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130-553: The oblast was created under the Imperial ukase of February 1784 signed by Catherine the Great . The administrative seat of the region was declared the city of Simferopol . Before 1784, Qarasuvbazar served as a temporary administrative center. The oblast was divided into seven counties ( uyezd ). In 1787 Levkopol county were renamed into Feodosiya county and its center was moved to Feodosiya. In 1791 an administrative seat of Melitopol county

260-673: A League of Armed Neutrality , designed to defend neutral shipping from being searched by the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War . From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought a war against Sweden instigated by Catherine's cousin, King Gustav III of Sweden, who expected to overrun the Russian armies still engaged in war against the Ottomans and hoped to strike Saint Petersburg directly. But Russia's Baltic Fleet checked

390-511: A major agrarian reform , stimulated in part by his view that "it is better to liberate the peasants from above" than to wait until they won their freedom by rising "from below". Between 1864 and 1871 serfdom was abolished in Georgia . In Kalmykia , serfdom was not abolished until 1892. Serfdom was abolished, but not always on favorable terms to the peasants. Even after emancipation, feudal agriculture practices continued. Most former serfs had to pay

520-518: A pleuritis that almost killed her. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting ; in a single day, she received four phlebotomies . Her mother's opposition to this practice brought her the Empress's disfavour. When Sophie's situation looked desperate, her mother wanted her confessed by a Lutheran pastor. Awaking from her delirium, however, Sophie said, "I don't want any Lutheran; I want my Orthodox father [clergyman]". This increased her popularity with

650-480: A "Northern Accord" between Russia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden to counter the power of the Bourbon – Habsburg League. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour with Catherine and she had him replaced with Ivan Osterman (in office 1781–1797). Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Although she could see

780-639: A "revolution" in her teenage mind as Tacitus was the first intellectual she read who understood power politics as they are, not as they should be. She was especially impressed with his argument that people do not act for their professed idealistic reasons, and instead she learned to look for the "hidden and interested motives". According to Alexander Hertzen , who edited a version of Catherine's memoirs, Catherine had her first sexual relationship with Sergei Saltykov while living at Oranienbaum, as her marriage to Peter had not yet been consummated, as Catherine later claimed. Nonetheless, Catherine would eventually leave

910-480: A 1749 Russian military plot to crown Peter (together with Catherine) in Elizabeth's stead. As a result of this plot, Elizabeth likely wanted to deny both Catherine and Peter any rights to the Russian throne. Elizabeth, therefore, allowed Catherine to have sexual lovers only after a new legal heir, Catherine and Peter's son Paul , survived and appeared to be strong. After this, Catherine carried on sexual liaisons over

1040-699: A 1790 letter to Baron de Grimm written in French, she called the Qianlong Emperor " mon voisin chinois aux petits yeux " ("my Chinese neighbour with small eyes"). In the Far East, Russians became active in fur trapping in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands . This spurred Russian interest in opening trade with Japan to the south for supplies and food. In 1783, storms drove a Japanese sea captain, Daikokuya Kōdayū , ashore in

1170-653: A Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation . After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and in the Kościuszko Uprising (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795). The Qianlong Emperor of China was committed to an expansionist policy in Central Asia and saw

1300-520: A better fate). Jerzy Czajewski and Piotr Kimla wrote that until the partitions solved this problem, Russian armies raided territories of the Commonwealth, officially to recover the escapees, but in fact kidnapping many locals. In 1816, 1817, and 1819, serfdom was abolished in Estland , Courland , and Livonia respectively. However all the land stayed in noble hands and labor rent lasted until 1868. It

1430-430: A cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Her hunger for fame centered on her daughter's prospects of becoming Empress of Russia, but Joanna also infuriated Elizabeth , who eventually banned her from the country for allegedly spying for King Frederick. Elizabeth knew the family well and had intended to marry Joanna's brother Charles Augustus (Karl August von Holstein). He died of smallpox in 1727, before

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1560-400: A group effort, so the wage went to the family. The children who worked industrial jobs gave their earnings to their family as well, but some used it as a way to gain a say in their own marriages. In this case some families allowed their sons to marry whom they chose as long as the family was in similar economic standing as their own. No matter what, parental approval was required in order to make

1690-621: A land redemption fee (redemption payments were not abolished until 1907), and could only purchase less fertile, less profitable plots of land that weren't necessarily contiguous. Peasants often had to pay more than the market price for land, with the percentage varying by location. 90% of the serfs who got larger plots were in Congress Poland , where the Tsar wanted to weaken the szlachta . Many peasants remained indebted and bound to landowners. Nobility didn't lose their privileges. A 2018 study in

1820-403: A marriage legal. According to a study completed in the late 1890s by the ethnographer Olga Petrovna Semyonova-Tian-Shanskaia, husband and wife had different duties in the household. In regards to ownership, the husband assumed the property plus any funds required to make additions to the property. Additions included fence, barns, and wagons. While primary purchasing power belonged to the husband,

1950-656: A new social category of "free agriculturalist", for peasants voluntarily emancipated by their masters, in 1803. The great majority of serfs were not affected (under this decree by 1858 152,000 male souls, or 1.5 per cent of serfs, had been bought out to freedom ). Alexander I forbade to advertise the sale of serfs without land (1801), to sell peasants at fairs (1808), cancelled the right of landlords to exile peasants to katorga ('hard labour') ; 1807) and to settle them in Siberia (1809). In 1818 Alexander I gave secret instructions to 12 dignitaries to develop projects to abolish serfdom (among

