Show And Tell

[extant4cell]

She looks more natural on the first one. Both nice, anyhow.

[alexbq2]

IMHO She looks happy on the second one

[IMIS]

The figure of Cathrine II is very controversial, I am not exactly found of her. I think she was very lucky that the economy was prepared for someone like her to be a ruler, and that's thanks to Anna and Elizabeth.

 

The official historiography glorifies Catherine, does not take Elizabeth very seriously and demonizes Anna. You seem to have a different view on these rulers. Can you please elaborate a little on your view point?

[extant4cell]

The historiographers, undermined previous rulers to please her at the time of her rule. Later, the things that were done to and in the country are judged to be positive, and any miss-achievements were looked at with a degree of the forgiveness. Generally she did well, but would she get a country that was in the economical state of her predecessors, that they manage to get out of with careful monetary reforms, would she be able to do that, I have big doubts. Nonetheless the economic grows was programmed by her predecessors, she was lucky, and in spite of Cathrine's gift of choosing not the very brightest, but the very ego-centered favorites, that wanted to prove to her and themselves that they "can", but they not always were the best people for the job, and what their "could" had a much higher price by all aspects. In any case it worked, and country developed and grew.

 

Copper coinage was killing the financial market in Russia with over-production of light copper coins, polushkas, dengas, kopecks, and finally 5-kopecks.

 

These were the times when the price of metal was traditionally only a fraction less than the denomination made from it. Producing coins that weighted 4 times less than the metal they could buy made these coins to depreciate. Soon this became apparent to the authorities. However, thanks to the drawing power of high profits from production of these coins at the highest standard (40-roubles per a pood of copper), they continued to be produced until 1730, exacerbating the situation for years to come.

 

Anna started the reform, doubling the weight of smaller denomination coins. She started re-coining of old light kopecks into dengas, as you know.

 

Elizaveta continued the reform with re-coining the 5-kopecks (finally!) into 2 kopecks. Through the use of newly issued coins in other denominations with heavier weight standard, in the past 16 years, people have become accustomed to the idea that the value of cruciform 5-kopecks will be reduced, and presumably the process have already began. Nation started to use the cruciform 5-kopecks as “lightweight coins” paying less attention to their stamped denomination and more to their real metal weight. In 1744, Elizaveta ordered to consider them for 4-kopecks; in 1745 for 3-kopecks (you can say cruciform 5-kopecks were the first 3 kopecks coins). In fact Elizaveta only legitimized what had already been happening in the financial sphere with “cheaper” coins circulation. But it takes another 10 years until the financial stability in the state allows it to buy cruciform 5-kopecks back from people at their face value (2-kopecks) or exchange them for the new 1-kopeck coins of the Baroque style minted at a new standard of 8-roubles per pood of copper and later make them 2-kopecks.

 

It was somewhat thanks to Anna’s and her own (Elizaveta's) commitments to the principles of Tatishchev’s Commission (it called for normalization of all metal coins’ weights), that Elizaveta could finally impose some order to the copper coin circulation.

 

If you are interested in where did the Cathrine bring the financial system with her "reforms", you can read more here: https://mytaskhelper.ru/images/data/bAwDA18VfdJiCuWg94x6N4/avStK641bkvPt2idPysoVa/XVIII%20century%20Overstrikes.pdf

[alexbq2]

What about Peter's 1762 reform?

[extant4cell]

It's there as well (in the file), how I see it. They mainly went unnoticed. As Cathrine II tried to eliminate fruits of his reforms, or took over some of them pronouncing them as her own, and very successfully at that as the history shows. Peter III lacked real ambitions and was not as power thirsty as his wife. Doubling the "stopa" (quantity of money made from the same metal, eg.: 2 kopecks into 4 kopecks) had some economical grounds at the time, and the idea was not of Peter III, but the same of Tatishev, as far as I remember, the project was just waiting to be put into action when the time was right. The growth, both economical and in size was allowing for that. The problems and costs associated with production, storing and transporting heavy coins became apparent to Cathrine II, but she ignored them at the start in favor of populist action, that brought her more support in the country. Peter II made lots of "cultural" mistakes bringing into the country his trusted pro-German advisers, and that was far from popular decision, that did cost him a throne. His projects were pretty progressive, although mainly not realized... Past historical accounts don't do the justice to Peter II. On the other hand, be he a strong leader, he would stay in power for years to come. He trusted Cathrine too much where he shouldn't have. In the end he was poisoned in exile, within the days from Cathrine's succession.

