姓 名: 穆雨舒 专 业：翻 译 年级、班级：12级1班
学 号：12173024 作业日期：2013.12.08
章 节：Chapter 5 The Transformation of Eastern Europe
作业要求：Write a summary of The Transformation of Eastern Europe in about 800 -1000 words in English.
体例说明：中文字体为宋体，英文为Times New Roman，小四字，行距1.5倍
Summary
The Transformation of Eastern Europe (1648-1740)
Three Aging Empires
In Eastern Europe, in the century after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, it became apparent that political systems that failed to become more “modern” might be the danger of going out of existence. In the mid-seventeenth century most parts of Eastern Europe belonged to the three old-fashioned political organizations---the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Poland, and the empire of the Ottoman Turks. But all the three were loose; they were replaced by three new and stronger powers---Prussia, Austrian and Russia. Moreover, in the East, the landlords were exceedingly powerful. They were the only significant political class. And the new three states that grew up ----Prussia, Austrian and Russia---were alike in being landlord states.
These three empires were by no means alike. The Holy Roman Empire bore some of the oldest traditions of Christendom. Poland too had old connections with Western Europe and Christian religious institutions. Turkey was a Muslim power, closely connected to the Islamic civilization of the Middle East and filled with peoples who generally lived outside European cultural traditions. Yet in some ways the three resembled each other. In all of them central authority had become weak, consisting largely of understandings between a nominal head and outlying dignitaries or potentates. All lacked efficient systems of administration and government.
With the Holy Roman Empire the reader is already familiar. It was an empire, especially after the Peace of Westphalia, with next to no army, revenues, or working organs of a central government. Large parts of the Empire had suffered repeatedly from the Thirty Years’ War. Yet the war, and the peace terms that followed it, only accentuated a situation that had long been unfavorable. Poster revival was difficult; the breakup of commercial connections and the wartime losses of savings and capital were hard to overcome. Germany fell increasingly out of step with the economic expansion and cultural changes in Western Europe. The burgher class, its ambitions blocked, lost much of its old vitality. After the Thirty Years’ War each German state had sovereign rights. These “states” numbered some 300 or 2,000, depending on how they were counted. All these states were intent on preserving what were called the “Germanic liberties”. They were gladly assisted by outside powers, notably but not exclusively France. Nor would the German states, after the Thirty Years’ War, allow any authority to the imperial diet. For a century and a half after the Peace of Westphalia small states existed alongside larger ones, or often totally enclosed within them, without serious fear for their security and without losing their independence. The half-century after the Peace of Westphalia was thus a highly critical period in central Europe. The situation in Germany was fluid. Two states definitely came forward after 1700, built by the skill and persistence of their rulers-Austria and Prussia. Each would have been as willing to possess any other combination had the course of events been different.
Running almost 1,000 miles eastward from the Holy Roman Empire in the middle of the seventeenth century lay the vast tract of the Republic of Poland, called a republic because its king was elected and because the political classes took pride in their constitutional liberties. Its vast size was one cause of its internal peculiarities. The Polish state was a far more recent and less substantial creation than the Holy Roman Empire. It was made up of two main parts, Poland proper in the west and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the east. Poland is interesting as the region in which the landed aristocracy won over all other groups in the country, neither allowing the consolidation of the state on absolutist lines, nor yet creating an effective constitutional or parliamentary government.
As in Germany, the central diet was ineffective and the centers of political action were local. The aristocracy met in 50 or 60 regional diets, turbulent assemblages of warlike gentry, in which the great lords used the lesser lords for their own purpose. The huge expanse comprised under the name of Poland was, in short, power vacuum; and as more powerful centers developed, notably around Berlin and Moscow, the push against the Polish frontiers became steadily stronger.
