What do you think was the most successful Early Modern State, in the time period c. 1500 to 1800?
Eh, the Jianzhou Jurchens began their rapid rise in the late 16th century, proceeded to score victory after victory against the Ming dynasty in the early 17th century, then conquered Beijing (1644) and the rest of China (1683). The 18th century was more consolidation and border adjustments; the bulk of their rise was in the 17th century. As for Russia, they'd been pushing eastward for centuries and, while Peter the Great was the 18th century, they did push the Tatars and Poles back beforehand in the 16th and 17th centuries, allowing for Russia's entrance into the Great Powers club.Choose Ottomans, Mughals, Netherlands and England.
I didn't put Prussia because their rise was quite late and concentrated around the 18th century mostly, same goes for the Qing and Russia.
Their rise at that point was mostly conquering a famine-ridden Ming state and dealing with rebellions up to 1680s, the actual rise for me was the demographic recover during the 18th century and the complete end of any former Steppe states around Mongolia with the conquest of the Dzungar.Eh, the Jianzhou Jurchens began their rapid rise in the late 16th century, proceeded to score victory after victory against the Ming dynasty in the early 17th century, then conquered Beijing (1644) and the rest of China (1683). The 18th century was more consolidation and border adjustments; the bulk of their rise was in the 17th century. As for Russia, they'd been pushing eastward for centuries and, while Peter the Great was the 18th century, they did push the Tatars and Poles back beforehand in the 16th and 17th centuries, allowing for Russia's entrance into the Great Powers club.
Choose Ottomans, Mughals, Netherlands and England.
I didn't put Prussia because their rise was quite late and concentrated around the 18th century mostly, same goes for the Qing and Russia.
England's urbanization and colonization started happening since the 17th century, London was already 4th largest city in Europe by 1600 and by 1700 it was not far from becoming first.England's dominance isn't really any earlier than Russia's or that of Qing. Even the population explosions happened in the same timeframe.
Early period: France, Ottomans. Later period, England, Russia, Netherlands.
England's urbanization and colonization started happening since the 17th century, London was already 4th largest city in Europe by 1600 and by 1700 it was not far from becoming first.
The Volga was not settled by Russia until the 19th century, continuous Crimean raids stopped them from doing big steps, same goes with Siberia.Moscow was over 100K inhabitants in the 1500s. Russia settled all of the Volga, Urals and Siberia by mid-1600s. Russia had a permanent, uniformed army, permanent government ministries, and administered a territory not too far off from modern day's. 1500s England couldn't manage any of that. It's really not that different between the two of them in the time frame (England built more castles and had more printers, which I think is key). The 1700s is where the divergence really really starts.
The Volga was not settled by Russia until the 19th century, continuous Crimean raids stopped them from doing big steps, same goes with Siberia.
I already explained why they weren't, their growth and success started very fast since the mid 17th century, while Russia had to wait until the early 18th to finally start expanding demographically in the frontier. Like I said England urbanization and colonization were already well underway by 1700, London was beating Paris and good portions of the Dutch traders moved to London and England for their operations.We must be working with vastly different definitions of "Volga" and "settled", and "big steps" too, because the various planned settlement lines were much bigger than anything England could hope to do in 1500s-1600s. Regardless, the main point remains unchallenged: England's success is a late thing. They were a late bloomer.
The Volga was not settled by Russia until the 19th century,
continuous Crimean raids stopped them from doing big steps,
same goes with Siberia.
Moscow was barely top 10 among Europea cities, which is frankly underwhelming considering the demographic base of Russia.
"same" as what? Who was raiding whom in Siberia circa XVIII century?
I already explained why they weren't, their growth and success started very fast since the mid 17th century, while Russia had to wait until the early 18th to finally start expanding demographically in the frontier. Like I said England urbanization and colonization were already well underway by 1700, London was beating Paris and good portions of the Dutch traders moved to London and England for their operations.
Also no the Volga was definitely not "settled" it was occupied, garrisoned and controlled but few people lived there, there is a reason why this was the region that experienced population doubling over decades a couple times in the 19th century, the area was underpopulated, a frontier.
Oirats and Kazakhs, presumably, but that wasn't the main barrier to population growth at all.
As for the Volga, Razin's rebellion raised from this supposedly "underpopulated frontier" an army of 20,000 soldiers in rebellion against the Tsar. I'm not sure what the expectation is here, basically, because that's a lot of people for a settler-peasant rebellion. Ottomans and Safavids had their hands full with these settlers even without the Tsar's army.
Incidentally, English population growth:
1500: 2.2 mln
1600: 4.1 mln
1700: 5.2 mln
1800: 7.7 mln
1900: 30.0 mln
Very similar to Russia's demographic growth curve and absolutely consistent with what you'd expect from a late-blooming peripheral country.
