HIST 102 #19 - Enlightened Absolutism

Hello, welcome back to our lecture series for Western Civilization 102. We are learning about the Enlightenment. Course, we had this Age of Reason, this 18th century. We had the different, uh, Enlightenment thinkers or philosophes that are making a name for themselves, mostly coming out of France. People like Montesquieu, and Voltaire, and Diderot, and Rousseau. And of course, this period of the Enlightenment, the 18th century, will have profound effects on the development of American history. It's a very important time in American history as well, and we are influenced by what is happening in Europe. A lot of our newspapers and a lot of our information is coming out of Europe.

Okay, so we've learned about the Enlightenment. Now we're going to focus on Dr. Robinson. We'll discuss enlightened absolutists. We've already had lectures on absolutism. You've heard about Divine Right absolutism, where the kings feel like they're God's agents on Earth, which could lead to very dangerous, um, relations, especially, example, in England with the English Civil War and the Stuart Dynasty, Charles deciding that he didn't need Parliament to rule, that he can raise his own money. So we've learned about absolutism in general as well, and the different absolutist rulers. Louis XIV was another example of an absolutist ruler that you've learned quite a lot about as well.

With enlightened absolutism in the 18th century, there were a few rulers in Europe that, um, didn't actually, you couldn't, if you had a checklist, if you were an enlightened absolutist, some things on the checklist would be that you ruled with reason, that you were, you ruled rationally. This is the Age of Reason. That you did what was best for your people. That would probably be another checklist that you'd say, "Okay, I did that, so therefore I'm an enlightened absolutist." You would be a patron of the arts. You would be very cultured, um, and as a ruler. And of course, you would, but you would still be an absolutist. It's just more, you're, you're more enlightened, um, when it comes to that. And there are a few people, a few rulers in Europe that, not necessarily every single, uh, item, of course, they could say they did. And, and sometimes they could maybe invite, uh, Diderot, for example, or maybe invite Voltaire to their court, but yet they didn't understand a thing he said. But on the surface, they looked enlightened. Look at them, they're, they're patrons of the arts, they're supporting culture and artistic development in their countries, they're inviting the, the philosophes over. So even though, you know, you're going to learn about enlightened absolutists, enlightened absolutism, not everybody, of course, was a perfect one, is what I'm saying.

Uh, some of the enlightened absolutists, um, in the 18th century, we have Prussia in the 18th century, and of course, Frederick the Great. He, of course, was very cultured. He was very educated. He read the philosophers and maybe even understood them. Uh, he actually invited Voltaire to his court. Others would do the same as well. He, uh, appreciated culture and arts, unlike his father. His father was just military. Father, there was no love lost. Again, I keep, a lot of times we see this, but Frederick the Great's father, there was not a good relationship between the two men. Frederick actually came to despise his father. Totally different. In fact, I want to say Frederick the Great played the flute. Okay, so he, he definitely can check that off if he was on a checklist for being an enlightened absolutist. He, uh, established a single code of laws that eliminated use of torture, except for certain circumstances. There's always an exception, it seems, to everything. He reformed the court system and legal system, and, uh, so that was all that can be, you know, classified as enlightened. There was religious toleration, but not total religious toleration. Jews were persecuted under him, but yet he, Catholics and Protestants were welcomed into Prussia for, uh, pretty much all Christians, is what he put under the religious toleration umbrella.

Now, he is interested in the military, but not in just the, the vision of the military and the pomp and the circumstance of the military. But Frederick the Great is interested in using what the, uh, what rulers previous to him have created, and which is a very strong military. And he is interested, I know I've mentioned before, but when in Austria with the War of Austrian Succession, he invaded Silesia in 1740. And he also, along with Austria and Russia, manages to partition parts of Poland. Poland, this will not be the last time that Poland has been partitioned up. Another instance I can think of is World War II between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, um, at least initially there, when Hitler invades Poland, Stalin also gets a part of it as well. So Poland seems to not be in a very good location as far as that's concerned. But he uses the army, so to speak. And of course, you learn more about Frederick the Great.

Austria, of course, Austria in the 18th century, a man named, we already know about, uh, Austria a little bit about its history. You probably learn more about a monarch there by the name of Joseph II and some of the reforms that he instituted in Austria that can kind of put him in the category of enlightened absolutist ruler. Of course, there's quite a lot that he did, although he does probably more reforms than any of the other rulers at this time, but he was not always very popular as he is, of course, reforming Austria. You learn more about that as well. And of course, Russia is also a very good example of enlightened absolutism and a very interesting and fascinating monarch there by the name of Catherine the Great. She actually came to power through conspiracy and intrigue and assassination. She actually conspired with the Russian aristocracy to kill her husband, the Tsar at the time, Peter, um, the third. She was not Russian, by the way. She was a German princess. So we'll find out what qualities she had that she could claim to be an enlightened absolutist.

