Unlimited poll: Most successful Early Modern state?

Most successful Early Modern state?

  • Spain

    Votes: 21 13.2%
  • France

    Votes: 39 24.5%
  • Netherlands

    Votes: 22 13.8%
  • England/Great Britain

    Votes: 101 63.5%
  • Habsburg Monarchy

    Votes: 15 9.4%
  • Prussia

    Votes: 20 12.6%
  • Ottoman Empire

    Votes: 24 15.1%
  • Muscovy/Russia

    Votes: 23 14.5%
  • Safavid Empire

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • Mughal Empire

    Votes: 5 3.1%
  • Qing Empire

    Votes: 24 15.1%
  • Other

    Votes: 6 3.8%

  • Total voters
    159
Gotta go Spain (first half of the Early Modern Era), and then Prussia, England and Muscovy, all of which laid the groundwork for future imperial dominance or the unification of their region (Prussia.)

I'd also put the Qing, but China is China and was basically at the top of the world regardless for much of the period. Two surprising omissions IMO -- the Tokugawa shogunate for unifying Japan and preventing Iberian shenanigans, and then the Portuguese for laying the groundwork for both the Atlantic economy and Europe's trade routes with Asia.
 
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.

You had been talking about Volga and Nizhny Novgorod is most definitely on Volga. Conversation about making area "that" populated vs. <whatever> populated does not make sense for the state with a total population lesser than one of the PLC.

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.

I have no idea what you are here for but term "colonization" is more appropriate because it reflect the fact that these areas were not part of the Russian empire prior to the 1770's and had to be conquered first.

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.

French are brought because you are taking something completely out of context. Britain during that period was successful in its colonial expansion while France was not, so why compare with the most successful player? However, the whole premise of your is faulty because Russian colonial expansion started in the XVI century on a huge scale and by the late XVII (well before the real colonial age started for Britain) it reached Pacific coast and in the early XVIII further expanded into America (Alaska).

Siberia was thinly populated, that's my point. Also the Kazakh Horde was a thorn on the side during this period.

Sorry, but both points are silly. Siberia is thinly populated even now because most of its territory is uninhabitable (and, BTW, a big part of "Siberia" is not actually geographic Siberia but Russian Far east) due to the severe climate. Then, taking into an account that until end of the XIX century density of the population even in European Russia was not too high and that the same goes for the indigenous people of Siberia, the argument is rather irrelevant.

BTW, by the time of the American Revolution, the 13 colonies in general had been rather thinly populated (and big spaces between East and West coasts are not densely populated even now). The same goes for Canada and Australia (which by 1788 amounted mostly to the population of a penal colony) so what's your point? The main difference was that the Brits managed to conquer India with the existing huge population.

Kazakhs were a nuisance but not a critical one: they did not prevent colonization of the rest of the Central Asia. For comparison, the Brits had been facing a LOT of similar "thorns in the side" and part of today's Pakistan is still quite wild. And Afghanistan probably does not require any comments. So should we disqualify British colonial success?


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.

Well, your ideas about what is and what is not representing a big success are, of course, interesting but I'm afraid that they aren't universally shared: huge size of the Russian empire was considered an important thing since XVIII century.

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.

Of course, it would be nice to get the numbers but as a measure of "success" they are not very relevant: urbanization is hardly the only or main criteria of country's success, otherwise the most successful country is Vatican: 100% of its population live in a single city.:winkytongue:

Russia still had 2 to 3 times the population of England and yet its main city was many times smaller throughout this period.

And territory of Russia was bigger than one of England how many times? It simply does not make sense to compare densities of their population but, anyway, London was somewhat unique in Europe in the terms of percentage of country's population living there.


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.

Which means that using population of Siberia as a criteria does not make sense. However, speaking about "skewing things significantly", these underpopulated colonies did manage to "skew" things by launching in 1765 a successful rebellion which the Britain could not defeat. So perhaps, besides population of country's capital, military power also was an important criteria.

Also I didn't say success was strictly defined by those 2 things, but they are 2 relatively easy to compare metrics.

If something is easy to compare (especially compare superficially) it does not automatically mean that it means to much.