2080-467: A new war against Persia in 1796 after they, under the new king Agha Mohammad Khan , again invaded Georgia and established rule in 1795, expelling the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. The ultimate goal for the Russian government, however, was to topple the anti-Russian shah (king), and to replace him with his pro-Russian half-brother Morteza Qoli Khan , who had defected to Russia. It

2210-455: A peasant – but this was only a narrow contextual meaning. The origins of serfdom in Russia may be traced to the 12th century, when the exploitation of the so-called zakups on arable lands ( ролейные (пашенные) закупы , roleyniye (pashenniye) zakupy ) and corvée smerds (Russian term for corvée is барщина , barschina ) was the closest to what is now known as serfdom. According to

2340-411: A peasant" the papers would advertise "servant for hire" or similar. By the eighteenth century, the practice of selling serfs without land had become commonplace. Owners had absolute control over their serfs' lives, and could buy, sell and trade them at will, giving them as much power over serfs as Americans had over chattel slaves, though owners did not always choose to exercise their powers over serfs to

2470-709: A record two months and weighed 2.3 kg (5.1 lbs). From 1762, the Great Imperial Crown was the coronation crown of all Romanov emperors until the monarchy's abolition in 1917. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum . During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire by some 520,000 square kilometres (200,000 sq mi), absorbing New Russia , Crimea ,

2600-574: A regent or as a usurper , tolerable only during the minority of her son, Grand Duke Paul. Catherine was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 22 September 1762. Her coronation marks the creation of one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty, the Great Imperial Crown of Russia , designed by Swiss-French court diamond jeweller Jérémie Pauzié . Inspired by Byzantine design,

2730-461: A requirement by the 19th century, and serfs were practically indistinguishable from slaves. Contemporary legal documents, such as Russkaya Pravda (12th century onwards), distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants. While another form of slavery in Russia, kholopstvo , was ended by Peter I in 1723, serfdom (Russian: крепостное право , romanized:  krepostnoye pravo )

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2860-538: A short-term persecution due to the fact that many runaways would usually flee to the southern parts of Russia. During the first half of the 17th century the dvoryane sent their collective petitions ( челобитные , chelobitniye ) to the authorities, asking for the extension of the "fixed years". In 1642, the Russian government established a 10-year limit for search of the runaways and 15-year limit for search for peasants taken away by their new owners. The Sobornoye Ulozhenie introduced an open-ended search for those on

2990-811: A system of government fully controlled by the Russian Empire through a Permanent Council , under the supervision of her ambassadors and envoys . Fearing that the May Constitution of Poland (1791) might lead to a resurgence in the power of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the growing democratic movements inside the Commonwealth might become a threat to the European monarchies, Catherine decided to refrain from her planned intervention into France and to intervene in Poland instead. She provided support to

3120-870: A time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was annexed following victories over the Bar Confederation and the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War . With the support of Great Britain , Russia colonised the territories of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas . In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth —ruled by Catherine's former lover, King Stanisław August Poniatowski —was eventually partitioned , with

3250-485: A war with Austria and Germany, impossible without her foreign policy. Serfdom in Russia In tsarist Russia , the term serf ( Russian : крепостной крестьянин , romanized :  krepostnoy krest'yanin , lit.   'bonded peasant') meant an unfree peasant who, unlike a slave , historically could be sold only together with the land to which they were "attached". However, this stopped being

3380-556: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Ukrainian history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Catherine the Great Catherine II (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst ; 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great , was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III . Under her long reign, inspired by

3510-399: Is also increased assurance of chastity, which was more important for women than men. The average age of marriage for women was around 19 years old. During serfdom, when the head of the house was being disobeyed by their children they could have the master or landowner step in. After the emancipation of serfs in 1861, the household patriarch lost some of his power, and could no longer receive

3640-535: The American Economic Review found "substantial increases in agricultural productivity, industrial output, and peasants' nutrition in Imperial Russia as a result of the abolition of serfdom in 1861". In Russia, the terms barshchina ( барщина ) or boyarshchina ( боярщина ), refer to the obligatory work that the serfs performed for the landowner on his portion of the land (the other part of

3770-470: The Russkaya Pravda , a princely smerd had limited property and personal rights and his escheat was given to the prince. From the 13th century to the 15th century, feudal dependency applied to a significant number of peasants , but serfdom as we know it was still not a widespread phenomenon. In the mid-15th century the right of certain categories of peasants in some votchinas to leave their master

3900-513: The Aleutian Islands , at that time Russian territory. Russian local authorities helped his party, and the Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. On 28 June 1791, Catherine granted Daikokuya an audience at Tsarskoye Selo . Subsequently, in 1792, the Russian government dispatched a trade mission to Japan, led by Adam Laxman . The Tokugawa shogunate received the mission, but negotiations failed. Nicholas I, her grandson, evaluated

4030-459: The Black Earth Region was flax . Husbands owned most of the livestock, such as pigs and horses. Cows were the property of the husband, but were usually in the wife's possession. Chickens were considered to be the wife's property, while sheep was common property for the family. The exception was when the wife owned sheep through a dowry ( sobinki ). Typical Russian serf clothing included

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4160-555: The Central Black Earth Region 70–77% of the serfs performed labour services ( barshchina ), the rest paid rent ( obrok ). Owing to the high fertility, 70% of Russian cereal production in the 1850s was here. In the seven central provinces, 1860, 67.7% of the serfs were on obrok . In literature, Russian serfdom provided both a backdrop and a source of dramatic tension for the works of prominent authors like Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky . Characters drawn from