Um, so let's learn more about enlightened absolutism. In the second half of the 18th century, monarchy took on a new form, what we call enlightened absolutism. The absolutist part remained the same, but absolutist rulers now justified their power not on the basis of divine right or the idea that they were God's chosen instruments, but now on the rationale that they were the most enlightened people in their respective realms, that they were most capable of implementing enlightened policies, and secondly, that they were also capable of being the most rational rulers within their particular states. There are a number of so-called enlightened absolutists, of whom the three most famous are Joseph II of Austria, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Catherine the Great of Russia. We'll look at several of these today, starting with the Holy Roman Empire, or more specifically, with the state of Austria.

There, Maria Theresa had come to the throne in 1740 and defended herself in both the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. Prior to becoming the ruler there, she had married in 1736 Francis Stephen, who subsequently was elected as Holy Roman Emperor, Francis I, due to his relationship with her. However, he died prematurely in 1765, and that led to the election of his eldest son by, uh, by Maria Theresa, Joseph II, as the Holy Roman Emperor. However, at the time, Joseph was still young, was only the co-regent of the Habsburg lands and had relatively little influence. That would change in a few years.

But meanwhile, in the state of Bavaria, one of the larger middle-sized states in the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire, there was a lesser, if you will, enlightened ruler by the name of Maximilian III Joseph, who became Elector of Bavaria in 1745. He implemented a number of enlightened policies there that sort of paint the way or paved the way for more enlightened policies elsewhere later on in larger states. For one thing, in 1747, he founded the Nymphenburg Porcelain Factory, beginning a pattern whereby enlightened leaders often patronize the economy. In 1754, he founded the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, again demonstrating an enlightened ruler's interest in the propagation of science. In 1770, he showed an extraordinary concern for his own people when he actually sold the Bavarian crown jewels to pay for food for those who were hungry.

But in 1777, Maximilian III Joseph died without an obvious heir, no son and no clear-cut successor. One of those who claimed the throne in Bavaria was Charles Theodore, the Elector of the Palatinate of the Rhine and the Duke of Jülich and Berg. He was backed up in this by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. In 1778, the two of them entered into a treaty called the Treaty of Vienna, whereby Joseph agreed to back up Charles Theodore with troops if necessary, and in return, Charles Theodore recognized some of the older Austrian claims to parts of Bavaria and parts of the Palatinate of the Rhine. So far so good.

However, there was a second claimant, Charles II Augustus Christian, Duke of the Palatinate, as Viburgon, and he was backed up by Frederick the Great. And the result of this is a minor conflict known as the War of the Bavarian Succession. Austria and Prussia actually negotiated directly about this without bothering to go through their two proxy claimants to the throne, and their armies faced off on the boundary between Silesia and Bohemia in July of 1778. Frederick the Great and Prince Henry of Prussia actually invaded Bohemia, but there were no actual battles. Uh, in the fall, Frederick retired to Silesia, Henry pulled back to Saxony. France and Russia offered to mediate, and the upshot of that was a peaceful conclusion to this tempest in a teapot. In 1779, the Treaty of Teschen abrogated the earlier Treaty of Vienna and recognized Charles Theodore as the ruler of Bavaria, as the new ruler of Bavaria.

He followed in the footsteps of Maximilian III Joseph. He was also a great patron. He patronized the Mannheim School of musicians. He was a patron of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He sponsored numerous building projects, and he had an art gallery that was originally in Dusseldorf moved to Mannheim, and then to Munich, which was his capital city.

Meanwhile, back in Austria, Maria Theresa died in 1780, and Joseph II, who had been championing at the bit, so to speak, now became ruler in his own right. He ruled for another 10 years and was in many ways the individual with the best claim to be a truly enlightened absolutist monarch. For one thing, Joseph was highly philanthropic, and he had a great concern for justice. He also was determined to break the power of the privileged classes in the Austrian Empire in the interest of those further down the social scale. He would encounter a number of failures, but he also did a great deal to regenerate the Austrian monarchy and to do so in a way that was genuinely enlightened.

