tbh most of us if put in a position to get an estate would probably do what it would take to get one.
The “Magnificent Age” - Catherine II TL
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
Even that I would give up, for that is easily regained nor is it all important
Yes... my eccentricity is quite famous among my colleagues
Yeah like you suddenly showing up speaking french and demanding we restore the monarchy!
You are not “the resident child”, you are “the resident NAUGHTY child”. 😜
And to sell it ASAP. Otherwise you’ll be saddled with a burden to pay huge estate taxes, electricity, etc. bills, pay for the maintenance and so on.
viva la monarchie, viva le roi, l'état sur tout
like Loki, but much milder
or you could start your own fief and grow yourself an empire
Hmmmmm… I think that he is trying to offend you: this was a really nasty thing to say. I feel so sorry about you, poor, little, naughty, defenseless creature. 😢
Is telugu something like beluga?
In my age you have to be either sentimental or an a—hole. But preferably both.
Can we expect discount on a caviar?
yes I am a Telugu
Don´t start anything, I would like to stay alive
I am not a cetacean, it is my language and ethnicity
I wonder what this means for me seeing that I am in the prime of my life and I already am both
I´ll ask my contacts
10. The Big Items or Show of Ingratitude #1
10. The Big Items or Show of Ingratitude #1
With the Guards being reasonably happy, general population satisfied with Catherine lowering some taxes, and the Polish plans proceeding smoothly, Catherine finally had to address two Big Issues:
#1 the Orthodox Church - secularization
#2 the Ukrainian Hetmanate - abolishing
Theoretically, Catherine owned some debt of a gratitude both the the Orthodox Church and to Hetman Razumovsky for their support during the coup but, in a reality, in both cases the really big money, and not only money, had been involved so the notions like “moral obligations” and “gratitude” did not really apply.
Show of ingratitude #1. Secularization
The Orthodox Church (“black clergy” and its institutions ) of the Russian Empire owned over 900,000 “souls” and was completely free from taxation. Besides peasants and land, the Church owned various types of the businesses (fisheries, horse breeding farms, salt extraction, etc.), the monasteries were often engaged in a profitable trade and, for a government that was routinely short of money there was a clear interest to conduct a little bit of expropriation …oops… secularization.
A famous opponent of the reform was Arseny Matsievich, Metropolitan of Siberia, member of the Holy Synod, who actively defended the autonomy of the Russian Orthodox Church from state power, threatening the government with anathema. But his problem was inability to figure out where to stop and soon enough his speeches became so radical that he ended up being minority of one: talking about the Church property was one thing but getting from there to criticism of a government was a completely different issue. As the first step, in respect to his age and previous services, he was just demoted to a simple monk and sent to a remote monastery.
But the monastery’s leadership did not prevent him for wagging his tongue on the issues amounting to a plain and obvious high treason: he was “predicting” an overthrowing of Catherine and replacing her with Ivan IV and/or Paul. Of course, these activities had been duly reported and the issue was brought again to the Synod.
This time was defrocked, delivered to the state authorities and sent to spend the rest of his live as a prisoner of the Revel fortress under the name “Andrew the Liar”.
With a consensus regarding the reform thus being happily achieved, it was possible to proceed to the specifics.
Monastic peasants were counted to 911,000 “souls”, excluding Little Russia and the provinces: Kharkiv, Ekaterinoslav, Kursk and Voronezh, where the calculation was made later; each peasant was taxed with 1 ruble 50 kopecks per year, which brought the amount of 1,366,299 rubles.
The Bishops. Since the bishop's houses had peasants and were to receive remuneration for them in a permanent salary. All dioceses were divided into three classes: in the first only three dioceses were included - Novgorod, Moscow and St. Petersburg; in the second - 8 and in the third - 15; for all bishops' houses, 149,586 rubles were allocated per year. Each bishop's house had to have an almshouse with a certain number of residents defined by classes of dioceses and amounting to 765 total, males and females; each receiving 5 rubles a year, therefore, the entire amount assigned to them from the Economy Board extended to 3,825 rubles. In general, the bishops ended up being at least even and perhaps with some gain.