What I know is that Astrakhan was fairly depopulated,

It was depopulated when? In 1569 it was important enough for a failed Ottoman attempt to capture it. By the early XVII century most of the Russian cities (except for Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod and few other places) had been seriously depopulated due to few years of famine followed by the Time of Troubles. "In the 17th century, the city was developed as a Russian gate to the Orient. Many merchants from Armenia, Safavid Persia, Mughal India and Khiva khanate settled in the town, giving it a cosmopolitan character." In 1719 it was plundered by the Safavid Persians; and in 1830, cholera killed much of the populace. Every time it was going back as an important trade center.

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.

Of course, borders with the wild areas were not densely populated, just as the Wild West. But in the case of Crimean Khanate these border areas were quite small comparing to the total size of a country and almost as soon as Russia managed to deal with more pressing issues on its Western borders (you can check how many wars the Muscovite/Russian state had been fighting between mid-XVI century and 1770's), the Crimean Khanate was annexed, Circassian War started and lasted a century (growing into the Caucasian War) with the "thorns" being pushed beyond Kuban River and eventually the whole Caucasus being conquered. Pretty much the same processes as in the British colonial expansion out of India proper. So what's your point?


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.

Not sure what constitutes the "the northern half of Rusisa": everything to the north of <whatever> parallel measured from Western border and to the Pacific coast? Yes, a big part of this territory is not populated even now. Of course, that "northern half" would amount to something like 80 - 90% of the territory. Part with a high growth of population was quite small.

As for the rest of your argument, if a have 1 item of something and then got 1 more, increase is 100%. But if I have 10 items and added 2 more, my growth rate is much lower. In other words, what you are saying, is pretty much useless as a measure of anything.

Physical size shouldn't matter to be honest.

Well, somehow it mattered when you brought British colonialism circa 1700 as an argument.:p

OK, here is something that everybody in Europe circa 1800 did recognize:
Russia Empire was a Great Power with a military power second only to the French Empire. By 1815, it was the greatest military (even if not naval) power in Europe. It was also a greatest producer of iron in the world. Not a bad thing for the country that in 1500 was something of a curiosity item for most of the Europeans. BTW, physical size was a part of the recognized criteria.
 
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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.

By 1800 the Mughals lost practically all their power, the Ottomans already became "a sick man", the Netherlands (Batavian Republic) was French puppet state. Hardly good candidates for the most successful of anything with the end date being 1800.

There was no country called "England" in 1800: since 1707 the name was United Kingdom of Great Britain. Yes, the greatest (pre-)industrual, trade, colonial and financial power but in 1800 squeezed out of Europe by the French.

So the question is how to define "success"?
 
You had been talking about Volga and Nizhny Novgorod is most definitely on Volga. Conversation about making area "that" populated vs. <whatever> populated does not make sense for the state with a total population lesser than one of the PLC.
Dude the Volga reaches Tver, obviously I was not talking about the part of the Volga that has been Russian since before the end of the Tatar Yoke.

French are brought because you are taking something completely out of context. Britain, during that period was successful in its colonial expansion while France was not so why compare with the most successful player? However, the whole premise of your is faulty because Russian colonial expansion started in the XVI century on a huge scale and by the late XVII (well before the real colonial age started for Britain) it reached Pacific coast.
I have to compare, because we are talking about the "most successful" not if Russia was underwhelming or not(which I don't think it is)

Sorry, but both points are silly. Siberia is thinly populated even now because most of its territory is uninhabitable (and, BTW, a big part of "Siberia" is not actually geographic Siberia but Russian Far east) due to the sever climate. Then, taking into an account that until end of the XIX century density of the population even in European Russia was not too high, the argument is rather irrelevant. BTW, by the time of the American Revolution, the colonies in general had been rather thinly populated (and big spaces between East and West coasts are not densely populated even now), and the same goes for Canada and Australia (which by 1788 amounted mostly to the population of a penal colony). what's your point? That British pattern was different just because by 1800 they managed to get India with the existing huge population?
Yes I know Siberia doesn't have a large carrying capacity, my point is that I don't think we should hail the colonization of Siberia as a huge success ultimately, I mean in the early phases(mid 16th century I think) Russia literally conquered multiple chiefdoms north of Sibir with a single expedition of less than a thousand people, so did the invasion of Sibir itself.

