Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T08:07:42.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

24 - Russian foreign policy, 1725–1815

from Part VI - Foreign Policy and the Armed Forces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Dominic Lieven
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Get access

Summary

In Russian foreign policy in the era, certain basic generalisations apply: Peter I had dealt remarkably successfully with the Swedish challenge; he had devised a novel and rather satisfactory solution for the Polish problem; but he had failed to resolve satisfactorily the issue of the Ottoman Empire, a challenge for the future. Moreover, these three sensitive areas were so inextricably interdependent in Russian foreign policy that St Petersburg could not isolate them from each other and deal with them separately. A crisis in any one of the three states almost invariably involved complications with the others. The coming of the French Revolution magnified these problems, and the coming of Napoleon Bonaparte to some extent supplanted them by grander geostrategic challenges.

Era of palace revolutions

The first period following Peter’s reign was most conspicuous for the instability of the throne and the resultant inconsequence that it inflicted on Russian foreign policy. The diplomatic chancery of the time was not by any means in incompetent hands; it simply lacked the constancy of government support to give it proper effect.

The early post-Petrine era exhibited clear elements of the continuity of Peter’s policy in foreign affairs. The most significant such element was the continuation of Russian policy in the experienced hands of Vice-Chancellor Andrei Ostermann. From the days of the Habsburg-Valois – subsequently Habsburg-Bourbon (1589) – rivalry, France had cultivated the favour of the East European border states hostile to Habsburg Austria, and the rise of Russia naturally threatened these border states and therefore French interests in Eastern Europe. In the circumstances, Ostermann defined Russian policy naturally by forming an Austrian alliance hostile to France.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arneth, Alfred (ed.), ‘Thugut und sein politisches System’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 42 (1870).
Ascher, A., Pavel Axelrod and the Development of Menshevism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972).
Bagger, Hans, ‘The Role of the Baltic in Russian Foreign Policy, 1721–1773’, in Ragsdale, Hugh and Ponomarev, Valery N. (eds.), Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (Washington and New York: Wilson Center and Cambridge Univerity Presses, 1993).
Berdyaev, N., Leontiev (Orono: Academic International Press, 1968).
Bil’basov, V. A., Istoriia Ekateriny Vtoroi, 3 vols. (Berlin: Gottgeiner, 1896–1900).
Bray, F.-G., ‘La Russie sous Paul I’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique 23 (1909).Google Scholar
Grimsted, S. N., The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian Diplomacy, 1801–1 825 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969).
Grunwald, C., Trois siècles de diplomatie russe (Paris: Carlmann-Lévy, 1945).
Herlihy, Patricia, Odessa: A History, 1794–1917 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986).
Jones, W.G., Nikolay Novikov: Enlightener of Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
Kagan, F. W., and Higham, R. (eds.), The Military History of Tsarist Russia (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
Khrapovitskii, S. N., Dnevnik (St Petersburg: Tip. M. M. Stasiulevicha, 1874).
Kulisher, S. N., Ocherk istorii russkoi torgovli (St Petersburg: Atenei, 1993).
Langford, P., Modern British Foreign Policy: The Eighteenth Century, 1688–181 5 (New York: St Martin’s, 1976).
Lieven, D., Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London: Macmillan, 1983).
McGrew, R. E., Paul I of Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Menning, B., Bayonets Before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 1861–1914 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).
Morgan, Gerald, Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia: 1810–95 (London: Collins, 1981).
Narochnitskii, A. L. ed. et al., Vneshniaia politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX veka, 8 vols. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1960–1972), vol. I.
Pak, Chon Ho, Russko-iaponskaia voina1904–1905 gg. iKoreia (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura, 1997).
Pokrovskii, S. N., Vneshniaia torgovlia i vneshniaia torgovaia politika Rossii (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnaia kniga, 1947).
Sbornik Imperatortskogo Russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, 148 vols. (St Petersburg: Tip. M. M. Stasiulevicha, 1867–1916).
Scott, J. B., (ed.) The Armed Neutralities of 1780 and 1800: A Collection of Official Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918).
Ségur, Louis-Philippe, Mémoires, 3 vols. (Paris: Eymery, 1827), vol. II.
Shil’der, N., Imperator Aleksandr pervyi: ego zhizn’ i tsarstvovanie, 4 vols. (St Petersburg: Izd. A. S. Suvorin, 1897–98).

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×