Western Civilization - History Of European Society

368 Chapter 19

gave them the right to send troublesome peasants to
Siberia.
Catherine’s shrewd politics solidified her despotic
authority by raising the Russian aristocracy to a level of
power that they had not previously known. The culmi-
nation of this trend occurred in 1785 when Catherine
issued the Charter of the Nobility, which codified the
collective rights of the dvorianstvo,such as freedom from
state service. It gave aristocrats the sole right to acquire
serfs, which town dwellers and even free peasants had
sought. It excluded the aristocracy from taxation and
from corporal punishment.
Partly for consolidating imperial power for thirty
years, and partly for her enlightened reforms, Cather-
ine II became known as Catherine the Great. The en-
lightened side of her record, however, is ambiguous.
She read many of the philosophes before ascending to
the throne, and she was apparently much influenced by
Blackstone, Beccaria, and Montesquieu. She corre-
sponded with Voltaire and hosted Diderot on a visit to
Russia. Her devotion to the ideals of the Enlighten-
ment, however, remained stronger in theory than in ac-
tion. She found it difficult to enact the ideas she liked.
Diderot was dazzled to find “the soul of Brutus in the
body of Cleopatra,” but Catherine thought the philoso-
pher’s schemes were “sheer prattle.” She wrote to him in
1770, rejecting many reforms for Russia, “All your work

is done on paper, which does not mind how you treat

it.... But I, poor empress, must work upon human skin,

which is much more ticklish and irritable.”

Catherine’s greatest effort at enlightened govern-

ment produced almost no result. In 1767 she sum-

moned a Legislative Commission of 564 delegates,

representing all classes except the serfs. Only twenty-

eight members were named to the commission, and the

rest were elected. Catherine charged the commission

with the task of considering the complete reform of the

laws of Russia. To guide the commission, Catherine

prepared one of the most famous documents of her

reign, the Grand Instructions (Nakaz) of 1767 (see doc-

ument 19.2). These instructions contained both halves

of enlightened despotism. They opened by asserting

that “[T]he sovereign is absolute, for there is no other

authority but that which centers in his single person.”

That statement of despotic power was followed by

many enlightened principles: Catherine opposed tor-

ture and capital punishment, called for a government

based on the division of powers, and indicated her hos-

tility to serfdom. The potential for change was enor-

mous. As Panin reacted to the Nakaz,“[T]hese

principles are strong enough to shatter walls!”

Despite the great promise of its beginning, the

Legislative Commission of 1767–68 did not reform

Russia. It received more than fourteen hundred peti-

DOCUMENT 19.2

Catherine the Great’s Instructions for a New Law Code, 1768

Of the situation of the people in general

33. The laws ought to be so framed as to secure the
    safety of every citizen as much as possible.


34. The equality of the citizens consists in this: that
    they should all be subject to the same laws.


35. This equality requires institutions so well adapted
    as to prevent the rich from oppressing those who
    are not so wealthy as themselves....


36. General or political liberty does not consist in
    that licentious notion, that man may do whatever
    he pleases.


37. In a state or assemblage of people that live to-
    gether in a community where there are laws, lib-
    erty can only consist in doing that which every
    one ought to do, and not to be constrained to do
    that which one ought not to do.
    38. A man ought to form in his own mind an exact
    and clear idea of what liberty is. Liberty is the
    right of doing whatsoever the laws allow: And if
    any one citizen could do what the laws forbid,
    there would be no more liberty, because others
    would have an equal power of doing the same.
    39. The political liberty of a citizen is the peace of
    mind arising from the consciousness that every
    individual enjoys his peculiar safety; and in order
    that the people might attain this liberty, the laws
    ought to be so framed that no one citizen should
    stand in fear of another; but that all of them
    should stand in fear of the same laws.
    Catherine the Great. The Grand Instructions to the Commissioners
    Appointed to Frame a New Code of Laws.London: 1768.