Enlightened Monarchs

Enlightened monarchs

Catherine the Great
Catherine II, the Great, ruled Russia from 1762 - 1796, during a period of unprecedented growth of empire.
She made Russia a European power. Peter III,her husband was overthrown of the throne and Catherine was placed in his throne in his stead.
She added some 200 000 square miles to the territory of the Russian empire.
Catherine proceeded to"Westernize" Russia. Catherine scorned force and instead focused on pursuing individualistic endeavors. Her reforms went even farther after a failed peasant revolt in 1773
As a result, Catherine the Greatinstituted several drastic reforms within the Russian society. First, she established the Free Economic Society (1765) to encourage the modernization of agriculture and industry. Second, sheencouraged foreign investment in economically underdeveloped areas. Third, Catherine relaxed the censorship law and encouraged education for the nobles and middle class.

Frederick the Great “first servantof the state."

Frederick II (the Great) was king of Prussia from 1740 to 1786
He continued the work of his predecessors to consolidate power by giving the territorial princes a place in thegovernmental bureaucracy. He established universal religious toleration and granted freedom of the press. He established individual protections against the law by speeding up the legal process, abolishingtorture, and making sentences of death legal only with his personal sanction. Prussian judges were educated and the courts gained a reputation as the most honest in Europe. He established the firstGerman law code and enforced general education rules across Prussia. Frederick financed the rebuilding of towns through agricultural reforms and built thousands of miles of roads. Frederick built Prussiainto one of the strongest nations in Europe and left a legacy of absolute devotion to the fatherland that continued to shape German history into the 20th century.

Absolutism: meant that the...