Despite the considerable effort put in by Russian Monarch Peter the Great, Russia remains to this day in many ways separate from modern Europe. This is mainly because of the influence of prominent Slavophiles, who were deeply concerned with the preservation of Russian culture in the aftermath of a time when Peter and the Monarchs who followed after him were concerned with the Westernization of Russia. These Slavophiles came into direct conflict with people known as Westernizers who felt that the best way to improve Russia was through the enlightenment teachings, which were at this time popular among scholars in Western Europe. The differences in the opinions of Westernizers and Slavophiles can be seen through their treatment of Religion and …show more content…
These fundamental conflicts in priority are indicative of a larger scale of philosophical differences which these two groups of people. Slavophiles felt that the old world of Russia was the ideal version of Russia, while Westernizers felt that the highly modern Western Europe held a much preferable model for how to run a civilization. One Westernizer, Belinsky writes, “Russia sees her salvation not in mysticism or asceticism or pietism, but in the successes of civilization, enlightenment, and humanity.” The Westernizers focus on the ideals of the enlightenment was in direct contradiction with the Slavophiles fears that these ideals would negatively impact Russian …show more content…
They were resentful of measures used to censor philosophical thought, a practice that was common in Russia at this time. Belinsky, a prominent Westernizer wrote that “fresh forces are seething and struggling for expression; but weighed down by heavy oppression, and finding no outlet, they induce merely dejection, weariness, and apathy. Only literature, despite the Tartar censorship, shows signs of life and progressive movement.” He makes it clear that he, at least, feels that Russia as it was at that time was a system of oppression that had to be dismantled in order for Russia to take it’s place as a prominent member of European
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
Absolutism was at its most popular in the 17th century. Monarchs Louis XIV who ruled France from 1643 to 1715, and Peter the Great who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725 both secured absolute power in their kingdom. Peter the Great, however, managed to accomplish more during his reign than Louis XIV with politics and military. Peter was able to tax his nobles but still keep their loyalty and also change how his army was run by using Prussian organization and discipline.
I believe that there was so much attention given to Peter the Great because of his extensive reforms. Peter brought both social and economic changes to his country. He wanted to make Russia big. Peter transformed the culture; he wanted his people to wear the western European fashion. Many of the people were not thrilled with the change because they did not like the ways of the western European societies. He made his navy stronger, he reformed his army to meet the western standards, and he gained control over the church.
Peter preferred to live comfortably, and didn’t have a need for extravagance as much as Louis XIV did. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think big. Peter’s main goals were to modernize Russia, and to make it a major European power—a force to be reckoned with—and also to gain control of the church. He tried to achieve these in many different ways. One way he attempted to make Russia more powerful was by westernizing the country. He traveled all over Western Europe, learning about the culture, more modern practices and way of ...
(weternize) Catherine the great proceeded to finish what Peter the Great started; she made sure that by the end of her reign Russia was westernized. The enlightenment period had a huge impact in her decision making, by limiting the use of torture
It was said that the educated people, the contact with other countries should contribute to the government policy. As said in document 1 , "By 1900 there were political parties raging from far right defenders of autocracy and russian power over all other ethnicities, to far left revolutionaries calling for the overthrow of the government." The government there was autocratic, which was when the tsar had all the power/control of the government. Another cause for the Russian Revolution was the outbreak of WW1. "Even before the war urban workers all over the Russian empire had been increasingly radical, but the war brought the government's incompentence and the people's grievances into sharper relief. The first months of the war were a disaster for Russia." It is much easier to overthrow a government than to try andcreate a new government. As said in document 2,"Chaos, conflict, uncertaunty; more violence are much more common and often led to centralized, authoritarian governments." There was celebration all over the streets after the indication that the tsar was overthrown after 300 years of a tsarist government ruling. "The problem was that, after the party, governing problems arose immediately.
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
During the course of the eighteenth century, both Peter I and Catherine II rose to power as Russian tsars implementing their social and political power upon their kingdom and people. They aimed to westernize Eastern Europe, amassing great power and tracts of land, yet the tactical process in which they did so differed for each individual. Peter I and Catherine the Great made effective changes within the structures of military, nobility, education, and peasantry.
