The Russian Empire: 1721-1917 (Part VII)
Science and Technology
Peter the Great founded the Academy of Sciences in 1724 in St. Petersburg. Those invited to work there initially included famous mathematicians and scientists: Leonhard Euler (1707-83), Christian Goldbach (1690-1764), Nicholas Bernuoulli (1695-
1726), Johann Georg Gmelin (1709-55), and Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705-83). Leonhard Euler was the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest of all time with his discoveries in calculus, topology, mechanics, optics, and astronomy. Christian Goldbach and Nicholas Bernoulli also were famous mathematicians who also made important breakthroughs in curves, differential equations, and probability.
Johann Georg Gmelin and Gerhard Friedrich Müller were explorers: both made trips to Siberia in order to study the climate, culture, and vegetation. While Gmelin focused on Siberia’s vegetation, which led to his major work, Flora Sibirica, Müller studied the people and culture of the region, making him the father of the discipline of ethnography. Müller probably was most famous for his “Normanist theory”: the important role of Scandinavians and Germans in the shaping of Russian history. This theory still is a matter of controversy among scholars today. The exploration of Siberia and the North Pacific was known in the eighteenth century as the Great Northern Expedition. Besides Gmelin and Müller, Vitus Bering (1681-74) and Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) also made significant studies of Siberia and the Bering Strait.
Michael Lomonosov (1711-65), who also was a poet, published the first textbook on chemistry in 1752 and made several discoveries in physics, optics, and astronomy. He regarded heat as a form of motion and suggested ideas of wave theory of light, the kinetic theory of gases, and the conservation of matter. Lomonosov also was the first person to record the freezing of mercy and hypothesize nature was subject to regular and continuous evolution.
During the 19th century, Russian achievements in the sciences and mathematics gained international recognition. Nicholas Lobachevsky (1792-1856) invented non-Euclidean geometry that eventually by European mathematicians and revolutionized the field. Pafnuty Chebyshev (1821-94) and Sophia Kovalevskaia (1850-91) also made significant contributions to probability, differential equations, and number theory.
Besides achievements in mathematics, Russian scientists did exceptional well in astronomy, with the Pulkov observatory constructed in 1839. Directed by Frederick William Jacob Struve (1793-1864), the Pulkov observatory had the largest telescope in the world and the most advanced equipment at that time. Pulkov became the great center of astronomy in the world, allowing training for European and American astronomers.
Notable chemists and physics was Nicholas Zinin (1812-90), who pioneer the production of aniline dyes. Dmitry Mendeleev (1834-1907) categorized the elements into the periodic table and made accurate forecasts of later discoveries. Alexander Stoletov (1839-96) made discoveries in magnetism and electricity; and Peter Lebedev (1866-1912) studied the properties of light and magnetism, showing the minute pressures light exerts on bodies. Of technical inventions, perhaps Paul Yablochkov (1847-94) and Alexander Popov (1859-1906) were the most famous. Yablochkov developed the electric light before Edison; and Alexander Popov (1859-1906) invented the radio before Marconi.
In spite of these achievements, Russian scientists frequently received less recognition when compared to their western counterparts because of general ignorance of the Russian language as well as the general backwardness of the Russian Empire. European, and to a lesser extent, Americans were leaders in science and technical advances during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although it made steady progress in science and technology, the Russian Empire always was a step behind its European and American counterparts.
Sports and Recreation
Common pastimes for all classes of the Russian Empire of the early 18th to early 20th century were skating, sledging, sliding, and, among the male members of society, chess. Open-air fairs in St. Petersburg and Moscow as well as religious festivals, imperial birthdays, and celebrations of military and naval victories also were popular. The Russian upper class enjoyed a variety of cultural amusements – concerts, opera, ballet, theater, and literature – as well as travel to Europe, where they might have a second home. Social gatherings such as parties and balls were frequent, too. Horseback riding, fencing, and dueling, although perhaps not a sport, were other activities for the nobility. For the peasantry, dancing, singing, and games that involved predictions of marriage were widespread and recurrent.
Taxes, Taxation, and Tariffs
Starting with Peter the Great’s Table of Ranks (1722), the Russian Empire organized the structure of its society on a member’s ability to pay taxes. The Empire employed a poll tax on all males except the clergy and nobility, the latter who had to serve either in the imperial bureaucracy or in the military. The state also imposed a myriad of indirect taxes on alcohol, salt, bread, and other such items. Finally, local governments taxed its subjects in order to pay for education and the police. The Russian Empire especially taxed heavily the peasants and the proletariat.
