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Chapter 4 • Political Transformations, 1450–1750 225

valuable sable, which Siberian peoples were compelled to produce. As in the AP ® EXAM TIP
Americas, devastating epidemics accompanied conquest, particularly in the more Remember that all
remote regions of Siberia, where local people had little immunity to smallpox empires levy taxes of
or measles. Also accompanying conquest was an intermittent pressure to convert some sort and interact
to Christianity. Tax breaks, exemptions from paying tribute, and the promise of with outside societies.
®
land or cash provided incentives for conversion, while the destruction of many AP
mosques and the forced resettlement of Muslims added to the pressures. Yet the CONTEXTUALIZATION
Russian state did not pursue conversion with the single-minded intensity that Why might the Russian
Spanish authorities exercised in Latin America, particularly if missionary activ- state depend on armies
of Cossacks, like the
ity threatened political and social stability. The empress Catherine the Great, for one shown in the image,
example, established religious tolerance for Muslims in the late eighteenth cen- more on the borders of
tury and created a state agency to oversee Muslim affairs. its empire than near its
Unlike its expansion to the east, Russia’s administrative center?
westward movement occurred in the con-
text of military rivalries with the major
powers of the region — the Ottoman
Empire, Poland, Sweden, Lithuania, Prussia,
and Austria. During the late seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, Russia acquired
substantial territories in the Baltic region,
Poland, and Ukraine. This contact with
Europe also fostered an awareness of
Russia’s backwardness relative to Europe
and prompted an extensive program of
westernization, particularly under the lead-
ership of Peter the Great (r. 1689–1725).
His massive efforts included vast admin-
istrative changes, the enlargement and
modernization of Russian military forces,
a new educational system for the sons of
noblemen, and dozens of manufacturing
enterprises. Russian nobles were instructed
to dress in European styles and to shave
their sacred and much-revered beards. The
newly created capital city of St. Petersburg
was to be Russia’s “window on the West.”
One of Peter’s successors, Catherine the
Great (r. 1762–1796), followed up with
further efforts to Europeanize Russian
cultural and intellectual life, viewing her- The Cossacks In the vanguard of Russian expansion across Siberia
were the Cossacks, bands of fiercely independent warriors consisting
self as part of the European Enlightenment. of peasants who had escaped serfdom as well as criminals and other
Thus Russians were the first of many peo- adventurers. In this eighteenth-century painting, a Cossack is depicted
ples to measure themselves against the West preparing to depart from an encampment and surrounded by the items of
everyday Cossack life, including his horse, spear, bow, hunting horn, lyre,
and to mount major “catch-up” efforts. and pipe. Note also his red hat hanging from a tree branch. (Bridgeman Images)
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