Expansion and Foreign Policy
The navy and the standing army had deteriorated severely in the decade after Peter’s death, but they nonetheless remained a powerful force and consumed most of the state’s revenues—approximately 70 to 90 per cent in any given year during the eighteenth century. Russia concentrated most of its forces along the southern waterways and the borders of the Ottoman Empire, but major resources had to be diverted to deal with other conflicts—for example, those that ended in the defeat of Sweden (1743) and the annexation of the Crimean peninsula (1783).
Of particular import was Russia’s involvement in the Seven Years War (1755–62). Initially, Russia interceded as an ally of Austria and France against Prussia; despite the expense and losses, the campaigns were advancing successfully and, during the final months of Elizabeth’s reign, Russian troops were making steady progress towards Berlin. Peter III, however, suddenly terminated Russia’s participation (whether from blind admiration for things Prussian or from an awareness that the state coffers were empty) and switched sides, to the outrage of his erstwhile allies. Catherine initially repudiated this volte-face in policy, but in a few years took a similar tack—chiefly because the new alignment (including Austria as well as Prussia) provided the only way to secure Russia’s growing interest in Poland.
Prior to the outbreak of war with revolutionary France in the 1790s, however, Russia’s foreign policy focused primarily on the Black Sea. The old chestnut of a primeval Russian ‘urge to the sea’ has long since faded into well-deserved oblivion, but the Black Sea did affect vital national interests—as an outlet to international waters and especially international markets. Although Peter the Great gained a foothold on the Baltic (through the acquisition of Livland and Estonia in 1721), he had had much less success against the Ottoman Empire, leaving the Black Sea out of reach. Thus the strategic waterways that connected the Black Sea with the eastern Mediterranean still traversed territories under Ottoman control. Obviously, any attempt to satisfy these territorial ambitions meant long-term enmity between the Ottoman and Russian Empires. But Catherine did nourish such far-reaching ambitions; at one point, she embraced the vision of southern dominion articulated by her favourite, Prince Grigorii Potemkin, and even spoke of ‘liberating’ Constantinople in the 1780s and making it her new capital.
Fortunately for Russia, however, cooler heads prevailed. Turkish miscalculations helped: when the Grand Vizier declared war on Russia in 1768, he assumed that other European powers would come to his aid. When this assistance failed to materialize and the Porte was left to face Russia on its own, the two powers waged a bloody and exhausting war for six full years. In the end, Russia prevailed and forced the Ottomans to sue for peace at the village of Kuchuk Kainarji on 10 July 1774. The treaty forced Turkey to cede Azov and a small strip of land on the Black Sea to Russia, to recognize the independence of the Crimean peninsula, and to grant passage to Russian merchant ships (but not warships) through the Dardanelle straits. It also empowered Russia to construct a Black Sea war fleet, a concession that greatly enhanced its military firepower on the southern border. The treaty also authorized the Russian ambassador to make representations on behalf of a newly established Orthodox Church in Constantinople, a somewhat vague concession, but one that would loom large in nineteenth-century diplomacy.
Given this sea access to the West both on the Baltic and in the Black Sea, Russian interest in the three partitions of Poland had little to do with sea-power. Rather, it was a reaction to the precipitous decline of a major power, where the domestic political order had been so subverted by external influence that it ceased to be a viable independent state. The decline invited the first partition—by Russia, Prussia, and Austria—in July 1772: Russia obtained mainly what is now Belarus, while Austria and Prussia annexed Galicia and West Prussia respectively, effectively denying sea access for the rump Polish state. The catalyst for the second partition (by Russia and Prussia in January 1793) was a Polish constitution of 1791, which created a hereditary (as opposed to the traditionally elected) Polish monarchy, established an elected legislature, and abolished the liberum veto that had been so destabilizing. After this partition ignited a Polish uprising (led by the hero of the American War of Independence, Tadeusz Kosciuszko), Russia and its allies signed a new series of agreements in 1795 that expunged Poland from the map of Europe.
Population and Social Order
The Russian Empire experienced enormous growth not only in territory, but also in population during the eighteenth century. Natural growth alone accounted for much of this growth—from about ten or eleven million inhabitants in 1700 to about twenty-eight million by the end of the century. The annexation of new territories added greatly to this amount, increasing the total population to over forty million in the 1790s. It was, moreover, an overwhelmingly rural empire: although some estimates run higher, the government’s own censuses consistently show that over 90 per cent of the population belonged to the peasantry and still more lived in rural areas.
These subjects bore multiple identities. All belonged to a specific legal estate (noble, serf, state, peasant, and numerous lesser ones); virtually everyone (the élite excepted) was also attached to a specific location. These social categories, in turn, belonged to one of two large aggregate categories—the podatnye (those disprivileged groups liable for the poll-tax) and the nepodatnye (those exempt). Much more was at stake than the poll-tax: registration in the poll-tax population carried onerous obligations like conscription and corporal punishment that, taken together, formed the great divide in the social order. Women were identified, if at all, by the standing of their fathers or husbands. These identities proliferated unsystematically during the eighteenth century, often leaving little correlation between legal status, wealth, and occupation. Many nobles had neither land nor serfs; most ‘merchants’ neither traded nor produced commodities; and most ‘traders’, juridically were not merchants.
Indicative of the incongruity between juridical status and human activity was the special category of raznochintsy, which literally designated people who fitted none of the accepted ranks or grades. The state employed the category in so many mutually exclusive ways that it was virtually devoid of any coherent meaning; the status, which few voluntarily espoused, was essentially an ad hoc juridical trope that the state invoked when its usual categories, themselves highly artificial, were found to be wanting or inappropriate. In the end, the categories that the state used to classify its population were overlapping, contradictory, often incoherent. Still, these juridical categories provide a useful (if crude) map to the social order, helping to identify groups in terms of their relative rights and obligations.
Townspeople and Merchants
Russia’s urban population was, as already suggested, exceedingly small—some 3 per cent according to the official census of the 1760s, slightly more by the end of the century. The overwhelming majority of urban residents belonged to the legal status of townspeople (meshchane), inscribed in the poll-tax (1.24 roubles—almost twice that of peasants) and liable for the attendant disabilities—most notably, conscription and corporal punishment. The term ‘townsman’ itself was misleading; although many engaged in artisan crafts or petty trades, they also supported themselves through agriculture by tilling garden plots, tending orchards, and raising various kinds of livestock.