4290-602: The Cossack uprisings benefited from disturbances among the peasants, and they in turn received an impetus from Cossack rebellion, none of the Cossack movements were directed against the institution of serfdom itself. Instead, peasants in Cossack-dominated areas became Cossacks during uprisings, thus escaping from the peasantry rather than directly organizing peasants against the institution. Rich Cossacks owned serfs themselves. Between

4420-519: The Napoleonic Wars and Russo-Persian Wars ; this did not change the disparity between Russia and Western Europe, who were experiencing agricultural and industrial revolutions. Compared to Western Europe it was clear that Russia was at an economic disadvantage. European philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment criticized serfdom and compared it to medieval labor practices which were almost non-existent in

4550-471: The North Caucasus , right-bank Ukraine , Belarus , Lithuania , and Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powers—the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Catherine's foreign minister, Nikita Panin (in office 1763–1781), exercised considerable influence from the beginning of Catherine's reign. A shrewd statesman, Panin dedicated much effort and millions of rubles to setting up

4680-689: The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . Russia inflicted some of the heaviest defeats ever suffered by the Ottoman Empire, including at the Battle of Chesma (5–7 July 1770) and the Battle of Kagul (21 July 1770). In 1769, a last major Crimean–Nogai slave raid , which ravaged the Russian held territories in Ukraine, saw the capture of up to 20,000 slaves for the Crimean slave trade . The Russian victories procured access to

4810-563: The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 . This war was another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimised the Russian claim to the Crimean peninsula and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. In the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), Russia agreed to protect Georgia against any new invasions and further political aspirations of their Persian suzerains . Catherine waged

4940-584: The Tsardom of Russia and, from 1721, of the subsequent Russian Empire. Serfdom was rare in Little Russia (parts of today's central Ukraine ), other Cossack lands, the Urals and Siberia until the reign of Catherine the Great ( r.  1762–1796 ), when it spread to Ukraine ; noblemen began to send their serfs into Cossack lands in an attempt to harvest their extensive untapped natural resources. The emperor and

5070-475: The military 's need for soldiers. The term muzhik , or moujik (Russian: мужи́к , IPA: [mʊˈʐɨk] ) means "Russian peasant" when it is used in English. This word was borrowed from Russian into Western languages through translations of 19th-century Russian literature , describing Russian rural life of those times, and where the word muzhik was used to mean the most common rural dweller –

5200-414: The zipun  [ ru ] ( Russian : зипун , a collarless kaftan ) and the smock . A 19th-century report noted: "Every Russian peasant, male and female, wears cotton clothes. The men wear printed shirts and trousers, and the women are dressed from head to foot in printed cotton also." By the mid-19th century, peasants composed a plurality of the population, and according to the census of 1857,

5330-455: The 1790s. In 1768, she formally became the protector of the political rights of dissidents and peasants of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the Confederation of Bar (1768–1772), supported by France. After the rebels, their French and European volunteers, and their allied Ottoman Empire had been defeated, she established in the Commonwealth

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5460-524: The 18th century Russian peasants were escaping from Russia to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (where once harsh serfdom conditions were improving) in significant enough numbers to become a major concern for the Russian Government and sufficient to play a role in its decision to partition the Commonwealth (one of the reasons Catherine II gave for the partition of Poland was the fact that thousands of peasants escaped from Russia to Poland to seek

5590-573: The Black Sea and allowed Catherine's government to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa , Nikolayev , Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine") and Kherson . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca , signed 21 July 1774 (OS: 10 July 1774), gave the Russians territories at Azov , Kerch , Yenikale , Kinburn and the small strip of Black Sea coast between

5720-525: The Crimean state and maintain friendly relations with Russia. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. Finally, Catherine annexed Crimea in 1783. The palace of the Crimean Khanate passed into the hands of the Russians. In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea, which helped provoke the next Russo-Turkish War. The Ottomans restarted hostilities with Russia in

5850-539: The Empress and her court as a whole. Elizabeth doted on Sophie and saw her as a daughter after this. Sophie's father, a devout German Lutheran, opposed his daughter's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy . Despite his objections, on 28 June 1744, the Russian Orthodox Church received Sophie as a member. It was then that she took the new name Catherine (Yekaterina or Ekaterina) and the (artificial) patronymic Алексеевна (Alekseyevna, daughter of Aleksey), so that she

5980-531: The Great of Prussia took an active part. The objective was to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria , and to overthrow the chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin , a known partisan of the Austrian alliance on whom the reigning Russian Empress Elizabeth relied. The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother, Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Historical accounts portray Joanna as

6110-583: The Ismailovsky Regiment to go to the Semenovsky Barracks, where the clergy was waiting to ordain her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne and began her reign as Empress of Russia as Catherine II. 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 17 July 1762—eight days after the coup that amazed the outside world and just six months after his accession to

6240-578: The Royal Swedish navy in the tied Battle of Hogland (July 1788), and the Swedish army failed to advance. Denmark declared war on Sweden in 1788 (the Theatre War ). After the decisive defeat of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Svensksund in 1790, the parties signed the Treaty of Värälä (14 August 1790), returning all conquered territories to their respective owners and confirming the Treaty of Åbo . Russia

6370-456: The Russian Empire as a potential rival, making for difficult and unfriendly relations between Beijing and Saint Petersburg. In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta , which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. Another source of tension was the wave of Dzungar Mongol fugitives from the Qing Empire who took refuge with the Russians. The Dzungar genocide which

6500-448: The Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America . Many cities and towns were founded on Catherine's orders in the newly conquered lands, most notably Yekaterinoslav , Kherson , Nikolayev , and Sevastopol . An admirer of Peter the Great , Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and