The monasteries. There were 947 monasteries, of them men - 728, women's - 219, but most of them did not have populated lands, while some of them had a lot of peasants (for example, Chudov Monastery in Moscow had 18,600), and some very few. The monasteries that had peasants and, therefore, were entitled to receive remuneration for them in a permanent salary, were included into the “staff” [1] and were divided into the classes.
According to the states of 1764, full-time (receiving support from the state) monasteries, except for the lavras (few the most distinguished monasteries subordinated directly to the Synod; at that time there were two of them: Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius in Zagorsk and Pechersk Lavra in Kiev, the eldest one), were divided into three classes "in accordance with wealth and dignity":
1st class: 15 men's, 4 women's
2nd class: 41 men’s, 18 woman’s
3rd class: 100 men's, 45 women's
In total, the male monasteries had been assigned 17,750 rubles per year and women's monasteries 33,000 rubles.
In 1764 “beyond-staff” monasteries also had been divided into 3 classes:
1st class - 20 monasteries
2nd - 56
3rd - 85
Total “population” of all officially recognized monasteries amounted tp 1247 monastics. The remaining monasteries were abolished. The remaining “beyond-staff” monasteries had to exist either for voluntary offerings or off the land located near the abodes, cultivated by the monks on their own.
Monasteries that did not have peasants were left on their former means of subsistence, while the rest were abolished or converted to parish churches. Even some of the “staff” monasteries ended up losing income and having to rely, to one degree or another, upon the voluntary donations.
At the first stage secularization applied only to the Great Russia. Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod-Severskaya, Kursk, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkiv and Voronezh gubernias were temporarily excluded.
As a bonus, the maintenance of retired military personnel at bishop's houses and monasteries, which was practiced so far, was recognized as inconvenient taking into an account that the habits of the military people tended to be not quite monastic and that many of them had families. Therefore, it was decided to send retired military personnel not to monasteries, but to the designated cities number 31 cities, where they were assigned apartments from the inhabitants for the first time, and to give a salary defined by their rank. The number of such retired military was defined 4,353 people, and the amount released on them should have to extend to 80,600 rubles. There were additional provisions for the widows and underage orphans.
The peasants. Peasants who used to cultivate the land for the benefit of the church received this land for personal use paying a poll tax. Thus, these peasants became “economic peasants”, that is, freed from serfdom-related dues to the owners. Taxes, collected exclusively in cash, from such peasants were sent to the Economy Board under the Senate.
Aftermath. In general, the state was left with a considerable income surplus and got over 900,000 taxpayers and approximately 9,000,000 hectares of land. Small wonder that there was a line of the …er… “deserving people” expecting to get their fair share of the goodies but there was a HUGE disappointment: Catherine was working on increasing her (state) income [2]. Very few of the immediately involved people got some token bonuses and as for the rest, they had to be satisfied with the recent increase of the salaries which consumed most of the profits from increased tax on alcohol. Well, besides this, they could re-read Catherine’s manifest about the descent servants of the state and the moral satisfaction they should get from their service. Or what could become of them if they fall short of the Empress’ expectations….
_______
[1] General terms for everybody and everything receiving state salaries.
[2] This is ATL bordering with ASB 😉 but, OTOH, Catherine hardly had to fear anything but her own fear. The real force, militaries, had been generally happy, majority of the bureaucratic apparatus could not expect anything anyway and those on the upper level were not exactly paupers and could be replaced quite easily.
“It would be crazy to base all our political actions on the weak hope that we will be able to find excellent or at least competent rulers.“
Karl Raymond Popper
“The ruling of the state is a cruel occupation. A mild temper in such a case is just a hindrance.”
Jean Racine
“The ruler does not need to have all the virtues, but there is a direct need to look like he possesses them.”
Nicollo di Bernardo Machiavelli
“The experiennce has long taught the people to be grateful to their rulers for not doing him all the harm they could do to them, and to adore their rulers when the people are not hated by them. “
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“It's better to have lazy rulers than restless. “
Aesop
“I felt a sense of gratitude. It's not mine. I feel it's not mine.”
“Worse than ingratitude is a demand for gratitude.”
“She knew how to be grateful, but didn't abuse it.”
“My gratitude will have no boundaries within reason.”
