… continuing my Russian journey.
“Year after year, Tatar horsemen rode north out of their Crimean stronghold across the grazing lands of the Ukrainian steppe and, in small bands or large armies, swooped down on Cossack settlements or Russian towns to ravage and plunder. In 1662 Tatars captured the town of Putivl and carried off all the 20,000 inhabitants into slavery. By the end of the seventeenth century Russian slaves thronged Ottoman slave markets. Russian men were seen chained to oars of galleys in every harbor in the eastern Mediterranean; young Russian boys made a welcome gift from the Crimean Khan to the Sultan. So numerous, in fact, were the Russian slaves in the East that it was asked mockingly whether any inhabitants still remained in Russia.
It was not the Turks whom Sophia (*) and Golitsyn were asked to attack, but their vassals, the Crimean Tatars. Russian fear of these Moslem descendants of the Mongols was deep-rooted.”
* Sophia Alekseyevna ruled as regent of Russia from 1682 to 1689 until Peter I (Peter the Great) came of age.
That passage comes from “Peter the Great: His Life and World” by Robert K Massie, which I have featured previously on my book journey.
What took me down the Russian history rabbit hole was the situation in present day Syria [from 2015]. Of course that leads you to Russia and President Putin and from there back to the Soviet times [I will mention “Secondhand Time – The Last of The Soviets” by Svetlana Alexievich in another article.], the Bolshevik takeover, the Romanov dynasty, Rasputin (I am reading “Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs” by Douglas Smith but there are other sources) and further back to the Times of Trouble, Ivan Grozny ("Ivan the Formidable" – the “Not-Necessarily-So-Terrible”), the foundation of Russian Orthodox Christianity in Kiev [“Holy Kiev” – now capital of the Ukraine] and the very origins of the Rus people themselves.
Russian history is intimately interwoven with the history of Constantinople (‘Istanbul’ after it fell to the Ottomans in 1453 *) and hence the ‘Eastern Roman Empire” or “Byzantium”. (Moscow is referred to as the Third Rome for good reason.)
* When Constantinople fell in 1453, the trade route to the East (The Silk Road) was effectively cut off from Europe and this gave considerable impetus to the search for alternative sea routes in the ensuing decades – does 1492 ring a bell?
To add context, a passage from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Russian-Orthodox-Church
“Christianity was apparently introduced into the East Slavic state of Kievan Rus by Greek missionaries from Byzantium in the 9th century. An organized Christian community is known to have existed at Kiev as early as the first half of the 10th century, and in 957 St. Olga, the regent of Kiev, was baptized in Constantinople. This act was followed by the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion after the baptism of Olga’s grandson Vladimir I, prince of Kiev, in 988. Under Vladimir’s successors, and until 1448, the Russian church was headed by the metropolitans of Kiev (who after 1328 resided in Moscow) and formed a metropolitanate of the Byzantine patriarchate.”
But back on topic – this is a snippet on Catherine II (Catherine the Great) - one brief chapter in this long history.
My primary source is “Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman”, also by Robert K Massie. He has written a whole series on the Romanovs.
As a companion source, I found the following dramatised documentary most informative and enjoyable:
The Romanovs. The History of the Russian Dynasty (Star Media – English)
There are eight 50+-minute episodes in The Romanovs series. Episode 5 is on Catherine.
(Feel free to explore the StarMediaEN channel for more …)
From the closing moments of that video …
“Catherine kept the title ‘Mother of the Nation’ close to her heart. There was hardly any area of Russian life she didn’t look at to see how it might be improved – from provincial administration to the duties of Russian midwives. Her reign saw the birth of Russian journalism and satire. She even contributed to such magazines herself. In 1795 she joined forces with Fredrick William of Prussia and Emperor Joseph of Austria to carve up Poland, annexing territory in Belarus, Western Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia.
She wrote no fewer than three dozen literary works including eleven comedies and seven operas. Her reign saw the construction of great buildings and monuments in Moscow and St Petersburg, designed by men of genius such as Bazhenov and Kazakov. She initiated smallpox vaccination in Russia, vaccinating herself and her son Paul. She amassed an unrivalled collection of artwork that became the basis of the world famous Hermitage Museum. She was a patron of Russian artists who themselves became masters – Fyodor Rokotov, Dmitry Levitsky and Vladimir Borovikovsky.
The scale and breadth of her achievements were awe-inspiring. No one could doubt her right to called Catherine ... the Great.
For Russia, Catherine’s 34-year reign was a period of dramatic growth. The population of the empire soared from 19 to 36 million. The conquests of her reign surpassed even those of Peter the Great. 29 new provinces were created, and 144 new towns founded. The army doubled in size from 162,000 to 312,000. The navy grew from 6 frigates and 21 ships of the line to 40 frigates and 67 ships of the line. Her generals and admirals won an incredible 78 military victories. Meanwhile, industrial output boomed. The output of cast iron tripled. Russia became the greatest producer of cast iron in the world, overtaking the former world leader, Great Britain.
