Tsarist autocracy

Greater achievement of the Russian Empire C.O.A.

Tsarist autocracy (Russian: царское самодержавие, romanized: tsarskoye samoderzhaviye), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and wealth, with more power than constitutional monarchs counterbalanced by legislative authority, as well as a more religious authority than Western monarchs. The institution originated during the time of Ivan III (1462−1505) and was limited with the introduction of constitution and national-level representative assembly (State Duma) after the 1905 Revolution. Still, the term continued to be applied to the monarchy in Russia until the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Russian revolutionaries and afterwards, in the Soviet Union.

History

Ivan III (reigned 1462–1505) built upon Byzantine traditions and laid foundations for the tsarist autocracy which with some variations would govern Russia for centuries. Absolutism in Russia gradually developed during the 17th and 18th centuries, replacing the despotism of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

After the chaotic Time of Troubles (1598–1613), the first monarch of the Romanov dynasty, Michael of Russia (reigned 1613–1645), was elected to the throne by a Zemsky Sobor ("assembly of the land"). During Michael's reign, when the Romanov dynasty was still weak, such assemblies were summoned annually. The Romanov dynasty consolidated absolute power in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great (reigned 1682–1725), who reduced the power of the nobility and strengthened the central power of the tsar, establishing a bureaucratic civil service based on the Table of Ranks but theoretically open to all classes of the society, in place of the nobility-only mestnichestvo which Feodor III had abolished in 1682 at the request of the highest boyars. Peter I also strengthened state control over the Russian Orthodox Church.

Peter's reforms provoked a series of palace coups seeking to restore the power of the nobility. To end them, Catherine the Great, whose reign (1762–1796) is often regarded as the high point of absolutism in Russia, in 1785 issued the Charter to the Gentry, legally affirming the rights and privileges they had acquired in preceding years, and the Charter of the Towns, establishing municipal self-government. This placated the powerful classes of society but left real power in the hands of the state bureaucracy. Building on this, Alexander I (reigned 1801–1825) established the State council as an advisory legislative body. Alexander II (1855–1881) established a system of elected local self-government (Zemstvo) and an independent judicial system, but Russia did not have a national-level representative assembly (Duma) or a constitution until the 1905 Revolution.