One of the most spectacular signs of this was that in 1781, he issued something known as the Edict of Toleration. This was an edict providing for religious toleration for all Christians as well as Jews within the Austrian Empire. The Austrian Empire was predominantly Catholic, but there was a significant minority of Protestants and a significant minority of Jews, both of whom had been under various legal strictures prior to this time. This made Austria for a while the most tolerant state in Europe, and it caused both Protestants and Jews to flock to the Austrian Empire.

Another thing that Joseph did was to close down a number of monasteries, some 700, as a matter of fact, within the Austrian Empire that were devoted exclusively to contemplation. He used the revenue and the lands and the buildings from these monasteries to establish a number of schools and hospitals, and in fact, during his time, Vienna became the medical center of the Western world. Another remarkable reform of Joseph II is that in 1781, he abolished serfdom throughout the empire. This too was quite remarkable, although serfdom had disappeared in the western kingdoms, it remained predominant in Central and Eastern Europe. So this was an enormous step.

Another thing that Joseph did was to require the use of the German language throughout his realm as a way of more greatly facilitating business and efficient government. He also implemented a program of equal taxation for all classes. This might seem like a, a normal sort of thing to do, but in the 18th century, in many places, the nobility paid little or no taxes at all. Now, they did. In 1787, he abolished the death penalty in the Austrian Empire, and in 1789, he adopted a program of cash payments to peasants who had recently been freed from serfdom to allow them to buy land of their own and to set themselves up as independent farmers.

Now, you would think that this would have made Joseph II immensely popular, but it did not, in fact, do that. A number of these things backfired on him. For example, the Catholics in the Austrian Empire were unhappy with his decision to tolerate Protestants and Jews and with his decision to shut down the monasteries. Protestants, although happy to be tolerated themselves, were not necessarily as tolerant of Jews as Joseph II was. The serfs were happy to be free, that was just fine, but along with their freedom also came a lessening in the protection that they had enjoyed in the past. Under serfdom, they could not leave the land where they had been born, but they could not be kicked off either. And in fact, although Joseph had intended both to free the serfs and to give them land, the second part of that never came to fruition. So, in fact, many of them felt as though they were worse off and resented him for that. Non-German speakers in the empire, those who spoke Czech or Magyar, uh, were unhappy, uh, with the decision to use German, the German language universally, and those who found themselves paying more taxes as a result of equal taxation for all classes were not especially happy about that.

Now, in addition to all of this, Joseph was also a great patron of the arts, and like Charles Theodore in Bavaria, he too was a great patron of Mozart. But in 1790, under pressure from his own nobility, he was forced to withdraw some of his reforms, and his successor, Leopold II, wound up reversing many of the others. Joseph, in fact, despite the fact that he might have the claim to be the most enlightened of the enlightened absolutists, felt at the end of his life that he had been a failure, and he left it in his will that his epitaph should read, "Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook." Perhaps unduly pessimistic, but an indication of how he felt about things at the end of his life.

Now, among the three best-known enlightened absolutists, surely the brightest of the three was Frederick the Great of Prussia, a man who not only did everything well, but who made it look easy at times. The one indication of this is that he built himself a grand palace in imitation of Louis XIV's Versailles, which he named Sanssouci, which translates as "no sweat."

Frederick the Great also was the, the earliest of the, in the three great enlightened absolutists, coming to the throne in 1740 in Prussia and ruling until 1786. As King of Prussia, he is perhaps most famous for making war, but he did a number of other things as well. He promoted trade and industry in Prussia. He built canals to facilitate transportation. He drained swamps to allow for the expansion of agriculture. He introduced new crops, notably the potato and the turnip, into Prussia. And while the potato and the turnip might not sound like all that, uh, sexy an innovation, they were immensely important because they virtually eliminated starvation. A diet of potatoes or turnips may not be terribly exciting after a while, but it beats starving by a long shot. He also revalued the, revalued the Prussian system of money, and he implemented a system of indirect taxation, which brought in more revenue to the monarchy.

