HIST102 Class Notes: 2/4/2008 *Voltair *Montesquieu *Roussean Three FAMOUS ...

http://www.google.com/notebook/feeds/14441201931550174924/notebooks/BDRouSgoQwrnDuvUi/NDQ9gIgoQp52Ftv4i2008-02-04T23:21:43.847Z2008-03-29T16:51:17.560ZHIST102 Class Notes: 2/4/2008 *Voltair *Montesquieu *Roussean Three FAMOUS ...HIST102 Class Notes: 2/4/2008 *Voltair *Montesquieu *Roussean Three FAMOUS Philophes of the Enlightment period. Application of reason could help make things better in the world. Most famous was Voltaire (which was his pen name). comfortable backgroup middle class family. known for plays and a number of other things. generally non-policitcal. once wrote about someone who was important and he was thrown into prision. when you read candide you have to read between the lines. HE DOESN’T want to go back into prison. his interest is trying to get his poltical message across (THIS IS THE MORE IMPRTANT reason that he is writing). after he turned 40 years of age he begain to increasingly move his writing about things that were more deep. he could be sarcastic. he could be mockingly. when he was able to make his point he was able to get a laugh out of his audience. he kept one step ahead of the law and lived closed to the boarder just in case. HE ADMINRED england. he felt that they respected freedom of thought. on of voltaires great causes was one of religious toleration CRUSE THE INFAMOUS THING. this was ghis famous cry. the THING was biogratry, tolerancce and supersition. he saw the organized cleargy behind these things. becaise he lived in france he attacked the catholic clergy. but he also attacked the whole christian view of the world. in matters of government and politics he isn’t neseccaryly a BELIEVER in democracy. he thought that if a GOVENMENT was enlightened it didn’t matter how power it was. WHAT is an ENLIGHTENED government. one that fought against stupidity and kept the clergy in a subordinate place. one that allowed for freedom of thought and religion. and also a government that promoted material and technical progress. voltaire didn’t have a set form of government that was the best he preferred a form of government *ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM which is a form of government that might have a ruler with absolute power, but that power would be used in a englightened way the voltaire advocated. voltaire was an admirer of *CATHERINE II (the great). he belivied, like many people, that she was using he absolute authority to bring about good in Russia (although some of this was propiganda). catherine and voltaire corressponded and catherine would send him financial gifts as well. *Montesquieu - THE SPIRIT OF LAWS (most famous work). He came from a noble family with land. one of his noted ideas was that the form of government could vary. there was NO ONE FORM that was best for everyone. it might be based on the size of the country or the climate. Given the size of the RUSSIAN empire is the best form of government for Russia and that DEMOCRACY wouldd only work in a SMALL COUNTRY or city state. Montesquieu also had another doctirine that was aimed at royal absolutism in FRANCE. he wanted a BALANCE of power. objected to the thought that the king should have all the power. he believed that power should be shared between the king on other groups. it should be also shared with intermeidary groups. be shared with the NOBLE and the palarments. that power should be shared with the towns and the CHURCH as well. which was different from some of the other philophes. because most frenchmen were members of the church that the church should have some power in government as well. THIS FINDS ITS way into the AMERICAN CONSITIUTION. the final of the trio ROUSSEUA was the most profound or confusing writer of his age. his ideas might have had the most lasting influcuence. the ideas that he develops hearly on are CONTRACTEd by ideas that he had laster in life. in most of his books he SEEMS to think that impulse is more IMPORTANT than critical thought (which was one of the pillars of enlightment). he becomes a child OF NATURE AND FEELINGS. of the begingers of the romantic age. his ideas will influence the aactions against napoleon and the french revolution. *Social Contract, most famous Rousseau work. The idea of a *General Will. he states that at sometime in the long dark past that madnkind had agreed upon a social contract. that all individuals surrender their individual will into a more General AGREEDED upon Will of all. but what does WILL mean? is it a majority? his views will influence the reign of terror. his ideas influence the regin of terror. his ideas will influence ROMATATISM and the reign of terror. he influences the movement and the reaction against that movement. LOOK FOR ALL DETAILS AT 18 mins. You have rulers that claim to base the government and their laws on the teaches of these philiosphes. *Elizabeth when he talked about peter the great, he is responsible for the death of his son. this creates havok after peter dies. GUARD REGIMENT is taking the place of the