The+Rise+of+Russia



note on Russia:

serfdom: trade and economic dependance: social unrest: Russia and Eastern Europe:
 * during 17 and 18th centuries, power of nobility incresed steadily
 * Russian farmers were free farmers with legal position higher than west
 * russian farmers fell into debt and forced to accept servile statuses to the noble landowners because after the expulsion of tatars, they fell in great debt
 * Serfdom gave the government to a way to satisfy the nobility and regulate peasants when the government lacked bureaucratic means to extend direct control of the common people.
 * serfdom extended as new territories were added
 * laws were passed that tied serfs to the land and increased legal rights of landlords
 * 1649- people born into serfdom could not legally escape it
 * serfs could be bought, sold, gambled, and punished by their master...much like slavery
 * people enslaved many of their own members...
 * Poland, Hungary, and other places imitaded this Russian slavery system (serfdom)
 * Europe was growing economic subordination to the West
 * peasants were not slaves although iliterate and poor
 * cities were small (95% population was rural)
 * no defined artisan class
 * most of Russia's European trade was handled by Westerners
 * concerned about this potential social competition, the nobility prevented the emergence of merchant class
 * russia's social and economic system supported its expanding state and empire
 * russia's export economy was not completely oriented towards the West...they traded furs, etc. with areas in central Asia
 * Russia's population doubled in the 18th century b/c of expansion
 * system was traditional and there was little motivation among peasantry for improvements b/c increased production was taken by the state or landlord
 * manufacturing fell behind Western standards
 * russia's economic and social system led to protest
 * western-oriented aristocrats urged the abolition of serfdom
 * recurring peasant rebellions
 * in rebellions peasants: destroyed manorial records, seized land, killed landlord or official
 * Pugachev rebellion in 1770s: pugachev promised to end serfdom, taxes, and military conscription and the landed aristocracy but he was defeated and brought into Moscow in a case and cut in the public square
 * regions west of russia continued to form a borderland between western and eastern european influences
 * new cultural exchange between Balkans and West
 * Greek merchants picked up many Enlightenment ideas
 * prussian territories pushed eastward into polish areas
 * 1500- poland was largest state in eastern europe aside from russia
 * polish cultural life linked with the west through roman catholicism
 * like russia, urban centers and merchant class were missing in prussia
 * aristocratic parliament vetoed reforms until poland began being parted by its powerful neighbors