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The Imperal Succession. Expansion and Westernization. - Page 2

© Alexander Batyukov

In the past, apart from the incorporation of small Finnish and Siberian tribes, Muscovy had known only one major territorial conquest involving non-Russian and non-Christian peoples--that of the Tatars of the Volga in the 16th century. Their elites were quite successfully incorporated into the tsar's service nobility (most eventually became Christians); as for the common folk, they were subject to a special tribute (iassak), but their internal tribal affairs were left to the care of traditional elders and chieftains. The imperial acquisitions of the 18th century, however, brought a number of new nationalities under Russian rule: Ukrainians, Poles, Crimean Tatars, Jews, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Baltic Germans. Wherever workable, these nationalities' elites were recruited into the military and civil establishments. The common people continued to be allowed their own traditional institutions, provided they paid their taxes. The Russian church was discouraged from proselytizing. Legal disputes were resolved according to native customary law if no Russians were involved; otherwise Russian law took precedence. Before the birth of modern nationalism in the 19th century this approach worked well enough so that the imperial administration and the Russian elites were able to ignore the multiethnic character of the empire.

The second process shaping 18th-century Russia is best characterized as the cultural Westernization of the Russian elites. It was furthered by the establishment of new educational institutions (the Academy of Sciences, 1725; the University of Moscow, 1755; and military and private schools), the creation of a modern national literature along Western lines (exemplified in the work of Mikhail LOMONOSOV and Aleksandr SUMAROKOV), and the beginnings of scientific research and discoveries (Lomonosov). Increased sophistication heightened yearnings for free expression and implementation of enlightened Western moral and social values. It led to a conflict between state control and educated society's demand for creative freedom and to the emergence of an oppositionist intelligentsia. In 1790, for example, Aleksandr RADISHCHEV denounced the moral evils of serfdom in A Journey from Saint Petersburg to Moscow.

Imperial expansion and cultural Westernization were accompanied by economic modernization. Russia became a notable producer of iron, lumber, and naval stores (pine products) and witnessed the expansion of urbanization and social amenities. Catherine II intensified these developments and reaped their benefits. In February 1762 the nobles had been freed from compulsory state service by Peter III and had been given the right to travel abroad. But their corporate status, security of person and property, and local administrative function had not been clarified. This was even truer of the other free classes. In order to obtain reliable and comprehensive information on conditions in the empire (and to bolster her own legitimacy) Catherine convoked (1767) an assembly of elected delegates from the free estates of the realm. The deputies were expected to draft and bring to the assembly "instructions" (nakazy) listing the conditions and needs of their electors. This "Legislative Commission" was soon disbanded, but the instructions and debates gave Catherine ample material for a picture of what the various free classes of the population expected from her. In response she decided that Russian society should contribute more directly to economic activity.

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