The Age of Enlightenment Eighteenth Century Thought study guide chapter summary

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The Age of Enlightenment Eighteenth Century Thought study guide chapter summary

AP European History
Chapter 17—The Age of Enlightenment: Eighteenth Century Thought

Chapter Overview:

The Enlightenment is a movement of people and ideas that fostered the expansion of literate sectors of European society and that economic improvement and political reform were both possible and desirable.
Contemporary western political and economic thought is a product of Enlightenment thinking; therefore, some historians believe the process of Enlightenment continues today.
Inspired by the scientific revolution and prepared to challenge traditional intellectual and theological authority, Enlightenment writers believed that human beings can comprehend the operation of physical nature and mold it to achieve material and moral improvement, economic growth, and administrative reform.
Enlightenment intellectuals advocated agricultural improvement, commercial society, expanding consumption, and the application of innovative rational methods to traditional social and economic practices.
The spirit of innovation and improvement came to characterize modern Europe and Western society.
Politically, the Enlightenment had a direct impact on some rulers--in eastern and central Europe—whose policies came to be known as enlightened absolutism.

Section One: Formative Influences of the Enlightenment

Section Overview

Chief factors that fostered the ideas of the Enlightenment

The Newtonian worldview
the political stability and commercial prosperity in Great Britain after 1688
the need for administrative and economic reform after the wars of Louis XIV
the consolidation of what is known as a print culture

Ideas of Newton and Locke

Isaac Newton

The achievements in science from Copernicus to Newton convinced European thinkers that both the ancient and medieval Christian worlds were incorrect and confused about the natural world.
Newtonian physics characterizes the natural world as a pattern of mathematical and mechanical rationality.

This inspired thinkers to believe if nature was rational, so too should society be organized rationally.

Newton insisted on the use of empirical experience to check rational speculation.

John Locke

Newton’s thinking inspired Locke to explain human psychology in terms of experience, or through empiricism.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Locke explained that all human beings enter the world with a tabula rasa, or blank page and thus experience—and only experience—shapes character.

This behavioralists theory implied that human nature is changeable and can be modified by changing the surrounding environment.

Locke’s psychology rejected the Christian doctrine that sin permanently flawed human beings and humans need not wait for God or other divine aid to better their lives because they can take charge of their own destiny.

The Example of British Toleration and Political Stability

After 1688, political and economic stability in England furnished a living example of a society in which enlightened reforms seemed to benefit everyone.
Examples of England’s Enlightened culture

Religion

England permitted religious toleration to all except Unitarians and Roman Catholics, and even they were not actively persecuted.

Politics

Relative freedom of press and speech
The power of monarchy was limited and political sovereignty rested in Parliament.
Courts protected citizens from arbitrary imprisonment.

Economics

Domestic economic life of Great Britain displayed far less regulation than that of France or other continental nations

The Emergence of a Print Culture

Print culture can be defined as a culture in which books, journals, newspapers, and pamphlets had achieved a status.
Print culture before the eighteenth century

Print culture had impacted Renaissance humanism and the Reformation
A lively world of publication emerged first in the seventeenth century
Many governments implemented strict censorship rules.

The volume of printed material increased sharply throughout Europe, but most notably in Britain, in the eighteenth century.

Prose and the novel emerged as a distinct literary genre.
Print material expanded as literacy expanded.

Material and secular concern, as opposed to religious issues, accompanied the expansion of print culture.

For example, half the books printed in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century dealt with religious issues, by 1780 only about ten percent did.
Novels often provided moral and social instruction that religious books once furnished.

Cost, availability, and format of books

Books were not inexpensive in the eighteenth century.
Private and public libraries emerged that allowed copies to reach many readers.
Samuel Johnson (1790-1784)

Published collections of essays as books that once appeared in newspapers and journals

Aristocrats and Middle-class people were expected to become familiar with books and secular ideas.

The Spectator, begun by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison fostered the value of polite conversation and the reading of books.
The Coffeehouse

These became centers of discourse for discussing political ideas and writing.

Lodges of Freemasons provided another site for discussing these topics.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in England and Voltaire in France grew in wealth and status based on merit and commercial competition rather than through heredity and patronage.

High and Low literary culture

High

Successful Enlightenment authors addressed themselves to monarchs, nobles, the upper middle class, and professional groups who were read and accepted in these upper levels of society.