The value of Russia’s external trade rose from than 9 million rubles per year to nearly 46 million rubles per year. State revenue quadrupled from 16 million to 69 million rubles.
Catherine built on the foundations laid by Peter the Great 80 years before to create a giant and powerful new Russian empire. Many later generations would look back to her reign as the zenith of Russian imperial glory.
But forever mindful of the limitations of power, she compared her own work to a drop of water falling in the ocean.”
Incidentally, in 1770, Catherine’s Russia was engaged in a (yet another) raging war against the imposing Turks at the very moment Captain James Cook was setting foot in Botany Bay – adds some perspective to Australia’s ‘history’, doesn’t it?.
A couple of my favourite passages about Catherine from Massie’s book:
[By the way, Catherine was born a German – she was from Stettin, Germany (now in Poland), born Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg.]
“Books were her refuge. Having set herself to learn the Russian language, she read every Russian book she could find. But French was the language she preferred and she read French books indiscriminately, picking up whatever her ladies-in-waiting happened to be reading. She always kept a book in her room and another one in her pocket. She discovered the “Letters of Madame de Sévigné” describing life at the court of Louis XIV. When a “General History of Germany” by Father [William Vincent] Barré, recently published in France in ten volumes, arrived in Russia, Catherine read a volume every week. She acquired the “Dictionnaire Historique et Critique” by the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, a seventeenth century philosophical freethinker and precursor of Montesquieu and Voltaire. Catherine read it from beginning to end. Gradually, guided by her own curiosity, she was acquiring a superior education.”
[Interjecting to add context: Sophie/Catherine’s early life from childhood through to young adulthood was marked with rejection and isolation.]
“To shield herself and to make life bearable, she turned again to books. That winter she read the “Annals” of Tacitus, Montesquieu’s “L’Espirit des Lois” (“The Spirit of Laws”) and Voltaire’s “Esai sur les Moeurs et L’Espirit des Nations” (“Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations”).
[…]
[On Voltaire …] Reason, not religion [] should govern the world. But certain human beings must act as reason’s representatives on earth. This led him to the role of despotism and to conclude that a despotic government may actually be the best sort of government possible – if it were reasonable. But to be reasonable, it must be enlightened; if enlightened, it may be both efficient and benevolent.
[…]
Catherine, like many of her contemporaries was charmed by Voltaire. […]
Here was a philosopher who could teach her how to survive and laugh. AND HOW TO RULE [emphasis added].”
Making one final connection between Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Voltaire …
“A [] bookseller orders a book to be written, just as a manufacturer gives directions for weaving a piece of cloth; and unhappily there are authors to be found, whose necessities oblige them to sell their labors to these dealers, like work-men for hire; hence arise these insipid panegyrics, and defamatory libels, with which the public is overrun, and is one of the most shameful vices of the age.
Never did history stand more in need of authentic vouchers, than at this time, when so infamous a traffic is made of falsehood.”
Voltaire in Author’s Preface to “The History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great” (1759)
For supplementary viewing …
· Crimea. The Way Home. Documentary by Andrey Kondrashev
(no longer available in ‘my country’)
… more in comments.
Just adding anecdotes as they come to mind ...
• Catherine the Great and the Art of Collecting: Acquiring the Paintings that Founded the Hermitage by Cynthia Hyla Whittaker
https://www.academia.edu/41600716/Catherine_the_Great_and_the_Art_of_Collecting_Acquiring_the_Paintings_that_Founded_the_Hermitage_by_Cynthia_Hyla_Whittaker
In January 1765 Catherine began working on the Nakaz – the basis for a complete rewrite of the Russian legal code – political, judicial, social and economic. The document was published on 30 July 1767. [Just over one year before Captain James Cook departed Plymouth on his First Voyage.]
The Nakaz included sweeping social reforms and embedded in the original draft was her enlightened ideological view that serfdom should be abolished. Catherine didn’t actually achieve this in her reign because the socio-political inertia was just too strong. Nevertheless, she planted the seeds for thought and got the debate underway.
1. The Christian Law teaches us to **do mutual Good to one another**, as much as possibly we can.
2. Laying this down as a fundamental Rule prescribed by that Religion, which has taken, or ought to take Root in the Hearts of the whole People; we cannot but suppose that **every honest Man in the Community is, or will be, desirous of seeing his native Country at the very Summit of Happiness, Glory, Safety, and Tranquility**.
3. And that **every Individual Citizen in particular must wish to see himself protected by Laws, which should not distress him in his Circumstances, but, on the Contrary, should defend him from all Attempts of others that are repugnant to this fundamental Rule**.
These are the opening 3 of 526 articles in Catherine’s Nakaz (Instructions) to the Legislative Commissioners for Composing a New Code of Laws (1767)
Read on …
http://www.ctevans.net/Nvcc/HIS241/Documents/Nakaz.pdf