6630-401: The Russian language, rising late at night to repeat her lessons in her bedroom. Staying up late at night in the harsh Russian cold caused her to fall ill with pneumonia , though she survived and recovered. In her memoirs, she wrote that she made the decision then to do whatever was necessary and to profess to believe whatever was required of her to become qualified to wear the crown. Although she

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6760-519: The Russian protectorate since the reign of Peter I, but he did not intervene into the problem of political freedoms of dissidents advocating for their religious freedoms only. Catherine did turn Russia into a global great power, not only a European one, but with quite a different reputation from what she initially had planned as an honest policy. The global trade of Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. Her dynasty lost power because of this and of

6890-517: The Zubovs had other plans for the army, ordered the troops to retreat to Russia. This reversal aroused the frustration and enmity of the powerful Zubovs and other officers who took part in the campaign; many of them would be among the conspirators who arranged Paul's murder five years later. Catherine longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. She refused the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, which had ports on

7020-439: The abolition of serfdom. He ended mandatory military service for nobles with the abolition of compulsory noble state service. This provided a rationale to end serfdom. Second, was the secularization of the church estates, which transferred its peasants and land to state jurisdiction. In 1775 measures were taken by Catherine II to prosecute estate owners for the cruel treatment of serfs. These measures were strengthened in 1817 and

7150-414: The amount of pozhiloye and introduced an additional tax called za povoz ( за повоз , or transportation fee), in case a peasant refused to bring the harvest from the fields to his master. A temporary ( Заповедные лета , or forbidden years ) and later an open-ended prohibition for peasants to leave their masters was introduced by the ukase of 1597 under the reign of Boris Godunov , which took away

7280-426: The authorities about the cruelty of their masters, to bring lawsuits for emancipation, and also restored the right of landlords to exile peasants to Siberia at their discretion. The Russian state also continued to support serfdom due to military conscription . The conscripted serfs dramatically increased the size of the Russian military during the war with Napoleon . With a larger military Russia achieved victory in

7410-399: The authors of the projects were A. A. Arakcheev , P. A. Vyazemsky , V. N. Karazin , P. D. Kiselyov , N. S. Mordvinov , N. G. Repnin ). All these projects were united by the principle of gradual emancipation of peasants without infringement of economic interests of landlords. However, in 1822–23, due to changes in the domestic political course, Alexander I again forbade serfs to complain to

7540-607: The benefits of friendship with Britain, Catherine was wary of Britain's increased power following its victory in the Seven Years' War , which threatened the European balance of power . Peter the Great had gained a foothold in the south, on the edge of the Black Sea, during the Azov campaigns . Catherine completed the conquest of the south, making Russia the dominant power in the Balkans following

7670-689: The coast of the Atlantic Ocean and refrained from having a Russian army in Germany. Instead, she pioneered for Russia the role that Britain later played through most of the 19th and early 20th centuries as an international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war. She acted as mediator in the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) between the German states of Prussia and Austria. In 1780, she established

7800-558: The court poet Derzhavin in his famous ode; he later commented bitterly on Zubov's inglorious return from the expedition in another famous poem. By mid-June 1796, Zubov's troops easily overran most of the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan , including three principal cities— Baku , Shemakha , and Ganja . By November, they were stationed at the confluence of the Aras and Kura Rivers , poised to attack mainland Iran. In this month, Catherine died, and her son and successor Paul I, who detested that

7930-455: The crown was constructed of two half spheres, one gold and one silver, representing the Eastern and Western Roman Empires , divided by a foliate garland and fastened with a low hoop. The crown contains 75 pearls and 4,936 Indian diamonds forming laurel and oak leaves, the symbols of power and strength, and is surmounted by a 398.62-carat ruby spinel and a diamond cross. The crown was produced in

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8060-618: The economy continued to depend on serfdom , and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. This was one of the chief reasons behind rebellions, including Pugachev's Rebellion of Cossacks , nomads, peoples of the Volga, and peasants. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility , issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. The construction of many mansions of

8190-510: The empire as a whole; it was the Cossacks and nomads who rebelled initially and recruited serfs into rebel armies. But many landowners died during serf uprisings against them. The revolutions of 1905 and 1917 happened after serfdom's abolition. There were numerous rebellions against this bondage, most often in conjunction with Cossack uprisings, such as the uprisings of Ivan Bolotnikov (1606–1607), Stenka Razin (1667–1671), Kondraty Bulavin (1707–1709) and Yemelyan Pugachev (1773–1775). While

8320-423: The end of Pugachev's Rebellion and the beginning of the 19th century, there were hundreds of outbreaks across Russia, and there was never a time when the peasantry was completely quiescent. As a whole, serfdom both came and remained in Russia much later than in other European countries. Slavery remained a legally recognized institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great abolished slavery and converted

8450-444: The female and male ages were raised to 16 and 18 respectively. To marry over the age of 60, the serf had to receive permission, but marriage over the age of 80 was forbidden. The Church also did not approve marriages with large age differences. Landowners were interested in keeping all of their serfs and not losing workers to marriages on other estates . Prior to 1812 serfs were not allowed to marry serfs from other estates. After 1812

8580-419: The final version of her memoirs to her son, the future Paul I , in which she explained why Paul had been Peter's son. Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and she did not desire to have a child with him; Catherine wanted to become empress herself, and did not want another heir to the throne; however, Elizabeth blackmailed Peter and Catherine to produce this heir. Peter and Catherine had both been involved in

