Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/85

 other shoulders. The failure to summon the sobor and the abolition of the duma characterise the enlightened despotism of Peter in contrast with the earlier Muscovite despotism. Peter understood the situation thoroughly, remaining suspicious throughout life, and not hesitating to avail himself of police help.

Peter Europeanised Muscovite absolutism. He was, we must remember, a contemporary of Louis XIV. We cannot doubt that he had the French ruler's example before his eyes. Both his domestic and his foreign policy display more than one analogy to those of Louis.

His absolutism is manifest in his relationship to the nobility. Obviously he had to work through the nobility, and he therefore imposed new duties on the nobles. The nobleman must serve the new state, and in addition he must learn. In Moscow, office was secured to him by right of birth, rank by his family tree, and there he enjoyed the privilege of free service. Peter endeavoured to raise the nobility to a higher level, and he therefore associated it with the bureaucracy; the bureaucracy was ennobled, the nobility bureaucratised. Unlike his predecessors, he did not aim at weakening the nobility, desiring rather to strengthen it. It was with this end in view that in the year 1714 he introduced majorat upon the western model. The far-reaching significance of the ukase relating to majorat or primogeniture depended upon this, that it spoke of the land as the owner's property independently of service. The result was to enhance the prestige of the nobility.

For these reasons, too, Peter introduced a new, European, order of nobility. The first Russian title of count (graf) was bestowed upon Sěremetev, in the year 1706. At the outset the tsar even endeavoured to have the count's title confirmed by the Holy Roman emperor, but the idea was subsequently abandoned.

Peter was the first Russian ruler to bestow the old princely rank as a title, and this title too was made European. Menšikov, the first of the new princes, who received the title in 1705, was prince of the Holy Roman empire, and several princely titles were bestowed upon Russians by the Holy