1.October 20, 1714, a decree of Peter I was issued, prohibiting the construction of stone buildings throughout the country, except for St. Petersburg. We remembered what else the great reformer tsar had forbidden and how this affected the appearance of the country.
NIKOLAI DOBROVOLSKY - The city will be founded here.
The ban on stone construction was in effect until 1741. It was not a whim, but a passionate desire to make Petersburg a real European city. There was a catastrophic shortage of experienced bricklayers, which gave rise to an ingenious plan to prohibit these masters from working anywhere except in St. Petersburg.
Peter the First. Artist Valentin Serov.
But besides the craftsmen, they also needed a stone, and there were too many brick factories throughout the country. Therefore, cunning builders figured out to build wooden houses, apply a thin layer of clay to the walls, plaster it and paint bricks. When driving fast, it was almost impossible to distinguish a fake, so the king was pleased with the pace of construction.
Khudoyarov Vasily Pavlovich - Emperor Peter I at work.
2. The decree “On not making oak coffins” strictly prescribed that “no one should be buried in oak coffins anywhere”. Coffins-logs in those days were hollowed out of whole oak. Peter first imposed a heavy duty on the hollowed-out coffins, and then completely forbade their manufacture.
Here is what the well-known pre-revolutionary historian NI Kostomarov wrote about this: "All over the state it was ordered to rewrite oak coffins, take them away from the undertakers, take them to monasteries and to the priest's elders and sell them four times against the purchase price." It was forbidden to cut not only oaks, but also ship pine forests. This contributed to the development of sawmills and the construction of one of the most powerful fleets in the world.
ANTROPOV Alexey - Portrait of Peter I
3. Peter I "abolished" 5508 years, changing the tradition of chronology: instead of counting the years "from the creation of Adam" in Russia, they began to count the years "from the birth of Christ." The country became closer to Europe: the Julian calendar began to apply, and the New Year was celebrated on January 1. To further accelerate the turn towards Europe, Peter also forbade the use of old numbers - letters slavic alphabet with titles - and introduced modern Arabic numerals instead. The style of letters was simplified, secular books now relied on their own type - civil, which contributed to the development of typography and the growth of the popularity of reading.
STANISLAV KHLEBOVSKY - Assembly under Peter I.
4. Increased freedom and young people who want to get married. As many as three decrees banned the forced extradition of a girl in marriage. But it became obligatory to separate in time the engagement and the wedding, so that the bride and groom "could recognize each other." And although the landowners for a long time repaired the tyranny of the serfs, marrying and giving them in marriage at their discretion, it was purely illegal, and if such cases nevertheless reached the "all-seeing eye" of power, punishment could follow.
Peter The Great. Artist Mardefelt, Gustaff B.
5. Lovers of Russian antiquity call one of the most terrible acts of Peter the decree prohibiting the cultivation of amaranth and the use of amaranth bread, which used to be the main food of the Russian people. Judging by the etymology, amrita is the nectar of immortality, the Incas and Aztecs considered amaranth sacred, therefore the "devil's plant" was actively destroyed by the Spanish conquerors in South America - and here is Peter in his native country. According to legend, the elders lived in Russia for a very long time - even the figure of 300 years is mentioned. Those who believe in these reports accuse Peter of destroying the longevity of Russians with his ban.
Jan Kupetsky - Peter the Great.
3 ancient customs that disappeared forever with the beginning of the reforms of Peter I
Belli A. - Portrait of Peter I
On August 29, 1698, Tsar Peter I, returning from Europe, signed a decree on shaving beards and wearing "European dress" for his subjects. With this decision of the young tsar, a real revolution began in Russia, cultural and mental - the era of Peter.
Veniks Jan - Portrait of Peter I
1) "Less baseness, more zeal for service and loyalty to me and the state" In pre-Petrine Russia, in any official address, the petitioner was necessarily called the so-called half-name and some other expressions, wild for the European Peter (Stenka, Emelka, "beats with his forehead" , and the like), which were considered frankly humiliating, because they appeared relatively recently. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, such a wild practice was introduced only thanks to his despotic, perverse narcissism and passion to assert himself at the expense of humiliating everyone around him.
L. Karavak - Peter I in the Battle of Poltava
In 1701, Peter decided once and for all to break with the Asiaticism of Muscovite Rus and, together with the abolition of the shameful half-names, canceled the prostration before the sovereign and the removal of the cap in the winter in front of the room where the august person is. Peter rightly despised the Eastern groveling before any superiors and loved the healthy simplicity of the protocol.
Ge Nikolai Nikolaevich - Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei.
2) "In the summer, seven thousand ..." With a calendar in Ancient Rus In general, everything was very complicated - simultaneously with the Byzantine Orthodox chronology "from Adam" and the New Year in September, which coincided with the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the ancient pagan "New Year" was practiced in March, and not one, but two - the usual and Ultramart.
NIKOLAI SAUERWEID - Peter I pacifies his fierce soldiers during the capture of Narva in 1704.
All this confusion with styles and calendars, the new young tsar also decided to solve one swoop. New, 7208th year from the Beginning of the World, became 1700th from the birth of Christ, as in Western Europe. Nevertheless, the universally introduced Gregorian calendar was decisively rejected by Peter, and the Julian calendar existed in Russia until the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia.
NATIE Jean Marc - Portrait of Peter I in knightly armor
3) “If the bride does not want to marry the groom, then there is freedom” Peter I was one of the first, so to speak, feminists in the history of Russia and an ardent champion of women's rights. Not only purely public, but also political, because the 18th century is not only the era of Peter, but also the age of empresses.
But none of the transformations in the cultural, public sphere was given to Peter as hard as the struggle for the rights of women. The attitude towards the weaker sex in Ancient Rus and the Muscovy was weighed down by the Mongol-Tatar influence and the breath of Islam from the Middle East and Central Asia, with which Russia had much more contacts before Peter than with European countries.
P.S. Drozhdin - Portrait of Peter I.
Nevertheless, after the reign of Peter, the woman left the tower forever and began to participate in festivities and celebrations, to which only men were allowed before. In the villages, a number of Peter's decrees banned the ancient practice of "blind weddings", when the bride and groom first saw a friend's friend right in front of the altar. Surprisingly, the sinner Peter, who himself did not hide his weakness, was for marriage for love, not for convenience.
Mikhail Prokhorov next to the statue of Peter the Great in the Pushkinskaya 10 Art Center
In Russia in the 18th century. along with the strengthening and formation of the estate system, profound changes are taking place in economic and social development, affecting all sides national economy and the social image of the country. These changes were based on the disintegration of feudalism and the genesis of capitalist relations, which began in the 17th century. The culmination of this process was, of course, the era of Peter the Great (1672-1725), the reformer king. Peter I correctly understood and realized the complexity of the tasks facing the country, and began purposefully to implement them.
Absolutism and state structure
Peter 1, absolutism was finally established in Russia, Peter was proclaimed emperor, which meant the strengthening of the power of the tsar himself, he became an autocratic and unlimited monarch.
In Russia, a reform of the state apparatus was carried out - instead of the Boyar Duma, a Senate was established, which included nine dignitaries closest to Peter I. The Senate was the legislative body, controlled the country's finances and the activities of the administration. At the head of the Senate was the Attorney General.
The reform of public administration also affected the system of orders - they were replaced by collegia, the number of which reached 12. Each collegium was in charge of a certain branch of management: foreign relations were controlled by the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, the fleet - by the Admiralty, collection of revenues - by the Chamber Collegium, noble land tenure - by Votchinnaya, etc. ... The cities were in charge of the Chief Magistrate.
During this period, the struggle continued between the supreme and secular authorities and the church. In 1721, the Spiritual Collegium, or Synod, was established, which testified to the complete subordination of the church to the state. In Russia, the post of patriarch was abolished, the supervision of the church was entrusted to the chief prosecutor of the Synod.
The system of local government was reorganized - the country was divided in 1708 into eight provinces (Moscow, Petersburg, Kiev, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, Kazan, Azov and Siberian), headed by governors, which were in charge of the troops. Since the territories of the provinces were huge, they were subdivided into 50 provinces. In turn, the provinces were divided into counties.