streklsky. there creates real turmole after he dies. he has several children that take over. ELIZABETH is a czaria that rules for about 20 years. She is the daughter of PETER and CATHERINE the Ist. She was really a crummy ruler. She liked to DRESS well and spend a lot of the money of the Russian tax money. MOSCOW remained the second city and owned residency even though ST PETERSBURG was the capital. One of the big fires in the MOSCOW and destroyed a number of gowns about 4000 which was her second residence. listed that she had 15000 dresses after she tied. she had about 3 gowns for each day. She spent a lot of money and expected that HER NOBLES would live a certain lifestyle. She issued a DECREE that all NOBLES must own couches of a certain value. ALSO she said taht if you went out in public with a certain number of servants. this did weaken RUSSIA because of all this spending. one thing that ELIZABETH was determined to do was to get some stablity into the throne of RUSSIA. she didn’t like that the guards and others had so much influence over the changes in the throne. SHE DESTINGATED he successor who was a GRAND NEWPHEW who designtated as he succesor. SHE THEN arranged a MARRIAGE for him. to get him married to have a lot of children. so that it would end the problem of a clear line of succession. the person choosen to be the brinde was a young german priceness. she was brought to RUSSIA to meet the empress to meet peter and undergo interviews and a through physical exam to make srue that she could bear children. THEY coverted her to the RUSSIAN orthodox faith after she coverted she was known as CATHERINE. she was 15 years old AND WAS MARRIED TO PETER. they weren’t compatiable and didn’t get along well at all including sharing the same residnence which mean that they probably wouldn’t have children. she was very smart and spent her time perfecting her FRENCH (german), also wrote poetry. THIS IS WHAT THE PROBLEM is that elizabeth wanted the marriage so that there would be male offspring. at first catherine was blamed, but elizabeth found out that the problem was with peter. then catherine chooses to take a lover and follows this the rest of her life. even before peter takes the throne she has a lover and also continues to increase the number of lovers. SHE called them PUPILS. her last pupil was 19 when she was 70. before peter assumed the throne catherine kept these quiet. AFTER she became EMPRESS, she maintained these lovers on an open basis. CATHERINE doesn’t let HER favorites determine any policy. after they are dropped as a favorite they might be brought back if they were smart. catherine would treat her current favorites very well. given jewels, LANDS that are conquered. she doesn’t keep the lands for russia, but gives away the land and peasents to one of the favorites. given an apartment and salary. they would get lots of gifts and bounses. one time a coat was given to a favorite that was covered in diamonds completely. very generous and leinent after they broke up. even if they had been carring on another affair. she sometimes made them king of poland or some other job. one of her favorites was probably the father of PAUL. technically the son of PETER IIIrd who she was married to at the time but this was probably not the case probably one of the lovers of CATHERINE. *PETER RULES BREIFLY as PETER the IIIrd. Would dress up in his full military uniform and then try to order the rats around and then behead when they didn’t obey. NOT AN EFFICTIVE RULER. PETER’s policies where not very popular and CATHERINE dressed up as one of the guard regiments. No ONE LIKED peter and he agreed to abdicate and give up the throne. he would be allowed to live in one of estates outside the capital. the fact that CATHERINE become czarnia became empress was odd. she had no biological line to the throne. NOT LONG after assuming the throne PETER IIIrd was murdered with the knownledge of CATHERINE. there was the thought that CATHERINE might be forced out of the throne. she doesn’t seem very elightened. but being enlightened, DOESN’T mean that you are liberal. louis 15 a contemporary of catherine II of russia. he allowed his mistress to have a lot of power. would allow them to have family and friends at higher positions. =========================after the break catherine enlightened despote, but didn’t sound all the enlightened. she thought that she could rule RUSSIA in an elightened way with a real design. MOST WERE FAILURES OR she didn’t follow through on it. enlightened thinkers felt that there was a natural law and that HUMAN laws should conform these laws of nature and to be in harmony with the natural laws. the other enlightened rules said that they were applying the rules of the philiosphes and taht they were living in an age of reason. for catherine her reign in DOMESTIC policy was dedicated to leading this sort of enlightened rule. she is a complete outsider who is not a member of the family. her extra legal postiion would lead to plots against her and she ALWAYS had to be on the lookout for those who would