He also carried out a number of other reforms. He dramatically reformed the system of courts in Prussia to make them more efficient and more fair. He abolished the use of torture as a way of getting witnesses to testify or the accused to confess. He ended corporal punishment in the army, and he also implemented a program of religious toleration, although not as wide-ranging as that in Austria. Already in Prussia, Lutherans and Calvinists enjoyed freedom to worship as they pleased, but Frederick extended this to all varieties of Christians. In fact, one of the ironies of Frederick's reign, although Frederick himself was not a particularly religious man and was nominally a Protestant, is that he actually welcomed Jesuits into Prussia. This is especially significant because the Jesuit order, who had been sort of the shock troops of the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation, were at this time in history being kicked out of many of the Catholic states in Europe, France, Portugal, and Spain among them. The reason for that is that Jesuits recognized no authority other than the Pope, even including their Catholic kings, and therefore Catholic absolutist monarchs were suspicious of them. Frederick, however, had no concern about the Jesuits posing a threat to him, and he welcomed them to come into Prussia. There was even a lessening of restrictions on Jews in Prussia, although Frederick himself was not especially tolerant where the Jews were concerned.

Now, in addition to that, Frederick was himself also a, a strong claimant to being enlightened in the sense of being an artist and a patron himself. He was an extremely talented musician. He played the flute, perhaps surprising for a man so much known for his military exploits. He also wrote over a hundred sonatas and four symphonies, and these are actually quite good. A number of them are available as present-day recordings, and they demonstrate that he had quite a bit of ability. Uh, the son of Johann Sebastian Bach was a regular at his court, this is C.P.E. Bach, and also a regular resident at his court were a number of intellectuals like the philosophers Kant and Maupertuis.

But of course, Frederick was also a soldier, and in one regard, you can see him as enlightened in this respect as well. He carried out a foreign policy which, at least as he saw it, was a rational foreign policy, a foreign policy based on reason, one that was designed to accomplish what was best for the Prussian state. In 1763, following a series of wars, he found himself still in possession of Silesia, which gave him access to more land and also to mines, certainly something that benefited the Prussian economy. He also participated in 1772 in something known as the First Partition of Poland. Now, this is not one of the more enlightened episodes in the history of the latter 18th century, uh, certainly if you look at it from the standpoint of the Poles. But what happened in the partition of Poland is that Prussia, Austria, and Russia literally carved off pieces of Poland for themselves. They did it in 1772, they would do it again in 1791 and 1795, by which time Poland literally disappeared from the map. Certainly not very enlightened from a Polish perspective, but from the standpoint of Prussia, rational in the sense that it gave him still more agricultural land.

As I mentioned earlier, he was involved in the brief flurry of activity known as the War of the Bavarian Succession, which was designed to increase his influence in southern Germany, and between 1783 and '86, he organized a league of German princes, as it was known, to resist the power of his adversary, Joseph II of Austria. In his final years, he became increasingly reclusive and actually wound up preferring the company of his dogs, his greyhounds, to other people. In fact, when he died in 1786, he specified that he should be buried next to his dogs rather than to any of the members of his family.

The third of the great enlightened absolutists is Catherine the Great of Russia. Catherine the Great ruled for a very long time, from 1763 to 1796. She, in many ways, fits the model of an enlightened absolutist, but she also, more than any of the others, raises questions as to how enlightened she really was. Catherine, in fact, was not a Russian. She was actually a German princess who, in 1745, married the heir to the Russian throne, a man by the name of Peter, who subsequently became Tsar Peter III. This was not what you would call a love match. They were never terribly fond of each other.

During Peter's reign, he came to the throne in 1762 following the death of Tsarina Elizabeth. He did really only two things of great importance. As you will learn when you discuss the Seven Years' War, he pulled Russia out of that war, which allowed Frederick the Great to triumph. The other thing that he did that was important, and I'm only being slightly facetious here, is to die. He died as the result of a coup led by a group of soldiers headed up by a man named Gregory Orlov. They were interested in overthrowing Peter because they believed that he was an ineffective and weak ruler, but also they wanted to replace him with someone they believed they could control, and that someone was Catherine. Keep in mind that Russia since 1725 had been governed by a series of either female rulers or young boys, and the nobility, who had been held down under Peter the Great, had been able to reassert themselves. They wanted to continue to do that, and they believed that they could if they put Catherine, a foreigner and a woman, on the throne. In fact, at the time that Peter III was assassinated and replaced by Catherine, Gregory Orlov, the leader of the coup, was Catherine's lover, and in fact, they had an illegitimate son in that same year by the name of Alexei.

But if the nobility thought that they would control Catherine, they were wrong about that. They were in for an unpleasant surprise. Catherine turned out to be an extremely formidable ruler, one about whom there is a good deal in the way of legend, but even what is true is quite remarkable.