[IMIS]

<p>Eugene,</p>

<p> </p>

<p>First of all thank you for the detailed response and the essay.  Truly enjoyed reading it and learned quite a bit.  Has it been published anywhere?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am not sure I agree with some of your more general statements. <em> </em></p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>"Generally she did well, but would she get a country that was in the economical state of her predecessors, that they manage to get out of with careful monetary reforms, would she be able to do that, I have big doubts.  Nonetheless the economic grows was programmed by her predecessors, she was lucky, and in spite of Cathrine's gift of choosing not the very brightest, but the very ego-centered favorites, that wanted to prove to her and themselves that they "can", but they not always were the best people for the job, and what their "could" had a much higher price by all aspects</em>."</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Actually, Catherine did get the country in pretty tough financial state.  Granted, prudent fiscal and monetary policies of Anna and Elizaveta helped pull the country out of the abyss, where Peter's reforms had plunged it.  However Elizaveta made two critical mistakes: she allowed corruption that Anna had significantly curbed to flourish at the same if not greater level than during the reign of her farther and she drove Russia into absolutely unnecessary bloody and costly war against Prussia.  During the last years of her reign the treasury was bankrupt, the army unpaid, building projects unfinished.  The Dutch bankers that Elizaveta approached for a loan as lenders of last resort, denied her application............  Catherine had to have good business and political acumen to reverse the situation.</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>

<p>With respect to <em>"ego-centered favorites, that wanted to prove themselves,"  </em> Platon Zubov would be the only one who fits that description.  Well, that was her twilight and perhaps we can forgive her.....   With respect to her earlier favorites, I can think of only one instance when  a favorite tried to prove he "could."  I mean the unfortunate attempt by Grigoriy Orlov to negotiate peace with the Ottoman Empire during the first Russian-Ottoman war.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>In actuality, Catherine was quite good at separating her private life from her life as an autocrat and picking the right men for the job was her greatest skill.</p>

<p>.................................................</p>

<p>What progressive projects of Peter III do you have in mind?</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>

[IMIS]

Sorry for the strange signs appearing in the text above. Not sure what happened.

[extant4cell]

Potemkin is another example of Catherine II favourites, although he is more of a positive one, but he could hardly stand a failure and was rather a bit of a show off who exaggerated his achievements... They were a good pair...

 

Her husband, Peter III, apart from not being of a "Russian sole", started some progressive reforms, that can be viewed as positive by some and not so by others. He ordered the abolishment of the office of the secret investigations, gave liberty and freedom to all Russian nobility, proclaimed freedom of religion, stopped the persecution of dissenters, facilitated provision of broader rights of monastic peasants. Shovalov's project (not Tatishev, my mistake) could work, or not (drums series). Economy was already working, it needed time to recover from Seven Years war... Hard to know now and even harder to judge what he could have accomplished. He made some bad mistakes of a cultural sense. It wasn't meant to be... Cathrine's choice of returning to 16 roubles stopa, was a good decision for the country to start with, but created a problem of having heavy money in the end that she recognized once the banknotes started devaluation...

 

The article above https://mytaskhelper...Overstrikes.pdf was printed in Russian, in "Petersburg Collector" magazine earlier this year. I just recieved 3rd issue of this magazine today with another article on very first denga 1730 investigation, it's in Russian, but if you are interested you can read it here: http://coins.su/forum/index.php?showtopic=131192&st=0&p=1398640&&do=findComment&comment=1398640

have no time to translate it at the moment...

[IMIS]

Potemkin is another example of Catherine II favourites, although he is more of a positive one, but he could hardly stand a failure and was rather a bit of a show off who exaggerated his achievements... They were a good pair...