Well I don't know about the comparison with the US, I actually wonder how many people inhabited the areas colonized in Siberia and the former Tatar territories under Russia by 1700, I'd have to look.

Kazakhs were a nuisance but not a critical one: they did not prevent colonization of the rest of the Central Asia. For comparison, the Brits had been facing a LOT of similar "thorns in the side" and part of today's Pakistan is still quite wild. And Afghanistan probably does not require any comments. So should we disqualify British colonial success?
Sigh, you ask me "who did raid Siberia?" I respond and you bring up this stupid comparison, you asked a question and I answered, I didn't say we should "disqualify" the colonization of Siberia because frankly it's not an enormous achievement to begin with, it doesn't need to be disqualified.

Of course, it would be nice to get the numbers but as a measure of "success" they are not very relevant: urbanization is hardly the only or main criteria of country's success, otherwise the most successful country is Vatican: 100% of its population live in a single city.:winkytongue:
I didn't say it was the only one, also outlier or extreme examples don't disprove using it as a factor, using your logic applied to size we would say the Kazakh Horde was more successful than Venice, which is a bit ridiculous as well.

And territory of Russia was bigger than one of England how many times? It simply does not make sense to compare densities of their population but, anyway, London was somewhat unique in Europe in the terms of percentage of country's population living there.
Apparently you can use size as a measurement of success by itself but not when it negatively impacts urbanization or city sizes, sure.

Which means that using population of Siberia as a criteria does not make sense.
How do the 2 connect? If I take control of a thinly populated territory that can't support many people and someone else takes over a territory than can support more people and populates it, apparently it's the same in terms of success?

It was depopulated when? By the early XVII century most of the Russian cities (except for Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod and few other places) had been seriously depopulated due to few years of famine followed by the Time of Troubles.
By the 19th century I mean, there is a reason why Astrakhan the province grew more than 10 times during the same century when Russia grew just 3 times in population, it was underpopulated.

Of course, borders with the wild areas were not densely populated, just as the Wild West. But these border areas were quite small comparing to the total size of a country and almost as soon as it managed to deal with more pressing issues on its Western borders (you can check how many wars the Muscovite/Russian state had been fighting between mid-XVI century and 1770's), the Crimean Khanate was annexed, Circassian War started and lasted a century (growing into the Caucassian War) with the "thorns" being pushed beyond Kuban River and eventually the whole Caucasus being conquered. Pretty much the same processes as in the British colonial expansion out of India proper. So what's your point?
Could you please try to not enter discussions when you don't understanding the context and half of the arguments people make? I mean I don't think my point was so cryptic if you read the whole discussion.

My point is that the bulk of Russian successes was concentrated around the latter period during the 18th century and cabinets war, so I excluded them in favour of countries that both were stronger during a longer time period or started growing earlier even, for example England.


Not sure what constitutes the "the northern half of Rusisa": everything to the north of <whatever> parallel measured from Western border and to the Pacific coast? Yes, a big part of this territory is not populated even now. Of course, that "northern half" would amount to something like 80 - 90% of the territory. Part with a high growth of population was quite small.
The Northern half is the half that was not under direct Tatar control during the Tatar Yoke.

As for the rest of your argument, if a have 1 item of something and then got 1 more, increase is 100%. But if I have 10 items and added 2 more, my growth rate is much lower. In other words, what you are saying, is pretty much useless as a measure of anything.
There you go, why did Astrakhan have just 1 "item"? Because it was underpopulated, that's my point in mentioning population growth, obviously I wouldn't bring it up if it was something like a province with a city growing a lot through urbanization but with Astrakhan it was a good deal of migration to unsettled countrysides, expansion of agriculture and settlements(part of my family took part in this during this time, although in Southern Ukraine) after the Crimean threat and later the Caucasian and Kazakh problems were dealt with.

Well, somehow it mattered when you brought British colonialism circa 1700 as an argument.:p
No, I didn't present the Hudson Bay as England's greatest achievement and British colonialism wasn't solely or even mainly based on controlling large swaths of wilderness with various trading settlements inbetween, England participated actively in the Slave trade as well and in Asia.