These measures testified to the creation in Russia of a unified administrative and bureaucratic management system - an indispensable attribute of an absolutist state. "The reforms of Peter I affected the army and the navy. Since 1705, recruitment has been introduced in the country, and the standard for setting a soldier for life service has been established - one recruit from 20 peasant households. Thus, the army was created with a single principle of manning, with uniform weapons and uniforms. new military regulations, officers' schools were organized, artillery pieces were supplied to the army, many ships were built. Baltic Fleet had more than 30 battleships, 16 frigates and over 400 other ships. Under Peter I, the Russian army and navy became one of the strongest in Europe.
An important result and legislative consolidation of all of Peter's reform activities was the Table of Ranks (1722), which was a law on the procedure for public service. The adoption of this law meant a break with the previous patriarchal tradition of government, embodied in parochialism. Having established the order of rank production in the military and civil service, not according to nobility, but according to personal abilities and merits, the Table of Ranks contributed to the consolidation of the nobility and the expansion of its composition at the expense of persons loyal to the king from different strata of the population.
Manufacturing development
A characteristic feature of Russia's economic development was the decisive role of the autocratic state in the economy, its active and deep penetration into all spheres of economic life. Institutions of state regulation of the national economy, bodies for the implementation of the trade and industrial policy of the autocracy, founded by Peter I, Berg-, Manufaktur-, Commerz-colleges- and Chief Magistrate. There are two stages in industrial policy: 1700-1717. - the main founder of manufactories - the treasury; from 1717 private individuals began to establish manufactories. At the same time, the owners of manufactories were exempted from the sovereign service.
At the first stage, priority was given to the production of products for military needs. At the second stage, the industry began to produce products for the population.
By a decree of 1722, urban artisans were united into workshops, but unlike Western Europe, they were organized by the state, and not by the artisans themselves, to make products needed by the army and navy. "
Manufacturing was a higher form of industrial production. As a result of the transformations of Peter I in the first quarter of the 18th century. in the development of the manufacturing industry there was a sharp leap. Compared to the end of the 17th century. the number of manufactories increased approximately fivefold and in 1725 amounted to 205 enterprises.
Especially great successes were achieved in the metallurgical industry, which was caused by the need to arm the army and build a fleet. Along with factories in old districts (Tula, Kashira, Kaluga), factories arose in Karelia, and then in the Urals. It was during this period that the wide development of the iron and copper ores of the Urals began, which soon became the main metallurgical base of the country. Pig iron smelting reached 815 thousand poods per year, according to this indicator, Rorsia took the third place in the world, behind only England and Sweden. Large-scale copper production was organized. In second place were textile factories that developed in the center of the country. There were also tanneries operating here, providing products primarily to the army.
Under Peter I, new industries emerged in Russia: shipbuilding, silk spinning, glass and faience, and paper production.
The state played an important role in the development of large-scale industry. It built factories, helped private entrepreneurs, and provided manufactories with labor.
The manufactories used both free-hired and forced labor of peasants who worked in the patrimonial enterprises of their landowners, as well as peasants from the state and palace villages. By a decree of 1721, merchants were allowed to purchase serfs for their factories, which later became known as possessory peasants. Thus, in the first quarter of the 18th century. there was a leap in the development of large-scale production and in the use of hired labor. This can be considered the second stage in the initial period of the genesis of capitalist relations in the industry of Russia (the first stage - the 17th century).
Trade
During the reign of Peter I, domestic and foreign trade received incentives to develop. This was facilitated by the development of industrial and handicraft production, the conquest of access to the Baltic Sea, and the improvement of communication lines. During this period, canals were built that connected the Volga and Neva (Vyshnevolotsky and Ladoga). Exchange between different parts of the country increased, the turnover of Russian fairs (Makaryevskaya, Irbitskaya, Svenskaya, etc.) grew, which manifested the formation of an all-Russian market.
For the development of foreign trade, not only the construction of the St. Petersburg port was of great importance, but also the support of Russian merchants and industrialists from the government of Peter I. This was reflected in the policy of protectionism and mercantilism, in the adoption of the Patronage tariff of 1724. the emperor himself took part in its development), the export of Russian goods abroad was encouraged and the import of foreign products was limited. Most foreign goods were subject to a very high duty, up to 75% of the value of the goods. Income from trade contributed to the accumulation of capital in trade, which also led to the growth of capitalist way of life. Common feature development of trade consisted in pursuing a policy of mercantilism, the essence of which was the accumulation of money through an active trade balance. The state actively intervened in the development of trade:
monopolies were introduced for the procurement and sale of certain goods: salt, flax, yuft, hemp, tobacco, bread, bacon, wax, etc.,
Monetary reform
which led to an increase in prices for these goods within the country and the restriction of the activities of Russian merchants;
quite often the sale of a certain commodity, on which a state monopoly was introduced, was transferred to a specific tax farmer for the payment of a large sum of money;
direct taxes (customs, drinking fees) and the like were sharply increased;
the forced resettlement of merchants to St. Petersburg, which was at that time an uncomfortable border town, was practiced.
The practice of administrative regulation of cargo flows was applied, i.e. it was determined in which port and what to trade. The gross interference of the state in the sphere of trade led to the destruction of the shaky foundation on which the well-being of merchants, primarily loan and usurious capital, was based.
In conditions when there was a significant expansion of industrial production, the turnover of domestic and foreign trade increased, it was necessary to reform monetary system... It took shape in the 17th century. and now, in the era of Peter's reforms, it has ceased to correspond to the interests of economic development. For wholesale trade and foreign trade operations, the silver kopeck in circulation turned out to be too small a monetary unit. At the same time, for small market trading, it was unnecessarily valuable. Therefore, Peter 1 carried out a reform of the coin business. It provided for the minting of gold, silver and copper coins. The monetary system was based on the decimal principle: ruble, dime, kopeck. The main units of the new monetary system were the copper penny and the silver ruble, which, to facilitate foreign trade settlements, was equated by weight to the thaler used as a monetary unit in a number of European countries. Coin minting became a monopoly of the state.
A notable phenomenon in the history of agriculture in the 18th century. became the process of territorial division of labor, which began back in 17th century... Basically, the formation of regions specialized in the production of certain agricultural products was completed, their trade orientation was more clearly defined. In agriculture, the production of cereals and industrial crops prevailed, among which flax and hemp took the leading place.
Social politics
In the field of social policy, Peter's legislation followed, in principle, the general trend that was outlined in the 18th century. The attachment of peasants to the land, fixed by the Code of 1649, at that time not only did not change, but also received further development... This is evidenced by the introduction new system registration of the population and taxation, carried out in order to increase the efficiency of control over the collection of taxes from the population. The state, seeking to identify each individual taxpayer, introduced a new taxation principle - the poll tax. Taxes began to be collected now not from the courtyard, but from the auditor's soul. "In 1718-1724, a census of the entire taxable population was carried out, and all those included in the lists had to pay a certain poll tax per year. The introduction of the poll tax led to several important consequences:
consolidate existing social structures, strengthening the power of the landowners over the peasants and, in addition, extending the tax burden to new groups of the population.
Another major initiative in the field of state regulation of social relations was the attempt of Peter I to stabilize the ruling class economically and politically. In this regard, an important role was played by the Decree on the order of inheritance of movable and immovable property of March 23, 1714, known as the decree on the entitlement. Under the new law, all land holdings of a nobleman were to be inherited only to one eldest son or daughter, and in their absence, to one of the family members. In a long historical perspective, Peter's decree would have kept large land holdings indivisible, would have prevented their fragmentation. However, the Russian nobility greeted him extremely hostilely. The decree on the primacy, despite repeated reminders and threats, was never implemented, and in subsequent reigns was canceled. The history of this legislative provision clearly shows the limits and possibilities of state intervention in the rationalization of social relations, the regulation of the ruling class.
At the same time, it was of great importance, since from that moment on the noble estate was equalized in rights with the boyar's estate, there were no differences between them - the estate, like the estate, became inherited. This decree marked the merger of the two estates of feudal lords into a single class. From that time on, secular feudal lords began to be called nobles.
1 Revision soul is a male person regardless of age.
If the Code of 1649 formalized serfdom for the bulk of the rural population, then the tax reform extended serfdom to strata of the population that were either free (walking people) or had the opportunity to gain freedom after the death of their master (slaves). Both those and others forever became serfs.
The results of the census conducted by Peter give an idea of \u200b\u200bthe population of Russia - it was 15.5 million people, of which 5.4 million were men, from whom the tax was charged.