The Russian Empire tried to encourage the development of domestic industries with high tariffs against foreign goods in 1724 and abolished internal tariffs in 1753. Moscow was the most important center of internal commerce, while St. Petersburg was the most important center for foreign trade. The Russian Empire exported raw materials, especially grain, and imported manufactured and luxury goods. Russian manufactures generally were unable to compete with Europeans for markets; consequently, they exported their goods to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, and China.
War, Weapons, Military, and Diplomacy
The preoccupation of war and the military was constant in the Russian Empire of the early 18th to early 20th century in order to defend itself against foreign invasion and expand its borders. Peter the Great (r. 1694-1725) established the Russian Empire after he had defeated Swedish and Polish Empires the Great Northern War (1700-21). Besides founding St. Petersburg, the new capital of the Russian Empire, with a direct link to Europe, Peter established Russia’s naval forces, reorganized the military according to European standards, and instituted a lifetime draft for soldiers, with nobility either serving in the military as officers or in the civil service as imperial bureaucrats.
The Russian Empire continued to expand in the War of Polish Succession (1733-35), the War with the Ottoman Empire (1734-39), and the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). Under Catherine the Great (r. 1762-96), the Russian Empire continued its southern expansion to the Black Sea and the Crimea with its victory over Turkey in the Russo-Turkish Wars (1768-74, 1787-91) and to the west in the Polish Partitions (1772-95), which Russia acquired significant portions of Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland.
As a significant European power, the Russian Empire became entangled in the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon defeated the Russian Empire at Austerlitz in 1805 and Friedland in 1807. However, under the leadership of General Michael Kutuzov (1745-1813), the Russian Empire defeated Napoleon in the War of 1812 and became the most powerful military force in the world.
However, this reputation of the Russian Empire was shattered with its defeat in the Crimean War (1854-55). The Russian Empire had defeated the Ottoman Empire in 1828 and 1829 and declared war again in 1853. However, British and French fears that Russia could secure naval access through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits led them to support the Ottoman Empire and defeated Russia by seizing the Russian base at Sevastopol.
The next major war for the Russian Empire also was a defeat. Japan emerged victorious over the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). The war was over whether Russia or Japan would occupy Manchuria. Facing domestic unrest and revolution, Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917) accepted U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s meditation and acknowledged Japan’s supremacy in Manchuria and Korea.
The Russian Empire’s final defeat was in World War I (1914-18). The Russian Empire continual support of its fellow Slavs in Serbia drew the Empire into a series of conflicts with the Ottoman Empire in 1875-77 and Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1912 and 1913. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, started a series of decisions that led to the World War I, with Russia, Great Britain, and France on one side and Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire on the other.
The Russian offensive into East Prussia and Austria-Hungary was successful in diverting German troops from the western front, but the Russian military suffered disastrous defeats in 1914-15. Political infighting and the inability of military officers to adapt to modern modes of warfare was the primary cause for the Russian Empire’s losses. The strain of the war on the people sparked nationwide strikes in 1916, which culminated in the 1917 February Revolution, when Nicholas II abdicated his throne. Soon after the Bolshevik Revolution began and established the Soviet Empire.
Water Supply
The Russian Empire had five main drainage basins: the Arctic, Pacific, Baltic, Black Sea, and Caspian. The most extensive of these was the Arctic basin, which was north of Siberia and was drained by three rivers: the Ob (2,268 miles; 3,649 km), the Irtysh (3,360 miles; 5,406 km), and the Lena (2,734 miles; 4,399 km). Other notable rivers of the Siberian region were the Northern Dvina, Pechora, Indigirka, and the Kolyma. The rest of Siberia drained into the Pacific Ocean, with the southeastern part drained by the Amur tributary that formed the border between Russia and China.
European Russia had three drainage basins: the Dnieper and Don rivers and the northwest drain of the Baltic Sea. The largest river of this region was the Volga (2,193 miles; 3,528 km), which went from northwest of Moscow to the Caspian Sea. Besides the Caspian Sea, the Ladoga, Onega, Peipus, and Baikal Lakes were the largest bodies of water in the Empire.
The Russian Empire’s great irrigation project was the founding of its new capital, St. Petersburg, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1703. The marshy, flood-prone land and inhospitable climate created an engineering challenge to the government, which it answered: the state had built more than 370 bridges and river channels, and, by the mid-18th century, St. Petersburg became the primary outlet of trade with Europe. However, as the city continued to grow, the sanitary conditions, particularly the drinking water, became inadequate and often unsuitable for human consumption.