Russia, Poland and the Netherland (Term Paper Sample)

RUSSIA, POLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS AND THE WHAT HAPPENED IN THEIR POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY IN 1648 THROUGH TO 1780 TO ETITHER STRENGTHEN OR WEAKEN THEIR GOVERNMENTS
In the period linking the culmination of the Thirty Years’ War and the commencement of the nineteenth century, European nations struggled to unearth ways to make their regimes strong enough to uphold their political and economic power. In this essay, I will look at Russia, Poland and the Netherlands economic, political and social history and what happened to either strengthen or weaken their national governments. All of them went through war, meant to influence or defend their territories, and they suffered economic decline with Poland finally being partitioned.
The Thirty Years War is among the great clashes of early contemporary Europe. It entailed a series of proclaimed and undeclared wars that lasted up to 1648. Over the last four years of war, the parties actively negotiated In Westphalia, and in October 1648 the Peace of Westphalia was signed that ended the thirty years war.
Russia
Until the seventeenth century, Russia was in constant flux. Its princes were adventurers and built empires in near empty lands. Oknotz was founded in 1648 on the Pacific shore. A few fur traders and colonists had already penetrated Siberia. The harsh imperatives of geography were important in bringing Russia into the front rank among states. The people’s fight for survival was given character by the climate extremes and immense spaces unbroken by natural obstacles. The Great Russian plain has a rainfall of less than twenty inches a year. The relatively short growing seasons with periodic dry springs and summers meant recurring harvest failures. The Russian winter is also notorious. The tundra is virtually impossible to cultivate.
The Russian landscape played a role in molding the Russian people. More than half of Russia’s population lived in forest lands. Theirs was the stubborn conservationism of people who lived by lumbering, cultivating patches of land cleared by fire for a few years then get going. The voyagers and traders could meet in the great rivers, in mutual interest. Roads were mere tracks and became impassable in the rainy seasons. There existed no metalled roads until the nineteenth century. Peasants survived by either passively enduring or leaving. When plague and famine afflicted the people, the survivors were pressed all the harder by taxation, recruitment into the army and labor services. People immigrated to the remote lands of the south and east where soil was more easily worked, and the officialdom was less oppressive.
Russia was not a capitalist society. However, she could have been described as a society of service because the social hierarchy was arranged in a manner so as to provide the ruler with what he needed to control and defend his lands. In 1667 by the peace of Andrussuvo between Poland and Russia, all the Ukraine east of the Dnieper and Kiev, with some land west of the river became Russian. Poland retained only the western Ukraine. The peace was a milestone on the road to the decline of Poland but meant a lifting of horizons for Russia. The Polish war brought Russia into the orbit of western powers. During Peter the Great’s reign, there was the final abolition of the system of precedence among the nobles according to birth and service. Peter built factories and mills to supply his army and improve the military of his country, but in trying to build the superstructure of a great power on the base of an underdeveloped economy, he was always thwarted by want of money. In the eighteenth century, nearly all the industrial workers were slaves and lived in barracks or settlements by the plant. Russia was a large exporter of iron, and there were state and subsidized private enterprises in cotton, silk tobacco and silk.
Poland
Although Poland was recognized among states as a force, it was a poor country and consisted of two very distinct classes. There were the nobles or land owners who were poor aristocrats and the downtrodden and ignorant peasantry. Her system of government was her greatest weakness. There was a king who was not hereditary but elected for life. The election was a cause of intrigue and jealousy among the nobles. The king had no power to rule. He could not make war or peace, alter the law or levy tax without the approval of the Diet of nobles. Whichever member of the Diet could sanction any proposition put before it - the “liberum veto”. The “liberum veto” made it increasingly difficult to get action taken and provided foreign diplomats with an opening to bribe their way. Under the circumstances, a coherent policy in Poland was not possible.
The Cossack revolt of 1648 shook Poland to the core. Poland lost Kiev and Eastern Ukraine to Russia in 1667. Poland then got involved in a losing battle in the western Ukraine with the Turks. Poles under king Sobieski managed to push the Turks back and managed to regain much of western Ukraine in 1675. Poland was still a large country and still overlord of the Cossacks of Ukraine. However, the country was eventually partitioned in three phases by her ruthless neighbors and obliterated.
The Netherlands
In 1648, the United Provinces made peace with Spain. War had been waged continuously since 1572, when the Sea Beggars captured Brill, apart from the truce of 1609-1621. After 1648, the Dutch showed that economic strength could provide a small country with resources to hold its own against what might seem to be overwhelming odds in political and military terms. The Dutch were became to make money in order to defend their gains and realize, in the quality of their lives, the opportunities afforded by successful resistance. They were probably the best fed people in Europe and they took care of their urban poor. Calvinist faith was influential and ministers expounded on doctrines that gave their congregations a sense of being chosen people.
Besides painting, which had extensive roots in Dutch, literature enjoyed a minor renaissance. The University of Leyden was a centre of vigorous intellectual life and an outpost of Protestantism in Europe. Daniel Heinsius the poet wrote ‘We were born to be free’ expressing the mood. As Antwerp, which was occupied by Spain and blockaded by the Dutch, declined, Amsterdam emerged as a financial capital of the world. Immigrant southerners brought their capital and skills to the north and Dutchmen traded profitably in the East Indies, India and Africa. The country offered commercial rivalry and also an alternative way of life against Spain and France. Civilization and the trading empire were inseparable. They mastered their native element to a sturdy, stubborn character, success against military odds, successful engineering and adaptability. In the 1670s, Amsterdam even insured enemy ships. The city also made gains from speculation in commodities and shares. Arms trade flourished and progressed without the considerations of whether the involved nations were allies, neutrals or enemies. Immigrants from the south contributed to the growth of services and to some of the manufacturing industries. Diamond cutting, which is still today a specialty of Amsterdam, originated at Antwerp.
Immigration to other countries was great and between 1669 and 1750, a series of decrees were aimed by the states-general against skilled workers emigration. They were however abortive. The opportunities abroad were more tempting as growth of the Dutch economy slowed down. Universities in the seventeenth century were in the decline but Leyden was an exception. It was relatively free from the requirements of church authority and no tests of religious orthodoxy were required. Land was largely owned by burghers and the nobility was weak in numbers, a closed caste that enjoyed little political power. In the towns and in the provinces, the affairs were managed by small interrelated groups who provided councilors for the states (the regents). They constituted an exclusive aristocracy of office. Although their might and power emanated from trade, they abandoned trade to concentrate on finance and investment so as to provide a stable base and leisure for politics. There was a loss of out-going spirit and inertia that settled in the country. This was caused by fear after a coup that overturned the de Wit...