Absolutism+In+Eastern+Europe



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[|Great summary on state building/absolutism in Europe.]

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 * Holy Roman Empire-** It is in present day Germany and ruled by the Habsburgs.


 * Ottoman Empire-** Ruled by the Turks. They had most of northern Africa and Constantinople. They invaded into Europe through Hungary and Austria. The Ottoman empire's success depended on slaves and expansion. The farthest they got in Europe was the city of Vienna, which was when they were pushed back. Slaves captured from other countries had the top rands, next to Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566)


 * Suleiman the Magnificent** Suleiman was the Sultan of the Turks during the time that they were expanding the Turkish empire after the fall of Constantinople. He was definatly an absolutist, he owned all land, so there was no landed nobility to deal with, Turks had no private property. However, he was religiously tolerant. He did practice Islam, but when they took over an area, they didn't convert them. He let them practice what they please.


 * Janissary Corps-** The most talented slaves rose to the top of the bureaucracy, the less fortunate formed the and brave and skillful core of the sultan's army which they called this.


 * Poland-Lithuania- fought against Ivan the Terrible in the mid 16th century. They also joined with Ukraine to fight.**


 * liberum veto:**Based on the assumption that all members of the Polish nobility were absolutely equal politically, the veto meant, in practice, that every bill introduced into the Sejm had to be passed unanimously. It was first used to dissolve a session of the Sejm in 1652. Subsequently, it was used extensively, often paralyzing the __ government __, making a centralization of power


 * serfdom:** condition in Eastern Europe in which a tenant farmer was bound to a hereditary plot of land and to the will of his landlord. The vast majority of serfs in Eastern Europe obtained their subsistence by cultivating a plot of land that was owned by a lord. This was the essential feature differentiating serfs from [|slaves], who were bought and sold without reference to a plot of land. The serf provided his own food and clothing from his own productive efforts. A substantial proportion of the grain the serf grew on his holding had to be given to his lord. The lord could also compel the serf to cultivate that portion of the lord’s land that was not held by other tenants (called demesne land). The serf also had to use his lord’s grain mills and no others.


 * robot:** 3 days of unpaid labor a week became the norm, many serfs worked everyday except Sunday and religious holidays. A quarter of serfs were forced to work this way.

In January 1556 Charles gives to his son Philip the crown of Spain and of Spanish America, together with the Habsburg possessions in Italy. Three months previously he has handed to him the rule of the Netherlands. In September he offers to his brother Ferdinand his imperial crown as Holy Roman emperor; this transfer (technically a matter of election) is ratified in 1558. These abdications formalize a division of the Habsburg lands which has been a political reality through most of Charles's reign. Practical responsibility for the German-speaking regions has been delegated to Ferdinand since 1522. Ferdinand has himself added adjacent territories in Bohemia and part of Hungary.
 * Habsburg Empire (Austrian Empire):**

Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab39#ixzz15OkqjJJX
 * Bohemia:A historical region and former kingdom of present-day western Czech Republic . The Czechs, a Slavic people, settled in the area between the 1st and 5th centuries A.D. A later principality was independent until the 15th century, when it passed to Hungary and then to the Hapsburg dynasty of Austria . Bohemia became the core of the newly formed state of Czechoslovakia in 1918.** The lesser Czech nobility was largely Protestant and they controlled the Bohemian Estates, the representative body of the different legal orders of Bohemia.


 * Austria proper**


 * Hungary-** In between Austria and the Ottoman empire. They have the same ruler as Austria, but different laws.


 * Leopold I- Built Schonbrunn ( a royal palace that was enormous), began in 1675 to celebrate Austrian military victories and habsburgs might.**


 * siege of Vienna, 1683-** The Turks were expanding into Europe. It was the Protestant nobles and Louis XIV and 15,000 Tartars against the polish, german, and austrian force. The city of Vienna was almost lost to the Turks and french, but the polish came in and turned the tables and they pushed the Ottoman Empire out.


 * Pragmatic Sanction-** Charles VI proclaimed this. It stated that the Habsburg possessions were never to be divided and were always to be passed intact to a single heir regardless of their gender. He tried to get this principle accepted by the Habsburg family, three different Estates of the realm, and the states of Europe.


 * Prussia** Prussia was originally divided into two parts: Prussia and Brandenburg, ruled by the same Hohenzollern family. They had pretty much no military strength other than their status as part of the Golden Bull. After the 30 Years War they also gained some wetlands which seemed insignificant at the time. After the unification of the three parts of the kingdom, Prussia had the fourth largest, and most powerful army in Europe.


 * Hohenzollerns** The Hohenzollerns were a family that ruled the two parts of Prussia: Prussia and Brandenburg. Brandenburg and Prussia were far apart and had very different geography. When the line of Hohenzollerns that controlled Prussia ends, the Hohenzollerns that control Brandenburg inherit Prussia. This leads to the later unification of Brandenburg and Prussia.


 * Frederick William, the “Great Elector”-** (1640-1688) Came into power at 23 years old. Tried to unite three separate provinces (Brandenburg, Prussia and holdings along the Rhine) and add to them through diplomacy and war. Creates a standing army in Prussia and starts absolutism. Wasn't an actual king. Forced the states to accept the introduction of permanent taxation without consent.


 * Junkers** Were nobility of Prussia. The King's want for power made him conflict with the estate-owning junkers, but rather than destroying them, most of them are enlisted into the army. Some of them were also the landowning class that dominated estates of Brandenburg and Prussia.

