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Historians have debated Catherine's sincerity as an enlightened monarch, but few have doubted that she believed in government activism aimed at developing the empire's resources and making its administration more effective.
Initially, Catherine attempts to rationalize government procedures through law.
In 1767 she creates the Legislative Commission, drawn from nobles, townsmen, and others, to codify Russia's laws.
Although the commission does not formulate a new law code, Catherine's Instruction to the Commission introduces some Russians to Western political and legal thinking.
Russia experiences a major social upheaval, the Pugachev Uprising, during the 1768-74 war with the Ottoman Empire.
In 1773 a Don Cossack, Emel'yan Pugachev, announces that he is Peter III.
Other Cossacks, various Turkic tribes that feel the impingement of the Russian centralizing state, and industrial workers in the Ural Mountains, as well as peasants hoping to escape serfdom, all join in the rebellion.
Russia's preoccupation with the war enables Pugachev to take control of a part of the Volga area, but the regular army crushes the rebellion in 1774.
The intellectual westernization of Russia's elite continues during Catherine's reign.
An increase in the number of books and periodicals also brings forth intellectual debates and social criticism.
In 1790 Aleksandr Radishchev publishes his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, a fierce attack on serfdom and the autocracy.
Catherine, already frightened by the French Revolution, has Radishchev arrested and banished to Siberia.
Radishchev is later recognized as the father of Russian radicalism.
Catherine brings many of the policies of Peter the Great to fruition and sets the foundation for the nineteenth-century empire.
Russia becomes a power capable of competing with its European neighbors on military, political, and diplomatic grounds.
Russia's elite become culturally more like the elites of Central and West European countries.
The organization of society and the government system, from Peter the Great's central institutions to Catherine's provincial administration, will remain basically unchanged until the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and, in some respects, until the fall of the monarchy in 1917.
Catherine's push to the south, including the establishment of Odessa as a Russian port on the Black Sea, provides the basis for Russia's nineteenth-century grain trade.
Despite such accomplishments, the empire that Peter I and Catherine II have built is beset with fundamental problems.
A small Europeanized elite, alienated from the mass of ordinary Russians, raises questions about the very essence of Russia's history, culture, and identity.
Russia has achieved its military preeminence by reliance on coercion and a primitive command economy based on serfdom.
Although Russia's economic development is almost sufficient for its eighteenth-century needs, it is no match for the transformation the Industrial Revolution is causing in Western countries.
Catherine's attempt at organizing society into corporate estates is already being challenged by the French Revolution, which emphasizes individual citizenship.
Russia's territorial expansion and the incorporation of an increasing number of non-Russians into the empire sets the stage for the future nationalities problem.
Finally, the first questioning of serfdom and autocracy on moral grounds foreshadows the conflict between the state and the intelligentsia that is to become dominant in the nineteenth century.
The Pugachev Uprising bolsters Catherine's determination to reorganize Russia's provincial administration.
In 1775 she divides Russia into provinces and districts according to population statistics.
She then gives each province an expanded administrative, police, and judicial apparatus.
Nobles no longer are required to serve the central government, as they have since Peter the Great's time, and many of them receive significant roles in administering provincial governments.
Catherine also attempts to organize society into well-defined social groups, or estates.
In 1785 she issues charters to nobles and townsmen.
The Charter to the Nobility confirms the liberation of the nobles from compulsory service and gives them rights that not even the autocracy can infringe upon.
The Charter to the Towns proves to be complicated and ultimately less successful than the one issued to the nobles.
Failure to issue a similar charter to state peasants, or to ameliorate the conditions of serfdom, makes Catherine's social reforms incomplete.
Immediately after her return, the princess was appointed Director of the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences (known now as the Russian Academy of Sciences).
Theoretically the head of the Academy was always its President; however, Count Kirill Razumovsky, who had been appointed President in 1746 (when he was just eighteen) played only a nominal role in the Academy, and the actual leadership in the Academy, such as there was, belonged to successive Directors.
Dashkova is the first woman in the world to head a national academy of sciences.
Although not a scientist herself, Dashkova restores the failing institution to prominence and intellectual respectability.
This comes at a critical time in the history of science, its transformation from what is called natural philosophy, often practiced by gifted amateurs, to a professional enterprise.
The partitioning of Poland greatly adds to Russia's territory and prestige, but it also creates new difficulties.
Having lost Poland as a buffer, Russia now has to share borders with both Prussia and Austria.
In addition, the empire becomes more ethnically heterogeneous as it absorbs large numbers of Poles, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Jews.
The fate of the Ukrainians and Belorussians, who are primarily serfs, changes little at first under Russian rule.
Roman Catholic Poles resent their loss of independence, however, and prove to be difficult to integrate.
Russia had barred Jews from the empire in 1742 and views them as an alien population.
A decree of January 3, 1792, formally initiates the Pale of Settlement, which permits Jews to live only in the western part of the empire, thereby setting the stage for anti-Jewish discrimination in later periods.
At the same time, Russia abolishes the autonomy of Ukraine east of the Dnepr, the Baltic republics, and various Cossack areas.
With her emphasis on a uniformly administered empire, Catherine presages the policy of Russification that later tsars and their successors will practice.
Russia's westward expansion under Catherine is the result of the partitioning of Poland.
As Poland becomes increasingly weak in the eighteenth century, each of its neighbors—Russia, Prussia, and Austria—try to place its own candidate on the Polish throne.
In 1772 the three agree on an initial partition of Polish territory, by which Russia receives parts of Belorussia and Livonia.
After the partition, Poland initiates an extensive reform program, which includes a democratic constitution that alarms reactionary factions in Poland and in Russia.
Using the danger of radicalism as an excuse, the same three powers abrogate the constitution and in 1793 again strip Poland of territory.
This time Russia obtains most of Belorussia and Ukraine west of the Dnepr River.
The 1793 partition leads to an anti-Russian and anti-Prussian uprising in Poland, which ends with the third partition in 1795.
The result is that Poland is wiped off the map.
Catherine II dies in 1796, and her son Paul (r. 1796-1801) succeeds her.
Painfully aware that Catherine had planned to bypass him and name his son, Alexander, as tsar, Paul institutes primogeniture in the male line as the basis for succession.
It is one of the few lasting reforms of Paul's brief reign.
He also charters a Russian-American company, which eventually leads to Russia's acquisition of Alaska.
Paul is haughty and unstable, and he frequently reverses his previous decisions, creating administrative chaos and accumulating enemies.
As a major European power, Russia cannot escape the wars involving revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
Paul becomes an adamant opponent of France, and Russia joins Britain and Austria in a war against France.
In 1798-99 Russian troops under one of the country's most famous generals, Aleksandr Suvorov, performs brilliantly in Italy and Switzerland.
Paul reverses himself, however, and abandons his allies.
This reversal, coupled with increasingly arbitrary domestic policies, sparks a coup, and in March 1801 Paul is assassinated.
The Congress of Vienna creates the Kingdom of Poland (Russian Poland), to which Alexander grants a constitution.
Thus, Alexander I becomes the constitutional monarch of Poland while remaining the autocratic tsar of Russia.
He is also the limited monarch of Finland, which had been annexed in 1809 and awarded autonomous status.
In 1813 Russia gains territory in the Baku area of the Caucasus at the expense of Persia.
The empire is by now firmly ensconced in Alaska also.