Evaluate the most significant difference between the political development of Poland and the political development of Russia during the period 1648 to 1815.

1. In much of Europe, absolute monarchy was established over the course of the 17th and

18th centuries.

A. Absolute monarchies limited the nobility’s participation in governance but preserved

the aristocracy’s social position and legal privileges.

B. Louis XIV and his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, extended the

administrative, financial, military, and religious control of the central state over the

French population.

C. In the 18th century, a number of states in eastern and central Europe experimented

with enlightened absolutism.

D. The inability of the Polish monarchy to consolidate its authority over the nobility led

to Poland’s partition by Prussia, Russia, and Austria, and its disappearance from the

map of Europe.

E. Peter the Great “westernized” the Russian state and society, transforming political,

religious, and cultural institutions; Catherine the Great continued this process.

2. Challenges to absolutism resulted in alternative political systems.

A. The outcome of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution protected the

rights of gentry and aristocracy from absolutism through assertions of the rights of

Parliament.

B. The Dutch Republic, established by a Protestant revolt against the Habsburg

monarchy, developed an oligarchy of urban gentry and rural landholders to promote

trade and protect traditional rights.

3. After 1648, dynastic and state interests, along with Europe’s expanding colonial

empires, influenced the diplomacy of European states and frequently led to war.

A. As a result of the Holy Roman Empire’s limitation of sovereignty in the Peace of

Westphalia, Prussia rose to power and the Habsburgs, centered in Austria, shifted

their empire eastward.

B. After the Austrian defeat of the Turks in 1683 at the Battle of Vienna, the Ottomans

ceased their westward expansion.

C. Louis XIV’s nearly continuous wars, pursuing both dynastic and state interests,

provoked a coalition of European powers opposing him.

D. Rivalry between Britain and France resulted in world wars fought both in Europe and

in the colonies, with Britain supplanting France as the greatest European power.

4. The French Revolution posed a fundamental challenge to Europe’s existing political and social order.

answer; negative punishment;