OK, here is something that everybody in Europe circa 1800 did recognize:
Russia Empire was a Great Power with a military power second only to the French Empire. By 1815, it was the greatest military (even if not naval) power in Europe. It was also a greatest producer of iron in the world. Not a bad thing for the country that in 1500 was something of a curiosity item for most of the Europeans. BTW, physical size was a part of the recognized criteria.
Well I didn't deny that Russia was strong by 1800.

By 1800 the Mughals lost practically all their power, the Ottomans already became "a sick man", the Netherlands (Batavian Republic) was French puppet state. Hardly good candidates for the most successful of anything with the end date being 1800.
Yes but all things summed up, from 1500 to 1800, the Ottomans achieved a lot and so did the Mughals even with their eventual demise.

The question was not framed as "which country was in best shape in 1800" so there is no reason to respond to it that way.

There was no country called "England" in 1800: since 1707 the name was United Kingdom of Great Britain. Yes, the greatest (pre-)industrual, trade, colonial and financial power but in 1800 squeezed out of Europe by the French.
Again, read above.

So the question is how to define "success"?
I don't have a specific set of rules, but I use the word with its common meaning, basically a sum of whatever geopolitical, economic, demographic successes any given country achieved during this time period.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
I don't have a specific set of rules, but I use the word with its common meaning, basically a sum of whatever geopolitical, economic, demographic successes any given country achieved during this time period.

You are not following even your own set of criteria: complete disintegration of the state (Mughal Empire) within the defined period hardly qualifies it as successful. Decline and the territorial losses within the same period also hardly a qualifier of a success. BTW, why France is not on the list? It achieved a lot between 1500 and 1800. Or Spain: it started earlier than the Moghuls and by 1800 still retained its colonies and existed.

Now, as far as Muscovite/Russian state is involved, you clearly have no clue what you are talking about besides repetition of "underpopulated" argument. Expansion of that state started at the time when England was actively losing its territories (all possessions in France except Calais) so it hardly was a recent comer and access to the Baltic and Black seas is hardly criteria at all. Merits of conquering the densely or sparsely populated territories are neither here nor there as long as the country was growing in the terms of economy, military power and influence. It is just happened that most of the earlier Russian expansion happened in the direction about which the Western European countries did not care so its status of the "European power" had been granted for the achievements rather marginal: victory over Sweden and acquisition of the tiny pieces of land on Baltic coast. Status of the "Great Power" had been acquired for the pure idiocy: participation in a meaningless (from Russian perspective) European war with a further increase due to the participation in even more idiotic wars. Actually, I would not necessarily describe it as the most successful but by the reasons which you did not mentioned due to a clearly inadequate knowledge of the subject.

As for the "common meaning", there is no such thing: everybody has his/her own view on which parameters are more or less important.
 
Now, as far as Muscovite/Russian state is involved, you clearly have no clue what you are talking about besides repetition of "underpopulated" argument. Expansion of that state started at the time when England was actively losing its territories (all possessions in France except Calais) so it hardly was a recent comer and access to the Baltic and Black seas is hardly criteria at all. Merits of conquering the densely or sparsely populated territories are neither here nor there as long as the country was growing in the terms of economy, military power and influence. It is just happened that most of the earlier Russian expansion happened in the direction about which the Western European countries did not care so its status of the "European power" had been granted for the achievements rather marginal: victory over Sweden and acquisition of the tiny pieces of land on Baltic coast. Status of the "Great Power" had been acquired for the pure idiocy: participation in a meaningless (from Russian perspective) European war with a further increase due to the participation in even more idiotic wars. Actually, I would not necessarily describe it as the most successful but by the reasons which you did not mentioned due to a clearly inadequate knowledge of the subject.
You bulge in a discussion, you don't understand most of the points made, put words in my mouth and argue with a strawman the entire time and then insult me for not agreeing with you, just wow.
 
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You bulge in a discussion, you don't understand most of the points made, put words in my mouth and argue with a strawman the entire time and then insult me for not agreeing with you, just wow.

