hi I'm John Green and this is crash
course European history so in our last
episode we saw the Hapsburgs with the
help of Romanians and some others drive
the Ottomans out of large swaths of
Eastern Europe which started the
Habsburg expansion eastward but there
were some other important States making
big moves during the 17th century today
we're gonna focus on two of them Russia
which sought stability after a Time of
Troubles and the house of
brandenburg-prussia a small state that
within two centuries would grow to
become extraordinarily powerful
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in the huge Russian Empire Tsar Peter
the first became an outsized monarch
literally he was six feet nine inches
tall which is uh like three meters yeah
just say with authority green he was
three meters tall don't write that on
your tests now early in Peters life his
future didn't look particularly
promising he was born in 1672 and he was
not first in line to the Russian throne
his half-sister Sophia was ruling Russia
at the time as regent for the young
Romanov brothers of whom Peter was the
youngest Sophia wanted to become the
permanent ruler but Peter and his
supporters had other ideas at the time
many interest groups in Russia helped
shape who ended up with political power
including the Orthodox Church the army
the aristocracy and wealthy traders and
as Peter and his brothers came of age
these groups negotiated to arrive at a
consensus candidate for Tsar and then
the Russian people had to seal the deal
so to speak via public demonstrations of
acclaim and approval which developed the
sacred trust between the ruler and the
ruled and short political power in this
monarchy was not as simple as the Tsar
has all of it and Peter only became Tsar
with the help of his advisors and the
support of powerful interest groups in
Russia he became an autocratic ruler but
the autocracy was intertwined with
widespread if certainly not universal
public support from the Russian people
what I'm getting at is that the
relationship between the government and
the governed
is always complex and the example of the
Russian monarchy is important partly
because it helps us to see that even
absolutist governments could only retain
their power by having support from
outside institutions and individuals
now Peter tackled every facet of state
building he reorganized both the
military and the nobility and in doing
so also reorganized who had political
power and how they could wield it for
the nobility he created a precise table
of ranks with each promotion to a higher
rank depending on the aristocrat
performing service to the state this
reform aimed to end older political
practices based on network
nepotism and favoritism and instead make
the aristocracy more of a meritocracy
Peter also eliminated the power of the
patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church
by leaving the post vacant and setting
up a council or Synod of lay people as
overseers headed of course by the Tsar
Peter was also curious and adventurous
he liked to tinker and build focusing on
clocks and military machinery and the
deployment of his toy soldiers and he
was fascinated by Western Europe in fact
he set off in 1697 to see what Western
rulers were up to the Dutch in
particular attracted him you may
remember that they were advanced in
canal building and fire control and
architecture and urban lighting and also
had lots of money from trading and
having seen all these enterprises in
action Peter returned from Western
Europe full of determination to
modernize and westernize Russia while
Peter was still in Western Europe in the
spring of 1698 the Streltsy a band of
infantry men first initiated by ivan the
terrible' / awesome rose up against the
bad conditions that they faced they had
hopes of reviving the administration of
the regent Sophia who at the time was
imprisoned Peter ordered them crushed
and when he returned to Russia in August
of 1698 he had hundreds of the Streltsy
tortured exiled or executed the purge of
the Streltsy actually helped clear the
way for the modern fighting force that
Peter envisioned a major innovation was
giving Russia a standing army that
ultimately included some 200,000
recruits which was a massive number for
Europe at the time and serious training
of that army as well as modernization of
weaponry ultimately paid off when it
came to battling Sweden at first during
an early battle of the great northern
war the ambitious and land-hungry ruler
of Sweden Charles the 12th defeated
Russian forces at narva in 1700 hold on
a second
Sweden had 12 Kings named Charles
history never ceases to surprise my
friends right so Swedish Charles the
12th also defeated Poland in the war but
then Peter fortified his army even more
informed an important alliance he built
a coalition of Denmark and Pole
that ultimately conquered Sweden in 1721
and ended its continental influence as a
result of this victory Russia obtained
Sweden's continental territory including
Estonia and Latvia Sweden had gone from
being a rescuer in the 30 Years War to
being almost entirely stuck in
Scandinavia where they would go on to
engage in fewer Wars and instead build a
state with among the world's lowest
poverty rates and highest life
expectancy the fools all right back to
Russia let's go to the thought-bubble
during these years Peter was also
building a european-style city with an
outlet to the Baltic called you'll never
guess it st. Petersburg tens of
thousands of serfs were commandeered
from aristocrats workforces to build the
new city at a great cost in lives the
marshy site needed to be entirely
reclaimed through the building of canals
you'll remember Peters admiration for
Amsterdam and he ordered museums and
libraries and universities and stately
government buildings to adorn the city
his aristocratic subjects were ordered
to build lavish houses and to hold
social events like dances Peter also saw
the city as the backdrop for the reform
of women's role in society they were to
leave seclusion and appear at public
events
Peter decreed the end too veiling for
women and an end to dresses or caftans
for boyars that is men in the old
aristocracy further reforms aimed to
develop his middle and upper-class
subjects as modern thinkers especially
in math and the sciences to remain in
the aristocratic ranks for instance sons
had to study math science or engineering
also requirements for serving as
officers in the military Peter founded
schools including military schools to
teach these subjects and additional
schools to teach women reading and
writing and other skills and unlike
earlier Russian rulers Peter embraced
foreigners not just their canal building
and lamp lighting but also their manners
and fashion thanks thought-bubble so
Peter also ended the practice of men
wearing beards did the center of the
world just elephant they weren't easy to
see back there but it stands favorite
joke the old stick on mustache movie
magic how do I look Stan you would say
that I once tried to do this and when I
was shaving my beard and I came
downstairs to show my wife
she said and I'm gonna quote her
directly no so in Peters Russia you had
to shave your beard so that you could be