Now, what kind of claim can she make to being an enlightened absolutist? Well, for one thing, as did Frederick the Great, she corresponded with many of the philosophes. She wrote letters to Voltaire, who wrote back. She wrote letters to D'Alembert, who wrote back. She wrote letters to Diderot, who wrote back and even came to visit her. I should mention that Voltaire also spent time with Frederick the Great, but the two of them quickly quarreled. No room was big enough to hold those two egos. But Diderot and Catherine got along quite well.

Early on in her reign, she tried to cultivate enlightened rule, but she was hampered by the fact that in her youth, at least, she was still somewhat beholden to the nobility. In 1767 and 1768, she even went so far as to experiment with representative government in Russia, creating a representative body known as the Duma, which represented all social classes except for the Russian serfs. Now, that sounds better than it is. The majority of the population of Russia at this time were serfs, that is, individuals who were unfree, if not slaves, and the consequence is that the majority of the population was not represented in the Duma. A further catch is that after experimenting with the Duma, Catherine lost interest and never called it again, and in fact, the Duma would not really reassert itself as a part of Russian government until the early 20th century.

She did not like Frederick the Great's issue a new law code, but she did carry out a good deal of research that led to some changes in legislation that were beneficial. Like Frederick the Great, she also welcomed Jesuits into Russia, although there was not a huge influx of Jesuits there since Russia was neither Catholic nor Protestant, but adhered to the Russian Orthodox faith. In 1775, she promulgated a new statute of local administration, which for the time being gave local communities in Russia more control over their local government. That too would be retracted somewhat later on for reasons that we'll talk about. Still, she made an effort, as did other enlightened absolutists, to prop up the Russian economy.

In 1781, she promulgated a code of commercial navigation. The same year, she also issued a code for the salt trade. Now, the salt trade might not strike you as a particularly dramatic or big part of the economy, but bear in mind that in the 18th century, salt was not only a seasoning that people used much more liberally than we do in our more health-conscious era, it also was a preservative, and prior to the development of refrigeration, perhaps the most important preservative. So the salt trade was enormous. In 1782, she issued a police ordinance to govern the performance of the police in Russia. In 1785, she issued a charter or series of charters for the nobility and the towns, spelling out their rights, and in 1786, following in the footsteps of Peter the Great, she issued a statute for national education.

All of that sounds quite enlightened, and Catherine certainly was interested in the Enlightenment. She certainly was sincere enough in the reforms that she carried out. But as a matter of fact, she is not really known as the Great because of her enlightened policies. Rather, it is for her success in foreign policy. There, as with Frederick and as with Joseph, the question becomes, just how enlightened was she? On one hand, certainly the policies that she pursued were rational, that is, they made sense, they were logical for the Russian state, they were logical for the Russian monarchy. But how humanitarian they were is another question.

One thing, of course, that was characteristic of Catherine was interference in the affairs of Poland. She's hardly the only Russian leader to ever do that, but she did it with quite a flare. In 1764, she interfered in the election of the new Polish king and managed to put one of her favorites on the Polish throne, a man by the name of Stanislaus Poniatowski, who had been both her minister in Russia and her lover for a time. Stanislaus was expected to do as she told him. He did not do so with quite the alacrity that she wished, and so beginning in about 1766, she began to interfere directly in Polish affairs.

One of the consequences of that and her of her aggressive foreign policy on Russia's southern border was that she became involved in 1768 in a war with the Turks, a war that lasted from 1768 to 1772. Another result was Catherine's participation in the First Partition of Poland, which I mentioned earlier in reference to Frederick the Great. It was Catherine, Frederick the Great, and Maria Theresa of Austria who carried out the First Partition. Catherine, as it turns out, would be the only monarch to participate in all three.

Now, her enlightened attitudes began to change somewhat in 1773 with the outbreak of rebellion against her by the, that is known as Pugachev's Rebellion. It's so-called because it was led by a Cossack by the name of Emilian Pugachev. Now, why would a Cossack named Emilian Pugachev think that he had much opportunity to successfully rebel against Catherine? Well, Pugachev falls into a long tradition in Russia, predating Catherine and continuing down all the way into the 20th century, of imposters showing up and claiming to be the rightful Tsar. Remember that Catherine's husband, Peter III, had been assassinated. He had died, as they say, in mysterious circumstances. Well, Pugachev claimed to be Peter III. He claimed that he had escaped the assassination attempt and that he was now attempting to come back and take the throne. Why would anybody believe that? Well, bear in mind, this is the 18th century. There are no photographs, there is no television. It's not the same as it would be if I showed up claiming to be the president of the United States, in which case you would know that I'm not because I don't look like the president of the United States. However, for people who did not know what Peter III had looked like, Pugachev put on a good imitation, and he actually mounted such a successful rebellion that it took Catherine two years to put the rebellion down, two years in which she was struggling with the Poles, struggling with the Turks, and by the time that she had defeated Pugachev's rebellion in 1775, she wasn't very happy.

