ABSOLUTISM IN EASTERN EUROPE TO 1740

ABSOLUTISM IN

EASTERN EUROPE TO 1740

ABSOLUTISM IN EASTERN EUROPE

Lords and Peasants

Eastern Europe

Overall, between 1400 and 1650 the princes and landed nobility of eastern Europe rolled back the gains made earlier by the peasantry

Serfdom was reimposed.

The Medieval Background

(1400-1650)

Personal and economic freedom for peasants increased between 1050 and 1300.•Serfdom nearly disappeared. •Peasants bargained freely with their landlords and moved about as they pleased.

After 1300, powerful lords in eastern Europe revived serfdom to combat their economic problems.

•Laws that restricted the peasants' right of free movement were passed.

•Lords took more and more of the peasants' land and imposed heavier labor obligations.

The Consolidation of Serfdom

The re-establishment of hereditary serfdom took place in Poland, Prussia, and Russia between 1500 and 1650.

The consolidation of serfdom was accompanied by the growth of estate agriculture.

•Lords seized peasant land for their own estates.

•They then demanded unpaid serf labor on those estates.

Political reasons for changes in serfdom in eastern Europe were the most important.

•Weak monarchs could not resist the demands of the powerful noble landlords.

•The absence of the western concept of sovereignty meant that the king did not think in terms of protecting the people of the nation.

•Overall, the peasants had less political power in eastern Europe and less solidarity.

•The landlords systematically undermined the medieval privileges of the towns. –The lords sold directly to foreign capitalists instead of selling to local merchants.

–Eastern towns lost their medieval right of refuge.

The Rise of Austria and Prussia

Austria and the Ottoman Turks

Aftermath of the Thirty Years' War

•The Austrian Habsburgs lacked any real power in the Holy Roman Empire

• turned inward and eastward to unify their holdings.

•Ferdinand II (r. 1619-1637)

–The Habsburgs, having defeated the Protestant Czechs in Bohemia during the Thirty Years’ War, replaced the Bohemian nobility with a foreign nobility loyal to the Habsburgs

•Serfdom increased

•Protestantism was wiped out

•Absolutism was achieved.

•Ferdinand III (r. 1637-1657)

–Centralized the government in Austria

–Created a standing army

–Turned toward Hungary for land.

This eastward turn led Austria to war against the Turks over Hungary and Transylvania.

Under Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566), the Ottoman Turks had built the most powerful empire in the world, which included part of central Europe.

Ottoman System

•The Turkish sultan was the absolute head of the state.

•There was little private property, and a bureaucracy staffed by slaves.

Ottoman System

•Other slaves formed the heart of the Sultan’s army, the janissary corps

Suleiman led an unsuccessful Turkish

assault on Vienna in 1529

After Suleiman, the empire declined

In the late 17th century, a fading Ottoman Empire regrouped for one more attack on the Habsburgs

An Ottoman attack on Vienna in 1683 was turned back

When the Ottomans retreated, the Habsburgs attacked

The Habsburgs conquered all of Hungary and Transylvania by 1699.

Attempts to develop Habsburg absolutism fail – especially in Hungary•The three main areas of the empire – Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary – are united only through allegiance to their ruler, not through any connection to each other

•To preserve the union, Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction in 1713

•The Pragmatic Sanction

– stated that the possessions should never be divided.

–became critical when it became clear that Charles VI would leave a daughter, Maria Theresa, but no male heir

Prussia in the 17th Century

The Hohenzollern family ruled the electorate of Brandenburg, but had little real power.

The Thirty Years' War, however, weakened the Estates, the representative assemblies of the realm, and allowed the Hohenzollerns to consolidate their absolutist rule.

Frederick William (the Great Elector) (r. 1640-1688) used military force and taxation to unify his Rhine holdings, Prussia, and Brandenburg into a strong state.

•The traditional parliaments, or Estates, which were controlled by the Junkers (the nobles and the landowners), were weakened.

•1) Wars strengthened the elector

–The Estates gave the Elector support to fight off various invaders

•2) The Junkers were unwilling to join with the towns to block absolutism being more concerned with

–control over their peasants and

–freedom from taxation

The Consolidation

Prussian Absolutism

Frederick William died in 1688 and was succeeded by Frederick III (r. 1688-1713)

•Frederick III was award the title of King by the Holy Roman Emperor, but accomplished little else politically

Frederick III died in 1713 and succeeded by Frederick William I (r. 1713-1740)

•encouraged Prussian militarism•created the best army in Europe plus an efficient bureaucracy.

Frederick William I

The last traces of the parliamentary Estates and local self-government vanished

The Junker class became the military elite and Prussia a militarist state, the “Sparta of the North”

The Development of Russia

Between 1250 and 1700, Russia and the West became strikingly different

After 1700 Russia's development was closer to that of the West.

The Mongol Yoke

The Rise of Moscow

The Mongols

•conquered the Kievan state in the 13th century

•unified it under their harsh rule.

