From around 1820 to the end of the 19th century, Russia started a second phase of expansions, annexing territories in Central Asia until Russia controlled a major chunk of the area. However, all was not well in Russia or its controlled territories; issues of unrest in Russian control fostered budding nationalist movements and ideas, and the modernization attempts helped create intelligentsia circles across their territories.
From the western lands, those bordering Europe, Russia made attempts to keep the nobles happy by allowing them into upper-Russian politics; the upper circles in 19th century St. Petersburg held many Germans and Finlanders, and only Poles didn’t have a larger control in St. Petersburg, many Russians not trusting their patriotism to Poland and not Russia. In the Caucasus and neighboring territories, Russia entrenched itself further into the lands as a buffer against Turkey and the Ottomans and a potential trade-route to Iran, which was not received well by natives and led to war with the Caucasians for over a decade. In Central Asia itself, Kazakhstan and neighboring khanates were annexed to serve as a buffer and defense against Britain-controlled India. In the expansions into Manchuria, Russia hoped to add their own sphere of influence to China, before the Russo-Japanese War ended those dreams.
In most of Russia’s 19th century land actions, they seem to be reactionary or imitations of European frameworks and actions, but many issues stood in the way of their dreams of an colonial empire, from the stagnation of nobles in the annexed lands (and at home) compared to the growing middle-class and intelligenstia, to the financial issues, to the fact that there were too many minorities that would fight Russification but the stagnant elite would accept nothing else, and this would break sooner or later.
1.) “With Russia containing follow the pattern of European states in many ways, would you say this continued following of European patterns helped or hindered Russia more in the 19th century? What about the land expansions that were directly reactionary to the action of other powers?”
2.) “To help integrate the European border states, the nobles of these lands were involved in the higher politics of St. Petersburg. How do you think this lack of a majority-Russian ‘ruling elite’ might have been seen by other Russian nobles or by the lower classes? How might this ‘diversification’ of voices in higher politics might have helped or hindered policies?”
I think that the cooptation of subject nobles was essential for maintaining a huge empire. I remember discussing before how different empires observe a spectrum of incorporation of subject governments, and more outsourcing of power lets the empire spread wider. That said, it must have been a balance. The empire would want to make sure the new nobles stayed in good graces, for sure.
Another fun issue here is that the nobles would have to be treated somewhat equally or else a group of them would start causing problems in dissatisfaction (or so I’d guess). Couple that with some annexed peoples being liked more than others, and Russia having to figure out how much the nobles can undergo Russofication before they start causing problems, and this would lead to even more issues at some point down the line.
At least from our reading, it seems like Russia’s colonization was not the same as colonization as in other cases (Dutch, English, Portuguese, French, etc.). Russians didn’t take POC as slaves, assigning them less than human status and exploit their labor/land to build Russia’s wealth at the expense of that land and those people (at least from the info from our reading, I could be wrong here). Russia attempted to colonize, but it didn’t fit the pattern of a typical colonizer, and for this reason didn’t see the profits (or fewer profits? unclear) than the other colonizers did.
We discussed in class the possibility that Russian nobles didn’t perceive non-Russian nobles as a threat due to their small numbers [and thus limited political power] in comparison with the Russian nobles, and this theory was the strongest in my opinion.
I always thought that while they themselves might not be as big of threats/nuisances as European nobles can be, they can still stir unrest in their people and provide a figure to rally behind, so they have to be watched for that if nothing else. But again, that might fit Western European nobles better…
I would imagine that Russian nobles would see the incorporation of German and Finnish nobility into the government as concerning, since they would want to maintain for themselves as much power as possible, but as for the peasantry, I would have a hard time imagining that they would be so cognizant of the Russian government to make a judgement about whether it was overly foreign. I would think that members of the peasantry would be more concerned with the oppression they face under their masters, than the rule of the government by foreign nobility.
I think it was necessary for the nobles to have a say in how the lands, but only a numbered of them should have been able to do it. Perhaps the other classes felt left out of the decision making process but it was not their place to be able to help decide the fate of Russia.