Increased tax oppression led to a massive exodus of peasants. In 1724, Peter issued a decree forbidding peasants to leave the landlords to earn money without written permission. This was the beginning of the passport system in Russia.
11.2 Socio-economic development of Russia in the second half of the XVIII century.
The first years after the death of Peter
These years were characterized by political backlash and deterioration economic situation Russia. Frequent palace coups, conspiracies, the dominance of foreigners, squandering of the court, favoritism, due to which the wealth of individual upstarts was formed, rapid changes in foreign policy, along with the strengthening of serfdom and the ruin of the working masses, had a negative impact on the pace of economic development in Russia.
The general situation changes in the second half of the 18th century. during the reign of [Elizabeth Petrovna (1709-1761 / 62) and especially Catherine II (1729-1796).
Agriculture
Agriculture remained the leading branch of the Russian economy.
Feudal-serf relations spread both in breadth and in depth. They covered new territories and new categories of the population. The main way of development of this industry is extensive, through the development of new areas.
The expansion of serfdom can be judged by the establishment of serfdom in 1783 in the Left-Bank Ukraine, in 1796 - in the south of Ukraine, in the Crimea and Ciscaucasia. After Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine became part of Russia, the serfdom system was preserved there. Part of the land was distributed to Russian landowners. In 1755, factory workers were assigned as permanent workers at the Ural factories.
The situation of the serfs worsened - in 1765 the landowners received permission to exile their peasants to Siberia to hard labor, and without trial or investigation. The peasants could be sold, lost at cards. In case of recognition of the peasants in the beginning) excitement, they themselves had to pay the costs associated with the suppression of their actions - such a measure was provided for by the decree of 1763. In 1767. a decree was issued prohibiting the complaints of peasants to the empress against their landowners.
From the point of view of the use of various forms of exploitation during this period, two large regions developed: on the black earth and southern lands, the leading form of rent became labor (corvee), in areas with infertile soil - monetary rent. By the end of the 18th century. in the chernozem provinces, the month became widespread, which meant depriving the peasant of his land allotment and receiving him meager wages for his labor.
At the same time, more and more signs of the disintegration of feudal production relations appeared. This is evidenced by the attempts of individual landowners to use technical devices, introduce multi-field crop rotations, grow new crops and even build manufactures - all this led to an increase in the marketability of the economy, although serfdom remained its basis.
Industry
In the second half of the 18th century, industry was further developed. Elizaveta Petrovna and Catherine II continued the policy pursued by Peter I to encourage the development of domestic industry and Russian trade.
IN mid XVIII in. the first cotton factories appeared in Russia, owned by merchants, and a little later - by rich peasants. By the end of the century, their number had reached 200. Moscow was gradually becoming a major center of the textile industry.
Of great importance for the development of domestic industrial production was the publication in 1775 of Catherine II's manifesto on the free establishment of industrial enterprises by representatives of all strata of society at that time. The manifesto removed many restrictions on the creation of industrial enterprises and allowed "everyone and everyone to start all kinds of camps." Speaking modern language, in Russia, the freedom of entrepreneurship was introduced. In addition, Catherine II canceled fees in a number of industries from small industries. The adoption of the manifesto was a form of encouraging the nobility and adapting it to new economic conditions. At the same time, these measures reflected the growth of the capitalist structure in the country.
By the end of the 18th century. more than 2 thousand industrial enterprises operated in the country, some of them were very large, with more than 1200 workers.
In heavy industry at that time, the Ural mining and metallurgical region was in first place in terms of the main indicators.
The leading position was still occupied by the metallurgical industry. Its development was based on the needs of both the internal and external markets. Russian metallurgy at that time took leading positions in Europe and the world. It was distinguished by a high technical level, the Ural blast furnaces were more productive than Western European ones. As a result of the successful development of domestic metallurgy, Russia was one of the world's largest iron exporters.
In 1770, the country was already producing 5.1 million poods of pig iron, and in England - about 2 million poods. In the last years of the XVIII century. smelting of pig iron in Russia reached 10 million poods.
The South Urals became the center of copper production. In the middle of the 18th century. the first gold-mining enterprises were founded in the Urals.
Other industries, including glass, leather, and paper, were further developed.
Industrial development took place in two main forms - small-scale production and large-scale manufacturing. The main trend in the development of small-scale commodity production was its gradual growth into enterprises such as cooperatives and manufactures.
On the principles of cooperation, work was organized on water transport, which played a large role in the economic life of the country. At the end of the 18th century, at least 10 thousand ships were used on the rivers of the European part of Russia alone. Cooperation was also widely used in fisheries.
Thus, in the development of industry in Russia in the XVIII century. there was a real leap. Compared to the end of the 17th century. in all branches of industrial production, the number of large enterprises of the manufacturing type and the volume of their production increased many times, although at the end of the 18th century. the pace of development of Russian metallurgy in comparison with the British declined, since the industrial revolution began in England. i
Along with quantitative changes, important socio-economic changes took place in Russian industry: the number of civilian labor and capitalist manufactories increased.
Among the branches of industry that used free-hired labor, one should name the enterprises of the textile industry, where the migrant peasants worked. As serfs, they earned the necessary amount (quitrent) to pay their landlord. In this case, the relations of free employment, which entered the breeder and the serf, were capitalist production relations.
Since 1762, it was forbidden to buy serfs to factories, and their assignment to enterprises ceased. Manufactories founded after this year by persons of non-noble origin used exclusively hired labor. "
In 1775, a decree was issued allowing peasant industry, which stimulated the development of production, attracted an increase in the number of merchant and peasant breeders.
It can be stated that at the end of the 18th century. in Russia, the process of the formation of capitalist production relations became irreversible, although serfdom prevailed in the economy, which had a tremendous impact on the forms, paths and rates of development of capitalism and ultimately determined from the end of the 18th century. Russia's economic lag behind other European countries.
Domestic and foreign policy
Internal consolidation of the Russian Empire in the 18th century. contributed to the rapid development of ties between its regions, the formation of an all-Russian market. The total turnover of Russia's foreign trade increased from 14 million rubles a year in the 50s to 110 million rubles in the 90s of the 18th century. The specialization of economic activity in the regions deepened, which strengthened the exchange. At numerous auctions and fairs, bread from the Black Earth Center and Ukraine was sold. Wool, leather, fish came from the Volga region. The Urals supplied iron; Non-black earth regions were famous for their handicraft products; The North traded in salt and fish; The Novgorod and Smolensk lands supplied flax and hemp; Siberia and the North - furs.
An important role for the development of the all-Russian market was played by the abolition of internal customs duties in 1754. This decree was adopted in the interests of both the merchants and the nobility, since both were actively involved in trade operations. At the same time, the internal customs line between Russia and Ukraine was abolished, a number of other industrial and trade restrictions, as well as the monopoly on silk and chintz, were removed.
The development of trade was facilitated by the improvement of roads, the construction of canals, and the development of shipping. The role of the commercial bourgeoisie has increased. New trade points arose, the number of fairs, bazaars, and marketplaces increased. The number of merchants grew. In 1775, the merchants were exempted from the poll tax and imposed a guild duty in the amount of 1% of the declared capital. The merchants received the right to participate in the local court.
In the second half of the 18th century. in connection with the abolition of the protectionist tariff of Peter the Great, Russia's foreign trade turnover revived. It traded with England, Sweden, Iran, China, Turkey and others. However, the lowering of import duties worsened the position of Russian producers, and in 1757 a new tariff was developed, strenuously protectionist.
Under Catherine II, the turnover of foreign trade increased significantly, the foreign trade balance was positive.
Development of banking systems
In the history of Russia in the 18th century. became the era when banks began to be established as an integral part of the market system, contributing to the formation of the capital market. The first banks were created during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna in 1754. This is the Merchant Bank for issuing loans to Russian merchants for goods at a rate of 6% per annum. At the same time, the Noble Bank was established with offices in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Banks were created by the treasury. In 1786, the State Loan Bank was established in their place for loans secured by real estate, which contributed to the development of credit. The system of credit institutions in Russia also included loan and security treasuries (cash desks), created in 1772 for obtaining a small loan. In 1775, orders of public charity were opened in large provincial cities, i.e. state-owned pawnshops. In general, this system was created on the basis of class principles and was inactive. In 1758 the Copper Bank was organized, which had bank offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but it did not last long. Under Catherine II, paper money (banknotes) and government loans were issued. Simultaneously russian government began to resort to external loans.