The Ottoman state, the third of the three empires which together spread over so much of Europe, was larger than either of the others, and in the seventeenth century it was more solidly organized and powerful. The Turks cared little about assimilating subject peoples to their language or institutions. Local populations with the empire thus retained most of their cultural traditions and autonomy. Law was religious law derived from the Qur’an. The Ottoman government left its non-Muslim subject to settle
姓 名: 范怡辰 专 业：英语 年级、班级：12级2班
学 号：12301081 作业日期：2013.12.1
章 节：Chapter 5 Peter the Great and His Empire
作业要求： Write a summary of The Transformation of Eastern Europe in about 800 -1000 words in English.
体例说明：中文字体为宋体，英文为Times New Roman，小四字，行距1.5倍
Peter the Great and His Empire
After the class, I fall interested in Peter the Great, and find more details about him. Meanwhile, I know more about Russia under his governing.
Peter the Great, the son of the tsar Alexius Mikhailovich and Natalia Naruishkina, was born in 1672 in Moscow and died in 1725. He was the tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725. His self-given title was Peter the Great though he was officially named Peter I for his great devotion to the rise of Russia.
Before Peter the Great, Russia was an agricultural society. One cause was that most of the time of the year, seas were frozen. It could not depend on shipping or sea lanes because it did not have a warm weather or warm ports. The only real seaport was Archangel in the north in the White Sea, which was frozen over more than half the year yet. It was said that the main social structure was Serfdom. Serfdom had been long overtaking the old and free peasants of Russia. In Russia, as in the American colonies, the labors were not treated as human being. The lords even could kill another man’s peasant and gave him another peasant in return. The Russian Orthodox Church was different from the religions of the rest of Europe, too. It was based on the Greek Orthodox model, but it was completely separated in its hierarchy and even some of its doctrine. The government was unstable at the time because it required a strong individual tsar to run it and to keep Russian nobles from asserting their own authority. Also, there was also the difficulty of dealing with the army which felt entitled to interfere in politics when its petty interests were threatened. To sum up, Russia before Peter the Great was backward.
Peter came to the throne in 1682 as a boy. His elder sister, Sophia, was made regent. During Sophia's strong regency there was relative peace. At this time Peter received a relatively unstructured education, although he was still a curious and energetic young man. He spent his time in pursuits such as ship building, playing war with his own regiments – which were modeled on western armies, and some tutoring. He investigated all manner of scientific inventions.
As Peter approached the age when he could assume the throne, Sophia resisted giving up power. There was an incident in the Kremlin in which many of Peter's supporters were taken by the Streltsy, which had been stirred up by supporters of Sophia. Peter's friends were impaled on pikes. Peter had to move outside of Moscow and began to gather allies. Turmoil reigned as the principal parties, Sophia, Peter, the boyars, and the Streltsy all fought for power. Peter finally gained domination in 1689. His sister was turned out of office and imprisoned in a monastery. From this time on he worked to limit the power of the boyars, to make the tsar secure from the Streltsy, to advance a new military system, and most of all to expand the territory of his country.
In order to secure uninterrupted trade with the rest of the world, Russia had sought warm-water ports for a long time. For Peter the Great, it was the cause to war with both the Ottoman Empire and Sweden. The wars with the Ottoman Empire were inconclusive. However, the war with Sweden, after the battle of Poltava, resulted in the conquest of Estonia, Livonia, and part of Finland. These territories afforded Peter the opening he needed to found a new city, a warm-water port called St. Petersburg.
In administration he learned the Swedish model, creating "colleges" or groups of officials who ran departments. To deal with central administration, he created a "senate" which handled the running of the country on a daily basis, especially when he was absent from the capital. He sent promising young men abroad to learn how western Europe industries worked. He opened iron mines and steel mills in the Ural Mountains. Most of the industries he sponsored, especially ship building, were done to enhance the military status of Russia.
After Peter’s effort, Russia became a modern and open country. And yet for all of Peter's work, the basis of the economy remained agriculture. Huge boyar estates were served by a peasant class that was attached to the soil. The administrative, industrial, and social advancement became a brittle shell. Much of the peasant class would remain recalcitrant, and many of the nobles became mired in ennui. Even so, Peter the Great made the country an integral part of a modern Europe.
