The Disappearing Dutch and Russia’s Modernization

Abstract

Historians agree that backward Muscovy, a country with a virtually natural economy where most people eked out an existence at subsistence level and with an utterly fragile military defense (as had been proven by the Polish occupation of Moscow from 1610 to 1612), became Russia, an expansionist European power and colonial empire (even if the standard of living remained low), under the rule of the first three generations of Romanov tsars (1613–1725). This resulted from a strenuous effort on the part of the Russian government during this (and subsequent) period(s). Russia’s rise is often contrasted to the the fate of Poland-Lithuania, which fell into a rapid decline by 1700 and had disappeared from the map of Europe a century later. Whether the goal of the Russian state’s prospering justified the means used to reach it remains an open question; in becoming a Great Power, the exploitation of the tsars’ subjects was extreme.