Was Catherine the Great an Absolute Monarch?

Catherine the Great ruled Russia from 1729 to 1796. She was married to Peter the Great, and
after his death became the leader of the nation. Many would consider her
an absolute monarch of her time, due to the fact one of her main goals were to continue
and expand Peters goals, which were to increase Russias territory, and make it as Westernized
as possible. She had absolute control over Russia, and forced the army to fight many wars
against Europe, which Nobles and Russian citizens were not happy about. Regardless of
their undesirous attitudes towards this action, Catherine encouraged it and Russian
territory expanded greatly over her time. Also, at the beginning of her rule she
saw herself as Enlightened, and wanted to free the serfs, but changed her mind soon
afterwards. Catherine encouraged the expansion of serfdom. She decided the
Eastern Orthodox Church should be owned by the state, and all its holdings as well,
which included more than one million serfs, and one third of agricultural land. Serfdom
was expanded so much to the extent that one million who were originally freed had been put
back under the system. Because the church had become state property, they were subjected
to taxes. After a while of wanting to make up a constitutional and political reforms,
she gave up on the idea, believing that the idea of sharing power was too chaotic for her liking,
and unwillingness to give up any power she already had. She stopped educating those
who had no prior education in the land, believing that if they knew too much that
they would have the want to stop obeying her laws and rule. This act made her an
absolute monarch because they had no say in whether or not they got their
knowledge or not, it was her way and no other. Also, as we know she did not free the serfs, but
she had absolutely no attempts to regulate a relationship between serfs and landowners by law.
Catherine the Great just tended to believe that everybody was below her, and focused on the
goals she wanted to make possible for Russian society throughout the world. Through
force and strength, she did manage to expand the territory of Russia greatly. There was
a point in her ruling where it seemed as though she was so desperately in need of the nobles
support in order to keep her throne that she increased their amount of power of the
nobles over the serfs in Russia, and governed the region in such a way that that
consolidate noble domination and exploitation of the material and man resources of
the country. Catherine never admitted to this act, or any reason as to why she increased the
nobles power, so in todays history there are no general agreements on the situation.
My beliefs on this doing was that, yes, she indeed gave others more power which
could looked upon as positive, but at the end of the day, she did it for her own good. I

believe that she felt threatened over the nobles not liking what she was doing, and even though
she wasnt all that concerned as to what others thought, she was willing to do whatever she had
to in order to remain the one and only, leader of Russia. Because of Catherines actions in
order to stay the main order of the area, this makes her an absolute monarch. Her
actions to control the army, not educate certain citizens in the society, and to control order
over the Eastern Orthodox Church, and many more, are the reasons she could be
explained as an absolute monarch for the time of her power in Russian history.
MLA Work Cited:
"Sophie Friederike Auguste, Prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst." Bio. A&E Television Networks,
2014. Web. 21Oct. 2014.
Madariaga, Isabel De. "Catherine the Great." Catherine the Great. New Haven, n.d. Web. 21
Oct. 2014