Roger Bartlett, Noblesse russe et allemande balte au XVIIIe siècle. Après la conquête de la Livonie par Pierre le Grand, la noblesse allemande balte apporta à la Russie une structure sociale, une tradition d'autonomie locale et une philosophie politique très différentes de celles qui avaient cours en Russie. Dans la seconde moitié du xvine siècle, le particularisme et les privilèges accordés à la noblesse balte pouvaient susciter le ressentiment des nobles russes, mais en même temps elle offrait des modèles tentants. En outre, les nobles baltes se distinguaient déjà au service de l'État. Catherine II utilisa des éléments importants des institutions baltes (administration locale, rôle de la noblesse en tant qu'ordre) dans sa réforme ties provinces de 1775, avant d'étendre celle-ci aux provinces baltes elles-mêmes. L'article tente une comparaison entre la noblesse russe et allemande balte à la lumière des évolutions de la fin du XVIIIe siècle, par suite, notamment, des actes législatifs de 1762 et de 1785, jusqu'à la période de Paul Ier et d'Alexandre Ier, qui rétablirent la situation privilégiée des Allemands baltes.
The institution of serfdom has been a central and much debated feature of early modern Russian history: it has sometimes been described as Russia's 'peculiar institution', as central to the Russian experience as black slavery has been to the American. 1 It is striking, however, that the rise and dominance of serfdom within Muscovite/Russian society coincided closely in historical terms with the rise to European eminence and power of the Muscovite state and Russian Empire. The subjection of the peasantry to its landlord masters was finally institutionalized in 1649, at a time when for most of the rest of Europe Muscovy was a little-known and peripheral state, in John Milton's words, 'the most northern Region of Europe reputed civil'. 2 When Peter I proclaimed Russia an empire, in 1721, it had displaced Sweden to become the leading state of Northern Europe; one hundred years later Russia was the premier European land power. Its loss of international status after the Crimean War in 1856 helped to precipitate the abolition of serfdom (1861); but the 'Great Reforms' of the 1860s did not enable it to regain the international position achieved after the Napoleonic Wars. Thus the period of history from the mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, when serfdom became a securely entrenched legal and economic institution, was also the period in which Russia -the Muscovite state and Russian Empire -became relatively more powerful than at any other time in its history before 1945. This article seeks to examine some of the features of serfdom in Russia, to look briefly at its place in the structure and dynamics of Russian society, and to investigate the relationship between the establishment of serfdom in practice and the success of Russian governments both in domestic affairs and on the international stage.
This book examines in detail the Russian government's policy of settling foreigners in European Russia during the last third of the eighteenth century. The recruitment of foreign settlers was practised by many European states during this period, primarily as part of general population policies which sought the highest possible levels of population. In Russia it was also part of the process of settling and developing frontier regions. Dr Bartlett shows the European and Russian background, describes the genesis of the Empress Catherine II's Manifestos of 1762 and 1763 (which set the policy in motion) and follows the development and implementation of policy. The two most notable ethnic groups among Imperial Russia's foreign settlers were Bulgarians and Germans, but many other nationalities were also involved. A separate chapter deals with urban settlement - foreign entrepreneurs and artisans - including the Armenian community of Astrakhan; and connections are explored with other areas of policy, notably with Catherine's interest in the Baltic provinces, her concern with the Jewish question, and with serfdom; and the question of technical improvement in agriculture during the early years of her reign.
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