Strengthening feudal land tenure and dictatorship of the nobility
In the second half of the 18th century. the line to strengthen feudal land tenure and the dictatorship of the nobility was continued by the Russian government.
Empress Elizaveta Petrovna provided the nobles with benefits and privileges that increased the stability of the serf economy. Four actions in this direction were taken by her government in 1754: a decree declaring distillation a noble monopoly, the organization of the Noble Bank, the transfer of state-owned factories of the Urals to the nobles, and general surveying. Only in the 18th century. general land surveying added more than 50 million acres of land to the nobility.
Grants were another source of the growth of noble land tenure and the soul of possession. The generosity of Catherine II surpassed everything with which the history of the previous period was familiar. The participants in the coup, who secured her throne, she granted 18 thousand serfs and 86 thousand rubles. premium. The purpose of strengthening the monopoly rights of the nobles to land was subordinated to a decree prohibiting industrialists from buying serfs for their enterprises.
The 1782 decree was subordinated to the expansion of the ownership rights of the nobles to land, which abolished mountain freedom, i.e. the right to use ore deposits by anyone who has discovered them. Now the nobleman was declared not only the owner of the land, but also of its bowels. The nobles found a new privilege in the manifesto "On the granting of liberty and freedom to the entire Russian nobility." It was promulgated by Peter III in 1762, and then confirmed by Catherine II.
With a letter of gratitude to the nobility in 1785, Catherine II finally consolidated the privileges of the nobility. The privileged class had special personal and property rights and responsibilities. The nobles were exempted from taxes and duties. Land tenure of the nobility increased markedly. Landlords were once given state and palace peasants, as well as unpopulated lands. In the regions adjacent to St. Petersburg, the nobles received in the first four decades of the 18th century. about a million acres of land. In the second half of the century, vast areas of land were distributed to landowners in the Central Black Earth Region and the Middle Volga region. During her reign, Catherine II distributed over 800 thousand state and palace peasants to the nobles.
Feudal obligations of the landlord peasants of Russia by the end of the 18th century. characterized by the following data. In 13 provinces of the Non-Black Earth Zone, 55 percent of the peasants were on the monetary quitrent and 45 percent - in the corvee. The picture was different in the Chernozem provinces: 74 percent of the landlord peasants carried corvee and only 26 percent of the peasants paid the quitrent.
Territorial differences in the distribution of quitrent and corvee in the landowner village are explained mainly by the peculiarities of the economic development of certain geographical areas.
The overwhelming majority of state peasants already at the beginning of the 18th century. paid the rent. In 1776, the state peasants of Siberia, who had previously cultivated the state tithe arable land, were transferred to it.
The landlord economy gradually took the path of commodity production. First of all, bread and other agricultural products were produced for sale. The general development of commodity-money relations in the country attracted peasant economy into its sphere, which, although slowly, took the path of small-scale commodity production. Along with this, the process of disintegration of feudal relations is intensifying, which finds expression in the ever-increasing commodification of the landlords' economy, their transfer of part of the peasants for a month. All this suggests that in the last third of the 18th century. the feudal-serf system in Russia is entering a period of crisis.
Territory growth. Administrative reform
Throughout the XVIII century. the territory of the country increased significantly. If at the beginning of the century it was equal to about 14 million square versts, then in 1791 - about 14.5 million square versts, that is, increased by almost 0.5 million square versts. The population of the country also increased significantly.According to the first revision, carried out in 1719, the total population was 7.8 million people, according to the fifth revision, which took place in 1795 - 37.2 million people, i.e. 2.4 times. Under Catherine II, a broad administrative reform was carried out. In 1775 the country was divided into 50 provinces instead of the previous 20. The population of the province ranged from 300 to 400 thousand people. In turn, the provinces were subdivided into counties with a population of 20-30 thousand people. All the full administrative and police power passed to the provincial government. State revenues were administered by the treasury chamber, and they were kept by the provincial and district treasuries.
11.3. Enlightened absolutism in Russia
In Russia, as in other European countries, the transitional era from feudalism to capitalism gave rise to the ideology of the Enlightenment. The 60s belong to the period of enlightened absolutism. - during the reign of Empress Catherine II.
Enlightened absolutism in Russia is characterized by such events in which the nobles and the state itself were interested, but which at the same time contributed to the development of a new capitalist order. An important feature of the policy of enlightened absolutism, which researchers point out, was the desire of the monarchs to weaken the severity of social contradictions in their countries by improving the political superstructure.
Having ascended the throne, Catherine undertook a number of trips around the country in the first years of her reign: in 1763 she went to Rostov and Yaroslavl, in 1764 she visited the Baltic provinces, in 1765 she drove along the Ladoga Canal, in 1767 along the Volga in a barge from Tver to Simbirsk, and then returned to Moscow by land. The Empress was greeted everywhere with indescribable delight. In Kazan, they were ready, as V.O. Klyuchevsky, lay yourself down instead of a carpet under the Empress's feet. Cursory travel observations could inspire Catherine with many government considerations. She met cities along the way, "the situation is beautiful, and the structure is disgusting." The people in their culture were lower than the surrounding nature. “Here I am in Asia,” wrote Ekaterina to Voltaire from Kazan. This city especially struck her with its diversity of population. “This is a special kingdom,” she wrote, “there are so many different objects worthy of attention, but you can get ideas here for 10 years.” While the accumulated observations had not yet had time to form an integral reforming plan, Ekaterina, in the words of Klyuchevsky, "was in a hurry to mend the most dramatic gaps in management."
Based on the ideas of European enlighteners, Catherine developed a certain idea of \u200b\u200bwhat needs to be done for the prosperity of the state. "I wish, I only want good to the country where God has brought me," she wrote even before accession,
The glory of the country is my own glory. "
Commission order on drawing up a draft of a new Code
Catherine II decided to give Russia a legislative code based on the principles of new philosophy and science discovered by the Age of Enlightenment. To this end, in 1767, Catherine II set about drawing up her famous instruction - "Commission Order on the Drafting of a New Code". When compiling it, she, by her own admission, "robbed" Montesquieu, who developed the idea of \u200b\u200bseparation of powers in the state, and his other followers. Her policy of enlightened absolutism assumed the rule of a "wise man on the throne." She was well educated, knew the works of the enlighteners - Voltaire, Diderot, and others, was in correspondence with them.
She managed to mislead them, they considered her the benefactor of the whole nation, the patron of the arts. Voltaire called her "the northern star", and in a letter to a Russian correspondent he wrote: "I adore only three subjects: freedom, tolerance and your empress." The attitude of Catherine II to the views of the enlighteners is evidenced by her recollection of her meetings with Diderot:
"I talked with him for a long time, but more out of curiosity than profit. If I believed him, I would have to transform my entire empire, destroy legislation, government, politics, finance and replace them with pipe dreams." "Mandate" is a compilation based on several works of the educational direction of that period. The main ones are Montesquieu's Books "On the Spirit of Laws" and the work of the Italian criminalist Beccaria (1738-1794) "On Crimes and Punishments".
Montesquieu's book Catherine called the prayer book of sovereigns with common sense. The "Order" consisted of 20 chapters, to which two more were then added. The chapters are divided into 655 articles, of which 294 were borrowed from Montesquieu. Catherine also made extensive use of Beccaria's treatise, directed against the remnants of the medieval criminal process with its torture, which held a new view of the sanity of crimes and the expediency of punishments. The "Order" was imbued with a humane and liberal spirit. He argued the need for autocracy in Russia in view of the vastness of the Empire and the diversity of its parts. The goal of autocratic rule is not "to take away their natural freedom from people, but to direct their actions towards obtaining the greatest of all good."
In the Empress's Instruction, quotations from the writings of the enlighteners were used to substantiate serfdom and strong autocratic power, although certain concessions were made to the developing bourgeois relations. The features of enlightened absolutism can be seen in the creation of courts separated from administrative institutions, the implementation of the elective principle in the replacement of certain positions, in the unclassified teaching proclaimed in 1786 when organizing provincial and district schools. Assessing the "Order" of Catherine II, V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote: "Free from political convictions, she replaced them with tactical methods of politics. Without letting go of a single thread of autocracy, she allowed the indirect and even direct participation of society in government ... Autocratic power, in her opinion, was getting a new look, became something like a personal constitutional absolutism. In a society that had lost a sense of law, and such an accident as the successful personality of the monarch could pass for a legal guarantee. " (Course, "Russian history. Part V, p. 7).