What are the consequences of this was a crackdown, in particular upon the Russian peasants who had supported Pugachev. One of the ironies of Catherine's reign is that at a time when the rest of Europe was freeing its serfs or had already done so, Catherine the Great actually drove the Russian peasants deeper into servitude. As retaliation for Pugachev's Rebellion, she issued something called the Statute of Provincial Administration, which reorganized local government and allowed the nobility in locales around Russia to have even more authority over the peasants than they had had before. So serfdom got worse, and Catherine gradually turned against more enlightened ideas.

At the same time, she also made peace with the Turks temporarily with the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji in 1774, and the result of this was several gains in terms of the rational self-interest of the Russian Empire. For one thing, Russia got possession of the Crimea, the little peninsula that sticks down into the Black Sea. Russia also got permission to navigate in Turkish waters, not just in the Black Sea, but through the Turkish Straits as well. A third thing it got from the Turks was the right to intervene in Moldavia and Wallachia, two states that had traditionally been claimed by the Turks and that bounded the Danube River where it enters into the Black Sea, both strategically important and economically very important. And another gain from this treaty, which would have long-lasting consequences, was that Catherine became the protector of Ottoman Christians. In the Ottoman Empire, there was a significant minority of Christians who were treated with considerable toleration. About the only disadvantage they suffered is that they were taxed at a higher rate than Muslim citizens of the Ottoman Empire, but they were Greek Orthodox, which meant that they were very similar theologically and liturgically to Russian Orthodox Christians, and the Russians had long believed that they should enjoy some rights to protect those individuals.

Now, all of that sounds good, all of that sounds very above board, but there was another motive at work here. In addition to the right to serve as protector of Christians within the Ottoman Empire, those who lived there, the Russians also claimed the authority to protect Christian pilgrims who visited the Ottoman Empire, and there were quite a few because at this time Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the whole Holy Land, what is nowadays the state of Israel, was part of the Ottoman Empire, and Christian pilgrims came from all over the world to visit there. In fact, they were allowed to come and go pretty much as they pleased, treated almost as the 20th century or 21st century would treat tourists. But by claiming the authority to serve as protectors, the Russians were allowed to set up offices inside the Ottoman Empire, and here is where the other purpose becomes evident. Catherine already had the desire to expand Russian territory even more at the expense of the Turks. She wanted full control of the Black Sea, she wanted control of the Turkish Straits, she wanted control of as much land as she could take away from the Turks as well. And by being able to set up offices that were nominally there to protect Christian pilgrims, who really didn't need a lot of protection, she was able to infiltrate the Turkish Empire with spies that would become a very significant feature of Russo-Turkish relations, and in the 19th century, it would cause some very, very significant diplomatic problems.

In the meantime, on the home front, Gregory, or rather Catherine, who had a long series of male companions, shall we say, took another lover in 1774 in the form of a man named Gregory Potemkin, perhaps best remembered more recently as the namesake for a famous Russian battleship. He became between 1774 and 1791 the most powerful man in Russia, and he shared Catherine's interest in the Enlightenment. So, in the limited sense that she continued to be an enlightened ruler, he worked along with her to do that.

Catherine also played a role of some significance during the American War for Independence. Not that Russia became directly involved, but she did help to create what was called the League of Armed Neutrality, in which Russian ships and the other ships of neutral powers, that is, powers that were not fighting on the side of Britain or the fledgling United States, went about armed at sea in order to protect themselves from both sides. She also, uh, entered into a treaty with Joseph II in 1781, in which Joseph actually visited her in Russia. Uh, the purpose of this goes back to what we were talking about just a minute ago. The idea here was to disrupt the Ottoman Empire and to divide up the territory in the Balkans between Russia and Austria. Austria too had an empire which was expanding, and both the Russians and the Austrians could see that the Ottoman Empire was becoming progressively weaker, and as it became weaker, both the Russian and Austrian Empires began to have designs upon Ottoman territory.