Everyone has a right to participate in a discussion and you are not authorized to stop anybody or to dictate what it is about when it is not started by you. And throwing tantrums when somebody objects is plain childish.

I understood the "points" you are trying to make but not quite making because you don't know the subject well enough: you clearly don't know Russian history on a level conductive to a meaningful discussion. This not not an offense, just a fact.

Anyway, arguing with you it is like trying to nail jelly to the wall: when inconsistencies of what you wrote are shown you are immediately claiming that they do not matter because you meant something else. Something, which you never could define clearly.

As far as insulting is going, re-read your posts: they are quite offensive. Did anybody tell you in your kindergarten that calling people whom you don't know "dude" is impolite?
 
Dude the Volga reaches Tver, obviously I was not talking about the part of the Volga that has been Russian since before the end of the Tatar Yoke.

Nobody else was talking about that either. In the early 16th c., the Cheremis and Arsk lands, just east of Gorokhovets, were still not Russian and weren't really dealt with until the 1570s with a massive fortification and colonization effort that founded or repopulated dozens of towns. The core points in every defensive line were also settled by colonists, garrisons, Tatars leaving for Muscovite service, local people (Bashkirs, Mordvins etc.) who didn't have meaningful city centres before, and cossacks. It's normal for countries with a lot of space to do internal colonization, but Russia was also settling its frontiers against really serious opposition. Not sure what other power described here could claim the same.

This didn't happen just along the Volga - the Great Abatis, Belgorod and Simbirsk and Kama lines were planned fortification efforts spanning the length of several Englands, from the upper Don to the lower Volga to the Yaik, and maintained by tens of thousands of employees and settled by millions of people in a mere century. Therefore, Russian people supported by the state were quite literally colonizing Sloboda Ukraine, the steppe parts of the Upper Oka, Perm/Urals, Lower Ural, the Don to Volga stretch, the entirety of the Volga flow to Astrakhan, and also the White Sea littoral, at the same time. Siberia was also colonized in the same way. Building building building building.

Somehow you don't think this is an impressive level of expansion or organisation, and that England did anything comparable in the 1500s, and that the 1700s internal colonization was categorically different or more impressive. That's just a strange take on it, and I strongly disagree.

This was all done in the 16th and 17th c. All the major cities were also founded then. What happened in the 18th c. where you think the magic really started was that the entire place boomed in population and got covered in factories. But the foundations were already all there. Besides the territorial expansion, the internal changes were also massive. The military service reform came then. The land organisation first happened then. The government ministries date from that time too.

Yes I know Siberia doesn't have a large carrying capacity, my point is that I don't think we should hail the colonization of Siberia as a huge success ultimately, I mean in the early phases(mid 16th century I think) Russia literally conquered multiple chiefdoms north of Sibir with a single expedition of less than a thousand people, so did the invasion of Sibir itself.

Which is consistent with everyone else's 16th and 17th c. colonial efforts - they were all shoestring affairs carried out by a few hundred men at a time. Portugal, Spain, France: all put in similar, low amounts of effort.

I didn't say we should "disqualify" the colonization of Siberia because frankly it's not an enormous achievement to begin with, it doesn't need to be disqualified.

It is absolutely an enormous achievement, since nobody else had managed it before nearly as completely. It also provided the Russian state with a lightweight, expensive trade good that could be exchanged for specie, which is something Russia was really starving for.

What is also impressive was (correctly) convincing the Qing that these tiny bands of cossacks represented a serious power worth dealing with, and setting up trade with China. Not many European countries managed that until quite late.

By the 19th century I mean, there is a reason why Astrakhan the province grew more than 10 times during the same century when Russia grew just 3 times in population, it was underpopulated.

Yes, because it was held by a pastoral population that also practiced endemic raiding. So what though? Even with that considered, how is that not an achievement for the 1500s?

My point is that the bulk of Russian successes was concentrated around the latter period during the 18th century and cabinets war, so I excluded them in favour of countries that both were stronger during a longer time period or started growing earlier even, for example England.