Authors who neither found financial success, nor acceptance from the upper echelons of society.
There disillusionment led them to produce radical ideas for consumption of the lower classes

Public Opinion

The collective effect on political and social life of views circulated in print and discussed in the home, the workplace, and centers of leisure.
Books and newspapers in the eighteenth centuries often had thousands of readers who supported the writers whose works they bought, and the writers in turn had to answer only to their readers.
Government, therefore, could no longer operate wholly in secret.

Section Two: The Philosophes

Section Overview

Philosophes were the writers and critics who flourished in the expanding print culture who took the lead in forging the new attitudes favorable to change, championed reform, and advocated religious toleration.

Some philosophes were university professors, but most could be found in London coffeehouses, at Parisian salons, Edinburgh taverns, or the courts of the most powerful monarchs on the Continent.

Those who most widely read the works of philosophes were prosperous commercial and professional upper classes, and forward-looking aristocrats.
The philosophes and the middle class

Although they did not actively pursue reforms to benefit the middle classes, they did provide the intellectual ferment to undermine existing social practices and political systems based on aristocratic privilege.

Philosophes generally advocated expansion of trade, the improvement of agriculture, and the invention of new manufacturing machinery.

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet)—First Among the Philosophes

In the 1720s, he offended the Fench king and aristocrats by his socially and politically irreverent poetry and plays.

As a result he was imprisoned in the Bastille.
When released, he went into exile in England where he visited coffeehouses and saw tolerant English society.

In 1728, he returned to France and published Letters on the English in 1733

Letters to the English praised the virtues of England’s religious toleration and implicitly criticized the abuses of French society.
Parlement of Paris condemned the book

He moved to Cirey where he lived with the Countess Emilie de Chatelet, a brilliant mathematician and Voltaire’s mistress.

He published Elements of the Philosophy of Newton with the help of the Countess.

In 1755, he published the widely-read satire Candide which attacks war, religious persecution, and what he considered unwarranted optimism about the human condition.

Section Three: The Enlightenment and Religion

Section Overview

Many philosophes believed that ecclesiastical institutions—especially in their frequently privileged position as parts of the state—impeded human improvement.

For example, many philosophes saw the Church as a hindrance to rational life and scientific study of humanity and nature.

According to the doctrine of “original sin,” meaningful improvement in human nature on earth was impossible.
Calvinists belief in predestination, many philosophes argued, denied that virtuous behavior could affect the fate of a person’s soul after death.

In the eighteenth century, the Church was deeply entrenched and influential in the politics of nearly every European state.

Deism

Although critical of many religious institutions and frequently anticlerical, many philosophes were prominent members of religious communities who sought religion without fanaticism and intolerance.

William Robertson, a Scotsman and enlightened historian, was the head of the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk.
In England, Anglican clergymen helped to popularize Newtonian thought.
In France, several of the leading philosophes were Catholic priests.

Impact of Newtonian worldview on religious thinking during the enlightenment

Since the natural world was rational, God who created nature must be rational, and, therefore, the religion through which that God was worshipped ought to be rational.

Rationality applied to religion led to a set of beliefs that became known as deism.

John Toland wrote Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) was an early deist thinker who promoted religion as natural and rational rather than supernatural and mystical.
Deist beliefs

God is a kind of divine watchmaker who created the mechanism of nature, set it motion, then departed and, therefore, there was no such thing as divine intervention.
Deists believed in the existence of God, which they thought the study of nature could empirically justify.
Deists also believed in life after death because they believed a rational God must favor rational mortality.
Deism was empirical, tolerant, reasonable, and encouraged virtuous living.

Toleration

John Locke published Letter Concerning Toleration of 1689, but other than England few places in Europe granted religious toleration in Europe.
Voltaire and toleration

Voltaire published Treatise On Tolerance after he learned of the execution of a Huguenot, Jean Calas, who had been accused of murdering his son to prevent him from converting to Roman Catholicism.
Calas was publicly tortured and strangled to death.

Gotthold Lessing

German playwright who wrote Nathan the Wise as a plea for toleration of not only Christian sects, but for people of all religious faiths

Radical Enlightenment Criticism of Christianity

David Hume

wrote “Of Miracles” in 1748 which argued that no empirical evidence supported the possibility of divine miracles central to much of Christianity.

Voltaire

Questioned the truthfulness of priests and the morality of the Bible in his Philosophical Dictionary of 1764

Edward Gibbon

English historian and author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) who explained the rise of Christianity in terms of natural causes rather than the influence of piety and miracles.

Baron d’Holbach and Julien Offray de La Mettrie

wrote about atheism and materialism.

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher and author of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone in 1793

Jewish Thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment

Some philosophes extended their scorn for established religious institutions to Judaism.