8710-428: The foreign policy of Catherine the Great as a dishonest one. Catherine failed to reach any of the initial goals she had put forward. Her foreign policy lacked a long-term strategy and from the very start was characterised by a series of mistakes. She lost the large territories of the Russian protectorate of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and left its territories to Prussia and Austria. The Commonwealth had become

8840-584: The fullest extent. The official estimate is that 23 million Russians were privately owned, 23 million were considered personally free and another 3500,000 peasants were under the Tsar's patronage ( udelnye krestiane ) before the Great Emancipation of 1861 . Unlike serfs, state peasants and peasants under tsar's patronage were considered personally free, nobody had the right to sell them, to interfere in their family life, by law they were considered as 'free agricultural inhabitants' (Russ 'свободные сельские обыватели') One particular source of indignation in Europe

8970-462: The highest state officials feared that the peasants' emancipation would be accompanied by popular unrest, given the reluctance of the landlords to lose their serf property, but took some actions to alleviate the situation of the peasantry. Emperor Alexander I ( r.  1801–1825 ) wanted to reform the system but moved cautiously, liberating serfs in Estonia (1816), Livonia (1816), and Courland (1817) only. New laws allowed all classes (except

9100-626: The ideas of the Enlightenment , Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe. In her accession to power and her rule of the empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin . Assisted by highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev , and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov , she governed at

9230-408: The land, usually of a poorer quality, the peasants could use for themselves). Sometimes the terms are loosely translated by the term corvée . While no official government regulation to the extent of barshchina existed, a 1797 ukase by Paul I of Russia described a barshchina of three days a week as normal and sufficient for the landowner's needs. In the black earth region, 70% to 77% of

9360-427: The landowner had no right to kill the serf. About four-fifths of Russian peasants were serfs according to the censuses of 1678 and 1719; free peasants remained only in the north and north-east of the country. Most of the dvoryane (nobles) were content with the long time frame for search of the runaway peasants. The major landowners of the country, however, together with the dvoryane of the south, were interested in

9490-411: The landowner's help. The younger generations now had the freedom to work off their estates; some even went to work in factories. These younger peasants had access to newspapers and books, which introduced them to more radical ways of thinking. The ability to work outside of the household gave the younger peasants independence as well as a wage to do with what they wanted. Agricultural and domestic jobs were

9620-399: The late 1820s. There were even laws that required estate owners to help serfs in time of famine, which included grain to be kept in reserve. These policies failed to aid famines in the early nineteenth century due to estate owner negligence. As the ideas of Enlightenment and humanism spread among the Russian nobility at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, a conviction developed that

9750-457: The likely goal of subsequently getting rid of Peter III since at least 1749. Peter III's temperament became quite unbearable for those who resided in the palace. He would announce trying drills in the morning to male servants, who later joined Catherine in her room to sing and dance until late hours. In 1759, Catherine became pregnant with her second child, Anna, who only lived to 14 months. Due to various rumours of Catherine's promiscuity, Peter

9880-426: The marriage was unsuccessful; it was not consummated for years due to Peter III's mental immaturity. After Peter took a mistress, Catherine became involved with other prominent court figures. She soon became popular with several powerful political groups that opposed her husband. Unhappy with her husband, Catherine became an avid reader of books, mostly in French. She disparaged her husband for his devotion to reading on

10010-472: The night of 8 July 1762 (OS: 27 June 1762), Catherine was given the news that one of her co-conspirators had been arrested by her estranged husband and that the coup they had been planning would have to take place at once. The next day, she left the palace and departed for the Ismailovsky Regiment , where she delivered a speech asking the soldiers to protect her from her husband. Catherine then left with

10140-574: The nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the empress, changed the face of the country. She is often included in the ranks of the enlightened despots . As a patron of the arts, she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment , including the establishment of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens , the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe. Catherine

10270-653: The nobility. Peter ceased Russian operations against Prussia, and Frederick suggested the partition of Polish territories with Russia. Peter also intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig (see Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff ). As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp , Peter planned war against Denmark, Russia's traditional ally against Sweden . In July 1762, barely six months after becoming emperor, Peter lingered in Oranienbaum with his Holstein-born courtiers and relatives, while Catherine lived in another palace nearby. On

10400-458: The north-west of present-day Germany near the border with Denmark) in 1739. The newlyweds settled in the palace of Oranienbaum , which remained the residence of the "young court" for many years. From there, they governed the duchy (which occupied less than a third of the current German state of Schleswig-Holstein , even including that part of Schleswig occupied by Denmark) to obtain experience to govern Russia. Apart from providing that experience,

10530-477: The number of private serfs was 23.1 million out of 62.5 million citizens of the Russian empire, 37.7% of the population. The exact numbers, according to official data, were: entire population 60 909 309 ; peasantry of all classes 49 486 665 ; state peasants 23 138 191 ; peasants on the lands of proprietors 23 022 390 ; peasants of the appanages and other departments 3 326 084 . State peasants were considered personally free, but their freedom of movement

10660-540: The one hand "Lutheran prayer-books, the other the history of and trial of some highway robbers who had been hanged or broken on the wheel". It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other philosophes of the French Enlightenment . As she learned Russian, she became increasingly interested in the literature of her adopted country. Finally, it was the Annals by Tacitus that caused what she called

10790-407: The peasants' right to free movement around Yuri's Day, binding the vast majority of the Russian peasantry in full serfdom. These also defined the so-called fixed years ( Урочные лета , urochniye leta ), or the 5-year time frame for search of the runaway peasants. In 1607, a new ukase defined sanctions for hiding and keeping runaways: the fine had to be paid to the state and pozhiloye – to