Look, I agree that Russia is a late bloomer and has lagged in some areas all the way to the USSR era. It also started a lower baseline and that has a lot of historical and geographical reasons why that happened (Medieval England was much better positioned vis. Russia in many ways, but barely improved on that advantage until the Civil War, imo). That's pretty obvious. But in the early modern era, it was growing incredibly, long before Peter and his fetish for stockings and tobacco came on the scene. What on earth did England do, to match its internal and external growth, in the 1500s? Lose Calais? Shoot the last wolf? Start its own church and chop a few heads? It's a late bloomer too. That should also be obvious.
 
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This was all done in the 16th and 17th c. All the major cities were also founded then. What happened in the 18th c. where you think the magic really started was that the entire place boomed in population and got covered in factories. But the foundations were already all there. Besides the territorial expansion, the internal changes were also massive. The military service reform came then. The land organisation first happened then. The government ministries date from that time too.

....

Look, I agree that Russia is a late bloomer and has lagged in some areas all the way to the USSR era. It also started a lower baseline and that has a lot of historical and geographical reasons why that happened (Medieval England was much better positioned vis. Russia in many ways, but barely improved on that advantage until the Civil War, imo). That's pretty obvious. But in the early modern era, it was growing incredibly, long before Peter and his fetish for stockings and tobacco came on the scene. What on earth did England do though, to match its internal and external growth, in the 1500s? Lose Calais? Shoot the last wolf? Start its own church and chop a few heads? It's a late bloomer too. That should also be obvious.

If you don't mind, just couple comments.

Success of the Muscovite/Russian expansionism was to a great degree linked to the "early absolutism" both in the terms of mentality (Ivan IV used the same argument about guilty/not guilty subjects as Henry VIII) and in the terms of a government. As far as I can tell even France of Louis XIV did not reach the same level of monarch's power as Russia. This was, of course, a mixed blessing. On one hand, it allowed to conduct the huge projects like those you had been talking about but, OTOH, reigns of both Ivan IV and Peter I resulted in a loss of anything between 20 and 25% of the population (including those fleeing to the territories outside government's effective reach). The same goes for the early developed state bureaucracy: on one hand it allowed a reasonably orderly execution of the state affairs but OTOH it was suppressing individual initiative. Take the most "touchy" social group, the nobility. West of the Muscovite border they'd go to a duel but in Tsardom they'd go to a court. The most immediate result - neglect of the fencing as a necessary skill. Even when the duels had been introduced as a part of "westernization", the favorite weapon was a pistol, not sword.

Now, as far as the "European" political thinking of the XVII - early XVIII was involved, the strong government (of course, based upon the "reason", common good, etc.) was beneficial for a country so the early developed intrusive bureaucratic/police apparatus was a good thing (@LSCatilina seemingly touched that point in his post). The ruler knows the best what's good for the subjects and for his will being properly carried down the line, the proper "wheels" needed within the clock-work like state mechanism. Of course, this was not necessarily what Pufendorf & Co had been preaching but this is how it was interpreted. And, indeed, with a possible exception of China, Tsardom of Moscow and then Russian Empire "excelled" in creation of that mechanism. It proved to be a terrible thing but the task was accomplished so it can be described as "success": not sure that until at least mid-XIX anything comparable existed anywhere in Europe (possibly, eventually Prussia/German Empire got ahead but can't tell for sure) ;).

As for the "late bloomer" - this is applicable mostly within "only Western Europe matters" model. Honestly, I'm not sure that in a long run all these Peter's activities did more good than bad. His territorial acquisitions had been meager comparing to those of his father and not critically important for the Russian economic or cultural development except as an attempt to replace the native culture with a "paradise of the Dutch carpenter". The obvious question is would the Russian state be better off without these expensive but quite superficial changes? It was already changing in more natural ways by combining what was making sense from the "West" with what was still making sense in the native culture. In economy Peter's "westernization" screwed things up fundamentally by trying to create state-controlled "slavery-based capitalism" by the results were not, yet, catastrophic until mid-XIX.

To make the long story short, between 1500 and 1800 Russia was definitely a "successful" state in the terms of expansion (which started prior to 1500), building up bureaucratic state (and absolute monarchy) and becoming a great military power. In a narrow sense it was even a great industrial power: it was producing more iron than Britain but had been shipping it to Britain and then importing the end products. It was capable of influencing the European policies by its military potential.