Attacks often undermined the authority of Hebrew scriptures because of their emphasis on miracles
Many Enlightenment thinkers viewed Judaism as a more primitive faith than Christianity.

Two major Jewish writers

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

lived in the Netherlands and advocated for a secularized version of Judaism
In his book Ethics, he closely identified God and nature, a pantheistic idea that God is not a distinct personality, but rather present everywhere in nature.
In Theologico-Political Treatise (1670), Spinoza attacked the power of superstition in human life.

He encouraged historical reading of the Bible.
Taught that religious institutions of Christianity and Judaism led people away from the original teaching of scripture.

Because he had been excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam, the philosophes considered him a martyr for rationality against superstition.

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)

lived in Germany and was known as the “Jewish Socrates”
He advocated for the assimilation of Jews into modern European life.
wrote On Ecclesiastical Power and Judaism in which he argued for religious toleration and the maintenance of distinct Jewish communities

Islam in Enlightenment Thought

How did Europeans know about Islam?

There were Muslims in the Balkans in Eastern Europe.
European merchants traded with the Ottoman Empire and parts of South Asia.
Most Europeans, who knew anything about Islam, gathered this knowledge from books.

Islam was viewed as a rival to Christianity.

Pascal wrote Pensees in which he portrayed Islam as a false religion and Muhammed as an imposter and false prophet.
Criticized Islamic culture for promiscuity since heaven was described as a place of sensuous delights

Writers like Barthelemy d’Herbelot and Simon Ockley presented a hostile view toward Islam in their works.
Voltaire on Islam

wrote Fanaticism, or Mohammed the Prophet in which he explained how Islam, in general, represents another example of religious fanaticism like that of Christianity.

John Toland on Islam

Opposed prejudice against both Jews and Muslims and contended that Islam derived from early Christian writings

Philosophes who criticized Islam on cultural and political grounds

Montesquieu

wrote Persian Letters (1721) which was a satire of European culture from the perspective of two Muslim travelers
However, in Spirit of the Laws (1748), he explains how the excessive influence of Islamic religious leaders prevented the Ottoman Empire from adapting itself to new advances in technology.

There were very few positive commentators on Islam and one of the most well known was an English woman.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

She lived in Istanbul with her husband, the British ambassador to Turkey.
Published Turkish Embassy Letters in which she praised much about Ottoman society

encouraged England to copy the Turkish practice of vaccination against smallpox.
wrote that upper-class Turkish women enjoyed a considerable amount of freedom compared to their English counterparts
considered Ottoman architecture far superior to that in Western Europe

Only a handful of Muslims traveled to western Europe in the eighteenth century, and no Islamic writers showed much interests in European society.

The Ulama, the Islamic religious establishment, taught that Christianity was irrelevant and there was little for Muslims to learn from Christian culture.

Section Four: The Enlightenment and Society

The Encyclopedia: Freedom and Economic Improvement

Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert published the Encyclopedia in 1751

It was a collection of essays and compilation of human knowledge.
There were over 100 contributors.
It contained seventeen volumes of text and eleven of illustrations.
Between 14,000 and 16,000 copies were sold before 1789.
No other work succeeded as well in spreading enlightenment ideas throughout the Continent.

Themes found in the Encyclopedia

Shows the enlightenment movement’s determination to probe life on earth rather than in a religious realm
It can be considered a collective plea for freedom of expression.
Critical of ecclesiastical institutions and authoritative governments
Contained articles on manufacturing, canal building, ship construction, and improved agricultural methods

Beccaria and Reform of Criminal Law

Marquis Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

Italian aristocrat and philosophe
published On Crimes and Punishment (1764)

Beccaria and social science

social science—the study of social laws in hope of ending human cruelty
Beccaria applied the study of social science to criminal punishment in his book

he scorned torture and capital punishment
encouraged judicial systems to grant speedy trials and to deal out punishment designed to deter further crime
he believed in utilitarianism—the belief that society should seek to secure the greatest good or happiness for the greatest number of human beings.

