The Rise of Russia and Prussia: Crash Course European History #17

hi I'm John Green and this is Crash Course European history so in our last episode we saw the hapsburgs with the help of Romanians and some others Drive the Ottomans out of large swaths of Eastern Europe which started the hapsburg expansion Eastward but there were some other important States making big moves during the 17th century today we're going to focus on two of them Russia which sought stability after a time of troubles and the house of Brandenburg Prussia a small state that within two c CES would grow to become extraordinarily [Music] powerful in the huge

Russian Empire Zar Peter I first became an outsized Monarch literally he was 6' 9 in tall which is uh like 3 m yeah just say with authority green he was 3 m tall don't write that on your tests now early in Peter's life his future didn't look particular promising he was born in 1672 and he was not first in line to the Russian Throne his half-sister Sophia was ruling Russia at the time as Regent for the young Romanov Brothers of whom Peter was the youngest Sophia wanted to become the permanent ruler but Peter and his

supporters had other ideas at the time many interest groups in Russia helped shape who ended up with political power including the Orthodox Church the Army the aristocracy and Wealthy Trader and as Peter and his brothers came of age these groups negotiated to arrive at a consensus candidate for Zar and then the Russian people had to seal the deal so to speak via public demonstrations of Acclaim and approval which developed the sacred trust between the ruler and the ruled in short political power in this monarchy was not as simple as the Zar has all of it

and Peter only became Zar with the help of his advisers and the support of powerful interest groups in Russia he became an autocratic ruler but the autocracy was intertwined with widespread if certainly not Universal public support from the Russian people what I'm getting at is that the relationship between the government and the Govern is always complex and the example of the Russian monarchy is important partly because it helps us to see that even absolutist governments could only retain their power by having support from outside institutions and individuals now Peter tackled every facet of State Building

he reorganized both the military and the nobility and in doing so also reorganized who had political power and how they could wield it for the nobility he created a precise table of ranks with each promotion to a higher rank depending on the Aristocrat performing service to the state this reform aimed to end older political practices based on networking and nepotism and favoritism and instead make the aristocracy more of a meritocracy Peter also eliminated the power of the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church by leaving the post vacant and setting up a council or Senate of

lay people as overseers headed of course by the Zar Peter was also curious and adventurous he liked to Tinker and build focusing on clocks and Military machinery and the deployment of his toy soldiers and he was fascinated by Western Europe in fact he set off in 1697 to see what western rulers were up to the Dutch in particular attract him you may remember that they were advanced in Canal building and Fire Control and architecture and urban lighting and also had lots of money from Trading and having seen all these Enterprises in action Peter returned from

Western Europe full of determination to modernize and westernize Russia while Peter was still in Western Europe in the spring of 1698 the sty a band of infantry Men first initiated by Ivan the Terrible awesome rose up against the bad conditions that they faced they had hopes of Reviving the administration of the Regent Sophia who at the time was imprisoned Peter ordered them crushed and when he returned to Russia in August of 1698 he had hundreds of the stry tortured exiled or executed The Purge of the stry actually helped clear the way for the modern fighting

force that Peter envisioned a major Innovation was giving Russia a standing army that ultimately included some 200,000 recruits which was a massive number for Europe at the time and Syria training of that Army as well as modernization of Weaponry ultimately paid off when it came to battling Sweden at first during an early Battle of the Great Northern war the ambitious and land-hungry ruler of Sweden Charles I 12th defeated Russian forces at narva in 1700 hold on a second Sweden had 12 Kings named Charles history never ceases to surprise my friends right so Swedish Charles I

12th also defeated Poland in the war but then Peter fortified his army even more and formed an important Alliance he built a coalition of Denmark and Poland that ultimately conquered Sweden in 1721 and ended its Continental influence as a result of this Victory Russia obtained Sweden's Continental territory including Estonia and lvia Sweden had gone from being a rescuer in the 30 Years War to being almost entirely stuck in Scandinavia where they would go on to engage in fewer Wars and instead build a state with among the world's lowest poverty rates and highest life expectancy the

fools all right back to Russia let's go to the thought bubble during these years Peter was also building a European style City with an outlet to the Baltic called you'll never guess it St Petersburg tens of thousands of surfs were commandeered from Aristocrats workforces to build the new city at a great cost in lives the marshy site needed to be entirely reclaimed through the building of canals you'll remember Peter's admiration for Amsterdam and he ordered museums and libraries and universities and stately government buildings to Adorn the city his aristocratic subjects were ordered to build lavish

houses and to hold social events like dances Peter also saw the city as the backdrop for the reform of women's role in society they were to leave seclusion and appear at public events Peter decreed the end to veiling for women and an end to dresses or c for Boyers that is men in the old aristocracy further reforms aim to develop his middle and upper class subjects as modern thinkers especially in math and the Sciences to remain in the aristocratic ranks for instance Sons had to study math science or Engineering also requirements for serving as officers

in the military Peter founded schools including military schools to teach these subjects and additional schools to teach women reading and writing and other skills and unlike earlier Russian rulers Peter embraced foreigners not just their Canal building and lamp lighting but also Their Manners and fashion thanks th bubbles so Peter also ended the practice of men wearing beards did the center of the world just open they weren't easy to see back there but it's Stan's favorite joke the old stick on mustache movie Magic how do I look Stan you would say that I once tried to

