Throughout Chinese history, land-bound peasants were considered freemen in law but depended entirely upon the landowner for subsistence. In this system of serfdom, peasants could be traded, punished without due process of law, and made to pay tribute to the lord with labour. All serfs were freed, however, upon the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Potemkin, Grigory Aleksandrovich, Prince Tavrichesky, Imperial Prince
▪ Russian statesman
born Sept. 13 [Sept. 24, New Style], 1739, Chizovo, Russia
died Oct. 5 [Oct. 16], 1791, near Iaşi [now in Romania]
Russian army officer and statesman, for two years Empress Catherine II's (Catherine II) lover and for 17 years the most powerful man in the empire. An able administrator, licentious, extravagant, loyal, generous, and magnanimous, he was the subject of many anecdotes.
Educated at the University of Moscow, Potemkin entered the horseguards in 1755. He helped bring Catherine II to power as empress and was given a small estate. He shone in the Turkish War of 1768–74 and became Catherine's lover in 1774. Made commander in chief and governor general of “New Russia” (southern Ukraine), he remained friendly with her, and his influence was unshaken despite Catherine's taking subsequent lovers.
Potemkin was deeply interested in the question of Russia's southern boundaries and the fate of the Turkish Empire. In 1776 he sketched the plan for the conquest of the Crimea, which was subsequently realized. He was also busy with the so-called Greek project, which aimed at restoring the Byzantine Empire under one of Catherine's grandsons. In many of the Balkan lands he had well-informed agents.
After he became field marshal, in 1784, he introduced many reforms into the army and built a fleet in the Black Sea, which, though constructed of inferior materials, served well in Catherine's second Turkish War (1787–91). The arsenal of Kherson, begun in 1778, the harbour of Sevastopol, built in 1784, and the new fleet of 15 ships of the line and 25 smaller vessels were monuments to his genius. But there was exaggeration in all his enterprises. He spared neither men, money, nor himself in attempting to carry out a gigantic scheme for the colonization of the Ukrainian steppe; but he never calculated the cost, and most of the plan had to be abandoned when but half accomplished. Even so, Catherine's tour of the south in 1787 was a triumph for Potemkin, for he disguised all the weak points of his administration—hence the apocryphal tale of his erecting artificial villages to be seen by the empress in passing. (“Potemkin village” came to denote any pretentious facade designed to cover up a shabby or undesirable condition.) Joseph II of Austria had already made him a prince of the Holy Roman Empire (1776); Catherine made him prince of Tauris in 1783.
When the second Turkish War began, the founder of New Russia acted as commander in chief. But the army was ill-equipped and unprepared; and Potemkin, in a fit of depression, would have resigned but for the steady encouragement of the empress. Only after A.V. Suvorov had valiantly defended Kinburn did he take heart again and besiege and capture Ochakov and Bendery. In 1790 he conducted the military operations on the Dniester River and held his court at Iaşi with more than Asiatic pomp. In 1791 he returned to St. Petersburg, where, along with his friend A.A. Bezborodko, he made vain efforts to overthrow Catherine's newest and last favourite, Platon Zubov. The empress grew impatient and compelled him in 1791 to return to Iaşi to conduct the peace negotiations as chief Russian plenipotentiary. He died while on his way to Nikolayev (now Mykolayiv, Ukraine).
Radishchev, Aleksandr Nikolayevich
▪ Russian author
born Aug. 20 [Aug. 31, New Style], 1749, Moscow, Russia
died Sept. 12 [Sept. 24], 1802, St. Petersburg
writer who founded the revolutionary tradition in Russian literature and thought.
Radishchev, a nobleman, was educated in Moscow (1757–62), at the St. Petersburg Corps of Pages (1763–66), and at Leipzig, where he studied law (1766–71). His career as a civil servant brought him into contact with people from all social strata. Under the influence of the cult of sentiment developed by such writers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he wrote his most important work, Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (1790; A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow), in which he collected, within the framework of an imaginary journey, all the examples of social injustice, wretchedness, and brutality he had seen. Though the book was an indictment of serfdom, autocracy, and censorship, Radishchev intended it for the enlightenment of Catherine the Great, who he assumed was unaware of such conditions. Its unfortunate timing (the year after the French Revolution) led to his immediate arrest and sentence to death. The sentence was commuted to 10 years' exile in Siberia, where he remained until 1797.
Radishchev's harsh treatment chilled liberal hopes for reform. In 1801 he was pardoned by Alexander I and employed by the government to draft legal reforms, but he committed suicide a year later. Though his work has slight claim to literary quality, his fame was great and his thought inspired later generations, especially the Decembrists (Decembrist), an elite group of intellectuals and noblemen who staged an abortive rebellion against autocracy in 1825.
Menshikov, Aleksandr Danilovich
▪ Russian statesman
born Nov. 16 [Nov. 6, old style], 1673, Moscow
died Nov. 23 [Nov. 12, O.S.], 1729, Berezov, Siberia, Russian Empire
prominent Russian political figure during and after the reign of Peter I the Great. A gifted general and administrator, he eventually became the most powerful official in the empire, but his insatiable greed and ambition ultimately resulted in his downfall.
Of humble origins, Menshikov became an orderly for Peter I in 1686 and soon became the tsar's favourite. As a commander during the Northern War against the Swedes after 1700, he scored a number of major victories, eventually receiving the title of field marshal. But he also gave increasing evidence of rapacity. As an administrator after 1714, he was under almost continuous investigation for corrupt practices; and, were it not for his indispensable abilities, he would likely have been stripped of power much earlier than he was.
Having fallen into disgrace toward the end of Peter's reign, Menshikov succeeded in having his ally Catherine, Peter's widow, named empress in 1725, at which point he became virtual ruler of Russia. When Catherine became mortally ill two years later he threw his support to Pyotr Alexeyevich, Peter the Great's grandson, and arranged to have his daughter marry the young tsar, now Peter II. However, his enemies managed to turn Peter II against him, whereupon he was arrested, stripped of his rank and property, and sent to Siberia, where he died
Catherine I
▪ empress of Russia
Russian in full Yekaterina Alekseyevna, original name Marta Skowronska
born April 15 [April 5, Old Style], 1684
died May 17 [May 6], 1727, St. Petersburg, Russia
peasant woman of Baltic (probably Lithuanian) birth who became the second wife of Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725) and empress of Russia (1725–27).
Orphaned at the age of three, Marta Skowronska was raised by a Lutheran pastor in Marienburg (modern Alūksne, Latvia). When the Russians seized Marienburg (1702) during the Great Northern War, Marta was taken prisoner. She later was handed over to a close adviser of Peter I. A short time later she and the tsar became lovers.
In 1703, after the birth of their first child, she was received into the Russian Orthodox church and rechristened Catherine (Yekaterina) Alekseyevna. Subsequently, she became Peter's inseparable companion, and, in February 1712, his wife. On May 18 (May 7), 1724, she was crowned empress-consort of Russia.