The Physiocrats and Economic Freedom

Physiocrats

Philosophes who believed existing legislation and regulation of trade in the mercantilist economic system hampered the expansion of trade, manufacturing, and agriculture.
The leading French physiocrats were Francois Quesnay (1694-1744) and Pierre Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817).
Believed that governments were primarily responsible for protecting private property and they encouraged the consolidation of peasant lands and improved methods of agriculture

Adam Smith on Economic Growth and Social Progress

Adam Smith

Scottish economist and writer
Professor at University of Glascow

Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

views on mercantilism

He urged that the mercantile system in England—including the navigation acts governing colonial trade, the bounties the government gave to favored merchants industries, most tariffs, trading monopolies, and the domestic regulation of labor and manufacturing—be abolished.
Smith disagreed with the mercantilist assumption that the earth’s resources were limited or scarce, but rather that they were boundless and should be exploited to improve human comfort.

key ideas

believed that economic freedom was the foundation of a natural economic system
According to Smith, the best way to encourage economic growth was to unleash individuals to pursue their own selfish economic interests.
laissez-faire

economic policy which favors a limited role of government in economic life
Smith did, however, recognized the benefits of government commercial activities such as the opening of dangerous new trade routes that were economically desirable, and to provide schools, armies, navies, and roads.

Smith believed in a four- stage theory of human societies

hunter-gatherer
pastoral or herding
agricultural
commercial

Smith believed this was a more civilized system than the other three

Section Five: Political Thought of the Philosophes

Section Overview

Most philosophers were discontented with certain political features of their countries, but French philosophes were especially unhappy.
In France, the corruption around the royal court, the blundering of the bureaucracy, the less than glorious mid-century wars, and the power of the Church were all serious problems.

Motesquieu and the Spirit of the Laws

Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat)

lawyer
born a noble family
a member of the provincial parlement

Spirit of the Laws (1748)

in this book, he praised the English system of government
whether the best form of government for a country was a monarchy or republic, he believed, depended on that country’s size, population, social and religious customs, economic structure, traditions, and climate
believed that monarchy in France was good, but felt that the power of the monarch should be limited by aristocratic groups like parlement, corporate bodies, and the towns
division of power in government

admired the English system of separation of powers in government

executive, legislative, and judicial

Rousseau: A Radical Critique of Modern Society

Rousseau’s personal life

described as a strange, isolated genius
he could form few close friendships
he produced and abandoned numerous children
hated the world because it seemed to him impossible for human beings to achieve moral or virtuous lives in the commercial society in which they lived

Major works

Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences

process of civilization and enlightenment had corrupted human nature

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

blamed much evil in the world on the uneven distribution of property
whereas the other philosophes believed that the human condition could improve itself from using the fruits of the earth to produce more goods, Rousseau raised the more fundamental question of what constitutes the good life

The Social Contract (1762)

this book outlines the political structure that he believed would help overcome the evils of contemporary politics and society
famous opening line: “All men are born free, but everywhere they are in chains.”
he believed that society is more important than its individuals

that means each person could maintain personal freedom while behaving as a loyal member of the larger community

Enlightened Critics of European Empires

Most European enlightenment thinkers favored the extension of European empires across the world as it spread progress and civilization.
Authors who criticized empires

Immanuel Kant

attacked the European perspective that the lands the conquered belonged to no one because they counted the native inhabitants as nothing
disagreed with the dehumanization efforts of the colonial powers

Gottlieb Herder

believed that the people who Europeans had encountered in the Americas had possessed cultures that should be respected and understood rather than destroyed
embraced an idea known as cultural relativism which is the belief that human beings living in different societies possessed the capacity as human beings to develop in culturally different fashions.

Diderot

Human beings may develop distinct cultures possessing intrinsic values that cannot be compared, one to the detriment of another, because each culture possesses deep inner social and linguistic complexities.

Section Six: Women in the Thought and Practice of the Enlightenment

Section Overview

Many women hosted salons in Paris

Women such as Marie-Therese Geoffrin, Julie de Lespinasse, and Claudine de Tencin were prominent socialites who hosted salons in their homes which gave philosophes access to useful social and political contacts.

Women’s influence over politics

The marquis de Pompador, the mistress of King Louis XV, played a key role in overcoming efforts to censor the Encyclopedia.
Madame de Tencin actively promoted Monetsquieu’s ideas

Most philosophes were not feminists

Many did, however, urge broader education for women.

Montesquieu on women

Believed the status of women in society was the result of climate, the political regime, culture, and women’s physiology
He did not believe that women were naturally inferior to men.
Although he indicated a belief in the equality of the sexes, he still retained the traditional view of marriage and family and expected men to dominate those institutions.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau on women

Emile (1762)

He declared that men and women occupy separate spheres

Women should be educated for a position subordinate to men, emphasizing the skills needed for rearing children and other domestic needs.
According to Rousseau, the world of citizenship, political action, and civic virtue was the man’s sphere.