 

 

Valentin Pikul's Potemkin was Catherine II's favorite, the real Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Potemkin was Catherine's husband and the co-ruler of the Empire during 1775 - 1791. You are absolutely right they were true partners in running the country (no sarcasm!), making every more or less important decision together. Hundreds, if not thousands of surviving documents show how the couple worked: the draft of the project would originate either with Potemkin, or Catherine, then it will be dispatched to the other party for inputs/critique, then sent back to the originator for more critique until the draft became the final document. They did have their areas of responsibility: GAPT first focused on the western provinces and later on his beloved Novorossiay; while Catherine ran the rest of the country. They also divided responsibilities for Russian foreign policy: Catherine dealt primarily with Western Europe, while Potemkin concentrated on Poland, Crimea and the Ottoman Empire. A little known fact, but China affairs also was part of his domain.

 

Was Potemkin a "show off"? Well, he was..............but his incidents of showing off were well calculated political moves intended either to demonstrate Russia's superior state of finances, or recruit important political allies. Often such incidents were planned in advance and agreed upon with Catherine.

 

I doubt it is possible to exaggerate Potemkin's achievement: 1) eliminating Russia's greatest nemesis for hundreds of years, 2) adding huge territories (from the Dnestr to Chechn'a), building cities, which later developed into crown jewels of the empire and modern day Russia and Ukraine, 3) defeating the Ottoman Empire with relatively little bloodshed , 4) promoting arts, sciences, commerce, industry, agriculture, 5) building a first class navy, etc. Not a single Romanov came even close to Potemkin in terms of achievements. Actually, Potemkin was one of only two Russian leaders that observers placed above their counterparts.

 

"...could hardly stand a failure." I believe you are referring here to an episode in the beginning of Russian -Turkish war, when part of the Black Sea navy was destroyed by a storm, Potemkin panicked, lost faith in himself and begged Catherine to relieve him of his command. This episode reminds me of a similar episode in the beginning of GPW. When Germans took Minsk on the sixth day of the war and the Soviet Government found out about it from a foreign radio announcement, the chief of staff of the Red Army general Zhukov panicked and wanted to resign. (Some accounts say he even broke into tears during the meeting.) ...............One never knows what kind of tests life is going to throw at them. The important thing is that both men were able to gain control of their emotions and the situation and emerge victorious.

[extant4cell]

No matter who and how may criticise Potemkin, Kutuzov or Zhukov, they are measured by their achievements. Agree 100%.

[IMIS]

 

Her husband, Peter III, apart from not being of a "Russian sole", started some progressive reforms, that can be viewed as positive by some and not so by others. He ordered the abolishment of the office of the secret investigations, gave liberty and freedom to all Russian nobility, proclaimed freedom of religion, stopped the persecution of dissenters, facilitated provision of broader rights of monastic peasants.

The first question about Peter's decrees that comes to mind is whether they were the products of his own beliefs? By many accounts, both Russian and foreign, Peter III was drunk considerable part of his waking hours. It is possible that he was signing papers without even understanding their meaning. From your list above all these decrees benefited the wealthiest segment of the nobility, not the population at large, or even the whole class of nobles.

 

The abolishment of the office of the secret investigations reminds me of Khruschev's prohibition to investigate top members of the government. .........Did not work out well for either of them.

 

Freedom of religion allowed some high nobles who had secretly converted to Catholicism come out of the closet. Did not mean much to the rest of the population.

 

Historians site liberation of nobility as Peter's greatest achievement. In theory, the nobility was expected to develop industry, commerce and agriculture, pursue arts and sciences. In reality, they turned into a class of societal parasites so well depicted by authors from Saltykov-Schedrin to Gogol. Russian nobles (with the exception of landed princes) received their estates and serfs in exchange for their service to the state. Following Peter's decree, they no longer had to serve, but were keeping their estates and serfs. Now that's progressive!

[extant4cell]

As I said, it can be argued about. There is no monolithic view of his rulings, as he didn't get a change to developed and correct his decisions later on. This is all assumptions. Russia is an interesting country, Things that kill foreigners make Russian flourish sometimes... That can only be proven if you see the fruits of his action, we didn't have that chance. To me, it’s pointless to criticise him if he had no chance.

[extant4cell]

His "drums and cannons" series are pretty interesting, and for a "drunk", he managed to employ all these mints to mass-produce the overstrikes too effectively!

[alexbq2]

I do like the "Drum and Cannon" coins, wish I had more of them.

 

But they are very militaristic looking, and they do very much resemble the Prussian coinage, and that fits well into the 'conventional' view on Peter 3rd. Perhaps it was lucky that Catherine was so "proactive".