Catherine formally annexed all of the Crimea in 1783, which was yet another step in her foreign policy of expansion. In 1785, as I mentioned earlier, she issued her famous Charter to the Nobility, and simultaneously also issued a Charter to the Towns. And what these two charters did was to recognize a very detailed and explicit list of privileges for both the Russian aristocracy and for the Russian towns. But notice who's left out. There is no reference to the peasants. The peasants, of course, did not live in towns. The peasants lived on the land of the aristocracy. But this 1785 Charter to the Nobility is what formalizes her earlier policy of allowing the nobility to do pretty much as they please with the Russian peasants or serfs. This is her way of keeping both the nobility loyal and the peasants under her heel.

1789, she embarked upon another war against the Turks, this time in conjunction with Joseph II of Austria and against the Sultan Selim III. This war lasted until 1792 and ended in the Treaty of Jassy in 1792, which gave her still more territory. 1789, Catherine, who was neither particularly abstemious or monogamous necessarily, took her last lover in the form of a man by the name of Platon Zubov. This is one of those May and December relationships. In 1789, he was 22, she was 60. So Platon Zubov is kind of a boy toy, but he did have a certain amount of influence over her in the latter part of her reign.

In 1789, as the, the next unit will discuss, the French Revolution broke out and immediately began to affect much of Europe. But Catherine largely avoided becoming involved. She certainly did not approve of the Revolution, but France was a long way off, and she felt no impetus to become involved in dealing with it, even though many of her fellow monarchs set out to try to suppress it. One reason is that she was fairly old. Another reason, however, is that she now was involved in further partitions of Poland, a second partition of Poland in 1791, a third partition of Poland in 1795, that along with Austria and Prussia literally wiped Poland off the map. Russia absorbed a large chunk of Poland, Prussia did likewise. Austria, which participated in only two out of the three, had somewhat less to show for its trouble.

Now, that's the three great enlightened absolutists, all to some extent or another, uh, involved with enlightened policies, all to some extent or another connected with Enlightenment thinkers, but all to some extent compromised by particularly their foreign policy. There were a number of other individuals in Europe at the time who imitated this style, who tried to govern in a way that was a lot enlightened, although by no means does this include everyone. But to give you a couple of examples, in Sweden, there was a ruler between 1771 and 1792 by the name of Gustav III. Now, by the time Gustav became King of Sweden, it was no longer the great power that it had been earlier in the century under Charles XII. Sweden was definitely a declining power, but it was not a negligible state by any means either, and Gustav III, uh, set out to make his realm an enlightened one.

In 1772, he issued a constitution. That's actually earlier than our constitution, although it, it's not as long-lasting. It failed to outlast him, as a matter of fact, and it was not by any means a democratic constitution. So our constitution, the American Constitution of 1787, remains the oldest in the world and one of the most democratic. His, on the other hand, enhanced royal power, but it enhanced royal power primarily at the expense of the Swedish aristocracy, which is good for him, but also good for the Swedish middle class and the Swedish peasants, over whom the aristocracy had previously held an awful lot of authority. Gustav also worked in corruption in the Swedish government, and he had a good bit of success with that, again, thanks to his reduction of the power of the aristocracy. For a long time, there had been factional battles in Sweden between two factions with the, the rather humorous names of the Caps and the Hats. There was nothing funny about the factional violence between these two, but he basically suppressed that as well.

And beyond the constitution and ending corruption and factionalism in Sweden, he also carried out several other acts that seemed genuinely enlightened. For example, in 1782, under his sponsorship, there came the opening of the Swedish Royal Opera. He was a patron of the arts, like many of his fellow enlightened absolutists. In 1786, like many other absolutists, he founded an academy, the Swedish Academy, to promote greater learning in Sweden. By the way, the Swedish Academy is regularly in the news these days because it is there that the recipients of Nobel Prizes are chosen. There were no Nobel Prizes in the 18th century, those weren't created until much, much later, but that's where they're awarded.

Now, in 1789, uh, in, in the interest of maintaining security within the realm, he issued the Act of Union and Security. But unfortunately, in 1792, Gustav III of Sweden was assassinated by his enemies, and that brought his enlightened reign to an end.