10920-505: The per capita tax by their peasants (the tax was collected from the peasants and paid to the treasury by the landlord himself or his clerk). It was forbidden to put peasants on torture for their master's debts. In order to suppress fraudulent practices of landlords, who during audits recorded persons who did not belong to serfs, allegedly with their consent, decrees of 1775, 1781 and 1783 prohibited voluntary registration of serfs. The legislation stipulated conditions that allowed peasants to leave

11050-401: The previous owner of the peasant. The Sobornoye Ulozhenie ( Соборное уложение , "Code of Law") of 1649 gave serfs to estates, and in 1658, flight was made a criminal offense. Russian landowners eventually gained almost unlimited ownership over Russian serfs. The landowner could transfer the serf without land to another landowner while keeping the serf's personal property and family; however,

11180-553: The rest of the continent. Most Russian nobles were not interested in change toward western labor practices that Catherine the Great proposed. Instead they preferred to mortgage serfs for profit. Napoleon did not touch serfdom in Russia. In 1820, 20% of all serfs were mortgaged to state credit institutions by their owners. This was increased to 66% in 1859. To discuss the peasant question, Nicholas I successively created 9 secret committees, issued about 100 decrees aimed at mitigating serfdom, but did not affect its foundations. From 1833 it

11310-516: The rivers Dnieper and Bug . The treaty also removed restrictions on Russian naval and commercial traffic in the Azov Sea , granted Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and made Crimea a protectorate of Russia. In 1770, Russia's State Council announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. Catherine named Şahin Giray , a Crimean Tatar leader, to head

11440-469: The rules relaxed slightly, but in order for a family to give their daughter to a husband in another estate they had to apply and present information to their landowner ahead of time. If a serf wanted to marry a widow , then emancipation and death certificates were to be handed over and investigated for authenticity by their owner before a marriage could take place. Before and after the abolition of serfdom, Russian peasant families were patriarchal . Marriage

11570-427: The ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess and from tutors. According to her memoirs, Sophie was considered a tomboy and trained herself to master a sword. Catherine found her childhood to be uneventful; she once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm , "I see nothing of interest in it". Although Sophie was born a princess, her family had little money; her rise to power

11700-539: The run, meaning that all of the peasants who had fled from their masters after the census of 1626 or 1646–1647 had to be returned. The government would still introduce new time frames and grounds for search of the runaways after 1649, which applied to the peasants who had fled to the outlying districts of the country, such as regions along the border abatises called zasechniye linii ( засечные линии ) (ukases of 1653 and 1656), Siberia (ukases of 1671, 1683 and 1700), Don (1698) etc. The dvoryane constantly demanded that

11830-514: The scattering of their estates, lack of primogeniture , and the high turnover and mobility from estate to estate. The Tsar's aunt Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna played a powerful role backstage in the years 1855 to 1861. Using her close relationship with her nephew Alexander II, she supported and guided his desire for emancipation, and helped mobilize the support of key advisors. In 1861, Alexander II freed all serfs (except in Georgia and Kalmykia ) in

11960-533: The search for the runaways be sponsored by the government. The legislation of the second half of the 17th century paid much attention to the means of punishment of the runaways. Serfdom was hardly efficient; serfs and nobles had little incentive to improve the land. However, it was politically effective. Nobles rarely challenged the tsar for fear of provoking a peasant uprising. Serfs were often given lifelong tenancy on their plots, so they tended to be conservative as well. The serfs took little part in uprisings against

12090-448: The serf population were portrayed with profound emotional depth, their stories shedding light on the harsh realities of serfdom. These narratives served to amplify calls for social reform and underscored the deep inequalities of the Russian societal structure. The influence of serfdom was also notable in Russian music and art. Folk songs and dances, often performed by serfs, contributed significantly to Russia's unique cultural tradition. At

12220-449: The serf state. Edicts of 1737, 1743, 1744, 1745, 1770, and 1773 declared free those who returned from captivity, as well as foreigners who accepted Eastern Orthodoxy . The children of foster homes and those who had graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts could not be enserfed. Freedom was granted to retired soldiers who were serfs. Peter III created two measures in 1762 that influenced

12350-415: The serfs performed barshchina ; the rest paid levies ( obrok ). The Russian Orthodox Church had many rules regarding marriage that were strictly observed by the population. For example, marriage was not allowed to take place during times of fasting, the eve or day of a holiday, during the entire week of Easter , or for two weeks after Christmas . Before the abolition of serfdom in 1861 , marriage

12480-412: The serfs) to own land, a privilege previously confined to the nobility. Emperor Alexander II abolished serfdom in the emancipation reform of 1861, a few years later than Austria and other German states. Scholars have proposed multiple overlapping reasons to account for the abolition, including fear of a large-scale revolt by the serfs, the government's financial needs, changing cultural sensibilities, and

12610-463: The size of the dowry as well as the bride's decency, modesty, obedience, ability to do work, and family background. Upon marriage, the bride came to live with her new husband and his family, so she needed to be ready to assimilate and work hard. Serfs looked highly upon early marriage because of increased parental control. At a younger age there is less chance of the individual falling in love with someone other than whom his or her parents chose. There

12740-414: The slaves into serfs. This was relevant more to household slaves because Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. Formal conversion to serf status and the later ban on the sale of serfs without land did not stop the trade in household slaves; this trade merely changed its name. The private owners of the serfs regarded the law as a mere formality. Instead of "sale of