Stacked commission
The largest measure of enlightened absolutism was the convocation in 1767 of the Commission on the compilation of a draft of a new code (Legislative Commission). The social composition of the Commission, according to Klyuchevsky's calculations, looked as follows; out of 564 deputies, 5 percent were held by government agencies ,! from cities - 39, nobility - 30, rural inhabitants - 14 percent. Cossacks, nonresidents and other classes accounted for only 12 percent.
The commissioned commission began meetings in the Faceted Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin in the summer of 1767. The work of this Commission did not affect the subsequent Russian reality, but there was plenty of noise and loud phraseology around this action of the empress. At one of the meetings, Catherine was awarded the title of "the great, wise mother of the Fatherland." Catherine did not accept or reject the title, although in a note to the marshal
Russian educators
A.I. Bibikova (1729-1774) expressed her displeasure: "I told them to make laws for the Russian Empire, and they make apologies for my qualities." According to Klyuchevsky, the commission worked for a year and a half, held 203 meetings, limited itself to discussing the peasant issue and legislation, but because of the outbreak of the war with Turkey, it was disbanded and did not meet with its full complement.
The new code of laws under Catherine was not drawn up. The work of the Commission turned out to be fruitless, extensive office work retained only the significance of a monument to the social and historical thought of Russia in the era of Catherine
The ideas of the French enlighteners were shared not only by the empress, but also by some Russian nobles. Count Andrei Shuvalov was known for his friendly ties with Voltaire and was considered a "northern patron of the arts" among the educators. At the expense of Prince D.A. Golitsyn (1734-1803) in The Hague, the work of Helvetius (1715-1771) "On Man", banned in France, was published. Catherine's favorite, Count Grigory Orlov (1734-1783) and Count Kirill Razumovsky (1728-1803) competed with each other in providing favorable conditions for creativity persecuted at home, in France, J.J. Russo. At the court of Catherine, the works of famous French educators were discussed, they were translated into Russian.
Peasant War 1773-1775 Emelyana Pugacheva (1740 or 1742-1775) and the Great French bourgeois revolution 1789 put an end to the flirtation of Catherine II and her entourage with the ideals of the Enlightenment. The storming of the Bastille, alarming information about the burning of noble castles reminded Russian feudal lords of the peasant war in Russia.
Having received news of the execution of Louis XVI, the court declared a six-day mourning in St. Petersburg. Russia became a haven for French exiles. Any information about the events in France was subjected to the strictest censorship, diplomatic relations with France were severed.
At the same time, the internal reaction intensified. The first victim was the writer and thinker A.N. Radishchev (1749-1802) - author of "Travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow". In 1790 A.N. Radishchev was sentenced to death, commuted to
1792 by exile to Tobolsk for a period of 10 years. Following Radishchev, the publisher N.I. Novikbv (1744-1818), who in 1792 was arrested and imprisoned for 15 years in the Shlissel-burg fortress. Several other active representatives of the Enlightenment shared the fate of Radishchev and Novikov.
These facts marked an open end to the policy of enlightened absolutism in Russia.
In the history of Russia, one can hardly find a time equal in significance to the transformations of the first quarter of the 18th century. Historians associate a new period in Russian history with the activities of Peter I. The transformations left a deep imprint primarily on the fact that they covered the most diverse spheres of the country's life.
As a result of the transformations, Russia has become a strong European state. In many ways, the technical and economic backwardness was overcome, and the elements of the capitalist way of life arose.
The policy of Peter I, aimed at the development of Russian industry, was continued by Elizaveta Petrovna and Catherine II. In the second half of the 18th century. productive vultures of Russia have made a big step forward not only in quantitative terms, but also in qualitative parameters. An all-Russian market is taking shape, the use of free-wage labor is expanding, a banking system is being created, a market infrastructure is developing - the process of the formation of capitalist production relations has become irreversible in Russia. Despite this, the dominant position in the country was occupied by the nobility, who had a monopoly on land and peasant labor.
The policy of enlightened absolutism in Russia is associated with Empress Catherine II. / Century belittled the idea of \u200b\u200bthe extra-class value of a person, the carriers of which were the outstanding figures of the Russian Enlightenment. Hostility towards French Revolution, the persecution of advanced people within the country signaled the end of this policy.
Back in 1682, namely on August 18, 10-year-old Peter I ascended the Russian throne. Everyone remembers Peter I as a great reformer. Good or bad innovations he made - it's up to you. But let's remember today seven of his most high-profile reforms!
The church is not a state. “The church is not another state,” Peter I believed, and therefore his church reform was aimed at weakening the political power of the church. Before her, only the ecclesiastical court could judge the clergy (even in criminal cases), and the timid attempts of the predecessors of Peter I to change this were met with stiff opposition. Along with other estates, the clergy after the reform had to obey the law common to all. Only monks were supposed to live in monasteries, only the sick in almshouses, everyone else was ordered to be evicted from there.
Peter I is known for his tolerance of other denominations. Under him, foreigners were allowed to freely practice their faith and to marry Christians of different denominations. "The Lord gave the kings authority over the nations, but Christ alone has authority over the conscience of people," Peter said. With opponents of the Church, he ordered the bishops to be "meek and reasonable." On the other hand, Peter introduced fines for those who confessed less than once a year or who behaved badly in the church during the service.
Bath and beard tax. Large-scale projects to equip the army and build a fleet required huge investments. In order to provide them, Peter I tightened the tax system of the country. Now taxes were collected not from households (after all, the peasants immediately began to enclose several households with one fence), but heart to heart. There were up to 30 different taxes: on fishing, on baths, mills, on the confession of the Old Believers and the wearing of a beard, and even on oak logs for coffins. The beards were ordered to be "cut to the very neck", and for those who wore them for a fee, a special receipt token, the "bearded sign", was introduced. Salt, alcohol, tar, chalk, fish oil could now be traded only by the state. The main monetary unit under Peter was not money, but a penny, the weight and composition of the coins were changed, and the irredeemable ruble ceased to exist. Treasury revenues increased several times, however, due to the impoverishment of the people and not for long.
In the army for life. To win the Northern War of 1700-1721, it was necessary to modernize the army. In 1705, each courtyard had to give one recruit to the lifelong service. This applied to all estates, except for the nobility. The army and the navy were made up of these recruits. In the military regulations of Peter I, for the first time, the first place was placed not on the moral and religious content of criminal acts, but on the contradiction to the will of the state. Peter managed to create the most powerful regular army and navy, which have not yet been in Russia. By the end of his reign, the number of regular ground forces was 210 thousand, irregular - 110 thousand, and more than 30 thousand people served in the navy.
"Extra" 5508 years. Peter I "abolished" 5508 years, changing the tradition of chronology: instead of counting the years "from the creation of Adam" in Russia, they began to count the years "from the birth of Christ." The use of the Julian calendar and the celebration of the New Year on January 1 are also innovations of Peter. He also introduced the use of modern Arabic numerals, replacing the old numbers with them - the letters of the Slavic alphabet with titles. The outline of the letters has been simplified, the letters "xi" and "psi" have "dropped out" from the alphabet. For secular books, their own script was now relied on - a civil one, and semi-ustav was left for liturgical and spiritual.
In 1703, the first Russian printed newspaper Vedomosti began to appear, and in 1719 the first museum in Russian history, the Kunstkamera with a public library, began to operate.
Under Peter, the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences (1701), the Medical and Surgical School (1707) - the future Military Medical Academy, the Naval Academy (1715), the Engineering and Artillery Schools (1719), the School of Translators at the collegiums.
Learning through strength. All nobles and clergy were to receive education from now on. The success of a noble career now depended directly on this. Under Peter, new schools were created: garrison schools for children of soldiers, spiritual schools for children of priests. Moreover, each province was supposed to have digital schools with free education for all classes. Such schools were necessarily supplied with primers in Slavic and latin, as well as alphabets, psalteries, books of hours and arithmetic. The training of the clergy was compulsory, those who opposed it were threatened military service and taxes, and those who did not graduate were not allowed to marry. But due to the coercive nature and harsh teaching methods (beating with batogs and chaining), such schools did not last long.