Nizhny Novgorod wasn't on the frontier with Crimea, the former Tartar territories were. Also this major resettlement program didn't make the area that populated, especially Astrakhan.That's simply not true: a major resettlement program had been conducted by Ivan IV after conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. Not to mention that Upper Volga was "settled" in the early XIII century (Vladimir - Suzdal Pruincipality) with Principality of Nizhny Novgorod - Suzdal being formed in the XIV century. Enough to say that during the Time of Troubles, in 1602, Nizhy Novgorod (already one of the major trade centers in Tsardom) was capable of raising and financing (on a very lavish level) and army which expelled Poles from Moscow. Hardly expected from "underpopulated" area.
Well if you use the word "settlement" and "colonization" to mean 2 completely different things, that's on you, I'm not here to argue semantics though.What you are saying is that the Russian colonization of the Black Sea steppes did not start until 1770's. Not very critical due to the low population density (see below)
Why are you bringing the French in this? My point is just that the bulk of the "success" of Russia during this era happened fairly late even compared to England.However, it was mostly accomplished before 1786. How does it scores comparing to the French loss of most of their colonial possessions a little bit earlier?
Siberia was thinly populated, that's my point. Also the Kazakh Horde was a thorn on the side during this period."same" as what? Who was raiding whom in Siberia circa XVIII century?
I'm not sure how that counters my point, it doesn't change the fact that taking over all this Siberian land wasn't some sort of big success relatively speaking.If you are trying to say that intensive population of Siberia did not start until early XX, that's a completely different story related to the huge distances and difficulties of getting there by land prior to the major railroads construction: even during the age of the sails getting from St-Petersburg to the Russian Pacific coast by sea was few times faster than doing the same traveling by land. And, then, until the early XX there was no demographic (and social) pressure forcing to develop the new lands in Siberia: the main interest was in the mining (Ural, Altai, etc.).
Moscow was barely in the top 10 city in 1700 and didn't grow significantly until the late 18th century and St.Petersburg became significant also after the mid 18th century.Well, Moscow was not Russian capital between early XVIII and 1917 and, as far as demographic base is involved, Russia got ahead of France only in the early XIX. Not sure to which time your "barely top 10" belongs.
The British colonies in America up to 1750 didn't have enough population to skew things significantly, London had the same population as the Thirteen colonies up to 1720-1740 or so.To start from where it belongs, is "success" identified strictly as "urbanization" and "colonization"? If yes, then "urbanization" has to be counted as something average for all area including colonized regions and a single big capital city is hardly a measure of anything and, AFAIK, the British colonies in North America circa 1700's (and all the way till most of them had been lost) were not the most urbanized places on Earth.
What I know is that Astrakhan was fairly depopulated, as were most territories bordering the Crimean Khanate, the Russian had to slowly push the frontier south by building lines of fortification, this lasted centuries since the fall of Astrakhan and the population of those areas wasn't that big up to the start of the Circassian war.Your ideas about Volga area are a little bit on a fanciful side: the indigenous population not going anywhere and the old cities like Kazan and Astrakhan still being there,
The northern half of Rusisa didn't grew as much as the South did, the population there double to quadrupled in the first half of the 19th century alone.a number of cities had been founded in the XVII century. Specifics of the Russian colonization was in a fast adoption of the native people without "blending" them completely with the Russians. Building numerous cities usually counts as "urbanization". Why was population in this area increasing fast in the XIX century? Because population of the whole Russia increased more than 3 times between 1800 (35.5M) and 1900 (132.9).
Physical size shouldn't matter to be honest.Now, as far as the "colonization" is involved, it started big scale in the mid-XVI, well before the meaningful English colonization effort and by 1700 reached the Pacific coast. Further colonization efforts had been on Caucasus (XVIII - XIX) and in the Central Asia when they were going in parallel with the British ones. Anyway, by 1800 Russian empire was an empire had the biggest contiguous territory
I'll not retread over Russia but, regarding the Qing, it wasn't as simple as just rolling over the Ming. In the 1500s, the Jurchen were divided tribes without a written language dominated by the Mongols and Ming for the past few centuries (all they could do was launch raids). Then Nurhaci united the tribes, made an alphabet for the Jurchen, and scored victory after victory against the other Jurchens, Mongols, and even the Ming. The Ming situation wasn't so incredibly dire in the 1610s and 1620s when Nurhaci seized the Liaodong peninsula (though it did decline rapidly into the 1630s).Their rise at that point was mostly conquering a famine-ridden Ming state and dealing with rebellions up to 1680s, the actual rise for me was the demographic recover during the 18th century and the complete end of any former Steppe states around Mongolia with the conquest of the Dzungar.
Same goes for Russia, up to 1700 they had no access to the Baltic and the Black sea, by 1800 they were among the top 5 in Europe, before then they weren't faring that well, Poland having even more problem doesn't make Russia more successful on that front. Russia in 1800 had more than double the population of Russia in 1700(guesstimate)