12870-503: The successor states of the Golden Horde , chiefly the Khanate of Crimea . Annually the Russian population of the borderland suffered from Tatar invasions and slave raids and tens of thousands of noblemen protected the southern borderland (a heavy burden for the state), which slowed its social and economic development and expanded the taxation of peasantry. The Sudebnik of 1550 increased

13000-556: The system of serfdom was flawed and hindered economic development and urban growth. Tsar Alexander I and his advisors quietly discussed the options at length. Obstacles included the failure of abolition in Austria and the political reaction against the French Revolution . Cautiously, he freed peasants from Estonia and Latvia and extended the right to own land to most classes of subjects, including state-owned peasants, in 1801 and created

13130-702: The throne as Emperor Peter III and Catherine became empress consort . The imperial couple moved into the new Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The Emperor's eccentricities and policies, including his great admiration for the Prussian King Frederick II, alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated as allies. Russia and Prussia had fought each other during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and Russian troops had occupied Berlin in 1761. Peter supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among

13260-499: The throne included Ivan VI (1740–1764), who had been confined at Schlüsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and was thought to be insane. Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed coup against Catherine. Like Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. The woman later known as Princess Tarakanova (с. 1745–1775)

13390-411: The throne—Peter III died at Ropsha , possibly at the hands of Alexei Orlov (younger brother to Grigory Orlov, then a court favourite and a participant in the coup). Peter supposedly was assassinated, but it is unknown how he died. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack of haemorrhoidal colic and an apoplexy stroke. At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for

13520-454: The time of his daughter's birth, he held the rank of a Prussian general in his capacity as governor of the city of Stettin. However, because her second cousin Peter III converted to Orthodox Christianity, her mother's brother became the heir to the Swedish throne and two of her first cousins, Gustav III and Charles XIII , became Kings of Sweden . In accordance with the prevailing custom among

13650-549: The use of peasants, for which they had to perform duties in favour of the landlord. The landlords were given the right to let the peasants go free by mutual agreement with them (1844). The peasants of the landlord's estates sold at auction for the owner's debts were allowed to buy out at will (1847; in 1848–52 964 male peasants used the right). Emperor Nicholas I also banned the trade of African slaves in 1842, though there were almost no Russians who participated in it. Bourgeois were allowed to own serfs 1721–62 and 1798–1816; this

13780-410: The wedding could take place. Despite Joanna's interference, Elizabeth took a strong liking to Sophie, and Sophie and Peter were eventually married in 1745. When Sophie arrived in Russia in 1744 at age 15, she spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with Elizabeth, but also with Elizabeth's husband Alexei Razumovsky and with the Russian people at large. She zealously applied herself to learning

13910-455: The wife was expected to buy certain items. She was also expected to buy household items such as bowls, plates, pots, barrels and various utensils. Wives were also required to purchase cloth and make clothes for the family by spinning and using a dontse . Footwear was the husband's responsibility - he made bast shoes and felt boots for the family. As for crops, it was expected for men to sow and women to harvest. A common crop harvested by serfs in

14040-501: The years with many men, including Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski , Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–1783), Alexander Vasilchikov , Grigory Potemkin , Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov and others. She became friends with Princess Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova , the sister of her husband's official mistress. In Dashkova's opinion, Dashkova introduced Catherine to several powerful political groups that opposed her husband; however, Catherine had been involved in military schemes against Elizabeth with

14170-456: Was Kolokol published in London, England (1857–65) and Geneva (1865–67). It collected many cases of horrendous physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the serfs by the landowners. Edicts of 1718, 1734, 1750, 1761, and 1767 obliged landlords to feed their peasants in times of crop failure and famine and to prevent their impoverishment. Since 1722 landlords were responsible for the correct payment of

14300-490: Was 10, she met the second cousin who would become her future husband and Peter III of Russia . She later wrote that she immediately found Peter detestable and that she stayed at one end of the castle and Peter at the other. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol. The choice of Sophie as wife of the future tsar was a result of the Lopukhina affair , in which Count Jean Armand de Lestocq and King Frederick

14430-498: Was able to learn Russian, she spoke with a heavy accent, and made grammatical mistakes. Her writing also contained numerous spelling errors. In most circumstances Catherine II spoke French in her court. In fact the use of French as the main language of the Russian imperial court continued until 1812, when it became politically incorrect to speak French in court due to the war with Napoleonic France. Sophie recalled in her memoirs that as soon as she arrived in Russia, she fell ill with

14560-414: Was abolished only by Alexander II 's emancipation reform of 1861 ; nevertheless, in times past, the state allowed peasants to sue for release from serfdom under certain conditions, and also took measures against abuses of landlord power. Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in the 17th century. Serfdom most commonly existed in the central and southern areas of

14690-561: Was another potential rival. Although Catherine did not descend from the Romanov dynasty, her ancestors included members of the Rurik dynasty , which had preceded the Romanovs as rulers of Russia. She succeeded her husband as empress regnant , following the legal precedent of Empress Catherine I , who had succeeded her husband Peter I in 1725. Historians debate Catherine's technical status, whether as

14820-517: Was born on 2 May 1729 in Stettin , Province of Pomerania , Kingdom of Prussia , as Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica (Sophie Auguste Friederike) von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. Her mother was Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt . He failed to become the duke of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and, at

14950-557: Was committed by the Qing Empire had led many Dzungars to seek sanctuary in the Russian Empire, and it was also one of the reasons for the abrogation of the Treaty of Kyakhta. Catherine perceived that the Qianlong Emperor was an unpleasant and arrogant neighbour, once saying: "I shall not die until I have ejected the Turks from Europe, suppressed the pride of China and established trade with India". In

