Enlightened Absolutists (notebook 17)

Westernization

→ Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and English were thriving in Western Europe, many of the Europeans further east began to

take notice

→ Prussia, Austria, and Russia would all attempt to become more ‘Western,’

→ Leaders would try different methods and reforms to bring the nobles and finances under their control

→ To become more western meant four things:

To make their governments more centralized
To adopt Western economics (commercialization instead of serfdom/peasant agriculture)
To improve their military structure and technology
To adopt Western culture and ideas,

Peter the Great of Russia (1682-1725)

→ Rejected Enlightenment ideals in favor of complete control

→ like Louis XIV had all of the nobles moved to him (this time by force), and forced them to be a part of his government

→ reformed his military under the model of the Prussians, using nobles as officers, expanded Russian territory to the East and against Poland

→ attempted to mimic Louis XIV by building an entire City (St. Petersburg) and the lavish Winter Palace for himself like Louis XIV

→ used his conquest to open up ports in an attempt to open up trade and commercialization like the West

→ established the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1725, meant to expand Russian knowledge and adopt Western science

Frederick II of Prussia (1740-1786)

→ most successful at Westernizing under the ‘enlightened monarch’ Frederick the Great

→ He read Western literature and was fond of the ideals of the Enlightenment on government and religion

→ believed that while a monarch should have complete control, he should use that power to protect and serve his people

→ Under Frederick I of Prussia, Prussia Westernized in the following ways:

Nobles were used in the central bureaucracy, and able to keep their nobles rights
The military was reformed under the model of the French with appointed officers
He initiated religious toleration in Prussia

Joseph II (1765-1790)

→ attempted to westernize, but focused instead on changing laws and education after his mother, Maria Theresa

→ Maria had tried but failed to centralize the nobles who refused to cooperate vs. the Ottoman Empire without maintaining their traditional local power

→ Joseph II made many Enlightenment-inspired changes to the HRE:

He initiated religious toleration in Austria
He started compulsory education for elementary boys
He freed the serfs like the peasants had been in the West (didn’t last)

He also reformed the legal system to respect individual rights

→ failed to reform Austria, Austrian power grew substantially thanks to the conquests of Poland and the Ottoman Empire

Catherine the Great (1762-1796)

→ Peter’s granddaughter Catherine the Great continued to bring about reforms

She enhanced education in Russia, and started state school for women
She patronized Enlightenment art and writers
She began to remove the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Russian state (sold lands)

→ Non-Western Aspects

Gave nobles more freedom, and required less govt. participation
She did, however, reinforce serfdom, and made the Russian economy dependent on it

→ continued to expand Russia to the East, and vs. the decaying Ottoman Empire and Poland