He did, however, portray the domestic role of women as a noble virtue.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

This was her response to the implementation of Rousseau’s views on women during the French Revolution.
She accused Rousseau of attempting to narrow women’s vision and limit their experience.
By separating women and men in different spheres, women were essentially tyrannized by men.

Section Seven: Rococo and Neoclassical Styles in Eighteenth Century Art

Rococo Style

Lavish, often lighthearted decoration
Pastel colors and the play of light
Became associated with the aristocracies of the Old Regime
Originated in early eighteenth century France
After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, much of the aristocracy moved into smaller residences in Paris

To detract from the smaller size of these homes, they decorated in the Rococo style with elaborate décor and painted with light colors to make the home appear more spacious.

Rococo style spread throughout Europe

Imperial Hall built in Wurzburg, Bavaria is one of the most spectacular representations of the Rococo style

It was designed by Balthasar Neumann and painted by the Venetian Gian Battista Tiepolo.

common themes in Rococo art
fetes galantes—scenes of elegant parties in lush gardens

idealized landscape with carefree men and women pursuing a life of leisure
Jean-Antione Watteau (1684-1721) was the most prominent painter of these scenes
Pilgrimage to Isle of Cithera (example)

Artists such as Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard produced works filled with female nudes with men and women in sexually suggestive positions.
As the eighteenth century wore on, the Rococo style convinced many people in France that the monarchy, the court, and aristocracy were decadent.
Criticisms of Rococo style
Johann Joachim Winckelmann—German archeologist who published Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture and The History of Ancient Art in which he attacked the superficiality of Rococo art

Neoclassicism

Themes and style

return to figurative and architectural models drawn from the Renaissance and the ancient world
recalled republican virtues that implicitly criticized the Old Regime
usually concerned with public lives or public morals and scenes of heroism and self-sacrifice
A pantheon was built in Paris as a Jesuit church

famous neoclassical painters

Winckelmann’s rediscovery and excavation of the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum fostered the rise of Neoclassicism.
Jacques-Louis David used ancient Republican themes in the 1780s to emphasize the corruption of French monarchical government.

Oath of the Horatii—illustrates a scene derived from the story of the Roman Livy, of soldiers taking an oath vowing to die for the Roman Republic

Jean Antione Houdon

produced portraits in stone of leading philosophes including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Benjamin Franklin

Section Eight: Enlightened Absolutism

Section Overview

Philosophes on monarchy

Voltaire was a strong monarchist.

He wrote History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great in support of monarchy

Diderot and other philosophes and physiocrats did not wish to limit the power of monarchs.

Enlightened absolutism—form of monarchical government in which central absolutist administration was strengthened and rationalized at the cost of other, lesser centers of political power, such as aristocracy, the church, and parliaments

The monarchs most closely associated with enlightened absolutism are Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph II of Austria, and Catherine II of Russia

Fredrick the Great of Prussia

Section overview

Frederick II is the best example of the embodiment of enlightened absolutism.
He forged a state that commanded the loyalty of the military, the junker nobility, the Lutheran clergy, a growing bureaucracy recruited from an educated middle class, and university professors.

Promotion through merit

Frederick declared himself “the first servant of the State.”
He required nobles who sought positions in his well-paid bureaucracy to qualify for those jobs by merit.
Prussian Civil Service Commission

agency that oversaw the education and examinations required for all major government appointments which made it clear that merit, rather than privilege from birth, would determine who served the Prussian state

Although he appointed few nobles during his reign, those who did receive noble status did so based on merit.
He kept the Prussian nobility satisfied by protecting their local social interests and leadership of the army.

Religious toleration

Frederick allowed Catholics and Jews to settle in his predominately Lutheran state.
He protected Catholics in Silesia after he conquered that province from the Habsburgs.
He even stated that he would be willing to build mosques for Turks should they move into his country.
He was supported by philosophes like Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelsohn.

Administrative and economic reforms

ordered a new codification of Prussian law

his objective was to rationalize the existing legal system and make it more efficient, eliminating regional peculiarities, reducing aristocratic influence, abolishing torture, and limiting the number of capital crimes

economic growth

he imported workers from outside Prussia
encouraged improved agricultural methods

swamps were drained under state supervision
introduced new crops like potatoes and turnips

taxation burdened fell disproportionately to the peasants

Joseph II of Austria

Biographical information about Joseph II

Son of Maria Theresa
Co-ruled with his mother from 1765-1780
he sincerely wanted to improve the lives of his people

Centralization of Authority

After the War of Austrian Succession, Marie-Theresa worked hard to strengthen the power of the crown.

