based on a mutual fear of peasant revolt and expressed first in the provincial reforms of 1775 and finally in Catherine's Charter to the Nobility of 1785. In the 1760's Catherine had hoped to forestall peasant uprisings by improving the lot of the serfs and limiting the authority of the serf-owners. But faced with the choice between controlling the serfs in a way open to abuses and eliminating abuses in a way that might lead to loss of control, Catherine chose the former. Her Charter committed the state to the preservation of serfdom and the reactionary ancien régime. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Nikolay Novikov

Nikolay Novikov PDF Author: W. Gareth Jones
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521111447
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Nikolay Novikov (1744-1818) was a key figure in Russian cultural life under Catherine the Great. He was in turn a successful journalist, historiographer, educator, publisher, leading freemason and philanthropist and he left his distinctive mark on each of these spheres at a formative moment in Russia. This book is a Western study of Novikov's complete career and it shows how he responded to Catherine's enlightened despotism in cultural matters and why their ways eventually parted. Novikov is viewed here not only as a founding father of the Russian intelligentsia, but as a representative of the general European Enlightenment, who discovered and encouraged a new generation of writers. A knowledge of Novikov and the kind of enlightenment he strove to spread in Russia is important for an understanding of the particular cast of mind evident in Russian thought and writings in the nineteenth century. The book will therefore be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students of Russian literature and intellectual history.

Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the Enlightenment

Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the Enlightenment PDF Author: Inna Gorbatov
Publisher: Academica Press,LLC
ISBN: 1933146036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
This research monograph is the result of many years of archival investigation in Russia, France and elsewhere into the nature of Catherine the Great's involvement with the French Enlightenment. Professor Gorbatov's conclusions go far beyond the consensus of philosophic and cultural interests masking an authoritarian and, at times, barbarous emerging European power and delves instead into Catherine's fascination with French political and social ideals. Catherine's thirty-four year reign was marked by a furious wholesale consumption of French arts and objets as well as a lavish patronage of French artists and philosophers. Even Rousseau, the self proclaimed "enemy of monarchs", was seriously studied (though detested) and debated by Catherine and her circle as the Czarina attempted to reform the educational system. It is this theme of reform and renewal, along with Europeanization, that provides the great impetus of interest and patronage towards the philosophes and their ideas. Professor Gorbatov also shows the effect of Catherine's interest on the higher aristocracy, writers, and emergent professional classes that was to reach a intellectual and political crisis upon the outbreak of the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon and her grandson's battles with the Decembrists.