Unknown authors
Russian Empire 1763. The Big ItemsKarl Raymond Popper
“The ruling of the state is a cruel occupation. A mild temper in such a case is just a hindrance.”
Jean Racine
“The ruler does not need to have all the virtues, but there is a direct need to look like he possesses them.”
Nicollo di Bernardo Machiavelli
“The experiennce has long taught the people to be grateful to their rulers for not doing him all the harm they could do to them, and to adore their rulers when the people are not hated by them. “
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“It's better to have lazy rulers than restless. “
Aesop
“I felt a sense of gratitude. It's not mine. I feel it's not mine.”
“Worse than ingratitude is a demand for gratitude.”
“She knew how to be grateful, but didn't abuse it.”
“My gratitude will have no boundaries within reason.”
Unknown authors
With the Guards being reasonably happy, general population satisfied with Catherine lowering some taxes, and the Polish plans proceeding smoothly, Catherine finally had to address two Big Issues:
#1 the Orthodox Church - secularization
#2 the Ukrainian Hetmanate - abolishing
Theoretically, Catherine owned some debt of a gratitude both the the Orthodox Church and to Hetman Razumovsky for their support during the coup but, in a reality, in both cases the really big money, and not only money, had been involved so the notions like “moral obligations” and “gratitude” did not really apply.
Show of ingratitude #1. Secularization
The Orthodox Church (“black clergy” and its institutions ) of the Russian Empire owned over 900,000 “souls” and was completely free from taxation. Besides peasants and land, the Church owned various types of the businesses (fisheries, horse breeding farms, salt extraction, etc.), the monasteries were often engaged in a profitable trade and, for a government that was routinely short of money there was a clear interest to conduct a little bit of expropriation …oops… secularization.
- Peter I made the first step by “downgrading” position of the Church by replacing Patriarch with a Synod, which already became more or less a part of the state apparatus.
- Elizabeth was considering secularization but did nothing.
- Peter III, as was his unfortunate habit, tried to do the right thing in a wrong way by just declaring secularization and sending the Guards officers to confiscate the valuable property (especially the horses) and tell peasants that from now on they are on their own. These actions resulted in a huge mess “at the bottom” and a great anger “at the top”:
- The peasants, surprise, surprise, started with devastating fisheries and everything else they could safely appropriate and the officers were destroying the farms by taking horses and cattle and moving them somewhere (nobody could say where exactly because there were no arrangements for founding state-owned farms).
- The bishops had been bitterly complaining to the court because the resulting mess made it absolutely unclear how they and the monasteries in their jurisdiction are supposed to maintain themselves.
A famous opponent of the reform was Arseny Matsievich, Metropolitan of Siberia, member of the Holy Synod, who actively defended the autonomy of the Russian Orthodox Church from state power, threatening the government with anathema. But his problem was inability to figure out where to stop and soon enough his speeches became so radical that he ended up being minority of one: talking about the Church property was one thing but getting from there to criticism of a government was a completely different issue. As the first step, in respect to his age and previous services, he was just demoted to a simple monk and sent to a remote monastery.
But the monastery’s leadership did not prevent him for wagging his tongue on the issues amounting to a plain and obvious high treason: he was “predicting” an overthrowing of Catherine and replacing her with Ivan IV and/or Paul. Of course, these activities had been duly reported and the issue was brought again to the Synod.
This time was defrocked, delivered to the state authorities and sent to spend the rest of his live as a prisoner of the Revel fortress under the name “Andrew the Liar”.
With a consensus regarding the reform thus being happily achieved, it was possible to proceed to the specifics.
Monastic peasants were counted to 911,000 “souls”, excluding Little Russia and the provinces: Kharkiv, Ekaterinoslav, Kursk and Voronezh, where the calculation was made later; each peasant was taxed with 1 ruble 50 kopecks per year, which brought the amount of 1,366,299 rubles.
The Bishops. Since the bishop's houses had peasants and were to receive remuneration for them in a permanent salary. All dioceses were divided into three classes: in the first only three dioceses were included - Novgorod, Moscow and St. Petersburg; in the second - 8 and in the third - 15; for all bishops' houses, 149,586 rubles were allocated per year. Each bishop's house had to have an almshouse with a certain number of residents defined by classes of dioceses and amounting to 765 total, males and females; each receiving 5 rubles a year, therefore, the entire amount assigned to them from the Economy Board extended to 3,825 rubles. In general, the bishops ended up being at least even and perhaps with some gain.