15080-473: Was important for families economically and socially. Parents were in charge of finding suitable spouses for their children in order to help the family. The bride's parents were concerned with the social and material benefits they would gain in the alliance between the two families. Some also took into consideration their daughter's future quality of life and how much work would be required of her. The groom's parents would be concerned about economical factors such as

15210-507: Was in all respects the namesake of Catherine I , the mother of Elizabeth and the grandmother of Peter III. The following year, on 21 August 1745, the long-planned dynastic marriage between Catherine and Peter finally took place in Saint Petersburg . Catherine had recently turned 16. Her father did not travel to Russia for the wedding. The bridegroom, then known as Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, had become Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (located in

15340-422: Was led to believe he was not the child's biological father and is known to have proclaimed, "Go to the devil!" when Catherine angrily dismissed his accusation. She therefore spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. In the first version of her memoirs, edited and published by Alexander Hertzen, Catherine strongly implied that the real father of her son Paul

15470-447: Was limited to a period of one week before and after Yuri's Day (November 26). The Sudebnik of 1497 officially confirmed this time limit as universal for everybody and also established the amount of the "break-away" fee called pozhiloye ( пожилое ). The legal code of Ivan III of Russia , Sudebnik (1497), strengthened the dependency of peasants, statewide, and restricted their mobility . The Russians persistently battled against

15600-470: Was moved to Great Tokmak . On 12 December 1796 the oblast was abolished, its territory was redivided into two counties (Aqmescit (former Simferopol) and Perekop) and passed to the Novorossiya Governorate . The city of Simferopol name was changed to Aqmescit. 45°02′N 38°58′E  /  45.033°N 38.967°E  / 45.033; 38.967 This Russian history –related article

15730-507: Was not Peter, but rather Saltykov. Catherine recalled in her memoirs her optimistic and resolute mood before her accession to the throne: I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, raise yourself above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities. After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on 5 January 1762 ( OS : 25 December 1761), Peter succeeded to

15860-535: Was not allowed to sell serfs at public auction "with the splitting of families", "to satisfy public and private debts", paying for them with serfs with their detachment from the land, as well as to transfer peasants into household serfs, taking away their plots. The right of landlords to exile peasants to Siberia at their discretion was restricted (1828). A decree on obliged peasants was issued (1842), according to which landlords could let their peasants go free, but peasants' plots were transferred not into ownership, but into

15990-478: Was one of the best means of advancing their interests. To improve the position of her house, Sophie was groomed throughout her childhood to become the wife of a powerful ruler. In addition to her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. The young Sophie received the standard education for an 18th-century German princess, concentrating on etiquette, French, and Lutheran theology . In 1739, when Catherine

16120-403: Was replaced with landless laborers and sharecropping ( halbkörner ). Landless workers had to ask permission to leave an estate. The nobility was too weak to oppose the emancipation of the serfs. In 1820, a fifth of the serfs were mortgaged, half by 1842. By 1859, a third of noble's estates and two thirds of their serfs were mortgaged to noble banks or the state. The nobility was also weakened by

16250-864: Was restricted. Russian serfdom depended entirely on the traditional and extensive technology of the peasantry. Yields remained low and stationary throughout most of the 19th century. Any increase in income drawn from agriculture was largely through increasing land area and extensive grain raising by means of exploitation of the peasant labor, that is, by burdening the peasant household still further. % peasants enserfed in each province, 1860 >55%: Kaluga Kyiv Kostroma Kutais Minsk Mogilev Nizhny Novgorod Podolia Ryazan Smolensk Tula Vitebsk Vladimir Volhynia Yaroslavl 36–55%: Chernigov Grodno Kovno Kursk Moscow Novgorod Oryol Penza Poltava Pskov Saratov Simbirsk Tambov Tver Vilna 16–35%: Don Ekaterinoslav Kharkov Kherson Kuban Perm Tiflis Vologda Voronezh In

16380-422: Was strictly prohibited on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Because of these firm rules most marriages occurred in the months of January, February, October, and November. After the emancipation the most popular marrying months were July, October, and November. Imperial laws were very particular with the age in which serfs could marry. The minimum age to marry was 13 years old for women, and 15 for men. After 1830

16510-484: Was supported by her mother Joanna's wealthy relatives, who were both nobles and royal relations. The more than 300 sovereign entities of the Holy Roman Empire, many of them small and powerless, made for a highly competitive political system in which the various princely families fought for advantages over one another, often by way of political marriages. For smaller German princely families, an advantageous marriage

16640-528: Was to encourage industrialisation. In 1804, 48% of Russian factory workers were serfs, 52% in 1825. Landless serfs rose from 4.14% in 1835 to 6.79% in 1858. They received no land in the emancipation. Landlords deliberately increased the number of domestic serfs when they anticipated serfdom's demise. In 1798, Ukrainian landlords were banned from selling serfs apart from land. In 1841, landless nobles were banned also. According to certain Polish sources, increasingly in

16770-465: Was to stop any involvement in the internal affairs of Sweden. Large sums were paid to Gustav III and peace ensued for 20 years even in spite of the assassination of Gustav III in 1792. In 1764, Catherine placed Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski , her former lover, on the Polish throne . Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in its execution in

16900-448: Was widely expected that a 13,000-strong Russian corps would be led by the seasoned general Ivan Gudovich , but the Empress followed the advice of her lover, Prince Zubov , and entrusted the command to his youthful brother, Count Valerian Zubov . The Russian troops set out from Kizlyar in April 1796 and stormed the key fortress of Derbent on 21 May (OS: 10 May). The event was glorified by

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