Was Catherine the Great an Absolute Monarch?

Catherine the Great ruled Russia from 1729 to 1796. She was married to Peter the Great, and after his
death became the leader of the nation. Many would consider her an absolute monarch of her time, due
to the fact one of her main goals were to continue and expand Peters goals, which were to increase
Russias territory, and make it as Westernized as possible. She had absolute control over Russia, and
forced the army to fight many wars against Europe, which Nobles and Russian citizens were not happy
about. Regardless of their undesirous attitudes towards this action, Catherine encouraged it and Russian
territory expanded greatly over her time. Also, at the beginning of her rule she saw herself as
enlightened, and wanted to free the serfs, but changed her mind soon afterwards. Catherine
encouraged the expansion of serfdom. She decided the Eastern Orthodox Church should be owned by
the state, and all its holdings as well, which included more than one million serfs, and one third of
agricultural land. Serfdom was expanded so much to the extent that one million who were originally
freed had been put back under the system. Because the church had become state property, they were
subjected to taxes. After a while of wanting to make up a constitutional and political reforms, she gave
up on the idea, believing that the idea of sharing power was too chaotic for her liking, and unwillingness
to give up any power she already had. She stopped educating those who had no prior education in the
land, believing that if they knew too much that they would have the want to stop obeying her laws and
rule. This act made her an absolute monarch because they had no say in whether or not they got their
knowledge or not, it was her way and no other. Also, as we know she did not free the serfs, but she had
absolutely no attempts to regulate a relationship between serfs and landowners by law. Catherine the
Great just tended to believe that everybody was below her, and focused on the goals she wanted to
make possible for Russian society throughout the world. Through force and strength, she did manage to
expand the territory of Russia greatly. There was a point in her ruling where it seemed as though she
was so desperately in need of the nobles support in order to keep her throne that she increased their
amount of power of the nobles over the serfs in Russia, and governed the region in such a way that that
consolidate noble domination and exploitation of the material and man resources of the country.
Catherine never admitted to this act, or any reason as to why she increased the nobles power, so in
todays history there are no general agreements on the situation. My beliefs on this doing was that, yes,
she indeed gave others more power which could looked upon as positive, but at the end of the day, she
did it for her own good. I believe that she felt threatened over the nobles not liking what she was doing,
and even though she wasnt all that concerned as to what others thought, she was willing to do
whatever she had to in order to remain the one and only, leader of Russia. Because of Catherines
actions in order to stay the main order of the area, this makes her an absolute monarch. Her actions to
control the army, not educate certain citizens in the society, and to control order over the Eastern
Orthodox Church, and many more, are the reasons she could be explained as an absolute monarch for
the time of her power in Russian history.


MLA Work Cited:
"Sophie Friederike Auguste, Prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 21
Oct. 2014.
Madariaga, Isabel De. "Catherine the Great." Catherine the Great. New Haven, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.