The monasteries. There were 947 monasteries, of them men - 728, women's - 219, but most of them did not have populated lands, while some of them had a lot of peasants (for example, Chudov Monastery in Moscow had 18,600), and some very few. The monasteries that had peasants and, therefore, were entitled to receive remuneration for them in a permanent salary, were included into the “staff” [1] and were divided into the classes.
According to the states of 1764, full-time (receiving support from the state) monasteries, except for the lavras (few the most distinguished monasteries subordinated directly to the Synod; at that time there were two of them: Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius in Zagorsk and Pechersk Lavra in Kiev, the eldest one), were divided into three classes "in accordance with wealth and dignity":
1st class: 15 men's, 4 women's
2nd class: 41 men’s, 18 woman’s
3rd class: 100 men's, 45 women's
In total, the male monasteries had been assigned 17,750 rubles per year and women's monasteries 33,000 rubles.
In 1764 “beyond-staff” monasteries also had been divided into 3 classes:
1st class - 20 monasteries
2nd - 56
3rd - 85
Total “population” of all officially recognized monasteries amounted tp 1247 monastics. The remaining monasteries were abolished. The remaining “beyond-staff” monasteries had to exist either for voluntary offerings or off the land located near the abodes, cultivated by the monks on their own.
Monasteries that did not have peasants were left on their former means of subsistence, while the rest were abolished or converted to parish churches. Even some of the “staff” monasteries ended up losing income and having to rely, to one degree or another, upon the voluntary donations.
At the first stage secularization applied only to the Great Russia. Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod-Severskaya, Kursk, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkiv and Voronezh gubernias were temporarily excluded.
As a bonus, the maintenance of retired military personnel at bishop's houses and monasteries, which was practiced so far, was recognized as inconvenient taking into an account that the habits of the military people tended to be not quite monastic and that many of them had families. Therefore, it was decided to send retired military personnel not to monasteries, but to the designated cities number 31 cities, where they were assigned apartments from the inhabitants for the first time, and to give a salary defined by their rank. The number of such retired military was defined 4,353 people, and the amount released on them should have to extend to 80,600 rubles. There were additional provisions for the widows and underage orphans.
The peasants. Peasants who used to cultivate the land for the benefit of the church received this land for personal use paying a poll tax. Thus, these peasants became “economic peasants”, that is, freed from serfdom-related dues to the owners. Taxes, collected exclusively in cash, from such peasants were sent to the Economy Board under the Senate.
Aftermath. In general, the state was left with a considerable income surplus and got over 900,000 taxpayers and approximately 9,000,000 hectares of land. Small wonder that there was a line of the …er… “deserving people” expecting to get their fair share of the goodies but there was a HUGE disappointment: Catherine was working on increasing her (state) income [2]. Very few of the immediately involved people got some token bonuses and as for the rest, they had to be satisfied with the recent increase of the salaries which consumed most of the profits from increased tax on alcohol. Well, besides this, they could re-read Catherine’s manifest about the descent servants of the state and the moral satisfaction they should get from their service. Or what could become of them if they fall short of the Empress’ expectations….
_______
[1] General terms for everybody and everything receiving state salaries.
[2] This is ATL bordering with ASB 😉 but, OTOH, Catherine hardly had to fear anything but her own fear. The real force, militaries, had been generally happy, majority of the bureaucratic apparatus could not expect anything anyway and those on the upper level were not exactly paupers and could be replaced quite easily.
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cool, does this mean that government will become completely secular one day or just for the money
Nah its not, finding me is easy!
But considering how much trouble they are having at doing that, maybe it is a little crazy
Indeed, which is why you're supposed to not do that
Oh she got plenty
How dare-
HOW DARE
...Oh wait am I orthodox? No? Nevermind
Spoken like a true british
Like God intended
The obligatory libertarian in me prefers the term stealing
Excommunicated!
Good
Excommunicated!
Like God intended
Nah you got to replace her with a better waifu
Like, say... Napoleon!
It is money and influence: a state-dependent Church can be very useful in keeping the population in a proper mood.