Russia under the Old regime

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remainder of the century becamie an elective office; from Peter's death until the accession of Paul I in 1796, Russia's rulers were chosen by high-ranking officials acting in collusion with officers of Guard Regiments. These groups favoured women, especially women with frivolous reputation, thought unlikely to take more than a perfunctory interest in affairs of state. In return for the throne, these empresses made generous presents of serfs, landed estates and various privileges to those who had helped them gain it.

4. The military reforms of Peter and his successors gave Russia an army second to none in eastern Europe. Poland, Sweden and Turkey no longer counted, the more so as each was in the throes of an internal political crisis; it was now their turn to fear Russia. During the eighteenth century, the nomads of the steppe were finally brought to heel as well. With increased power and external security came a growing desire for enjoyment oflife and a corresponding de-emphasis on service.

5. The same reforms, by shifting the burden of military service onto conscripts, reduced the state's need for dvoriane whose main function henceforth was to officer the troops.

6. It has been said that under Peter Russia learned western techniques, under Elizabeth western manners, and under Catherine western morals. Westernization certainly made giant progress in the eighteenth century; what had begun as mere aping of the west by the court and its elite developed into close identification with the very spirit of western culture. With the advance of westernization it became embarrassing for the state and the dvorianstvo to maintain the old service structure. The dvorianstvo wished to emulate the western aristocracy, to enjoy its status and rights; and the Russian monarchy, eager to find itself in the forefront of European enlightenment,, was, up to a point, cooperative.

In the course of the eighteenth century a consensus developed between the crown and dvorianstvo that the old system had outlived itself. It is in this atmosphere that the social, economic and ideological props of the patrimonial regime were removed. We shall discuss economic liberalization in Chapter 8 and the unshackling of thought in Chapter 1 o, and here outline the social side of the process, namely the dismantling of the service structure.

Dvoriane serving in the military were the first to benefit from the general weakening of the monarchy which occurred after Peter's death. In 1730, provincial dvoriane frustrated a move by several old boyar families to impose constitutional limitations on the newly elected Empress Anne. In appreciation, Anne steadily eased the conditions of service which Peter had imposed on the dvorianstvo. In 1730 she repealed Peter's law requiring landowners to bequeath their estates to one heir (p. 176 below). The next year she founded a Noble Cadet Corps,