Within the same period England/Britain grew into the dominant trade, manufacturing and financial power capable to influence European policies by its financial potential and general European demands for the British goods and/or dependencies upon selling the local products to Britain.

Within the same period France grew up into the #1 European military power which could be balanced only by the coalitions. There were some offsets but by 1800 it had borders on the Rhine, the Netherlands as a vassal state and dominance at least in the Northern Italy. It also was, arguably, the most socially advanced state in Europe, and the cultural "center of Europe" starting from at least mid-XVII (philosophy, literature, fashions, etc.).

I don't think that it makes real sense to discuss seriously the candidates who within the same period became "had beens": Spanish Empire, Ottoman Empire, Mughal Empire. Can't tell about China: seemingly, it started lagging behind by the end of the time frame but there was not, yet, a serious challenge.
 
Nobody else was talking about that either. In the early 16th c., the Cheremis and Arsk lands, just east of Gorokhovets, were still not Russian and weren't really dealt with until the 1570s with a massive fortification and colonization effort that founded or repopulated dozens of towns. The core points in every defensive line were also settled by colonists, garrisons, Tatars leaving for Muscovite service, local people (Bashkirs, Mordvins etc.) who didn't have meaningful city centres before, and cossacks.
No they were, why would one mention Nizhny Novgorod?
This didn't happen just along the Volga - the Great Abatis, Belgorod and Simbirsk and Kama lines were planned fortification efforts spanning the length of several Englands, from the upper Don to the lower Volga to the Yaik, and maintained by tens of thousands of employees and settled by millions of people in a mere century. Therefore, Russian people supported by the state were quite literally colonizing Sloboda Ukraine, the steppe parts of the Upper Oka, Perm/Urals, Lower Ural, the Don to Volga stretch, the entirety of the Volga flow to Astrakhan, and also the White Sea littoral, at the same time. Siberia was also colonized in the same way. Building building building building.
I'm curious of the "millions of people" figure, on what are you basing that on(the entirety of Russia had less than 10 million people prior to 1600)? During this time though(up to mid 17th centuries) the line of fortification run just South of Ryazan, this left a lot of territory controlled by Russia subject to Crimean raidings and the Crimean frequently threatened Moscow or minor surrounding towns.

the entirety of the Volga flow to Astrakhan
Well, now I'm not sure what you mean by colonizing but this surely doesn't apply here, the bulk of the territory around Astrakhan was controlled by the Kalmyks that while nominally accepting Russia over-lordship, as far as I know by 1800 the territory of today's Astrakhan Oblast had less than 100k people.

Somehow you don't think this is an impressive level of expansion or organisation, and that England did anything comparable in the 1500s, and that the 1700s internal colonization was categorically different or more impressive. That's just a strange take on it, and I strongly disagree.
Well you are not disagreeing with anything I actually said to be honest, feel free to point out where I said that, Russian expansion downstream was certainly impressive and eventually would end completely rule by nomadic people in the region but the bulk of the benefits would be reaped fully in the 18th century and for more peripherical territories even later on.

This was all done in the 16th and 17th c. All the major cities were also founded then. What happened in the 18th c. where you think the magic really started was that the entire place boomed in population and got covered in factories. But the foundations were already all there. Besides the territorial expansion, the internal changes were also massive. The military service reform came then. The land organisation first happened then. The government ministries date from that time too.
Of course Russia didn't suddenly wake up in the 18th century and become stronger all of a sudden, this is not my argument.
Also some of those foundations would prove to be detrimental long term, like the reenforcement of serfdom as an institution.


Which is consistent with everyone else's 16th and 17th c. colonial efforts - they were all shoestring affairs carried out by a few hundred men at a time. Portugal, Spain, France: all put in similar, low amounts of effort.
Well strictly comparing Siberia with your average transatlantic colonial effort(so not including Russia's entire expansion in the Volga and southwards) I wouldn't really put them in the same category, the sheer size of the Transatlantic slave trade and movement of people. This is mostly due to Siberian's climate conditions but still.