over through here. the only ones that had power to over throw here were the nobles. SHE WOULD CATER TO the NOBLES. They largest class the /*Serfs would have positiions that got even worse that they already were for them. this was the largest class of people. she had to prove that she was more russian than the russians. SHE had the most nationlist of demostic policies because she ws concerned about how russian should would appear. she was most successful with her national policy. if they were going to follow the philiosphes they would have to have a more rational form of government. PETER had created a new system with new insitiutions. although they still exsisted, they weren’t doing what peter wanted them to do. catherine wanted to make them more effecient. *IMPERIAL SENTATE was created by PETER the 1st. this body did NOT make laws. they senete ahd a number of administrative and judical functions. catherine looked at this body and found that they were mostly ingornant and they didn’t know wwhat they were doing. they would get bogged down in iminor deatils. they couldd hear FROM courts around the empire. she found that they had spent 6 months trying to find out who owned a SMALL peice of land. THEY WERE SUPPOSED to be focuses on NATION issue. THEY WERE ALSO supposed to APPOINT governors to CITIES OF A CERTAIN SIZE. catherine asked them for spefics about the program, but they didn’t know how many cities and who they appointed and why. another responsible was to KEEP TRACK of government income. they were supposed to know how much money the government had so the rulter would known how to spend. WHEN SHE ASKED them how much the government had brought in they gave her a FIGURE that was WAY OFF. CATHERINE couldn’t stand all this caouse and disorder. she was trying to reform these insitiutions. CATHERINE divided the IMPERIAL SENATE into 6 sections that would have responbility for a particular area: maybe legal APPEALS or finances. There would be one offical that would make sure that these 6 were doing their jobs and they weren’t getting bogged down. this was to make the senate what peter had intended. catherine MAINTAINED the colleges that peter had created. CATHERINE kept these titles but made them more efficent and elimated confusion and overlapping authority. *INSTRUCTION the core of CATHERINE’s domestic reform was to be one that reformed the legal system. IT hadn’t been reformed in more than 100 years. many laws had been dicated by many rulers. there had been rules that might have been contracted by other edicats that had come later. you could be guilty and innocent of something at the same time. generally the more recent would be the one that they took. the philiosphes felt that you needed to have a rational legal system. she choose to make it harmonry with nature. SHE CREATED A COMMISION for drafting a NEW CODE OF LAWS. she herself wrote the instruction (which was almost the length of a book) then based upon this book they were supposed to reform the russian law code. the commision meet, but there were a number of problems. the instructions WHERE very long. MOST didn’t have a background in LAW and didn’t know what they meant by enlightened langauge. she would take a lot of the material from one of the Philiosphes and use it directly. it was a group of almost 600 members. when catherine saw that nothing was happening, she suspended their meetings because russian was supposed be in war and didn’t have time for it. she dissolved the SENATE and they never MADE any changes to the laws that were on the book. she never got this done. the only thing that came out of this was that some ideas fromt he people of the probelms that they were having. several of catherine’s reforms had a similar fate. she would write about these and the philiosphes really felt that she was great. they didn’t actually know what was going on in russia. they didn’t know that none of reforms didn’t actually make it through. russia had a predemotially illerate society until abou the beginging of the 20th centrey. it takes a long time until education gets spread to the masses. one of it’s reasons for it’s continueing backwards ness. catherine did do some reforms: including a better system for administring the provences. mostly administrative areas of reform. peter talked about doing this, but wasn’t able to carry it out because he didn’t have the officals. catherine does make some progress there. *CARTER OF THE NOBLILITY: listed as a reform of catherine. this is listed as something that she did. under peter the great, everyone was to serve the state for the lifetime. included the serfs that worked the land the nobles that were also supposed to spend their entire life in service to state. first to the military or navy SENCONDLY to the government. PETER the 3rd DID AWAY with having nobles the need to serve the STATE. he did away with this requirement. many nobles still choose to serve the state, but some left because they didn’t have to stay anymore. catherine ADDS to the rights of the nobles through this charter. it organized the