Russia and Europe. ‘Regularizing’ the state

Russia and Europe

Russia was becoming a European power at a time when Europe itself was changing. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) had ended the period when one single power could hope to dominate the continent, and Europe had become a cluster of sovereign states jostling among themselves for power and influence. That process required the gradual codification of international law and the stationing of permanent envoys in each other’s territories to maintain communications. Each state needed to constantly renew its military technology, and to mobilize its natural resources to the maximum, which in turn entailed investing in science and technology. Having robust armed forces and a productive economy required concern for the well‑ being, education, and training of the population. Statesmen were beginning to concern themselves with the ‘public welfare’ even of their humbler subjects; thinkers were becoming more concerned with the citizen’s input into the political process, the rule of law, and limitations on the ruler’s power.

This was the constellation of great powers which Russia joined in the 18th century. The response of European countries was ambivalent. From the early 18th century, and especially after the Seven Years War (1756–63), no one could deny that Russia was a member of the European ‘club’: its military victories spoke for themselves. All the same, Europe’s elites still regarded Russia as being in some way alien: its sheer size and massive population, its immense resources, its military might, its semi‑ Asiatic geography, its ever‑ expanding frontiers, and its uncertain ambitions all inclined European statesmen to regard it with suspicion and distrust.

Russia really had no choice but to make itself amenable to this disdainful ‘club’. To defend its long and mostly open frontiers, to deal with threats of sedition among its very diverse populations, Russia needed not only a powerful army and navy, but also friendly relations with its European neighbours, sometimes achieved by royal marriages. It also needed where possible to gain confidential knowledge of European powers’ intentions and capabilities.

For that reason, from Peter I onwards, Russia’s statesmen gave priority to training noblemen in European languages and sending them on tours around the European capitals to participate in polite society and to get to know the intentions of the courts and the peoples’ customs. The new Cadet Corps which trained future army officers in ballistics and fortification also taught them music, dancing, social etiquette, and foreign languages. Graduates spoke excellent French and were soon to be found mixing gracefully with high society in France and Germany. Moreover, Catherine II herself as Empress corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot, two leading thinkers of the European Enlightenment.

The inevitable result was to create a yawning gap between the way of life of the ordinary people and that of Russia’s elites, who gradually became more numerous during the 18th and 19th centuries. This gap was especially damaging to the church, whose culture changed far less than that of secular elites.

The effort seemed to pay off, though. In the 18th century, Russia had remarkable military and diplomatic successes. The greatest geostrategic obstacle to its great power position was its land‑ locked location. Despite its immense size, it could conduct sea trade with Europe only through the Gulf of Finland or the White Sea, both of which could become iced over in winter. Having gained the former Baltic provinces of Sweden, Russia dismembered the Polish‑ Lithuanian Commonwealth and annexed its capital, Warsaw, through diplomatic agreements with Austria and Prussia.

The Ottoman Empire still dominated the Black Sea, which became Russia’s prime target during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Russia gained a series of victories over the Ottomans, annexed the Crimea (the first Ottoman Muslim territory to fall under Christian control), colonized fertile lands on the Black Sea coast, and established the major port of Odessa to carry the new international trade through the Bosphorus. Its army was, however, unable to advance as far as Constantinople because of geographical obstacles: the swampy Danube delta, rivers, and mountains. The alternative route to Turkey through the Caucasus was rendered hazardous by the mountain peoples, most of whom were Muslim or converted to Islam in the course of facing Russian aggression. Moreover, Russia knew that any final offensive directed at Constantinople would risk dragging other European powers into a general war which would overstrain Russia’s resources.

‘Regularizing’ the state

Catherine II (the Great, r. 1762–96) attempted to broaden the social and cultural basis of the monarchy and to give it a foundation of legality, as that was understood in 18th‑ century Europe. She herself came to the throne through a Guards coup against her husband, Peter III, and so needed extra legitimation. This is not the only explanation of her concern for institutions, however. She was an eager student of European Enlightenment political thinkers, and in 1767 she undertook an unusually bold experiment to establish a ‘legal monarchy’: she convened an elected Legislative Commission to create a new Law Code. This was not just a return to the Muscovite practice of occasional consultation with elites: Catherine’s Commission was broadly elected and represented state officials, nobles, merchants, Cossacks, state peasants, and non‑ Russian communities; the only absentees were serfs and clergymen. As in France two decades later, deputies brought with them from their electors petitions and proposals for reform. Catherine never intended the Commission to limit her power; as she stated in the lengthy document she put before it, she believed in absolute rule since ‘there is no other authority. . . that can act with a vigour proportionate to the extent of such a vast domain’. But she did want it to establish law as a basis for that absolute rule.

In the event, she was disappointed. The proposals of the various estates displayed a predominant concern with their own narrowly conceived interests, rather than with the needs of the state or the population as a whole. It was difficult to fashion a new Law Code out of them, and at the outbreak of the Turkish war in 1768 Catherine prorogued the sessions. She never reconvened the Commission, but did use its materials in further lawmaking. She correctly discerned that Russia’s greatest need was for ‘intermediate’ institutions between the state and the population. She tried to provide for them by creating new local government institutions, provinces (gubernii ) and districts (uezdy ), in which the nobility would play the main role. Peter III had already freed the nobility from the obligation to perform state service. She went further: her Charter to the Nobility (1785) guaranteed its property, freed it from corporal punishment, and allowed it to set up its own assemblies in each guberniia and uezd, with power to appoint local officials.