Administrative reforms.
territorial units of administration created by Peter the Great were broken up into so-called “governments” ( gubernii ) and further subdivided into districts ( uyezdy ), and each government was confided to the care of a governor and a vice-governor assisted by a council. A certain amount of local self-government was entrusted to the nobles and the burghers, and the judicial administration was thoroughly reorganized in an enlightened and humane spirit. The great estates of the Church, on which were settled about a million serfs, were secularized and assimilated with the state-domains. At one moment the idea of emancipating all the serfs was entertained, but the project was speedily abandoned, because it would have alienated the nobles—the only class on which Catherine could rely for support. To conciliate them she greatly extended the area of serfage by making large grants of land and serfs to courtiers and public servants who had specially distinguished themselves. About education a great deal was spoken and written, and a certain amount of progress was effected. Whilst primary education was neglected, secondary schools were created in the principal towns and a Russian Academy was founded in St Petersburg. In the imperial court, so far as outward decorum and refinement were concerned, there was an immense improvement, and the upper section of the old Russian Dvorianstvo became a noblesse with French aristocratic conceptions and ideals. A taste for French literature spread rapidly, and the poets and dramatists of Paris found clever imitators in St Petersburg.
By such means Catherine made herself very popular in the upper ranks of society, but as a woman and a usurper who did little or nothing to lighten the burdens of the people she failed to gain the loyalty and devotion of the masses. In the first part of her reign popular discontent found expression in various forms, and on one occasion it produced a serious insurrection. In 1773 a Don Cossack called Pugachev, who was so uneducated that he could not even sign the manifestoes written for him, declared himself to be Peter III., and announced that he was going to St Petersburg to punish his faithless wife and place his son Paul on the throne. Many believed, or affected to believe, in the pretender, and in a short time he gathered around him a large force of Cossacks, peasants, Tatars and Tchuvash, swept over the basin of the lower Volga, executed mercilessly the landed proprietors, seized and pillaged the town of Kazan, and kept the whole country in a state of alarm for more than a year. Finally, after a crushing defeat in which 2000 of the insurgents were killed and 6000 taken prisoners, he was betrayed by some of his followers and executed in Moscow. His name and exploits still live in the popular legends, and the insurrection is often referred to in revolutionary pamphlets as a laudable popular protest against tyrannical autocracy.
In foreign affairs Catherine devoted her attention mainly to pushing forward the Russian frontier westwards and southwards,
Foreign policy of Catherine.
and as France was the traditional ally of policy of Sweden, Poland and Turkey, she adopted at first the so-called système du Nord , that is to say, a close alliance with Prussia, England and Denmark against France and Austria, who had buried their traditional enmity in the famous alliance of 1756. The first step westwards was taken in Courland, which lay between Russian territory and the Baltic coast. At the time of her accession the duchy was ruled by a son of the Polish king Augustus III., and he gave a pretext for aggression by refusing to allow Russian troops returning from the Seven Years' War to pass through his territory. For this unfriendly act he was deposed and replaced by Biren, who had previously been duke of Courland (1737-40) and had since been an exile in Siberia and Yaroslav. Under Biren (1763-69) and his son and successor (1769-95), as nominees of Catherine, Courland was completely under Russian influence until 1795, when it was formally incorporated with the empire. The next country to feel the expansive tendencies
Poland.
of Russia was Poland, which had now very little power of resistance. Whilst Russia, Austria, Prussia and France were becoming powerful monarchies with centralized administration, Poland had remained a weak feudal republic with an elected king chosen under foreign influence and fettered by constitutional restrictions. All political authority was in the hands of turbulent nobles who quarrelled among themselves, who were always inclined to submit the questions at issue to the arbitrament of arms, and who did not scruple to invite foreign powers to intervene on their behalf. The middle classes, which were making other countries rich and powerful, existed only in an embryonic condition. Instead of a well-organized army of the modern type there was merely an undisciplined militia composed almost exclusively of irregular cavalry; and the national defences as a whole were so weak that, in the opinion of such a competent authority as Maurice of Saxony, the country might easily be conquered by a regular army of 48,000 men. Here was a tempting field for the application of Catherine's aggressive policy, and if she had had to deal merely with the Poles she would have had an easy task. Unfortunately for the success of her schemes she had to reckon with stronger states which were anxious to check the Russian advance, and which were determined, in the event of aggression, to have a share of the plunder. Frederick the Great was at that moment impatient to extend and consolidate his kingdom by getting possession of the basin of the lower Vistula, which separated eastern Prussia from the rest of his dominions, while Austria had also claims on Polish territory and would certainly not submit to be excluded by her two rivals. In these circumstances Catherine hesitated to bring matters to a crisis, but her hand was forced by Frederick, and in 1772 the first partition of Poland took place without any very strenuous resistance on the part of the victim. This national disaster opened the eyes of many Polish patriots to the necessity of changing radically the old order of things, and an attempt was made by them to remove some of the more glaring absurdities of the existing constitution: the throne was declared to be hereditary, the liberum veto by which any petty noble could annul the most important decision of the national assembly was abolished, the royal authority was greatly strengthened, and the towns were empowered to send deputies to the Diet (1791). Such salutary reforms were naturally unwelcome to the aggressive neighbours who wished to preserve the traditional anarchy in order to have new facilities for intervention, and as Russia had signed with the puppet-king in 1768 a treaty by which the constitution could not be modified without her consent, she had a plausible ground for protest. She waited, however, until a deputation of the malcontents, who regretted the loss of liberum veto and who were afraid that the party of reform might undertake the emancipation of the serfs, came to St Petersburg and asked for support in defence of the ancient liberties. Then an imperial manifesto reminding the Poles of the treaty of 1768 was issued and a large Russian force entered the Ukraine. This led to the second partition (1793), by which Russia obtained the eastern provinces with three millions of inhabitants. Even now the work of spoliation was not complete. When the patriots under Koscziusko made a desperate effort to recover the national independence the struggle produced a third partition (1795), by which the remainder of the kingdom was again divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Thus Poland disappeared for a time from the map of Europe.