The Mongols used Russian aristocrats as their servants and tax collectors.

The princes of Moscow

•served the Mongols well

•became the hereditary great princes.

Ivan I

•served the Mongols

•used his wealth and power to strengthen the principality of Moscow.

Ivan III acquired territory around Moscow - including the rich republic of Novgorod.

Ivan III

•stopped acknowledging the Mongol khan as the supreme ruler

•assumed the headship of Orthodox Christianity.

Tsar and People to 1689

By 1505, the prince of Moscow - the tsar - had emerged as the single hereditary ruler of the eastern Slavs.

The tsars and the boyars, the nobles, struggled over who would rule the state

The tsars won and created a new "service nobility" who held the tsar's land on the condition that they serve in his army.

Ivan IV (“Ivan the Terrible”) (r. 1533-1584)

•An autocratic tsar who expanded Muscovy

•Further reduced the power of the boyars.

Ivan the

Terrible

•Murdered leading boyars

•Confiscated their estates.

•Many peasants fled his rule to the newly conquered territories, forming groups called Cossacks.

•Businessmen and artisans were bound to their towns and jobs

•The middle class did not develop.

Ivan the Terrible died in 1584His son, Theodore, died in 1598, without leaving an heir

The result was The Time of Troubles (1598-1613), a period characterized by internal struggles and invasions.

•With no direct heir, relatives of the tsar fought and killed each other.

•Swedish and Polish armies invaded - often with some Russian support

•Cossack bands, led by Ivan Bolotnikov, slaughtered many nobles and officials.

The external and internal threats convinced the nobles to band together

The nobility crushed the Cossack revolt when it reached Moscow

The nobility then elected Michael Romanov, Ivan’s grandnephew, tsar in 1613

Michael re-established tsarist autocracy and established the Romanov dynasty

The Romanovs

•brought about the total enserfment of the people

•Considerably relaxed the military obligations on the nobility

A split in the church over religious reforms led to mass protests by the peasants

The church became dependent on the state for its authority.

Another Cossack revolt, led by Stenka Razin, attracted both the urban poor and rural peasants while battling landlords and government officials

Although Razin’s revolt ultimately failed and he was executed, the revolt further divided Russian society

The nobles more strongly supported the tsar and more strongly suppressed the serfs and peasants

The Reforms of Peter the Great

Peter the

Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725)

• inherited a Russian army based on cavalry, not infantry

•not the sort of professional armies being formed in Europe.

Using existing Russian methods, Peter conquered Azov in 1696

He then went on a long tour of inspection of western Europe to learn from its example

•He went to war against the absolutist king of Sweden, Charles XII

•Despite underestimating Charles, Peter eventually won the Great Northern War.

•Reformed the army

•Forced the nobility to serve in either the army or his bureaucracy for life

•Required compulsory education for the nobility

•His new army numbered 200,000

–The soldiers were mostly peasants drafted for life

–The officers were mostly nobles

•Another 100,000 special troops consisted of Cossacks and foreigners

•He created schools to train technicians for his army.

Army and government became more efficient and powerful as an interlocking military-civilian bureaucracy was created and staffed by talented people.

Russian peasant life under Peter became more harsh.

•People replaced land as the primary unit of taxation.

•Serfs were arbitrarily assigned to work in the factories and mines.

Russia defeated Sweden in 1709 at Poltava to gain control of the Baltic Sea.

Russia gained Estonia and Latvia for the first time and became the dominant power on the Baltic

Although territorial expansion was relatively modest under Peter, Russia became a European Great Power.

Other consequences

•A greater influx of Western ideas into Russia despite resistance by both nobles and peasants

•Further class divisions

Caricature of

Peter the Great

cutting the

beard of a boyar

Absolutism and the Baroque

Palaces and Power

Baroque culture and art grew out of an effort by the Catholic church to attract followers.

Architecture played an important role in politics.

•Used by kings to enhance their image and awe their subjects.

The royal palace was the favorite architectural expression of absolutist power.

The dominant artistic style of the age of absolutism was baroque - a dramatic and emotional style.

Royal Cities

Urban Planning

Karlsruhe is a good example of how cities were rebuilt along orderly lines and with great avenues and imposing public buildings.

The new avenues brought speed to the city - as elegant carriages raced down the new broad and straight streets.

The Growth of St. Petersburg

The new St. Petersburg is an excellent example of the tie among architecture, politics, and urban development.

•Peter the Great wanted to create a modern, baroque city from which to rule Russia.

•The city became a showplace for the tsar

–paid for by the Russian nobility

–built by Russian peasants.

During the 18th century, St. Petersburg became one of the world's largest and most influential cities.

The new city was Western and baroque in its layout and design.

• It had broad, straight avenues. •Houses were built in a uniform line.

•There were parks, canals, and streetlights.

•Each social group was to live in a specific section.

All social groups, especially the peasants, bore heavy burdens to construct the city.

Tsarina Elizabeth and the architect Rastrelli crowned the city with great palaces.

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