like a modern proper European person but
just as in Elizabeth the first and Henry
the eighth's England you could pay a tax
to keep your beard and listen I don't
like to get political on this show but
if we reinstituted that tax the cities
of New York and Portland would pay for
health care for everyone so despite his
move toward the rational and refined and
clean shaven Peter himself could be
brough crude heartless and violent that
is the complete opposite of the kind of
citizen he wanted to populate his
kingdom and that is a lesson we keep
learning over and over in history
paradox is not unusual as for serfs
their lives became more difficult as new
regulations meant to attract
aristocratic loyalty gave them fewer
rights serfs were stripped of the right
to move from the noble estate where they
worked most lived precarious lives and
were subjected to landowners brutality
they had little recourse to protect
themselves from abuse and were forced to
work in extremely difficult conditions
most serfs did manual or agricultural
labour but some became highly skilled
artisans to embellish life for the upper
classes creating intricate cabinetry or
music or paintings some noble families
even rented out their artists serfs or
symptom touring to bring in funds with
their accomplishments these travelling
serfs helped connect far-flung Russians
to one another through paintings of
distant cities or landscapes or notable
people for example and peasant song also
eventually found its way into Russian
classical music as it developed in the
19th century but to be clear Peters
modernization did not mean increased
protection or power for the most
vulnerable which raises a question does
modernization generally result in
protection or power for the most
vulnerable should it then can we even
generalize about what it means to be
modern when there is so much variety
just on this one continent or arguably
subcontinent so the time of Tsar Peter
had massively different effects
depending on where you stood
some people were learning more about
science or art than they'd
ever been able to before others were
bound to land or lost their lives in the
construction of st. Petersburg history
is not just about what happened but also
about where you sit are you a boy or son
learning new mathematical discoveries or
a peasant born to a fate of hard labor
you can never escape the other rising
Eastern Kingdom during this time was the
house of brandenburg-prussia a bird with
an arm stan informs me that
brandenburg-prussia was actually headed
by the Hohenzollern family it grew over
the centuries from a tiny holding to an
extensive Kingdom albeit one that was
initially landlocked okay so I'm gonna
need you to brace yourselves because
many Frederick's are coming it's gonna
be a little confusing but we will get
through this together the first one to
know about is the great elector
Frederick William who was one of the
seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire
he worked to keep his territories
together in the closing days of the 30
Years War and to protect them from
attack by Sweden in the 1650s but as
Sweden started to weaken Poland gave its
dependent Prussia the status of Kingdom
and the title of king of that new
kingdom went to the affer mentioned
great elector Frederick William and then
later to his son Frederick the third at
that point Frederick the third became
known as King Frederick the first of
prussia because you know wasn't already
confusing enough anyway as a ruler
Frederick the first was something of a
connoisseur of all the fine things that
were coming to characterize increasingly
affluent and worldly European monarchs
while his son King Frederick William the
first I wish I was kidding
was quite the opposite the Hohenzollern
Kings who like the Romanovs of Russia
ruled into the twentieth century created
very strong institutions beginning with
the great elector Frederick William in
the 17th century the military was
especially important to Prussia's
survival and growth he understood that
Brandenburg brush's lack of natural
boundaries made it really vulnerable to
those wanting to expand their territory
which in the 17th century was everyone
so state-building in prussia involved
fortifying its borders a strong military
isn't the only way to stabilize power
but it certainly is a
additionally the great elector Frederick
William weakened at the representative
bodies or estates-general through which
the nobility had its say in the kingdoms
running but to make up for it the
monarchs allowed the nobility to
intensify their grip on peasant lives
very similar to what happened in Russia
that by the way is called rien Feud a
shin which means additional regulations
that tighten serf obligations to their
wards it happened often and in many
places monarchs would give noble
families greater power over ordinary
people's labor in exchange for the
nobles giving greater service to the
kingdoms military and administration the
strategy of power consolidation by the
way still happens the most powerful
placate the less powerful by giving them
control over the least powerful the
Great electors grandson King Frederick
William the first made the Prussian army
the most modern in Europe he created a
branch of government called the general
directory that oversaw the operation of
the kingdom to the benefit of the army
raising taxes and recruiting
administrators and soldiers and
Frederick William the first sought a
certain kind of recruit specifically
giant soldiers at least 6 feet in height
from all across Europe he sold off his
father's more luxurious possessions such
as silver and works of art to boost
military strength even more Prussia was
called a large army with a small state
attached kind of like Russia today he's
back isn't he
it's just he's very subtle but I could I
could feel his presence one of the
weirdnesses of building a state or an
empire is that in order for it to work
you must convince both those outside of
your borders and those within them that
your state is really real and also
really powerful States do this partly
through treaties partly through state
building exercises like national anthems
and national histories and partly by
building structures within the state
armies government apparatuses statewide
laws that strengthen the state and make
it less vulnerable to attack and the
rising monarchies of Russia and Prussia
were very effective at state building
which would allow them to shape the
future of Europe as a whole and also aid
in the final demise of poland-lithuania
over the 18th century Poland Lithuania
failed in part because it's
constitutional system failed the
nobility wheeled and dealed instead of
fortifying government institutions like
Russia and Prussia had and because of
the way is Prussia and Russia organized
political power that wasn't as much of a
problem in their kingdoms there were
problems of course which would
eventually prove catastrophic and we'll
get there eventually but first things
are about to get a bit brighter around
here because next time we get to turn
our attention to the Enlightenment
thanks for watching I'll see you then
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