Post on 16-Dec-2015
II. Foreign Policy
A. Ties with the West
B. War1. Turkey 1695
2. Great Northern War 1700-1721
3. Turkish War 1710
On Peter’s Visit to France1717
• “What he ate and drank at his two regular meals is inconceivable . . . a bottle or two of beer, as many more of wine, and, occasionaly, liquors afterward; at the end of the meal strong drinks, such as brandy, as much sometimes as a quart.”
II. Contexts
1. European State-Building
a. Dynamics
b. Development theory: mercantilism
cameralism (Kameralwissenschaft)
c. Prescriptive absolutism
2. Baseline: Russia in 1689a. Monarchy
b. State
c. Army
d. Society
III. Petrine State-Building
1. Dynamics: military/diplomatic, cultural
2. Petrine Theorya. Etatisme
b. “Self-regulated state”
c. Polizeistaat
d. Personal Absolutism
3. Petrine Style
1724: Role of Policy (Polizei)
• Policy (Police) has its special calling: which is to intervene to protect justice and rights, to generate good order and morals, to guarantee safety from thieves, robbers, rapists, and extortionists, to extirpate disordered and loose living. It binds everyone to labor and an honest profession . . . . It defends widows, orphans and foreigners in accordance with God’s law, educates the young in chaste purity and honest learning; in short, for all of these, the police is the soul of citizenship and of all good order.”
Creative Law-Making
Period Total Laws Laws Per Annum
1700-1709 500 50
1710-1719 1238 124
1720-25 1200 240
Monarch’s Power1716 Military Code
His Majesty is an autocratic monarch, who is not obliged to answer for his actions to anyone on earth, but who possesses power and authority, the state, and land. As a Christian sovereign, he rules in accordance with his will and wish.