A slave is better than a slave. "Less baseness, more zeal for service and loyalty to me and the state - this honor is characteristic of the tsar ..." - these are the words of Peter I. As a result of this tsarist position, there were some changes in the relationship between the tsar and the people, which were a novelty in Russia. For example, in petition messages it was no longer allowed to humiliate oneself with the signatures "Grishka" or "Mitka", but it was necessary to put your full name. It was not necessary to take off his hat in the strong Russian frost, passing by the royal residence. It was not supposed to fall on your knees before the king, and the address “servant” was replaced by “slave”, which was not derogatory in those days and was associated with “servant of God”.
Freedom has also increased for young people wishing to get married. The forced marriage of a girl was abolished by three decrees, and the engagement and the wedding had to be separated in time so that the bride and groom "could recognize each other." Complaints that one of them had annulled the engagement were not accepted - it was now their right.
A new sense of territory. Under Peter I, industry developed rapidly and trade expanded. An all-Russian market has emerged, which means that the economic potential of the central government has grown. The greatest state in the world made Russia the reunification with Ukraine and the development of Siberia. New cities arose, as canals and new strategic roads were laid, ore resources were being actively explored, iron foundries and weapons factories were built in the Urals and Central Russia.
Peter I carried out a regional reform in 1708–1710, which divided the country into 8 provinces headed by governors and governors-general. Later, there was a division into provinces, provinces into counties.
Disputes and conversations about the history of Russia / Russia are only gaining momentum. There are many studies, including amateur ones, discovering amazing facts. This process is acquiring an avalanche-like character, which will necessarily lead to the fact that a harmonious and systemic genuine Russian history will crystallize out of the global array of historical information.
Why do we need it? See how European "tribes" are fighting for their antiquity. How Greeks, Italians, Gauls, Germans cherish and cherish their antiquity. Or the freshest example: the diligence of ukrov, proving their "otadam".
Or an example of a different kind, when, on the contrary, 5508 years are deleted from history. This was done by Peter I, introducing a decree in Russia (* below is the text of this, in fact, an illegal document) instead of the Russian calendar from the Creation of the World, according to which the new 7208 was supposed to begin, the Julian calendar - from 1700 in the yard. And there was also a history before the Creation of the World, which, according to various estimates, is from 20 to 30 thousand years old.
The "New Year's Decree" of Peter I is one of the key points in the falsification of Russian history. Imagine yourself, 5508 years is not 15 minutes or even a year, you can't hide them in your pocket. It was necessary to come up with something to hide these thousands and thousands of historical years.
Peter and his assistants did not invent anything new, he used the old medieval "template" of the Vatican, where at the end of the 16th century the so-called Index of Forbidden Books was introduced, according to which all chronicles were destroyed, books that contradicted the officially accepted Scaligerian chronology. And Peter I ordered to collect old chronicles and books from all monasteries and churches of the country, ostensibly for "making copies". After that, no one saw the books or their copies. The destruction of the old Russian chronicles was the beginning of a global rewriting of the history of Russia with the help of German professors Millers, buyers, schlötzers.
The difference between the Vatican and Peter's falsifications was that Peter I shortened Russian history by destroying ancient sources, and the Vatican, burning and hiding chronicles and ancient books, on the contrary, lengthened, or rather made the history of Europe older. Who is interested to know why it was necessary for both the Vatican and Europe as a whole, says the New Chronology of Fomenko and Nosovsky.
On the conscience of Peter I and the reform of Russian writing, instead of which the new alphabet of Cyril and Methodius was introduced. Thus, he dealt a strong blow to the traditions of the people and cut off access even to those ancient written sources that survived after Peter's "chronicle inquisition".
The reform of Russian writing is combined with another myth about the Rus, the Slavs, that these were wild tribes that lived in trees and, naturally, did not have any writing, until the Christian preachers, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, "brought it" to them. However, this was far from the case. There is a separate material on this topic "Why war has been declared on the Russian language", here I am only happy to repeat a small fragment from it:
"The preachers went to the Russian city of Korsun (Crimea), at that time captured by Khazaria. There they study the Gospel and the Psalter, written in Russian letters (which they themselves mention in the subsequent comments to their alphabet). Before the baptism of Rus, starting from the 9th century, in many cities there lived a few communities of Russians who had already adopted Christianity by that time: as a rule, they settled separately from the pagans. It was the first Russian Christians who translated the Bible into Russian, writing it down with the then existing "Velesovitsa". So Cyril and Methodius, returning to Byzantium, create their own writing, adapted to facilitate translations from Greek into Russian: for this they add a few more artificial letters, and modernize several letters that were previously in Velesovitsa to match similar Greek ones. Thus, Newspeak was created, which received the name "Cyrillic", in which the biblical texts of the Russian Orthodox Church and other books were later written. "It was not only the "paper" history of Rus / Russia that was being destroyed that was stored in written sources, but Russian history is literally erased from its own land. An eloquent study on this issue was published by kadykchanskiy in his blog "Notes of a Kolymchanin". He writes very accurately:
“As long as a warrior remembers why he shed blood, it is not possible to turn him into a slave. As soon as a person loses the heritage of his ancestors, he immediately does everything possible to regain what belongs to him by right. mind, read - memory, everything becomes indifferent to him. He loses his taste for life, ceases to create and goes with the flow, considering himself a hostage of circumstances. Having lost the meaning of existence, a person takes the path of self-destruction, burning himself in idleness, drunkenness, drug addiction, and mired in all other types of “legal drugs.” Such as: TV series, battles of sports fans, lists of idols, and eternal aimless walking in the desert, whistling whips of drivers, following a carrot dangling in front of his nose on a string. "In the material kadykchanskiy "The last line of defense of Tartary" just published the same "amateur research", carried out at the highest professional level.
Documentary, richly supplying the narrative with photographic illustrations, kadykchanskiy talks about the many complex and skillful fortifications on the territory of Russia / Russia, cites other facts of its high-tech achievements.
"Such a huge number of complex fortifications, writes kadykchanskiy, suggests that their workers, engineers and designers had not only high qualifications, coupled with a huge number of builders, but also powerful material and human resources, which does not fit into the tales of scattered principalities. on the territory of medieval Russia. This is only possible for a centralized country with a system of education and training, capable of mobilizing a huge amount of resources, money and human. Having a system of military education and training of soldiers. How do you? Does it look like a history textbook? They write about the endless deserted open spaces inhabited by savages who worship wooden idols to the sound of a shaman's tambourine. "
The article contains only a few facts showing that in Russian history there are many such questions, the answers to which will turn the idea of \u200b\u200bour past upside down. And work in this direction is being intensively carried out.
* 7208 (1699) the year of December on the 20th day of the great sovereign the king and grand Duke Peter Alekseevich of All Great and Small and White Russia, the autocrat indicated to say:
"It became known to him, the great sovereign, it became - not only in many European Christian countries, but also in the Slavic peoples who agree with our Eastern Orthodox Church in everything - like the Vlachs, Moldavians, Serbs, Dalmatians, Bulgarians and himself, great sovereign, subjects of the Cherkasy, and all the Greeks, from whom our Orthodox faith was adopted - all those peoples, according to their summer, reckon from the Nativity of Christ on the eighth day later, that is, January from the 1st, and not from the Creation of the world, for many strife and count in those years. And now from the Nativity of Christ comes the year 1699, and next January, from the 1st, a new year 1700 will come, and a new century will come. And for that good and useful deed, (the great sovereign) instructed to count the summer in orders and in all deeds and fortresses to write from this January from the 1st date of the birth of Christ. And as a sign of that good beginning and a new century in the reigning city of Moscow, after due thanksgiving to God and prayer singing in the church, and to whom it will happen in his own house, along the large and passable noble streets, noble people and near houses of deliberate spiritual and secular rites in front of the gate, to make some decorations from trees and branches of pine, spruce and juniper - according to the patterns that are made at the Gostiny Dvor and at the lower Pharmacy, or as it is more convenient and decent, depending on the place and gate, it is possible to make. And to poor people, everyone should even put a tree or a branch over the gate or over their mansion. And so that now the next January is ripe by the 1st of this year, and that decoration of January will stand on the seventh day of that 1700. Yes, January 1, on the 1st day, as a sign of joy, congratulating each other on the New Year and the centenary, to do this: when the fiery fun is lit on the big Red Square and there will be shooting, then all the noble courtyards of the boyars, and the devious, and the Duma, and to neighbors and noble people of the ward, military and merchant rank, famous people, each in his own yard, from small cannons, if anyone has one, and from several muskets or other small guns to fire three times and fire several missiles, as many as happens. And on large streets, where there is space, from January 1 to 7, at night, light fires from firewood, or brushwood, or straw. And where there are small courtyards - having gathered in five or six courtyards, put such a fire, or, whoever wants, put one, or two, or three resin and thin barrels on the posts, and light them with straw or brushwood. And in front of the Burmister City Hall there will be shooting and such lights and decoration according to their look. " 
The third tsar from the Romanov dynasty was created in history by the image of Peter the Great. It is worthwhile to understand in more detail what the "great" did Peter Romanov in order to get such a sonorous name in history.
