The Russian culture has a vast and elegant past, present, and future, but it also has a dark side like every other place on earth. Stained with the blood, sweat and tears of all those who helped sculpt it. “Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny” (Thomas Jefferson). In the past there has been tyrants that “helped” shape countries into what they are today, one key leader in the Russian culture is none other than Ivan Chetvyorty Vasilyevich IV also known as Ivan the Terrible. During the years 1533-1584 Russia grew exponentially but by no means in a peaceful manner, Ivan the Terrible acquired vast amounts of land for Russia …show more content…
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader” ( John Q. Adams). Peter the Great had unwavering willpower, inimitable vision and extraordinary energy, which allowed him to retrieve Russia back from the medieval times. Peter the Great had ongoing reforms over 25 years, technology, culture, industry and administrative sectors which he enhanced. By the time he died in 1725 he had already accomplished more than most, he had modernized Russia’s army, constructed a navy force and conquered a vast empire stretched from the white to the Caspian Sea and from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Which made many considered Russia a leading European state. He had a large demeanor, nearly 7 feet tall, broad and massively powerful. He displayed an authority presence and he ruled as …show more content…
Russian holidays fall under 3 categories national holiday, observance and seasonal. Seasonal is self-explanatory, national holidays are non-labor days where as observance is more of a practice and not recognized as a non-labor day. Russia has the same holidays as most with some modifications. New Years is a national holiday which falls on the 1st of January but its 5 days long making it the biggest Russian holiday. Originally it fell on September 1st until Peter the Great, attempting to westernize Russia, changed it to January 1st. Immediately following after New Year’s comes Christmas, January 7, in Russian culture which is also a national holiday. It became an official holiday in 1991but didn’t start gaining popularity till recently, partially because of Russian leader Vladimir Putin annually attending a Christmas liturgy. Defender of the Fatherland is a peculiar holiday as it does not coincide with any historical even. Finally in 1922 it became an honorary holiday as the fourth anniversary of the Red Army and landing on February 23. The last holiday we are talking about is May 1st which is a symbol of class struggle in Russia from about 1890-1990. It became an iconic public holiday in 1918 which known as International Solidarity of Workers. The Russian Parliament renamed it to Spring and Labor Day in
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
Absolutism was at its most popular in the 17th century. Monarchs Louis XIV who ruled France from 1643 to 1715, and Peter the Great who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725 both secured absolute power in their kingdom. Peter the Great, however, managed to accomplish more during his reign than Louis XIV with politics and military. Peter was able to tax his nobles but still keep their loyalty and also change how his army was run by using Prussian organization and discipline.
I believe that there was so much attention given to Peter the Great because of his extensive reforms. Peter brought both social and economic changes to his country. He wanted to make Russia big. Peter transformed the culture; he wanted his people to wear the western European fashion. Many of the people were not thrilled with the change because they did not like the ways of the western European societies. He made his navy stronger, he reformed his army to meet the western standards, and he gained control over the church.
Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.
Peter preferred to live comfortably, and didn’t have a need for extravagance as much as Louis XIV did. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think big. Peter’s main goals were to modernize Russia, and to make it a major European power—a force to be reckoned with—and also to gain control of the church. He tried to achieve these in many different ways. One way he attempted to make Russia more powerful was by westernizing the country. He traveled all over Western Europe, learning about the culture, more modern practices and way of ...
Catherine the Great, one of Russia's most notorious leaders, never once struggled to give Russia the edge it so hoped for. She considered herself to be an enlightened leader and attempted to rule in that fashion. Her reforms transformed Russia into a strong nation for their time. She’s remembered as the greatest reformer of Russia, she continued to westernize Russia, widened the borders, and strengthened the education system. Catherine the Great proceeded to finish what Peter the Great started; she made sure that by the end of her reign Russia was westernized.
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
The Effect of the Bolshevik Rule on Russian Culture Bolshevik cultural policy was based on spreading their values to the population. They attempted to promote equality to create a classless society. In addition to removing class differences they attempted to give equal status to women and to young people. In order to encourage women to work state funded crèches were established and laws passed to give women parity in terms of pay with men. The state tried to destroy the old concept of families by legalising abortion and enabling people to obtain divorces much more simply.
Peter the Great, was, as his name implies, “great”. He made many accomplishments during his lifetime including expanding Russia’s land, heightening their military, and improving the Russian’s ways of life overall. He assisted with most of the reform in Russia, helped them defeat other countries, and formulated one of the strongest armies in Europe.
Peter the Great was trying ultimately to make the Russian Empire more Europeanized or Westernized. He wanted to protect and enhance the vulnerable Russian Empire. Peter the Great saw that other European countries are colonizing in other regions like the New World, Asia, and Africa. Peter saw this as a threat and didn’t want for the Europeans to conquer Russia. Through decrees to shave and provisions on dress, he was trying to make them European. He also wanted to make military and economic reforms that could help the empire itself. If they built factories, they didn’t need to get supplies from Europe.
Absolutists during the 16th and 17th centuries were often times focused too heavily on military or other such rather than the people they were ruling. Peter the Great is a good example of this type of ruler because he did great things for Russia like improving the navy; however, Peter the Great did nothing to help the people of Russia, and according to Michael Gibson in document 8, he "failed to create the large, thriving
Observing that European technological superiority allowed it to enjoy extraordinary benefits, he adopted many European practices to assert his own dominance and increase Russia’s protection against its adversaries. In doing this, Peter the Great formed himself a lasting legacy. Although Peter the Great originally mimicked Louis XIV in his staunch practice of absolutism, he ultimately surpassed Louis XIV in his goal of supremacy. Peter replaced the previous head of the Orthodox Church, and had both religious and earthly supremacy. Thus, Peter achieved something that Louis could never manage: a control of both church and state. Outside of Russia’s borders, Peter succeeded in his endeavors to a much greater extent than Louis XIV. The Great Northern War against Sweden effectively gave Russia access to a warm water port: Saint Petersburg, where Peter created his own Versailles, the Winter Palace, that fulfilled goals similar to those of Louis. Thus, where Louis fell, Peter
Peter the Great, the Russian Czar, inherited his absolutist power from his brother, Ivan V. Born in aristocracy, Peter’s dad was the Czar, and later his brother, and after his brother’s death, him. He was a firm believer in the possible benefits from the control of a single leader to make decisions for the people, and he exercised this divine right to create many renouned institutions. At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was in a poor condition: many rejected modernization from the Renaissance, and large spending from his brother’s reign caused economic droughts. He took advantage of his absolutist power to help ameliorate Russia’s situation and first decided to minimalize power from the other aristocrats. The subduction of the rich allowed
Russia had been defeated in all except the war with Turkey and its government and economy had the scars to prove it. A severe lack of food and poor living conditions amongst the peasant population led firstly to strikes and quickly escalated to violent riots. Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia with an iron hand while much of Europe was moving away from the monarchical system of rule. All lands were owned by the Tsar’s family and Nobel land lords, while the factories and industrial complexes were owned by the capitalists’. There were no unions or labour laws and the justice system had made almost all other laws in favour of the ruling elite.
Russia has a high crime rate also. Their crime rate is so high that if you were to go to the store like the grocery store, when you walk in the store u have to lock your things up in a locker and shop. When you got through shopping then you were to pick up your stuff out of your locker. The whole time that you are shopping there are people watching your every move. The reason why the crime rate is so high is because they work hard to get paid a little amount of money. Russia’s unemployment rate is very high. There are not enough jobs in Russia for everyone to have a job. For example if you were to get a job at a fast food restaurant, you were only getting paid a little or nothing an hour and that’s not even close to minuan wage in America.