It is absolutely an enormous achievement, since nobody else had managed it before nearly as completely. It also provided the Russian state with a lightweight, expensive trade good that could be exchanged for specie, which is something Russia was really starving for.
Well nobody found the Falklands before, but ultimately it wasn't per se "enormous".
At this point if you consider this enormous I'm not sure what scale you are using to judge it. Is Hudson's Bay an "enormous" achievment of England?

Yes, because it was held by a pastoral population that also practiced endemic raiding. So what though? Even with that considered, how is that not an achievement for the 1500s?
Well it is an achievment, but so is pretty much any favourable conquest.

Look, I agree that Russia is a late bloomer and has lagged in some areas all the way to the USSR era. That's pretty obvious. What on earth did England do though, to match its internal and exteral growth, in the 1500s? Lose Calais? Shoot the last wolf? England is a late bloomer too. That should also be obvious.
The difference in time isn't immense that I can admit but it's there. In the 16th century England took over Ireland, London population grew 3 times, becoming one of the biggest European cities even prior to any colonial adventure. I mean if we mention losing Calais then the Times of Trouble for Russia and the loss of the Livonian war and later on Ingria doesn't make the late 16th and early 17th century a period of Russian growth on the EUropean front.
 
I understand that the Ottomans had become somewhat ‘weak’ by the end of this time period; it still should stand to reason that by 1800, the Ottomans were by far the longest reigning Caliphate in Islamic history. At least, when we refer to the Abbasid in its correct format, that it was not a single and continually surviving power, more akin to a single family group remaining in control of a title regardless of the ruler. The Ottomans further, oversaw Islamization of much of the Balkans, Anatolia, goals that eluded earlier Islamic regimes.
 
We really need to split 1500-1600 and 1600-1790 because you get very different answers depending on how you split things.
 
I think Austria was the most successful at repeatedly reinventing itself as a genuine great power durring this period. It's highs could place it at #1, and it's lows rarely amounted to any worse than being the runner up. If we're going by some sort of calculated average then my money would be on them.
 
I think Austria was the most successful at repeatedly reinventing itself as a genuine great power durring this period. It's highs could place it at #1, and it's lows rarely amounted to any worse than being the runner up. If we're going by some sort of calculated average then my money would be on them.

That was my train of thought also, actually. Austria managed to hold the tide on both France and the Ottoman Empire while dealing with the Reformation, keep itself relevant as either the premiere or the antagonist to the #1 Great Power in continental Europe. Through marriage, diplomacy and war their realm expanded near continuously throughout the entire period and was the centerpiece of European diplomacy; Austria was involved in nearly everything due to its central location and relevance as the key power in central Europe. I can't even knock them that many points for being unable to stomp Prussia decisively into secondary power status in the 18th century, as that blame lies squarely on the Russian's Prussophile Czar; the Austrians did everything right there, more or less.
 
I think Austria was the most successful at repeatedly reinventing itself as a genuine great power durring this period. It's highs could place it at #1, and it's lows rarely amounted to any worse than being the runner up. If we're going by some sort of calculated average then my money would be on them.

But "Austria" as what? As #1 it was a combination of the Spanish "empire" and the HRE ruled by a Hapsburg with the hereditary lands being somewhere in the "corner". As the "empire of the Austrian Hapsburgs" (which you probably have in mind) it was not #1 but always managed to be within top 4 or 5 main European powers, which is not bad taking into an account that most of the time it was just a patchwork combination of the territories rather then a truly centralized state.
 
As the "empire of the Austrian Hapsburgs" (which you probably have in mind) it was not #1 but always managed to be within top 4 or 5 main European powers, which is not bad taking into an account that most of the time it was just a patchwork combination of the territories rather then a truly centralized state.
IDK, from 1648 to 1718 I'd think that the Austrian Habsburgs were probably #1 (in Europe).
 
IDK, from 1648 to 1718 I'd think that the Austrian Habsburgs were probably #1 (in Europe).

I don't think so: most of that period was French cultural and military dominance, especially when "the Age of Louis XIV" kicked in. There were, of course, ups and downs but the Hapsburgs never reached the same level of influence as Louis XIV did.
 
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