[extant4cell]

One can not argue with history... Russia required a strong, smart, power thirsty, active ruler. She out-jumped her husband - she was a winner. Winners are beyond judging...

[IMIS]

His "drums and cannons" series are pretty interesting, and for a "drunk", he managed to employ all these mints to mass-produce the overstrikes too effectively!

He certainly supplied plenty of nice auction material

[extant4cell]

Cathrine II managed to do that a few times too Siberian series and a later recovery of Peter III project in Monogram series... It didn't work again. Interestingly enough, Paul was fond of his late father a lot, and inherited action anger from his mother side - result: almost full destruction of a late monograph series. He managed to rule a lot longer than his idol, but on a ruling scale his reign was just as short lived. Alexander was the opposite - "mother's boy", and managed to rule few times longer, a proper monarch time. Interesting to see how it runs in a family!

[alexbq2]

I'm just glad Paul has kept himself off the coins.

[extant4cell]

His "Pi" looking monogram was boring but interesting coins nonetheless:

 

 

 

I like eagle on his "bank" roubles a lot though, even Alexander has employed it when he came to power with little changes:

 

[IMIS]

Cathrine II managed to do that a few times too Siberian series and a later recovery of Peter III project in Monogram series... It didn't work again. Interestingly enough, Paul was fond of his late father a lot, and inherited action anger from his mother side - result: almost full destruction of a late monograph series. He managed to rule a lot longer than his idol, but on a ruling scale his reign was just as short lived. Alexander was the opposite - "mother's boy", and managed to rule few times longer, a proper monarch time. Interesting to see how it runs in a family!

I find it really interesting how the Romanov (?) family dynamics is reflected in coinage. Paul changed everything he could lay his hands on that reminded him of his mother, including coins: the iconic pyatak - gone, (Sorry, Sigi) St George - gone from the coins, portrait - gone from the coins, the eagle - also gone!

 

Paul was not buried yet, when Alexander assured the court that everything will be back as in in his grandmother's days. Pyatak came back (Hello, Sigi) The eagle was back too. The portrait tried to come back really hard, but either the 'neck' was too long, or the 'collar' too tall will never know....so it did not make it.

[IMIS]

I'm just glad Paul has kept himself off the coins.

I must confess that Paul's large silver coins are among my favorite Russian Imperial coins. Just imagine, that in the age, when every king, prince, duke, or bishop with mint rights put the image of his lustrous self on the coin, Paul broke off with the tradition and put the words "Not onto us, not onto us, but in your name." Not sure this is the best translation. BTW, does anybody know why exactly Paul quoted a psalm on his coins? My theory is that Paul here conversing with Jesus. ("Give God God's and Cesar Cesar's." Not onto us, not onto us, but in (to) your name.)

[extant4cell]

In best traditions of royal family princes being romantic and looking for self-importance and self-realization before getting the throne, Russian Emperor Paul I has became a grandmaster of the Knights Order of Malta. The motto of the Order was "Keeping the Faith and assisting the needy".

 

In his search, he came across the Knights Templar slogan, that was a shortened version of the words of the psalm. He must have liked it and wanted to show the world that he was a true christian tzar, the defender of faith.

 

The Knights Templar motto reads «Non Nobis Domine Non Nobis Sed Nomini Tuo Da Gloriam», and translates as "Not to us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name grant glory..." If you delve into the essence of things, this is an excerpt from the Psalter.

Old Testament: Psalms: Psalm 113. [Alleluia. ]
(Prayers for help against the enemies)
"Not to us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory,
For thy mercy, and for Thy truth."

 

This motto was later inscribed on the medal in the memory of victory in Napoleonic war in 1812, and on a medal for the Russian-Turkish war in 1877. It was also a slogan on a banner of Semenov Guards regiment.

 

 

In present days Russian Academy of symbolism "Mars" designed an Award System "Not to us, not us, but Thy name" as it was ordered by the Kuban Cossacks. It is only developed "on paper", not realized in metal as yet ( http://cossac-awards.narod.ru/Znaki_bez_voisk_files/System_nagrad.html ). Here is an example:

 

[extant4cell]

By the way, the design of the reverse is somewhat similar to Dutch ducat, where as the averse - Peter the Great, that shows his ralation to him through his dad...

 

[ccg]

Excellent observation and comparison!