Transcript Russia`s 19 th century

Russia in Eurasia
A Three-Dimensional View
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Interstate relations - relations between the Russian state
and other states
Russia’s internal conditions – social development and
transformation, social structure, ethnic composition,
available resources, state-society relations, political
consciousness, balance of political forces, etc.
Transnational relations Russia has been involved in –
movement of people, goods, information, technology,
money; ethnic, cultural (including religious), political ties
To understand Russia’s international behaviour, we
will view it through this three-dimensional prism,
looking for historically-specific combinations – and
interactions –
of interstate,
internal,
and transnational factors at work
Russia’s world status: geopolitics
vs. market power
The Eurasian Context
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Eurasia: a supercontinent consisting of two continents
 Unity and divisions of the supercontinent
 The Coastlands and the Heartland. The Heartland and
the Rimland
 Land
 Rivers
 Seas
 Winds
 Temperature
Human migration routes*
*The time frames are highly approximate
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Human settlement patterns
 Search and struggle for resources
 Potential for development
 Degree of security
http://stort.unepwcmc.org/imaps/gb2002/book/viewer.
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Security-development interactions
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Costs of development and security: four basic
modes of interaction
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D-costs high, S-costs high (Russia)
D-costs low, S-costs low (USA, Canada)
D-costs high, S-costs low (Scandinavia)
D-costs low, S-costs high (?)
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Eurasia’s political integration: historical phases
EURASIA, 116 C.E.
EURASIA, 8TH CENTURY
EURASIA, 1288
Europe’s Eastern frontier
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The belt between the Baltic and the Adriatic
East European state-forming nations:
 Greeks
 Germans
 Slavs
• Eastern: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians
• Western: Poles, Czechs, Slovaks
• Southern: Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Macedonians,
Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Bulgarians
 Hungarians (Magyars)
 Finns
 Balts (Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians)
 Romanians (19th-century name)
 Albanians
 Turks
 Tatars
Russia
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Russia is 1,200 years old
It has existed in 6 historical forms:
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Kiev Rus (9th-13th centuries)
Domain of the Tatar-Mongol empire
(13th-15th centuries)
Moscovy (15th-17th centuries)
The Russian Empire (18th century-1917)
The Soviet Union (1917-1991)
The Russian Federation (1991- today)
EUROPE 0001
EUROPE 1000
EUROPE 1600
NATION-STATES VS. EMPIRES
 A 3-way conflict of civilizations for control of Eastern
Europe. Objects of the struggle:
Resources
 Trade routes
 Security
THE RISE OF EMPIRES
 Western Christian (German) – “successors” to the Western
Roman Empire, “Holy Roman Empire”, later the Habsburg
Empire (Austria-Hungary) and the Hohenzollern Empire
(Germany)
 Orthodox Christian (Russian) – “successor” to Eastern
Roman Empire (The Romanov Empire)
 Muslim (Turkish) – “successor” to the Arab Caliphate (The
Ottoman Empire)
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EUROPE 1900
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In the Modern Age, Russia expanded to take
control of most of the Eurasian Heartland
Gradually, it filled much of the space first integrated
by the Mongols
Expansion was driven by:
Struggle for independence and security
 Struggle for control of resources and trade routes
 Human settlement
 Imperial inertia and the internal interests maintaining
it
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Chengiz
Khan
BatuKhan, son
of
Chengiz,
conqueror
of Kiev
Rus
The Battle of Kulikovo Pole, 1380: Russians defeat Tatars
Moscow: a Kremlin wall
The Red Square
Kremlin,
Tsar
Cannon
The Church of Ivan the Great,
Moscow Kremlin
The
Virgin of
St.
Vladimir
(13th
century)
The
Saviour
Golden
Hair
(13th
century)
St. George
the
Victorious
Russian countryside
THE RUSSIAN SYSTEM:
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The state was huge, costly, militarized
Society (especially the peasantry) was heavily exploited
and closely controlled by the state
The political system was autocratic-patrimonial, with the
monarch being the sole source of sovereignty
The church was subservient to the state
Individual rights and liberties were severely curbed
Market economy had very limited potential for development
When reforms became overdue, the state acted as the
main agent of change, usually with limited effect
Society had no legal means of influencing government
policies – the people had an impact on the state either by
obedience to it or by resistance to it (passive or active)
What kept the system going was its
“battle order”:
NO CITIZENS – JUST SOLDIERS, OFFICERS,
AND WORKERS WHO FED THE ARMY
The system was designed primarily for war.
Successful wars kept it going.
Failed wars undermined it.
“Tsar Ivan The Terrible Kills His Son” (from Ilya Repin’s
painting)
Cossacks are writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan
Russia
under Polish
rule: False
Dimitry and
Marina
Mnishek
(1609)
Kuz’ma Minin and Prince Pozharsky: leaders of the antiPolish revolution (1609)
Tsar Mikhail, Founder of the Romanov Dynasty
(reign 1613-1645)
Tsar Peter the Great,
Founder of the
Russian Empire
(reign 1682-1725)
The Battle of Poltava, 1709: Russia defeats Sweden
St. Petersburg
Poseidon over St. Peterburg
Emperor Alexander I (reign 1801-1825)
Napoleon at the Battle of Borodino: Sept. 7, 1812
The Battle of Borodino
Borodino
Moscow on Fire
Napoleon’s retreat from Russia, winter of 1812
An Imperial Russian Army officer, 1812
St. Petersburg, December 18, 1825: A military rebellion against autocracy
Tsar Nicholas I (reign 1825-1855)
“The Russian octopus” – a British 1850s cartoon
British cavalry in the Crimean War, 1855
Emperor Alexander II (reign 1855-1881)
Emperor
Alexander III
(reign 18811894)
Nicholas II,
the last Tsar,
Emperor of
all Russias
(reign 18941917)
Grain production in Russia, late 19th century*:
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1/3 of the German level
1/7 of the British level
½ of the French and Austrian levels
*Richard Pipes, Russia Under the old Regime. Penguin Books, 1974, p.8
The issue of the surplus.
The costs of security and development
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Deceptive appearances of Russia:
The image of stability vs.
The potential for revolution
Lenin’s conversation with a police investigator:
“Yes, it is a wall, but it is all rotten: just push it, and it will fall down”
REFORM VS. REVOLUTION: IS THE SYSTEM REFORMABLE?
RUSSIA’S REBELS
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Cossack uprisings of 17th and 18th centuries
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(Razin, Bolotnikov, Pugachev)
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The Decembrists – 1825
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The Revolutionary Democrats (Chernyshevsky, Herzen)
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The Populists
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The Anarchists (Kropotkin, Bakunin)
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The Social Democrats (Plekhanov, Lenin)
Russia’s 19th century
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The apex of expansion – and the lag behind the West
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From the triumph of 1812 (victory over Napoleon) to the
disaster of 1855 (defeat in the Crimean War)
The pressures for change
 The reforms of Alexander II
 Development of capitalism
vs.
 Political modernization
Capitalism was creating new classes, new issues, new
conflicts – and the state was expected to evolve to be
able to deal with them.
But the Russian state was not up to the task.
It was not part of the solution, it was the source of
additional problems
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By the end of the 19th century, the flaws of the
Russian system become manifest
The gap between Europe and Russia widens fast,
the Russian system is too inefficient, too rigid,
resistant to reform
The 1904-05 war with Japan and then World War I
exhaust the Russian state and expose its flaws
1905-1917: 12 YEARS OF UPHEAVAL WHICH
DESTROYED THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRACY AND
EMPIRE