In archival documents, historians have found a statement by Peter I, where he calls the Russian people animals, which he, while not being great, wanted to transform into people.
"With other European nations, you can achieve your goal in human-loving ways, but with the Russian - not so ... I do not deal with people, but with animals, which I want to transform into people."
- in these words the whole attitude of the sovereign to the Rus is concentrated.
Peter I preferred to communicate with the European peoples of other states in a humanitarian manner. How then could the Russian people, the "animal people" call Peter the Great? Realized his transformation into people, and thanked the king by giving him a worthy name? I do not believe.
There is no doubt that it was the owners who stood over the Romanovs who gave Peter the Great a great name as a reward for destroying the traces of the greatness of the Russian people. Gratitude from the ruling circles of the seceded states of Europe, which were until recently the provincial outlying provinces of Great Tartary, who desired to build their Great History based on falsehood.
Peter the Great was and remains interesting and very controversial personality... Information about the substitution of the king during his trip abroad should be considered important. A young, healthy man was leaving with the embassy, \u200b\u200bat the age of 26, above average height, with a solid build. There was a prominent mole on his left cheek, and his hair was well-groomed and wavy. He had a good education, loved everything Russian, was a devout Christian who knew the Bible by heart.
After two years of staying in European countries, a man returned to the Russian capital who did not know Russian well and denied everything Russian. Peter I never learned to write in Russian anymore, wrote in Latin letters, did not remember the history and events of his life until the time of his departure with the Great Embassy. A sickly looking man with straight, greasy hair arrived, with a completely new set of skills and abilities. He did not have a mole on his cheek, and he looked at least 40 years old.
How could the tsar have changed so dramatically in two years of absence from his homeland? Why was the substitution "not noticed"? And why is this topic still considered taboo so stubbornly?
Trip incognito
Peter went abroad under the name of Mikhailov, and there is no mention of his illness in the chronicle of the embassy. A man returned to his homeland with a chronic form of fever, with external symptoms of long-term treatment with mercury preparations, which were used in those years to treat tropical types of fever. It is known that tropical fever can only be contracted by directly visiting southern tropical countries, walking in the jungle. However, it is also known that the Grand Embassy set out on a journey across the northern seas, where it is impossible to contract tropical fever.
Another confirmation of the substitution of the tsar - after returning from a trip abroad, Peter I showed himself to be an experienced sailor, able to lead boarding fights, the skills of which can only be learned in practice. Arriving False Peter was clearly experienced in naval battles, sailed a lot in the southern seas.
But the real Peter I did not participate in sea battles, since during his youth the Moscow principality had no outlet to the sea, except for the White Sea. Peter I sailed along it only as an honorary passenger who visited the Solovetsky Monastery. A storm broke out, the longboat miraculously escaped, and Peter I, with his own hands, knocked down a memorial cross installed in the Archangel Cathedral in honor of salvation.
Elimination of witnesses of the scam
Several more important facts can be added to the question of replacing the royal personage.
- Peter I dearly loved his wife, Queen Evdokia. While away, he often sent her letters. Returning from abroad, the king, without even seeing his wife, without explaining the reason, sends her to a convent.
- Another fact - in the summer of 1699 according to the Christian calendar (summer 7207 from SMZH) P. Gordon and his friend F. Lefort "suddenly" died. Gordon was the mentor of the young Peter, and it was at the suggestion of two friends that Peter went to European countries incognito. The substitution of Peter, most likely, occurred during the trip, and the reason for the substitution was the intransigence of the real tsar. The owners of P. Gordon and F. Lefort did not manage to persuade the Russian tsar, in this case, the fate of the real Peter is unenviable.
“His” brother Ivan V and “his” little children Alexander, Natalia and Lawrence were killed by False Peter at once, although the official story tells us about it in a completely different way. And he executed his youngest son Alexei as soon as he tried to free his real father from the Bastille.
So all the "great things" after returning from a trip abroad were made by a foundling.
List of "Great Deeds" of Peter the Great
Peter the impostor made such transformations with Russia that we still haunt us. He began to act like a common conqueror:
He defeated the Russian self-government - "zemstvo" and replaced it with a bureaucratic apparatus of foreigners who brought theft, debauchery and drunkenness to Russia and forced it here;
He transferred the peasants into the ownership of the nobles, which turned them into slaves (to whiten the image of the impostor, this "measure" falls on Ivan IV)
He defeated the merchants and began to plant industrialists, which led to the destruction of the former universality of people;
Defeated the clergy - the carriers of Russian culture and destroyed Orthodoxy, bringing it closer to Catholicism, which inevitably gave rise to atheism;
Introduced smoking, drinking alcohol and coffee;
He destroyed the Old Russian calendar, rejuvenating our civilization by 5503 years;
He ordered all the Russian chronicles to be brought to St. Petersburg, and then, like Filaret, ordered them to be burned. Summoned the German "professors"; write a completely different Russian history;
Under the guise of fighting the old faith, he destroyed all the elders who had lived for more than three hundred years;
He forbade the cultivation of amaranth and the use of amaranth bread, which was the main food of the Russian people, thereby destroying the longevity on Earth, which then remained in Russia;
Abolished natural measures: fathom, finger, elbow, vershok, which were present in clothing, utensils and architecture, making them fixed in the Western manner. This led to the destruction of ancient Russian architecture and art, to the disappearance of the beauty of everyday life. As a result, people ceased to be beautiful, since the divine and vital proportions have disappeared in their structure;
He replaced the Russian title system with the European one, which turned the peasants into an estate. Although "peasant" is a title higher than the king, about which there is more than one evidence;
He destroyed the Russian writing, which consisted of 151 characters, and introduced 43 characters of the writing of Cyril and Methodius;
He disarmed the Russian army, exterminating the archers as a caste with their wonderful abilities and magical weapons, and introduced primitive firearms and piercing weapons in the European manner, disguising the army first in French and then in German uniforms, although the Russian military uniform was itself a weapon. The people called the new shelves "amusing".
But his main crime was the destruction of Russian education (image + sculpting), the essence of which was to create three subtle bodies in a person, which he does not receive from birth, and if they are not formed, then the consciousness will not have a connection with the consciousnesses of past lives. If in Russian educational institutions they made a versatile person from a person who could, starting from bast shoes and ending with a spaceship, do everything himself, then Peter introduced a specialization that made him dependent on others.
Before Peter the impostor in Russia they did not know what wine was, he ordered the barrels of wine to be rolled out onto the square and given free water to the townspeople. This was done to shake off the memory of a past life. During the period of Peter, the persecution of babies who were born, remembering their past lives and able to speak, continued. Their persecution began as early as John IV. The mass destruction of infants with past life memories has cast a curse on all incarnations of such children. It is no coincidence that today, when a talking child is born, he lives no more than two hours.
After all these deeds, the invaders themselves did not dare to call Peter the great for a long time. And only in the 19th century, when Peter's horrors had already been forgotten, a version arose about Peter the innovator, who did so much useful for Russia.
What happened to the real Peter I? He was captured by the Jesuits and placed in a Swedish fortress. He managed to convey a letter to Charles XII, king of Sweden, and he rescued him from captivity. Together they organized a campaign against the impostor, but the entire Jesuit-Masonic fraternity of Europe, called up to fight, together with the Russian troops (whose relatives were taken hostage in case the troops decided to go over to Karl's side), won a victory at Poltava. The real Russian Tsar Peter I was again captured and placed away from Russia - in the Bastille, where he later died. He was wearing an iron mask on his face, which caused a lot of rumors in France and Europe. The Swedish king Charles XII fled to Turkey, from where he again tried to organize a campaign against the impostor.