Another place where we can find an example of enlightened policy is in the Kingdom of Portugal, where the ruler from 1750 to 1777 was a man named Joseph I. But it wasn't actually Joseph who carried out the enlightened policies. He, in fact, was a rather lazy ruler, if you will, who entrusted much of his authority and much of the day-to-day responsibility for governing to the Marquis of Pombal. Now, the Marquis of Pombal has sometimes been described as a ruthless dictator, and that's not far off the mark, but at the same time, he was influenced by the monarchy, and he carried out a program where he tried to both influence or increase the power of the monarchy, and thus of himself as the monarch's chief minister, and to reduce the power of any entity or group that threatened that. So, for example, in Portugal, he reduced the power of the nobility, just as the other enlightened rulers did. He reduced the power of the church as a political force, just as other enlightened rulers did. He carried out reforms of the financial system and of the army, just as other enlightened rulers did. Like them, he encouraged industry and trade. He tried to revive Portuguese agriculture, in particular, by introducing silk farming into Portugal, and he carried out a significant program of education. And following the terrible earthquake that struck Portugal in 1757, the Lisbon earthquake, he carried out much of the post-disaster humanitarian aid that was administered to the Portuguese people.

Now, there are, of course, exceptions. Any number of eruptions in smaller states, but there are also two major exceptions among the great powers, two major states that did not produce enlightened absolutism. One of these was France, where, at least in theory, the ruler was still a divine right absolutist. Looking at the career, particularly the later career of Louis XV, provides very little evidence of enlightenment on his part. It also provides really very little evidence of divine right, because it's difficult to believe that God would choose someone like Louis XV. After 1743, he ruled without any further ministers. He allowed himself to be influenced by his mistresses, notably Madame de Pompadour. He became increasingly distracted by wine, women, and song, so to speak, and his government became more and more corrupt. He himself became increasingly lazy, and one of the ironies of the whole Enlightenment era is that France, the home of the Enlightenment, the home to Voltaire, to Rousseau, to Montesquieu, to all of these other great thinkers, had a ruler who was actively hostile to the Enlightenment. Even though his wife, Queen Marie, was sympathetic, even though some of his mistresses were sympathetic, he himself was actively hostile. And towards the end of his reign, the French government was notoriously corrupt and inefficient, and perhaps even more of a problem than that, it was in deep, deep financial trouble as a result of a series of expensive and largely unsuccessful wars.

Well, in 1774, Louis XV died and was replaced by his grandson, having outlived his son. His grandson is Louis XVI, a much nicer man in a lot of ways than Louis XV, a much more well-intentioned man in a lot of ways than Louis XV, but just not a very bright ruler and not a ruler with much, uh, of a backbone. Louis XVI was easily influenced by others, by his wife Marie Antoinette, by factions at the court, and as you will discover shortly, it is he who will become the victim of the French Revolution that breaks out in 1789.

The other major exception is Great Britain, where, of course, there is no absolutism at all, given that the monarch shares power more and more, as a matter of fact, with Parliament. Parliament is not at this point democratic. Remember, the House of Lords, of course, is based on birth and privilege. The House of Commons requires a substantial amount of wealth and prestige for election. But in 1760, there came to the throne one of the monarchs best known in this country, George III, who we associate primarily with the American Revolution. George is not considered an enlightened absolutist because he's not an absolutist. In some ways, though, he might have shown some promise in his early years to become enlightened. Really, George's, uh, reign sort of breaks down into three rough divisions. The early years of his life, when he was young, vibrant, intelligent, and many people thought that he would produce great things. Then there is the period from the 1770s to the late 18th century, when he was bogged down by the American Revolution, by attacks on corruption in his own government, and by the ineffectiveness of his ministers. And the final part of his reign would be that in which he increasingly lost his health, and with that, control over his sanity.

But what is significant about George early on is that he's the first of the Hanoverian monarchs to actually be born in Britain. He saw himself as British, and he had an active interest in promoting, uh, British interests. He also, though, believed that the monarchy had lost some of its justifiable power in recent years, and he set out to restore that, with the consequence that he was often in conflict with Parliament. Uh, he was, in fact, a, a good family man, as English monarchs go, certainly more so than most. Uh, he also had an interesting hobby. He was extremely fond of agriculture. The same thing was true, by the way, of Louis XVI. His favorite hobby was locksmithing. He liked to make and work on locks. Farmer George, as George III was sometimes called, liked farming and gardening. But if he showed promise early on, he had trouble with his ministers, he had trouble with his colonies, and that, of course, leads to the subject of the American Revolution, which is a subject for another day.

Okay, so we've wrapped up our, our lectures pretty much on the enlightened. And I think in the 18th century, we're going to, to come back, of course, next time and talk more about some wars. We ended with the War of Austrian Succession in 1748, and we'll talk about the times and the Empire and the revolution that take place from that year in 1748 up until the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, and we'll find out what's happening in Europe between those two years, 1748 to 1789. Until next time.