The periphery of absolutism. absolutism in eastern europe

The absolutist states of western Europe were the strongest and exerted the greatest influence over the rest of the world. However, it was not only France, England, Spain and Portugal that achieved a state centralization with absolutist characteristics. Three other cases existed and needed to be treated: a Russia, a Prussia it's the Austrian Empire.

In Russia, the centralization of power around a king was consolidated with Ivan the Great (1462-1505), after a process of agglutination undertaken by several princes around the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Ivan proclaimed himself tsar (= caesar) of the Russian Empire, whose domains extended from Moscow to the Ural Mountains and the Arctic Glacial Ocean. It was under the reign of Ivan the Great that the Kremlin, government headquarters. Another that stood out in obtaining land for the Empire was Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584), conquering lands to the south and east, while colonizing cold Siberia.

The connection of the Russian Empire with the West took place under the reign of

Peter the Great (1672-1725). He stimulated economic development and sought to modernize state structures, creating a regular army and navy, structuring state finance and a public administration based on more rational criteria, with the objective of achieving efficiency administrative. This Europeanization of the Russian Empire caused Peter the Great to build a city further west of Moscow. Saint Petersburg, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, was a symbol of the modernization efforts undertaken by Tsar Peter, whose royal court strove to adopt various habits of its European counterparts, such as dress and the use of tobacco.

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Another case of absolutism took place in Prussia, a kingdom that was part of the Holy Roman Empire and that used its support to the Protestant Reformation to annex lands from the Catholic Church. Frederico Guilherme Hoherzollern of Brandenburg turned Prussia into the foremost of German states by unifying the nobles, junkers, and strengthening the state structure through the collection of unified taxes throughout the territory, stimulating trade and creating a regular army. The efforts of your successors Frederick I (1688-1713), Frederick William I (1713-1740) and Frederick II (1740-1786) led Prussia to become one of the leading European states, and to create the framework for German unification in the 19th century.

OAustrian Empire it was also a product of the Holy Roman Empire, which was under the control of the dynasty of the Habsburg caused this agrarian and feudal state to extend its territories to the Balkan region and lands of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The reign of Maria Teresa (1740-1780), which organized a permanent national army, and also Joseph II (1780-1790), who initiated the administrative centralization of the State, in addition to trying to encourage the contact of its subjects with Western European culture.

By Tales Pinto
Graduated in History

Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:

PINTO, Tales dos Santos. "The periphery of absolutism"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/a-periferia-absolutismo.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.