It would seem, kill the real Peter, and there would be no trouble. But the fact of the matter is, the invaders of the Earth needed a conflict, and without a living king behind bars, neither the Russian-Swedish war, nor the Russian-Turkish war, which in fact were civil wars that led to the formation of two new states, would have failed. : Turkey and Sweden, and then a few more.
But the real intrigue was not only in the creation of new states. In the 18th century, all of Russia knew and spoke of the fact that Peter I was not a real tsar, but an impostor. And against this background, the "great Russian historians" who came from the German lands: Miller, Bayer, Schlözer and Kuhn, who completely perverted the history of Russia, no longer had much difficulty in declaring all the Dmitriev tsars to be False Dmitrys and impostors who did not have the right to the throne, and who did not managed to groan, they changed the royal surname to - Rurik.
The genius of Satanism is Roman law, which is the basis of the constitutions of modern states. It was created contrary to all the ancient canons and ideas about a society based on self-government (self + powers).
For the first time, judicial power was transferred from the hands of the priests to the hands of people without spiritual dignity, i.e. the rule of the best has been replaced by the rule of anyone
Roman law is presented to us as the "crown" of human achievement, in reality it is the peak of disorder and irresponsibility. State laws under Roman law are based on prohibitions and punishments, i.e. on negative emotions, which, as you know, can only destroy. This leads to a general lack of interest in the implementation of laws and to the opposition of officials to the people. Even in a circus, work with animals is based not only on a stick, but also on a carrot, but a man on our planet is appreciated by conquerors lower than animals.
In contrast to Roman law, the Russian state was built not on prohibitive laws, but on the conscience of citizens, which establishes a balance between incentives and prohibitions.
Let us recall how the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea wrote about the Slavs: "All the laws were in their heads." Relations in ancient society were regulated by the principles of kon, from where the words “canon” (ancient - konon), “from time immemorial”, “chambers” (ie on the line) came down to us. Guided by the principles of the horse, a person avoided mistakes and could incarnate again in this life. The principle is always above the law, because it contains more possibilities than the law, just as a sentence contains more information than one word.
The very word "law" means "beyond the horse." If a society lives according to the principles of a horse, and not according to the laws, it is more vital. Commandments contain more than a con, and therefore surpass it, just as a story contains more than a sentence. The commandments can improve human organization and thinking, which in turn can improve the principles of horse.
The list of "great deeds" of the Russian tsar goes on and on. "Great activity" to his death in 1725 led the Russian Empire (more precisely, Muscovy) to a difficult economic situation, which can only be compared with the situation in the Time of Troubles. Then the time was "confused" by the representatives of the Romanov dynasty and their relatives.
The people bent under the heavy yoke of the representatives of the Romanovs, and this was a real yoke, and not an invented Mongol-Tatar yoke, which never existed, it was simply invented to justify the capture of the Moscow principality.
There are contradictory assessments of activities in the historical literature. Peter I... However, most researchers believe that his reforms were of outstanding importance in the history of Russia. Personal acquaintance with Europe during Peter's stay in the Great Embassy at the end of the 17th century. determined the goal and direction of the transformation. We recall the seven most ambitious reforms of Peter I ...
Church is not a state
“The church is not another state,” Peter I believed, and therefore his church reform was aimed at weakening the political power of the church. Before her, only the ecclesiastical court could judge the clergy (even in criminal cases), and the timid attempts of the predecessors of Peter I to change this were met with stiff opposition.
Along with other estates, the clergy after the reform had to obey the law common to all. Only monks were supposed to live in monasteries, only the sick in almshouses, everyone else was ordered to be evicted from there.
Peter I is known for his tolerance of other denominations. Under him, foreigners were allowed to freely practice their faith and to marry Christians of different denominations.
« The Lord gave the kings authority over the nations, but Christ alone ruled over the conscience of people, ”Peter said. With opponents of the Church, he ordered the bishops to be “meek and reasonable».
On the other hand, Peter introduced fines for those who confessed less than once a year or who behaved badly in the church during the service.
Bath and beard tax
Large-scale projects to equip the army and build a fleet required huge investments. In order to provide them, Peter I tightened the tax system of the country. Now taxes were collected not from households (after all, the peasants immediately began to enclose several households with one fence), but heart to heart.
There were up to 30 different taxes: on fishing, on baths, mills, on the confession of the Old Believers and the wearing of a beard, and even on oak logs for coffins.
The beards were ordered to be "cut to the very neck", and for those who wore them for a fee, a special receipt token, the "bearded sign", was introduced. Salt, alcohol, tar, chalk, fish oil could now be traded only by the state.
The main monetary unit under Peter was not money, but a penny, the weight and composition of the coins were changed, and the irredeemable ruble ceased to exist. Treasury revenues increased several times, however, due to the impoverishment of the people and not for long.
To the army for life
To win the Northern War of 1700-1721, it was necessary to modernize the army. In 1705, each courtyard had to give one recruit to the lifelong service. This applied to all estates, except for the nobility. The army and the navy were made up of these recruits.
In the military regulations of Peter I, for the first time, the first place was placed not on the moral and religious content of criminal acts, but on the contradiction to the will of the state. Peter managed to create the most powerful regular army and navy, which have not yet been in Russia.
By the end of his reign, the number of regular ground forces was 210 thousand, irregular - 110 thousand, and more than 30 thousand people served in the navy.
"Extra" 5508 years
Peter I "abolished" 5508 years, changing the tradition of chronology: instead of counting the years "from the creation of Adam" in Russia, they began to count the years "from the birth of Christ."
The use of the Julian calendar and the celebration of the New Year on January 1 are also innovations of Peter. He also introduced the use of modern Arabic numerals, replacing the old numbers with them - the letters of the Slavic alphabet with titles. The outline of the letters has been simplified, the letters "xi" and "psi" have "dropped out" from the alphabet. For secular books, their own script was now relied on - a civil one, and semi-ustav was left for liturgical and spiritual.
In 1703, the first Russian printed newspaper Vedomosti began to appear, and in 1719 the first museum in Russian history, the Kunstkamera with a public library, began to operate.
Under Peter, the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences (1701), the Medical and Surgical School (1707) - the future Military Medical Academy, the Naval Academy (1715), the Engineering and Artillery Schools (1719), the School of Translators at the collegiums.
Learning through strength
All nobles and clergy were to receive education from now on. The success of a noble career now depended directly on this. Under Peter, new schools were created: garrison schools for children of soldiers, spiritual schools for children of priests.
Moreover, each province was supposed to have digital schools with free education for all classes. Such schools were necessarily supplied with primers in the Slavic and Latin languages, as well as alphabets, psalteries, books of hours and arithmetic.
The training of the clergy was compulsory, those who opposed it were threatened with military service and taxes, and those who did not graduate were not allowed to marry. But due to the coercive nature and harsh teaching methods (beating with batogs and chaining), such schools did not last long.
A slave is better than a slave
"Less baseness, more zeal for service and loyalty to me and the state - this honor is characteristic of the tsar ..." - these are the words of Peter I. As a result of this tsarist position, there were some changes in the relationship between the tsar and the people, which were a novelty in Russia.
For example, in petition messages it was no longer allowed to humiliate oneself with the signatures "Grishka" or "Mitka", but it was necessary to put your full name. It was not necessary to take off his hat in the strong Russian frost, passing by the royal residence. It was not supposed to fall on their knees before the king, and the address "servant" was replaced by "slave", which was not derogatory in those days and was associated with "servant of God."
Freedom has also increased for young people wishing to get married. The forced marriage of a girl was abolished by three decrees, and the betrothal and the wedding had to be separated in time so that the bride and groom "could recognize each other."
Complaints that one of them had annulled the engagement were not accepted - it was now their right.
A new sense of territory
Under Peter I, industry developed rapidly and trade expanded. An all-Russian market has emerged, which means that the economic potential of the central government has grown.
The greatest state in the world made Russia the reunification with Ukraine and the development of Siberia. New cities arose, as canals and new strategic roads were laid, ore resources were being actively explored, iron foundries and weapons factories were built in the Urals and Central Russia.
Peter I carried out a regional reform in 1708–1710, which divided the country into 8 provinces headed by governors and governors-general. Later, there was a division into provinces, provinces into counties. link