Peter the Great had many goals during the time he ruled. One of his biggest goals was to modernize and westernize Russia. The main reason Peter the Great modernized Russia was because he did not want the country he ruled to be left vulnerable to expansionist powers in Europe. The powers were constantly at war, fighting to take over each other’...
Peter the Great was trying ultimately to make the Russian Empire more Europeanized or Westernized. He wanted to protect and enhance the vulnerable Russian Empire. Peter the Great saw that other European countries are colonizing in other regions like the New World, Asia, and Africa. Peter saw this as a threat and didn’t want for the Europeans to conquer Russia. Through decrees to shave and provisions on dress, he was trying to make them European. He also wanted to make military and economic reforms that could help the empire itself. If they built factories, they didn’t need to get supplies from Europe.
In 1918, while the rest of Europe was still engaged in World War I, a newly formed communist government was developing in Russia. Much like 18th century Americans, they had just managed to overthrow what was viewed as a tyrannical government and hoped to form a new nation free of the injustices of the previous rule. Both countries wrote a new constitution as well as a declaration of rights to facilitate this, but their respective documents had vast differences. These disparities stemmed from differences in the ideologies of the new governments. The primary objectives of the Russian Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People and the later constitution were the “abolition of all exploitation of man by man, complete elimination of the division of society into classes, merciless suppression of the exploiters, socialist organization of society, and victory of socialism in all countries.” Americans wanted equality of opportunity and personal freedom instead of the social equality desired by the Russians. The American constitution and Bill of Rights were created to protect personal liberties and individual freedom while the Russians were more concerned with the welfare and equality of the population as a whole. This difference is partially due to the differences in the conditions leading to revolution in each country. The American Revolution was initiated by the wealthy in response to what they considered unfair treatment by a foreign ruler while the Russian revolution was instigated by the poor in reaction to centuries of oppression and exploitation by the wealthy within their own country.
Absolutists during the 16th and 17th centuries were often times focused too heavily on military or other such rather than the people they were ruling. Peter the Great is a good example of this type of ruler because he did great things for Russia like improving the navy; however, Peter the Great did nothing to help the people of Russia, and according to Michael Gibson in document 8, he "failed to create the large, thriving
Observing that European technological superiority allowed it to enjoy extraordinary benefits, he adopted many European practices to assert his own dominance and increase Russia’s protection against its adversaries. In doing this, Peter the Great formed himself a lasting legacy. Although Peter the Great originally mimicked Louis XIV in his staunch practice of absolutism, he ultimately surpassed Louis XIV in his goal of supremacy. Peter replaced the previous head of the Orthodox Church, and had both religious and earthly supremacy. Thus, Peter achieved something that Louis could never manage: a control of both church and state. Outside of Russia’s borders, Peter succeeded in his endeavors to a much greater extent than Louis XIV. The Great Northern War against Sweden effectively gave Russia access to a warm water port: Saint Petersburg, where Peter created his own Versailles, the Winter Palace, that fulfilled goals similar to those of Louis. Thus, where Louis fell, Peter
Peter the Great, the Russian Czar, inherited his absolutist power from his brother, Ivan V. Born in aristocracy, Peter’s dad was the Czar, and later his brother, and after his brother’s death, him. He was a firm believer in the possible benefits from the control of a single leader to make decisions for the people, and he exercised this divine right to create many renouned institutions. At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was in a poor condition: many rejected modernization from the Renaissance, and large spending from his brother’s reign caused economic droughts. He took advantage of his absolutist power to help ameliorate Russia’s situation and first decided to minimalize power from the other aristocrats. The subduction of the rich allowed
The Western culture has evolved over a span of several years with various civilizations specializing in specific aspects of life or nature. In essence, Western civilization dates back to the BCE periods when Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Rome reigned. Each of the Western civilizations came with a clear lineage that portrayed such attributes as property rights, free market economy, competition, personal freedoms, and innovation (Perry, 2013). Besides, the western civilizations came at different periods with some of the attributes evolving or remaining unchanged throughout the lineage. However, the non-western civilizations contributed towards such attributes to a given extent, primarily because of the interactions among