nobles by provence. within each provinece the nobles formed a coporate body. and then had the right to elect an offical known as the marshal of the noblity. he would be their spokenmen or represtnative. they COULD SELECT THEIR OWN JURORIES or JUDGES. within the districts they had smaller groups. the nobles were given rights that no one else enjoyed. THEY COULD PETITION THE GOVERNOR, the SENATE or the ruler herself. This transformed the russian nobles into a prilvedged class with GREAT power and influence but didn’t have ANY RESPONSIBILITIES. as a CLASS, the nobles become kind of a parasite coporate body. they have NO RESPONSIBILITIES that are equal to their power. they DON’T even speak the same languages as the SERFS. They spoke FRENCH, most didn’t know RUSSIA very well. They felt that speaking RUSSIAN was for DOGS or SERFS. All their coorspondence would be in French. they become a group that becomes a GROUP of SUPERFOLUS MEN. they don’t have a purpose. in contrast to the privledges of the nobles, the SERFS had terrible misery. they had very poor conditions that were MUCH CLOSER to slaves than to the SERFS in western europe. In EUROPE the serfs didn’t BELONG to the noble. they stayed with the land. in RUSSIA they could be gambled with or they could be sold. nobles use them as stakes in card games. the serfs had NO privlidges or RIGHTS. the SERFS were the propery. They could be KILLED for the most part, even though they weren’t because they were property and they didn’t want to be lost by the noble. BORN and DIE on the land. you can’t marry someone from the adjacent estate. they wouldn’t be punished if they killed their serfs. it took couple of years to get something through the legal system. eventually someone who killed their serfs got sent to a convent. the serfs would sometimes respond by violence. they might burn down a house. they wouldn’t always be punished either, because other nobles didn’t like the way that these guy was treating his serfs. they didn’t care that the serfs burnt down his house with him in it. there were 40 major serf uprisinges during the first 10 years of catherines reign when the military had to be called in. *PUGACHEU rebellion or uprising was the most major during catherines time. Pugacheu served in the russian army. he didn’t like the treatment of serfs and he feld to the outskirts of the country. he wanted to get revenge for the treatment of serfs in the COUNTRY. Pugacheu claimed to be PETER the 3rd, that he hadn’t been killed. that he was leading his people the serfs to return him to his rightlful place. he gathered 25000 men that began to OVERRUN manors. they didn’t have weapons, they would kill all the nobles and their family. as they grew larger they began to overrun cities. HIS rebellion became well known abroad. CATHERINE made light of it when writing to others outside the country. really SHE WAS AFAIRD. these serfs preffered to death to living as serfs. ALL THESE nobles would FLEE cities and would move to large cities. CATHERINE was engaged in the war with the OTOMAN empire. CATHERINE brought forces back from this war and they overtook the PUGACHEU uprising. he was hung and then drawn and quartered. they took the body parts of pugacheu to serf villiages to try and teach them a lesson about rebelling. most of the leaders were hanged. most were JUST beaten though and returned because they were too valuable then kill. although the rebellion was defeated it showed how much the peasents were upset. CATHERINE didn’t really take any steps to making the peaseants a better life. she didn’t want to do anything because it would upset the nobles than anything. CATHERINE GOT the titles of the GREAT MORE BECAUSE of her FOREIGN policy. Peter had been at war in that he suceed in taking land in the north, but not the south. CATHERINE is able to get the ottoman empire though. she is able to to get the black sea and overtake the TURKS. she wanted remove the turks from europse and replace it would taken over by one of her nephews. CATHERINE’s work began the slow and steady DECLINE of the OTTOMAN empire. She is also able to EXTEND Russia WEST INTO POLAND. Russia gains a great deal of terriotory and moves closer to europe. whatever CATHERINE’s claims had made about beeing and Engligmtemed ruler dissppeared during the time of the french revolution. SHE HATED the idea of the french revolution. INSTEAD OF READING the changes that were being prompted through the FRENCH revolution. instead of being encouraged by them, they were thrown in jail or killed. one russian writer that wrote about the problems of serfs in RUSSIA. although this was written on two levels CATHERINE SAW through his writing and knew what it was for and banished the writer to SERBIA. when she died there was no question. she tried to ORGANIZE other eurpoean countries against the ideas of the FRENCH REVOLUTION. at the end of her reign there was no doubt that she had banished any thought of having liberal ideas. she didn’t plan for he succession and her son took over and HIS IDEAS were very different from HERS. Wes