Comprehensive Study Notes: Western Civilization, Candide, Imperial Russia, and Imperial China

Course Logistics and Examination Details

• Exam Schedule and Materials:

  • The upcoming exam will take place on Wednesday.
  • Students are required to bring their own notebook paper to write their exam answers.

• Exam Structure and Question Types:

  • Essay Section: Contains one or two short essay prompts.
  • Candide Section: Consists exclusively of short-answer questions. There are no full essays and no multiple-choice questions on Candide (multiple-choice questions on Candide were administered on prior tests).
  • General Readings Section: Consists of multiple-choice questions covering assigned course readings.

• Course Study Materials and Reserves:

  • No formal, comprehensive study guide document will be distributed by the instructor.
  • Key terms and review concepts will be placed on reserve at the university library.
  • One copy of the $12\text{th}$ edition of the textbook has been placed on reserve at the university library.

Voltaire's Candide: Geographic Itinerary and Narrative Arc

• Narrative Overview:

  • Candide is structured as a satirical book of travels spanning Europe, South America, and the Middle East.

• Sequential Geographical Itinerary:

  1. Westphalia (Germany): Candide begins in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, gets expelled, and undergoes a brief forced stint in the Bulgar military.
  2. Holland (The Netherlands): Located right by the sea; Candide travels here immediately following his military stint.
  3. Portugal: Candide takes a ship from Holland to Portugal and arrives in Lisbon during a catastrophic earthquake.
  4. Spain: Located adjacent to Portugal. Candide travels to the Port of Cadiz in southern Spain.
     • Significance of Cadiz: Most of the Spanish coastline faces the Mediterranean Sea, making Cadiz in the south the primary transatlantic port for Spanish voyages to the Americas during this period.
  5. Buenos Aires (Argentina, South America): Candide embarks on a transatlantic voyage from Cadiz to Buenos Aires at the southern end of South America. He is soon forced to flee the city.
  6. Paraguay: An inland region of South America.
     • Candide encounters Cunegonde's brother, who has become a member of the Jesuit religious order.
     • After an argument, Candide runs Cunegonde's brother through with a sword and must quickly flee the area.
  7. El Dorado: An isolated utopian realm in South America.
     • Associated historically with Peru, the Andes Mountains, and the ancient Inca civilization.
     • Candide chooses to leave El Dorado specifically to find his love, Cunegonde.
  8. Suriname (Dutch Guiana): Located on the northern coast of South America; Candide witnesses the brutal realities of colonial slavery here.
  9. Paris (France): Candide undertakes a second transatlantic voyage back to Europe, arriving in Paris where he experiences various comedic and deceptive adventures.
  10. Venice (Italy): Candide travels from Paris to Venice, where he encounters six deposed kings.
  11. Constantinople (Ottoman Empire / Turkey): The final stop of the narrative, located in the Middle East.

Satirical Themes and Philosophical Critiques in Candide

• Satirical Method:

  • Voltaire uses hyperbole, extreme exaggeration, and comedy to critique worldviews and societal institutions rather than offering direct, blunt criticism.

• Philosophical Optimism:

  • Satirizes the prevailing philosophical optimism of the Enlightenment (associated with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz), which asserted that "every effect has a cause" and that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
  • Voltaire highlights the absurdity of this philosophy by putting characters through horrific physical trauma (e.g., being run through with a sword, hanged, or drowned) only to have them reappear unharmed several chapters later, employing cartoonish logic.

• Religion:

  • Broadly critiques organized religion across all denominations.
  • Exposes the sharp discrepancy between lofty religious doctrines and the actual moral corruption and cruelty of religious figures.

• Divine Right of Kings and Monarchy:

  • Satirized in Venice through the scene featuring six deposed, exiled kings dining together.
  • Questions the doctrine of divine right: if monarchs are chosen directly and permanently by God, the presence of numerous ex-kings demonstrates that the theoretical justification for absolute monarchy is flawed.

• Colonialism and Slavery:

  • Critiques the Spanish colonial system, portraying Spanish colonial officials as pompous, greedy, and excessively pretentious.
  • Critiques the institution of human slavery through Candide's encounter with an abused, mutilated slave in Suriname.