“**king of Prussia”**


 * Frederick William I-** King of Prussia. Wanted to be a big military power. He loved his army and hated his son. He loved tall soliders because he credited them with superior strength and endurance. He was always a man in uniform.

“**Sparta of the North”-** Refer to Prussia as this. Prussia is referred to as this because of the military life style.

In the fourteenth century, the grand princes of Muscovy began gathering Russian lands to increase the population and wealth under their rule (see table 2, Appendix). The most successful practitioner of this process was Ivan III (the Great; r. 1462-1505), who conquered Novgorod in 1478 and Tver' in 1485. Muscovy gained full sovereignty over the ethnically Russian lands in 1480 when Mongol overlordship ended officially, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century virtually all those lands were united. Through inheritance, Ivan obtained part of the province of Ryazan', and the princes of Rostov and Yaroslavl' voluntarily subordinated themselves to him. The northwestern city of Pskov remained independent in this period, but Ivan's son, Vasiliy III (r. 1505-33), later conquered it.
 * Muscovy:**More important to Moscow's development in what became the state of Muscovy, however, was its rule by a series of princes who were ambitious, determined, and lucky. The first ruler of the principality of Muscovy, Daniil Aleksandrovich (d. 1303), secured the principality for his branch of the Rurik Dynasty.


 * Boyars:** member of a class of higher Russian nobility that until the time of Peter I headed the civil and military administration of the country.


 * Ivan III (“the Great”)-** Ivan III ruled from 1462-1505. He through off the Mongolian Rule and was the first czar, emperor, of Russia. He makes himself head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and is a successful absolutist ruler.

“**Third Rome**”- Moscow. Ivan III thought Moscow (Russia) was the Third Rome.


 * Ivan IV (“the Terrible”)-** Executed many boyars and their peasants and servants. His ownership of all the land, trade, and industry restricted economic development. He was abused as a child and brutal as an adult.


 * Cossacks-** Formed free groups and outlaw armies. They maintained a precarious independence beyond the tsar's reach.They were peasants who escaped from Ivan the Terrible's rule and fled into the countryside.

“**Time of Troubles**” (1598-1613) Russia had no heir to the throne, after Ivan's son (theodore) died in 1598, peasants were revolting, foreign countries were invading, the cossacks were uprising and the nobles were desperate.


 * Romanov Dynasty:**The Romanov Dynasty began with the election of Mikhail Romanov, a 16 year old boyar, by the zemskii sobor . The Romanov family ruled Russia from 1613 to 1855 and during this time, Russia became a major European power. The first rulers of this dynasty struggled to end internal disorder, foreign invasion and financial collapse. Mikhail Romanov was a weak ruler, his father Metropolitan Filaret was the real power until his death in 1633. After Mikhail's death, his son Alexis ruled from 1645-1676. Mikhail and Alexis relied on the advice of the zemskii sobor, which grew in power. It passed some legislation and represented the gentry and merchants against the boyars. However, Alexis often deferred to his boyar advisors who usually did not work for the best of the country and peasant uprisings and Cossack revolts were common. Ivan "The Terrible" marries Anastasia Romanov, as a result, after the Time of Troubles, Mikhail(Michael?) Romanov inherits the thrown to Russia as the closest heir to Ivan, establishing the Romanov Dynasty which rules until 1917.


 * Michael Romanov-** He was elected tsar by the nobles in 1613 and he reestablished tsarist autocracy.He was 16 and Ivan the Terrible's grandnephew.
 * was the Tsar of Russia from 1613 to 1645 and founder of the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Russia until 1917. He was the son of Fedor Nikitich Romanov and was related to the last tsar of the Rurik dynasty, Fedor I.

"They helped to restore order to Russia, reduce peasantry to serfdom, and obtained peace with both Sweden (Treaty of Stolbovo, 1617) and Poland (Truce of Deulino, 1618). Michael's father, who was forced to become a monk under the name of Philaret, returned to Russia in 1619. He became Patriarch of the church and also dominated much of Michael's government. His involvement in the government helped increase diplomatic, commercial, and cultural contact with Western Europe. In 1633, Michael's father died. Then, Michael's maternal relatives again protuberantly took part in the government again until he died in 1645. He left the throne to his son Alexis."-http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/easteurope/michael1.html

“**Old Believers**” - peasants who opposed the reform that Nikon wanted to enforce on the Russian Orthodox Church.


 * Peter the Great-** Extremely tall. He was determined to continue the tsarist tradition of territorial expansion. Also determined to redress the defeats the tsar's armies had occasionally suffered in their wars with Poland and Sweden since the time of Ivan the Terrible. He was interested in military power.


 * Strelski:** a revolt 1698. After Peter the Great put it down, he established his power.


 * Great Northern War -** War against King Charles XII of Sweden. Early defeats force Peter the Great to reform the army and force the nobility to serve in his bureaucracy.

“**Window on the West” -** Peter the Great ordered that after Russia won at Poltava they should build a great city to equal any in the world. It was to be in the Western, baroque style. This way he felt it would be easier to reform the country militarily and administratively.


 * Table of Ranks** * 14 ranks that you rose based on merit.


 * St. Petersburg-** This became one of the world's largest and most influential cities. The city was western and baroque in its layout. It had broad straight avenues, houses were built in a uniform line, and there were parks, canals and streetlights.


 * Winter Palace-** This was Prince Eugene of Savory's palace. This palace showed magnificent styles of Baroque style.