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Central & Eastern European AbsolutismPart II
• Austria
• Prussia
• Russia
Austria
• THIRTY
YEARS’ WAR
– Lost ability to
compete with
Western
Europe
– Instead aimed
internally and
at Bohemia
and Hungary
Austria
• Versus Ottomans
– Ottoman private property
•
•
•
•
Sultan
system of rule
No Suleiman (see pic)
Bureaucracy???
– Christian slaves
– Not smart ones became Janissaries
– Thrived on Christian tribute
• Religiously tolerant
• Often kinder rulers than Christian
emperors
– Butted heads with Habsburgs (and
Russians)
The Golden Age of the Ottomans
“Golden Horn”
The Ottoman Capital -- Constantinople
The Fall of Constantinople: 1453
Europeans vs. Turks
The End of the Byzantine Empire
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia - interior
Illuminated Qur’an Page
Janissaries
Battle of Lepanto (1571)
Austria
• Versus Bohemia
– Bohemia fell during Thirty Years’ War
• Protestant nobility crushed and replaced
• Versus Hungary
– Conquered by Habsburgs but never fully pacified
– Surviving nobility were highly influenced by
Protestantism
– Revolt against Habsburgs under Prince Rakoczy 
failed but gained significant independence
– Helped in revolts by Ottomans
• Charles VI and the Pragmatic Sanction
Charles VI (r. 1711-1740)
Prussia
• Blown apart by Thirty Years War… must face East
• Geographical limitations
– ‘sandbox of Europe’
– No natural physical barriers
• Military is used to build the state
• Junkers
– Landowning Prussian nobility
– Given status as head of military and complete
domination of their serfs in exchange for loss of real
political power
Prussia & the Austrian Empire: 1721-72
Prussia
• Great Elector
– Why called this?
– His goal- to weaken the local estates (regional parliaments)
and build absolutism
– War during his reign (against Sweden and Poland and in
response to raids by the Tartars) allowed Great Elector to
subjugate the Prussian Estates
• The nobles were forced to choose security over independence
– Bureaucracy and standing army basically the same thing
• For example, soldier’s collected taxes
Prussia
• The Soldiers’ King
– Solidified absolutism
– Military nut
• Lived a rigidly militaristic
life
– Built incredible army…
• Tall soldiers
• Prussia- 12th largest
population, but 4th largest
army
– Exemplified hard work and
living simply
– Sparta of the North
– Never ‘spent’ his soldiers
Frederick William I
King Frederick I of Prussia (r.1701-1713)
The Soldier’s
King
Russia
• European or not?
– Yes – Geography, ethnicity, and desire
– But…
• Mongol Invasion
– Mongol Legacy on the Tsars
» Absoluter and terribler power (similar to Ottoman)
» Missed the Renaissance - remain medieval/feudal
– Rise of Muscovite Russians
» Best suck-ups to Mongolians
• Ivans kicked out the Khans
• Newly independent Russians saw themselves as the ‘Third
Rome’
• Fall of Byzantine Empire (Constantinople) to Ottomans
• Religion – Eastern Orthodox
• Caesar- tsar
Population Center
The Mongols Invade Russia
Early Russia
Early Byzantine Influences:
Orthodox Christianity
Early Byzantine Influences:
Orthodox Christianity
Ivan the Great (r. 1462-1505)
Ivan III Tearing the Great Khan’s Letter Requesting
More Tribute in 1480.
Russia
• Taming of the Boyars by the Ivans
– Khan-like
• Tsar had enormous land-holdings
– Service nobility
• Got land, had to serve in army  relatively weak
– Ivan the Terrible
• Used ‘secret police’ to crush peasants further
• Nobles, in turn, ruthlessly oppressed their own peasants
• Even merchants were bound to their cities
– Cossacks
• Repeated uprisings
– Tsars almost literally owned everything in Russia
• Romanov line
– Because of peasant revolts, the Romanovs restored some rights to nobles, to
unify with them against the peasants
Russian Boyars
Russia
• Peter the Great
–
–
–
–
–
Militaristic
Great Northern War
Promotion by ability
Complete domination of the nobility
Desire for a warm water port
• fight with Ottomans- Black Sea
• Fight with Swedes- Baltic
• This is a recurring theme for Russia
– Westernization, but mainly for military gain
• Grand Tour
• Europeans brought in to train Russians
• Beard Law
Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725)
Russia & Sweden After the
Great Northern War
Mimicry of French Absolutism
• Royal Cities
– St. Petersburg
• Window to the West
• Built from scratch at great cost to nobility and peasants…
evidence of absolutism
• Evidence of military victories
– Broad straight avenues radiating out from the center
• Palaces Like Versailles
Schönbrunn Palace
Versailles
Schönbrunn Palace
Baroque
► 1600 – 1750.
► From a Portuguese word “barocca”,
meaning “a pearl of irregular shape.”
► Implies strangeness, irregularity, and
extravagance.
► The more dramatic, the better!
Baroque
•
•
•
•
Emotional
Appeals to the commoner
Grew out of the Catholic Reformation
Used by Absolutists
St. Peter’s Basilica,
Vatican City
by Gialorenzo
Bernini
Church of Santiago de Compostella, Spain
Church of Veltenberg Altar, Germany
“The Assumption of the Virgin Mary”
Egid Quirim Asam, 1692-1750
Altar of Mercy, Germany, 1764
“David and Goliath” by Caravaggio
“St. Bonaventure on His Deathbed”
Francisco de Zurbarán, 1629
“Battle of the Amazons”
Peter Paul Reubens
Baroque Furniture