uh do this in uh when I was shaving my beard and I came downstairs to show my wife and she said and I'm going to quote her directly no so in Peter's Russia you had to shave your beard so that you could be like a modern proper European person but just as in Elizabeth I and Henry VII's England you could pay a tax to keep your beard and listen I don't like to get political on this show but if we reinstituted that tax the cities of New York and Portland would pay for health care for

everyone so despite his move toward the rational and refined and clean shaven Peter himself could be rough crude heartless and violent that is the complete opposite of the kind of Citizen he wanted to populate his kingdom and that is a lesson we keep learning over and over in history Paradox Is Not Unusual as for surfs their lives became more difficult as new regulations meant to attract aristocratic loyalty gave them fewer rights surfs were stripped of the right to move from the noble estate where they worked most lived precarious lives and were subjected to landowners brutality

they had little recourse to protect themselves from abuse and were forced to work in extremely difficult conditions most surfs did manual or agricultural labor but some became highly skilled Artisans to embellish life for the upper classes creating intricate Cabinetry or music or paintings some noble families even rented out their artist surfs or sent them touring to bring in funds with their accomplishments these traveling surfs helped connect far-flung Russians to one another through paintings of distant cities or Landscapes or notable people for example and peasant song also eventually found its way into Russian classical music as

it developed in the 19th century but to be clear Peter's modernization did not mean increased protection or power for the most vulnerable which raises a question does modernization generally result in protection or power for the most vulnerable should it and can we even generalize about what it means to be modern when there is so much variety just on this one continent or arguably subcontinent so the time of Zar Peter had massively different effects depending on where you stood some people were learning more about science or art than they'd ever been able to before others were

bound to land or lost their lives in the construction of St Petersburg history is not just about what happened but also about where you sit are you a Boyer son learning new mathematical discoveries or a peasant born to a fate of hard labor you can never escape the other Rising Eastern Kingdom during this time was the house of Brandenburg Prussia a bird with an arm Stan informs me that Brandenburg Prussia was actually headed by the hoen Allen Family it grew over the centuries from a tiny holding to an extensive Kingdom albe at one that was

initially landlocked okay so I'm going to need you to brace yourselves because many Fredericks are coming it's going to be a little confusing but we will get through this together the first one to know about is the great elector Frederick William who was one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire he worked to keep his territories together in the closing days of the 30 Years War and to protect them from Attack by Sweden in the 1650s but as Sweden started to weaken Poland gave its dependent Prussia the status of kingdom and the title

of king of that new kingdom went to the aformentioned great elector Frederick William and then later to his son Frederick III at that point Frederick III became known as king Frederick I of Prussia because you know it wasn't already confusing enough anyway as a ruler Frederick the was something of a Ur of all the fine things that were coming to characterize increasingly affluent and worldly European monarchs while his son King Frederick William I I wish I was kidding was quite the opposite the hoen Allen Kings who like the Roman offs of Russia ruled into the

20th century created very strong institutions beginning with the great elector Frederick William in the 17th century the military was especially important to prussia's survival and growth he understood that brandenberg Russia's lack of natural boundaries made it really vulnerable to those wanting to expand their territory which in the 17th century was everyone so State Building in Prussia involved fortifying its borders a strong military isn't the only way to stabilize power but it certainly is a way Additionally the great elector Frederick William weakened the representative bodies or Estates General through which the nobility had its say in

the kingdoms running but to make up for it the monarchs allowed the nobility to intensify their grip on peasant lives very similar to what happened in Russia that by the way is called reinu which means additional regulations that tighten surf obligations to their Lords it happened often and in many places monarchs would give noble families greater power over ordinary people's labor in exchange for the Nobles giving greater service to the Kingdom's military and administration the strategy of power consolidation by the way still happens the most most powerful plate the less powerful by giving them control

over the least powerful the great elector grandson King Frederick William the first made the Prussian Army the most modern in Europe he created a branch of government called the general directory that oversaw the operation of the Kingdom to the benefit of the army raising taxes and recruiting administrators and soldiers and Frederick William I first sought a certain kind of recruit specifically giant soldiers at least 6 feet in height from all across Europe he saw sold off his father's more luxurious possessions such as silver and works of art to boost military strength even more Prussia was

called a large army with a small state attached kind of like Russia today he's back isn't he he's just he's very subtle but I can I can feel his presence one of the weirdnesses of building a state or an Empire is that in order for it to work you must convince both those outside of your borders and those within them that your state is really real and also really powerful states do this partly through treaties partly through State Building exercises like national anthems and National histories and partly by building structures within the state armies government

apparatuses Statewide laws that strengthen the state and make it less vulnerable to attack and the rising monarchies of Russia and Prussia were very effective at State Building which would allow them to shape the future of Europe as a whole and also Aid in the final demise of Poland Lithuania over the 18th century Poland Lithuania failed in part because its constitutional system failed the nobility wield and deal instead of fortifying government institutions like Russia and Prussia had and because of the ways Prussia and Russia organized political power that wasn't as much of a problem In Their

Kingdoms there were problems of course which would eventually prove catastrophic and we'll get there eventually but first things are about to get a bit brighter around here because next time we get to turn our ATT attention to the enlightenment thanks for watching I'll see you then crash course is filmed here in the Jaden Smith studio in Indianapolis if you'd like some other crash courses we've got lots of them in everything from chemistry to literature special thanks to all our patrons at patreon.com/crashcourse for making all of this possible and to everybody who works on the show

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