Tsarist autocracy: Difference between revisions

'''Tsarist autocracy''' ({{lang-ru|царское самодержавие}}, [[Transcription (linguistics)|transcr.]] ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye'', [[transliteration|transl.]] ''carskoe samoderžavie''), also known as '''tsarist absolutism''', '''Russian absolutism''', '''Russian autocracy''' refers to a form of [[absolute monarchy]] specific to [[Tsardom of Russia]] and the [[Russian Empire]].

ISBN 1412805260, [http://books.google.com/books?id=qXxHHXwJT28C&pg=PA85&dq=Dostoyevsky+autocracy&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES#PPA85,M1 Google Print, pp. 84-86]</ref> Additional influences include the [[Tatar Yoke]] and the [[Mongol]] ideas and administrative system.<ref>[http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/russia/lectures/07tartar.html Tartar Yoke] Professor Gerhard Rempel, [[Western New England College]]</ref><ref name=Viereck/> [[Peter the Great]] reduced the power of the [[Russian nobility|nobility]] and strengthened the central power of the [[tsar]], establishing a bureaucratic [[civil service]], based on the [[Table of Ranks]], open to all classes of the society, in place of the nobility-only [[mestnichestvo]], abolished in 1682 by [[Feodor III]]. He also strengthened the state's control over the church (the [[Orthodox Church]]). Peter's reform caused a series of palace coups seeking to restore the power of the nobility.<ref name=petro3639>Nicolai N. Petro, ''The Rebirth of Russian Democracy: An Interpretation of Political Culture'', Harvard University Press, 1995, ISBN 0674750012, http://books.google.com/books?id=5XGXwAzRav4C&pg=PA36&vq=catherine&dq=%22tsarist+absolutism%22&as_brr=3&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0 Google Print, p.36-39]</ref> [[Catherine the Great]], whose reign is often regarded as the high point of absolutism in Russia, in 1785 issued charter to the nobility and gentry, legally affirming civil rights they had acquired in preceding years, and charter of the Cities, establishing municipal self-government. This was built on by later Tsars. [[Alexander I]] established [[State Council of Imperial Russia|State council]] as advisory legislative body. Although [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] established system of elected local self-government ([[Zemstvo]]) and an independent judicial system, Russia did not have a national-level representative assembly ([[State Duma of the Russian Empire|Duma]]) or a [[constitution]] until the [[1905 Revolution]].<ref>Nicolai N. Petro, ''The Rebirth of Russian Democracy: An Interpretation of Political Culture'', Harvard University Press, 1995, ISBN 0674750012, [http://books.google.com/books?id=5XGXwAzRav4C&pg=PA34&dq=%22tsarist+absolutism%22&as_brr=3#PPA48,M1 Google Print, p.48]</ref> The system was abolished after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]].