Built a larger and more effective bureaucracy
Imposed a much more effective system of taxation
Established central councils to deal with governmental problems
She expanded primary education.
Concern for the peasants and the serfs
Expanded royal authority over the nobility in order to protect serfs from lords

Limited the amount of labor—or robot—landowners could demand from serfs

Joseph II and centralization

He wanted to extend his territory at the expense of Poland, Bavaria, and the Ottoman Empire.
More than anything, he wanted to exert more control over the Habsburg dominions and strip regional rulers of their power.

Specifically, he wanted to reduce Hungarian autonomy.

He reorganized the government in Hungary to include his own officials.

Ecclesiastical Policies

Joseph was a practicing Catholic.
He extended freedom of worship to Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Greek Orthodox

permitted to build churches
allowed to operate their own schools
could enter skilled trades
permitted to hold academic appointments and positions of public service

He relaxed rules against Jews but they were not granted full equality.
He sought to bring the Roman Catholic Church directly under royal control

Forbade the bishops of his realm to communicate directly with the pope
he closed more than six hundred monasteries, confiscated their lands, and created new parishes in areas where there was a shortage of priests
reorganized the training of priests

seminaries were put under governmental supervision

priests became employees of the state

Economic and agrarian reform

Economic

Abolished internal tariffs on trade, encouraged road building, and improved river transport

Agrarian

He personally inspected farms
He did not abolish the authority of landlords over peasants, but did seek to make the authority more moderate and subject to oversight of royal officials.
He granted peasants the right to marry, to engage in skilled work, and to have their children learn a skill
He wanted to reduce the traditional burdens on peasants to make them more productive and industrious farmers.

Land taxation

All proprietors of land were to be taxed regardless of social status
Nobles blocked the implementation of this decree.

Catherine the Great of Russia

Catherine bio

German princess who was married to Peter III of Russia
May have plotted his murder
She became empress at his death
Read widely and became friends with many of Russia’s leading nobles

Catherine’s enlightened policies

her familiarity with western Europe made her consider Russia backwards
wanted to revise law in Russia

invited over 500 delegates from different walks of life to participate in the conference
she opened the conference with an address she wrote herself that included instructions to incorporate key ideas of the philosophes in the new legal code
reform of law didn’t take place until fifty years later but the conference was a success in that it gathered information about local economics and administration

Limited administrative reform

She gave strong support to the local authority of nobles
Charter of the Nobility

Issued in 1785, this granted privileges to the nobility

Russia’s educated class was not large enough to form an effective bureaucracy so she needed the nobles

Economic Growth

She attempted to suppress internal barriers on trade.
Exports of grain, flax, furs, and naval supplies grew drastically

Territorial expansion

Russia wanted to gain access to warm-weather ports
Russia vs. Ottoman Empire

During 1769 and 1770, the Russian fleet sailed from the Baltic to the eastern Mediterranean
Russia won several major victories that by 1771 gave Russia control of Ottoman provinces on the Danube River and the Crimean coast on the Black Sea
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji

gave Russia control of the Black Sea
free navigation rights in Ottoman waters, most importantly the Bosporus, given to Russia
Crimea became an independent state which was annexed by Catherine in 1783
As empress of Russia, Catherine was made the protector of the Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire.

Partition of Poland

First Partition of Poland

Fredrick the Great of Prussia made a proposal to Russia and Austria that would give each something it wanted and also prevent war among the major powers.

Frederick’s plan

Russia agreed to abandon the conquered Danubian provinces and in return received a large portion of Poland.
Because Prussia agreed to remain neutral in growing hostilities, it received most of the territory between East Prussia and Prussia proper.
Austria took Galicia in southern Poland with its important salt mines.

In 1772, the Polish nobility paid the price for maintaining their local sovereignty and not creating a unified central government, as Poland was swallowed by the major central-eastern European powers.

The End of the Eighteenth Century in Central and Eastern Europe

In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, all three regimes based on enlightened absolutism became more conservative and repressive.

Frederick the Great in Prussia

Grew remote in his old age allowing the aristocracy to fill important military and administrative posts

Joseph II in Austria

Plans to restructure society caused unrest among the nobility who called for an end to innovation
Joseph turned increasingly to censorship and his secret police

Russia

Pugachev Rebellion (1773-1775)

Catherine never recovered from the fears of social and political upheaval it unleashed.

The French Revolution further cemented her fears and she began to censor books on Enlightenment thought and sent offensive authors into Siberian exile.

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