• Conclusion and Philosophy of Work:

  • The novel concludes in Constantinople with the practical advice: "Cultivate your own garden."
  • Teaches that practical physical work keeps human beings safe from three great moral evils:
    1. Boredom
    2. Vice
    3. Poverty

Foundations of the Russian State and Cultural Divergence

• Kievan Rus' and Christianization:

  • Russian and Ukrainian cultural, political, and religious history began over $1{,}000$ years ago with the establishment of the Kievan Rus' state.
  • Rulers of Kievan Rus' adopted Eastern Orthodox Christianity from Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
  • Grand Prince Vladimir (Prince Vladimir) converted, was baptized, and subsequently marched the entire population of Kyiv into the Dnieper River to be baptized.
  • It took several hundred years for Orthodox Christian doctrines to fully spread into the rural countryside.

• The Cyrillic Alphabet:

  • Christianization brought a new written language system based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
  • Created by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius (known as the "Apostles to the Slavs").
  • Based primarily on letters from the Greek alphabet, supplemented with additional letters for unique Slavic sounds.
  • Remains the modern script for writing Russian and Ukrainian.

• Mongol Conquest and Territorial Expansion:

  • The Kievan Rus' state was destroyed by the Mongol conquest, ending political independence for roughly $200$\text{--}$250$ years.
  • The Russian state re-emerged under the leadership of the Principality of Muscovy (Moscow).
  • By the $17\text{th}$ century, Russia expanded across Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.
  • Siberia is thinly populated with a climate comparable to Alaska.
  • Russia expanded into Alaska and ruled it for approximately $60$\text{--}$70$ years before selling it to the United States.
  • Russia remains the largest country in the world by total land area, though vast regions are uninhabitable or sparsely populated.

• Historical Divergence from Western Europe:

  • Russia developed outside the major historical transformations of Western Europe and did not participate in:
    1. The Protestant Reformation
    2. The Renaissance
    3. The Scientific Revolution
  • This historical isolation created a distinct cultural mindset and political tradition.

• Dynastic Transition:

  • Following the reign of Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible" / Ivan Grozny), Russia entered the "Time of Troubles," during which the central state disintegrated.
  • Order was eventually re-established under a new ruling family, the Romanov dynasty.

Tsar Peter the Great and the Westernization of Russia

• The Grand Embassy to Europe:

  • Peter I (Peter the Great) recognized that Russia was technologically and militarily inferior in its wars against Western European powers.
  • Upon becoming sole ruler, he undertook an extensive journey across Northern Europe, visiting Holland and England.
  • Personal Characteristics: Exceptionally tall and physically strong; possessed a deep passion for crafts, becoming a master carpenter and metalworker.
  • Shipbuilding in Holland: Worked as a simple laborer in Dutch shipyards for approximately $1$\,month to master shipbuilding techniques (carpentry, tarring, rigging, sailmaking, ropework).
  • Observations in England: Visited during the joint reign of William III and Mary II. Attended a session of Parliament (in which he had little interest), focusing instead on maritime technology and scientific instruments.
  • Recruitment and Acquisition: Purchased European scientific instruments and hired hundreds of skilled foreign craftspeople, technicians, and military officers with high salaries to relocate to Moscow.

• Military Reforms and Universal Conscription:

  • Reorganized the Russian military into a permanent, highly trained professional army following European patterns.
  • Instituted a compulsory draft system:
    • Each peasant village was required to send $1$ male peasant annually to serve in the imperial military.
    • Conscripts served a mandatory term of $25$\,years (effectively a lifelong separation from family and home).
    • Conscripts who survived their $25$\,years of service were granted formal freedom to settle anywhere in the empire.
  • Hired hundreds to thousands of Western European officers to drill and train Russian conscripts.

• Compulsory State Service for Nobility:

  • Decreed that every male nobleman aged $14$ and older must serve the state for life, primarily within the military.
  • Nobles were forced to start at the lowest ranks, though most eventually rose to become officers.

• Taxation and Economic Mercantilism:

  • Implemented heavy taxation to finance military expansion, including taxes on salt and bathhouses (steam houses).
  • Established the Soul Tax (poll tax): an annual tax levied directly on every male peasant and townsperson simply for existing.
  • Landowners extracted the soul tax from rural serfs; over $90\%$ of the population was rural and bore the tax burden.
  • Mercantilist Policy: State-directed economic growth focused strictly on industries supporting the military:
    • Iron ore mining and smelting (for cannons, artillery pieces, swords, muskets, and rifles).
    • Textile manufacturing (for military uniforms).
    • Sailcloth production (for naval vessels).

