Russia's advance westward raised indirectly the Eastern Question, because it threatened two of France's traditional
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, 1774.
allies, Sweden and Poland, and Choiseul considered that the best means of checkmating Catherine's aggressive schemes was to incite France's third traditional ally, Turkey, to attack her. This was not a difficult matter, because the Sublime Porte had many things to complain of in the past and had good reason to fear aggression in the near future. War was accordingly declared in 1768, but it proved disastrous for the sultan; and he had to sign in 1774 the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, which gave Russia a firm hold on the Black Sea and the lower Danube (see Turkey : History ). The Tatars of the Bug, of the Crimea and of the Kuban were liberated from the suzerainty of the Porte; Azov, Kinburn and all the fortified places of the Crimea were ceded to Russia; the Bosphorus and Dardanelles were opened to Russian merchant vessels; and Russian ambassadors obtained the right to intervene in favour of the inhabitants of the Danubian principalities. Ten years later the semblance of independence which was left to the khans of the Crimea was destroyed and the peninsula formally annexed to the empire.
The peace concluded at Kuchuk-Kainarji was not of long duration. Catherine had conceived an ambitious plan of solving radically the Eastern Question by partitioning Turkey as she and her allies had partitioned Poland, and she had persuaded the emperor Joseph II. to take part in the scheme. It was intended that Russia should take what remained of the northern coast of the Black Sea, Austria should annex the Turkish provinces contiguous to her territory, the Danubian principalities and Bessarabia should be formed into an independent kingdom called Dacia, the Turks should be expelled from Europe, the Byzantine empire should be resuscitated, and the grand-duke Constantine, second son of the Russian heir-apparent, should be placed on the throne of the Palaeologi. Rumours of this gigantic scheme reached Constantinople, and as Catherine's menacing attitude left little doubt as to her aggressive intentions the Porte presented an ultimatum and finally declared war (1787). Fortune again favoured the Russian arms, but as Austria was less successful and signed a separate peace at Sistova in 1791, Catherine did not obtain much material advantage from the campaign. By the peace of Jassy, signed in January 1792, she retained Ochakov and the coast between the Bug and the Dniester, and she secured certain privileges for the Danubian principalities, but the Turks remained in Constantinople, and the realization of the famous Greek project, as it was termed, had to be indefinitely postponed.
During the first years of the French Revolution Catherine's sympathy with philosophic liberalism rapidly evaporated, and
Catherine and the Revolution.
she did all in her power to stimulate the hostility of the European sovereigns to the democratic movement; but she carefully abstained from joining the Coalition, and waited patiently for the moment when the complications in western Europe would give her an opportunity of solving independently the Eastern Question in accordance with Russian interests. That moment never came. In November 1796, when the country was not yet prepared to enter on a decisive struggle with Turkey, Catherine died at the age of sixty-six, and was succeeded by her son Paul, whom she had kept during her long reign in a state of semi-captivity.
The short reign of Paul (1796-1801) resembled in many points the still shorter one of his father, Peter III. Both sovereigns
Paul.
were childishly wayward and capriciously autocratic; both were recklessly indifferent to the feelings, convictions and wishes of those around them; both took a passionate interest in the minutiae of military affairs; as Peter had conceived a boundless admiration for Frederick the Great, so Paul conceived a similar admiration for Napoleon, and both suddenly reversed the national policy to suit this feeling; both were singularly blind to the consequences of their foolish conduct; and both fell victims to court conspiracies which could be in some measure justified, or at least excused, on patriotic grounds.
Paul left no deep, permanent mark on Russian history. In internal affairs he wished to undo what his mother had done, but his impulsive, incoherent efforts in that, direction merely dislocated the administrative mechanism without producing any tangible results. In foreign affairs he displayed the same capriciousness and want of perseverance. After proclaiming his intention of conferring on his subjects the blessings of peace, he joined in 1798 an Anglo-Austrian coalition against France; but when Austria paid more attention to her own interests than to the interests of monarchical institutions in general, and when England did not respect the independence of Malta, which he had taken under his protection, he succumbed to the artful blandishments of Napoleon and formed with him a plan for ruining the British empire by the conquest of India. Having roused, by what ought perhaps to be called his insanity, the enmity, distrust and fear of all around him, including some members of his own family, he was assassinated on the night of the 23rd to 24th of March 1801, and was succeeded by his son Alexander I.
The early part of Alexander's reign (1801-25) was a period of generous ideas and liberal reforms. Under the influence
Alexander I., 1801-25.
of his Swiss tutor, Frederick César de Laharpe, he had imbibed many of the democratic ideas of the time, and he aspired to put them in practice, with the assistance at first of three young friends, Novosiltsov, Adam Czartoryski and Strogonov, who were his intimate counsellors and were popularly known as the Triumvirate, and later of Mikhail Speranski ( q.v. ). Some of the more oppressive measures of the previous reign were abolished; the clergy, the nobles and the merchants were exempted from corporal punishment; the central organs of administration were modernized and the Council of the Empire was created; the idea of granting a constitution was academically discussed; great schemes for educating the people were entertained; parish schools, gymnasia, training colleges and ecclesiastical seminaries were founded; the existing universities of Moscow, Vilna and Dorpat were reorganized and new ones founded in Kazan and Kharkov; the great work of serf-emancipation was begun in the Baltic provinces. In all these schemes Alexander took a keen personal interest; but his enthusiasm was soon cooled by practical difficulties, and his attention became more and more engrossed by foreign affairs.