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POSTPETER THE GREAT RUSSIA

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Had executed only son, Alexis, earlier. Over the next 37 years, Russia had six different rulers ... to end in 1762 with rise of Catherine the Great. Alexis ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: POSTPETER THE GREAT RUSSIA


1
POST-PETER THE GREAT RUSSIA
  • Peter the Great died in 1725 without heir
  • Had executed only son, Alexis, earlier
  • Over the next 37 years, Russia had six different
    rulers
  • None of whom was especially competent
  • Situation came to end in 1762 with rise of
    Catherine the Great

Alexis
2
THE RISE OF CATHERINE THE GREAT
  • Princess from Anhalt-Zerbst
  • Married future Peter III in 1745
  • Spent 17 years forming alliances in Russian court
  • Peter III became tsar in 1762
  • Embarked on pro-Prussian foreign policy which
    alarmed Russian ruling elite
  • Catherine cooperates with elite to murder Peter
    III during first year of his reign and assumes
    the throne
  • Would rule until 1796

3
CATHERINE ENLIGHTENED RULER?
  • Despite her professed interest in Enlightenment
    ideas, she remained a strong supporter of
    absolute monarchy
  • Cultivated the support of the noblity
  • Removed their service obligation in 1762
  • Gave away thousands of acres of state land and
    state peasants to nobles
  • Introduced Charter of the Noblity in 1785 which
    guaranteed them trial by jury and exemption from
    taxation, conscription, and corporal punishment
  • Her Enlightenment reforms were really attempts to
    buy the support of the nobility and thereby
    secure her own position and power

4
CATHERINE THE GREATS FOREIGN POLICY
  • Foreign policy designed to expand Russias
    southern and western boundaries
  • Defeated Ottoman Turks and gained control of
    coast of Black Sea and Crimea
  • Partitioned Poland with Austrian Empire and
    Prussia (1772, 1792, and 1795)

5
EUROPE AT CATHERINES DEATH (1796)
  • FRENCH REVOLUTION
  • Had broken out in 1789
  • Had entered imperialistic phase by 1796
  • Characterized by conquest of European territory
    and spread of revolutionary ideas across the
    continent
  • INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
  • Started in England in cotton textile industry
  • Transformed England into premiere economic,
    political, and military power in the world
  • Also created new problems
  • Huge increases in population
  • Development of classes
  • Rapid growth of cities
  • Intensification of social unrest
  • Gave birth to socialism, anarchism, radical
    democracy, and Marxism

6
PAUL I
  • Paul I becomes tsar in 1796
  • Entered military alliance with Prussia, Austrian
    Empire, Spain, and England against France
  • Dropped out of alliance after several defeats and
    made alliance with France
  • Had extreme disdain and hostility towards
    nobility
  • Prompted a palace coup against him in 1801
  • Paul is murdered
  • His son becomes new tsar, Alexander I

7
ALEXANDER I
  • Seemed eager to apply Enlightenment ideas to
    Russian problems
  • Increased power of Senate
  • Tightened and improved government administration
  • Promoted education
  • Approved plan that allowed nobility to
    voluntarily release serfs from bondage
  • Reforms were not particularly far-reaching or
    fundamental

8
WAR
  • Napoleon Bonaparte took control of France in 1799
  • Used revolutionary military machine to create an
    European-wide empire
  • Alexander I broke treaty that Paul I had made
    with France
  • Result was war
  • Russia defeated and forced to sign Treaty of
    Tilsit in 1807
  • Uneasy alliance at best
  • Napoleon broke treaty in 1812 and invaded Russia

9
INVASION OF RUSSIA
  • Napoleon invades with army of 700,000 men
  • Hoped to provoke decisive battle and force
    Alexander to agree to humiliating peace terms
  • Russian strategy was to avoid a direct
    confrontation with French army
  • Russian army retreats before French advance
  • Drawing the French deeper and deeper into Russia
  • Russians did make stand in front of Moscow
  • Battle of Borodino, 9-7-1812
  • Russian withdrew at end of battle and French
    entered Moscow
  • City had been evacuated and burnt to ground

10
DISASTROUS RETREAT
  • Napoleon remained in Moscow for five months
  • Forced to withdraw because of the onset of winter
    and scarcity of supplies
  • Disastrous retreat
  • Soldiers devastated by severe winter, short
    rations, and guerilla attacks by Russian
  • Only 25 of original invasion force made it back
    to Europe

11
CONGRESS OF VIENNA
  • Russian and allies defeat Napoleon at the Battle
    of Nations, October 1813
  • Victors occupy Paris in March 1814 and force
    Napoleon to abdicate
  • Congress of Vienna
  • 1814-1815
  • Made up of leaders of countries that had defeated
    Napoleon
  • Alexander I represented Russia
  • Created new small Poland under Russian control
  • Alexander proposed Holy Alliance
  • Alliance of monarchs who would join together to
    fight any threat tp their authority
  • Never really amounted to anything

12
CRISIS
  • Alexander becomes increasingly repressive and
    conservative after 1815
  • Provokes animosity among small group of noble
    army officers
  • Set up a secret society in St. Petersburg which
    aimed at establishing a constitutional monarchy
  • Alexander dies suddenly in December 1825
  • Without a direct heir
  • Both of Alexanders brothers claimed throne
  • Constantine
  • Nicholas

13
THE DECEMBRIST REVOLT
  • Constantine had secretly renounced throne so
    Nicholas was the legitimate heir
  • But no one knew this so confusion reigned for a
    period of time
  • Young officers attempted to exploit confusion,
    seize power, and install a constitutional
    monarchy
  • Easily defeated by loyal government forces
  • Nicknamed the Decembrists

14
LEGACY OF THE DECEMBRISTS
  • Leaders were all tried for treason and either
    executed or exiled to Siberia
  • First coup in Russian history to be driven by
    revolutionary principles, not personal or
    factional ambition
  • Frightened the new tsar, Nicholas I, and
    inaugurated an unprecedented era of repression
    and conservatism
  • Served as important symbolic event for future
    generations of Russian revolutionaries

15
NICHOLAS I
  • Ruled 1825-1855
  • Determined to preserve social and political
    status quo and assert complete control over his
    subjects
  • Convinced that any sign of change or liberalism
    would open floodgates of revolution
  • Expanded censorship apparatus to block entry of
    Western ideas into Russia
  • Placed restrictions on curriculum in universities
  • Prohibited foreign travel for most Russians
  • Placed all civil servants and military officers
    until surveillance
  • Created the Third Section
  • Secret police force

16
FOREIGN POLICY
  • Nicholas ordered his armies to put down
    revolutions in Poland (1830-31), Hungary (1849),
    and Rumania (1848)
  • Eventually led to disaster in the Crimean War
  • Erupted between Russia and Turkey over religious
    rights for Christians in the Holy Land
  • Also was an attempt to increase Russian power in
    the Black Sea region and the Ottoman Empire
  • Great Britain and France joined Ottoman Empire in
    war to prevent increase of Russian power in
    Middle East

17
CRIMEAN WAR
  • Britain and France laid siege against Russian
    naval base at Sevastopol for over a year
  • Russians forced to evacuate base and accept
    defeat
  • September 1855
  • Treaty of Paris required Russian to withdraw
    forces from Black Sea and give up its claim of
    protector of Orthodox Christians in Middle East
  • Nicholas I dies shortly before conflict ends
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