could own serfs for manufacturing, for example, but the possession accrued to the
factory, not personally to the merchant, and Peter III abrogated that right in 1762
(Paul I restored it in 1797). Nobles won exclusive rights to distill alcohol (1715,
1765); they typically farmed out the distilling and sold the product to state-run
taverns. In 1782 the nobility won ownership and unrestricted use of minerals and
forests on their lands.
Political privileges came their way as well, most notably a near monopoly over
public office in Catherine II’s time, inhibiting the development of other professional
strata. Laws in the 1760s explicitly prescribed that nobles be given preference in civil
and military appointments; one (1765) tried to limit non-noble bureaucrats from
rising up into the nobility-bestowing rank 8, setting tougher standards for promo-
tion if the candidate were non-noble. The 1775 administrative reform created
hundreds of new jobs for retired military men, regardless of lack of expertise.
Nobles played the Table of Ranks skillfully. Those high families who could
afford it enrolled their sons into the Guards Regiments and the Cadet Corps, an
elite school founded in St. Petersburg in 1732, graduation from which guaranteed
an initial military service appointment already at junior officer rank on the Table.
Less wealthy noble families enrolled their sons as children in their fathers’regi-
ments, awarding ample promotions so that when the boy reached maturity, he
already held officer rank. Requirements of service lessened over the century: in
1736 Empress Anna reduced the term of service from lifetime to twenty-five years
and Peter III abolished it entirely in 1762 (in part as a way to deal with massive
demobilizations after the Seven Years War). Emancipation from service provided
some nobles theflexibility to pursue life on their estates. Some did so to shore up
meager holdings that had fallen into neglect; wealthy nobles focused on exploiting
estates and serfs in a booming manufacturing and agricultural economy. Still others
turned to the life of country squires inspired by a pastoral ideal inspired by their
classical education. Nevertheless, most nobles continued to serve, for the prestige or
salary. After Paul I reinstated mandatory service briefly (1796–1801), Alexander
I rescinded it and most nobles continued to serve.
Service in turn helped to forge corporate solidarity for men in the nobility.
Membership in the Cadet Corps for the highest level of the nobility created tight
bonds; others found common bonds in education abroad and engagement with
court circles in the capitals. Educational norms for noblemen also created common
experiences. When in 1736 lifetime service was reduced to twenty-five years and
one son was excused to manage the family property, the state raised the standards
of education that all male nobles were required to maintain. Young noblemen had
to present themselves for periodic educational reviews (four between the ages of
7 and 20) to show competence infields including reading, writing, religion,
arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, and fortifications. The state continued
its functionalist approach to education, as Catherine II’s projects for educational
reform suggest.
The proper form of education and upbringing was a burning topic for Enlight-
enment thinkers from John Locke through Rousseau; as Jan Kusber noted, Russians
fully engaged in such debates. Some, including V. N. Tatishchev (1733), Andrei
Nobility, Culture, and Intellectual Life 433