Romanoff Dynasty

also seized every opportunity of showing that all her life and energies were devoted to the service of the country. Her grand sons, Alexander I. and Nicholas I., and her great grandson, Alexander II., proclaimed the same rule and symbolized it by always sleeping on camp-beds, with a soldier's great coat for a blanket, so as not to forget that they were ever ready to go where their duties might claim them. In this respect Peter the Great was ahead of his times, not only in Russia, but in Europe, since the first Western sovereign who prided himself on being the servant of his people was Frederick II., nearly half a century later. Peter's daughter, Elizabeth (1741-61) was also a pioneer in her way when she abolished capital punishment (1744), which from then on was not practised in Russia except in retribution for attempts to overthrow the existing order of government. She also opened a fine arts academy. The short reigns of Peter the Great's immediate successors, his widow and his grandson, during which favourites ruled in their stead, prompted a group of political men to offer the throne in 1730 to Ann; a niece of the great reformer's, but on the condition that she signed a promise to take no steps without the approval of a council of eight men (themselves) and this council would recruit its members by free election. Ann signed the paper and then, backed by the guards, destroyed it as soon as she reached Moscow for her coronation. That was the only attempt made in the 18th century for limiting autocracy in Russia.

The two 18th century sovereigns of the Romanoff dynasty whose political activity was not regulated by their sense of duty, but merely by their personal whims, Peter III. and Paul I. rapidly became so unpopular, that conspiracies at once arose which did away with them, the first after six months, the second after four years rule. The one law of Peter III.'s which it was not possible to abrogate was that which freed the members of the nobility from being obliged to serve the country, an obligation which was the only justification of the privileges they enjoyed.

Liberalism Under Catherine

IL—The 34 years of Cath erine II.'s reign produced a fundamental change in all paths of life. Liberal ideas, those of the French encyclopaedists, became the foundation of her reforms. She convened a commission for preparing a new code of laws and composed instructions to guide this assembly in its labours. The fundamental principles she pro pounded were mostly taken from the works of Montesquieu and Beccaria, but though the author of this treatise was an empress, Louis XV.'s Government forbade the sale of the French edition as being too liberal. Catherine accomplished a vast number of reforms tending to economic prosperity and encouraging certain manifestations of local self-government. She did a great deal for art, protected artists and formed the nucleus of a collection which, under the name of the "Hermitage museum," is well known all over the world, and has been a powerful instrument of cultufe in Russia.

The beginning of the century saw the last of Russia's expansion in Europe, as the annexation of the Swedish province of Finland took place in 1809. The changes which occurred in the redistri

bution of parts of Poland and of Bessarabia, in the first half of the century, partook more of the character of frontier rectifica tions than conquest. Russia's territorial acquisitions of the century were mostly in Asia. In 1801 the kingdom of Georgia was annexed to Russia, and that led to a gradual absorption of Transcaucasia, the last part of which was pacified in 1864. Central Asia (or Russian Turkistan with Bokhara and Khiva), that perpetual hotbed' of raids and stronghold of the slave trade, was conquered between 1830 and 1876, with the addition of the Turko man steppe in 1831. But Russia's advance to the Black sea had opened up a new question, that of the Straits (Dardanelles and Bosphorus), for, without a free passage into the Mediterranean, the Black sea was of small commercial value. Catherine II. had obtained from Turkey the right of protection over Turkish sub jects of the Orthodox faith. This new principle, akin to the more modern idea of "spheres of influence," originated the efforts of the Romanoffs for the liberation of Slav nationalities from Turk ish rule ; Russia participated in the war for the independence of Greece and bore the greater part of the burden in those which eventually led to the creation of Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro. The same policy brought on the Crimean War, which was disastrous for Russia and bared her weakness, even in military matters, before the eyes of the world. For ever since the Napoleonic wars Russian military prestige had been on a high level. Paul I.'s admiration for Prussian discipline and uniforms was inherited by his sons, and under their personal guidance the art of military parades reached such perfection that it often con cealed important drawbacks of organization. The staunch quali ties of the Russian soldier had left a durable impression in Europe from the time of the Napoleonic wars, but the Crimean War led to a general revaluation of Russian methods, both inside the country and abroad.

Conservatism of Later Romanoffs.

However, the main characteristics of the Romanoffs' rule in the i9th and early loth century is undoubtedly the opposition to the principles of revolution which had triumphed in France. When Alexander I. was confronted with them, as personified by Napoleon, he was beaten, then pretended to yield till his forces were ready for a second and triumphant struggle. He realized so well the true meaning of his victory that, though the halo of "liberator of Europe" put him in a situation in which he would hardly have met with a refusal on any point, he never turned Napoleon's downfall to any merely material advantage for Russia. All he had gone through; the disasters of Jena and Austerlitz, the humiliations of Tilsit and Erfurt, the fire of Moscow, the entry into Paris, the Congress of Vienna, he used all that to enhance Russia's prestige and to create a situation where his own voice would carry most weight against revolutionary propaganda. The Holy Alliance was the only harvest he sought to reap for having led his army from Moscow to Paris.