the enlightened despots. the enlightened despots came out of the old absolute monarchs the idea of...
TRANSCRIPT
The enlightened despots came out of the old absolute monarchs
The idea of the state was changing. They were dictators of a kind who tried to bring into their countries
some of the ideas of the enlightenment.
The Seven Years War, with its high death tolls and mountainous debt made it a necessity for rulers to make their governments more
efficient for tax purposes.
Louis XV was a kind-hearted, yet
prolifigate spender, who failed to push through much
needed reforms.
But it is in Austria, Prussia and Russia where the enlightened monarchs ruled to the benefit of their
people.
As a true enlightened monarch, he abolished serfdom, established equal taxation. He reformed the
criminal code.
But when nobles did not support his reforms, he used suppression and the secret police to thwart the
rebellion…
Joseph has been called the “revolutionary” emperor. A
good man whose ideas were too advanced for the people he
served.
Now, for Frederick the Great (1712-1786).
After the end of the Seven Years War, Frederick ruled Prussia for another 23 years. His life, like Voltaire’s spanned the enlightenment. He died only three years
before the French Revolution.
He turned from war, to peace.
He did not pursue the radical changes of Joseph of Austria—he simply had
the state run more efficiently and promoted honesty.
He was lofty, superior, and said that only he knew what was good for the people. He attended to every
detail, neglected his dress, and became a beloved, eccentric
monarch.
As a young girl and the rest of her life, she devoured books. Learning helped her to escape the palace intrigues of the Peter’s aunt, Tsarina Elizabeth.
And there were all sorts of nasty
rumors about her sexual appetites, passed about by her enemies, of
course.
She began as an enlightened
ruler…but had to put away those ideas when faced
with revolts by different groups
in her vast empire.
Pugachev , a Cossack,
proclaimed himself the true tsar. He said he was really Peter III, Catherine’s
deceased husband.
This imposter promised that he would free the serfs, abolish
taxes, and forced military conscription (draft)
As a builder of Russia’s borders, Catherine was more successful.
She gained an important port on the Black sea, which became Odessa.
After their reigns, and the revolution, the ideas of Kings
and Queens were seen as backward. The time for more
enlightened ideas—maybe even revolution had come….
The Legacy of the Enlightenment
1. The democratic revolutions begun in America in 1776 and continued in Amsterdam, Brussels, and especially in Paris in the late 1780s, put every Western government on the defensive.
2. Reform, democracy, and republicanism had been placed irrevocably on the Western agenda.
The Legacy of the Enlightenment
3. New forms of civil society arose –-- clubs, salons, fraternals, private academies, lending libraries, and professional/scientific organizations.
4. 19c conservatives blamed it for the modern “egalitarian disease” (once reformers began to criticize established institutions, they didn’t know where and when to stop!)
The Legacy of the Enlightenment
5. It established a materialistic tradition based on an ethical system derived solely from a naturalistic account of the human condition (the “Religion of Nature”).
6. Theoretically endowed with full civil and legal rights, the individual had come into existence as a political and social force to be reckoned with.