• Creation of the Imperial Russian Navy and Bureaucracy:

  • Created the Russian Navy entirely from scratch using conscript labor, taxation, and imported foreign naval officers.
  • Created a administrative civil service bureaucracy modeled on Swedish administrative patterns.

• Control of the Church, Education, and Capital City:

  • Brought the Russian Orthodox Church under direct state control to eliminate religious opposition to Westernization.
  • Restricted education to the noble elite, teaching officers literacy, mathematics, and geometry (required for calculating artillery shell trajectories and naval navigation). Peasantry remained illiterate.
  • Constructed a new maritime capital city, Saint Petersburg, on the Baltic Sea to secure direct access to maritime routes.
  • Defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, establishing Russia as a major European military power.

Cultural Decrees, Social Engineering, and Imperial Transformation

• Shift in Monarchical Style and Title:

  • Traditional Russian rulers (e.g., Tsar Alexey, Peter's father) wore traditional robes, crowns, and carried scepters symbolizing authority given by God.
  • Peter adopted European general's armor and replaced the title of Tsar with the Latin title Petrus Primus, Imperator Russiae (Peter the First, Emperor of Russia).

• Decree on Beards and Mustaches:

  • Mandated that all courtiers, state officials, merchants, and urban townsmen in Moscow and provincial towns shave their traditional Russian beards and mustaches.
  • Exemptions: Clergy (priests and deacons) were completely exempt. Peasants were exempt in their villages but had to pay a small daily toll at town gates to enter or leave if bearded.
  • Fines and Tax Badges: Non-exempt men who kept their beards were forced to pay a heavy annual fine based on rank and wear a copper tax badge issued by the Department of Land Affairs.
  • Enforcement: Peter personally cut off courtiers' beards using dull shears without razors.
  • Old Believers Resentment: The "Old Believers" (an Orthodox religious group) held that man was made in God's image, meaning God has a beard, and shaving was a sin. Rather than shaving, Old Believers chose to pay double taxes to keep their beards.

• Decree on Western European Dress and Saddling:

  • Mandated that all service nobility, merchants, military personnel, and town residents (including wives and children) wear German-style (Western European) clothes, hats, and shoes, and ride on German-style saddles.
  • Explicitly banned traditional Russian robes, Cossack clothing, and Tatar-style saddles.
  • Prohibited craftsmen from manufacturing or trading traditional clothing or saddles under threat of severe corporal punishment.
  • Gatekeepers collected heavy fines from violators (charging higher fines for horsemen than pedestrians).

• Social Engineering and Integration of Women:

  • Reformed upper-class Russian social life, which previously kept noblewomen isolated in home quarters (terem).
  • Mandated European-style social gatherings, banquets, and formal balls.
  • Forced upper-class women out of seclusion to attend mixed-gender social events, wear Western gowns, learn ballroom dancing, and follow translated European etiquette manuals.
  • Fully normalized Western social customs among the elite by the mid-$18\text{th}$ century.

• Scientific Advancement:

  • Established the Russian Academy of Sciences to promote national scientific research.

Comparative Overview of Imperial China: Governance and Civil Service

• First Emperor and the Terracotta Army:

  • Qin Shi Huang (First Emperor of Qin) unified China over $2{,}000$ years ago.
  • Terracotta Army: Discovered approximately $70$ years ago near Xi'an; consists of thousands of life-sized terracotta statues of warriors, weapons, and horses guarding the First Emperor's unexcavated tomb.

• The Great Wall of China:

  • Construction began under the First Emperor ($2{,}000$ years ago) for base stone layers.
  • Most visible sections of the Great Wall were built during the Ming Dynasty and are no more than $500$ years old.

• The Forbidden City and Imperial Authority:

  • Located in the center of Beijing; served as the walled imperial palace complex.
  • Contains hundreds of pagodas housing the emperor, royal family, and government officials.
  • Mandate of Heaven: Chinese emperors ruled by the